The Upsetter 1969 Online

2012-01-24T12:15:00.000-08:00

"Who am I to say?
Who am I to say?
Am I just a hypocrite?
Another piece of your bullshit
Am I the dog the bit, the hand of the man that feeds it?"

Well it has been quite a while since I last posted and I'm sorry for that. But in my defence it has been quite a busy year end what with all the games I keep playing. MW3, BF3, Batman Arkham City, Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam, Battlefield 1943 and Medal of Honour. BFBC2:Vietnam is the one that's really been keeping me occupied though. I must admit that nicking someone's dog tags from them can be quite entertaining... especially as has happened to me on several occasions I manage to sneak up on a General of the army with a level of 50 and me currently on a rank of 21 (First sergeant gold). I am quite the new convert to online gaming and as such I've become quite the zealot. It has been noted that I am a born again gamer.

Still it could be worse, I mean what is more rewarding to me? A quiet realisation that I've spent 3 hours shooting complete strangers in the face or that I've vegetated in front of an hour of Britain's got celebrities on ice get me the x factor out of here? Mind you the first time I played online with BF3 I jumped in a helicopter determined to be of some use to my fellow gamers on that level when I rose majestically three feet in the air and flipped over onto my rotors landed and died, I have checked for 'Ultimate Helicopter fail' on You Tube but have so far not seen myself. I am now better than that and can sometimes go for a whole five minutes without a major meeting of helicopter and ground.

By the way if any of you have been holding off on buying either BF3 or MW3 then let me just urge you to do so. MW3 is just shit hot on every level I haven't found anything to not like yet whether it is the single player, multiplayer or co-op levels, BF3 though is weak on the single player, it leans too heavily towards CoD:Black Ops for my tastes but is just excellent on the multiplayer. I need more time to play these games, maybe if I win the lottery? I'd only miss the cunt-stomers in my shop. (I love it when they misquote retail law at me it's fun).

So far I've only played BFBC2 Vietnam online for just over two days so not even come close to the length of time that I was in the wild west with Red Dead Redemption. Mind you most of that time was due to the incessant galloping across the plains on a bloody horse that I'd inadvertently shoot in the back of the head from time to time... or I'd get eaten to death by a magical bear that would appear from out behind a tree.
You must admit though the gaming world is a much more pleasant one than the one we all struggle about in whilst miserable as sin. I've often said that the world would be a better place if there weren't other people in it. But I'll end this blog by stating for the record (just in case), that if I decide to have a bit of a gun related tiff in the high street that it has absolutely nothing to do with my incessant gaming just that I've had one too many arsehole cunt-stomers to deal with.

2011-11-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

"And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed

they were not here."

You know I've been to several gigs over the years both large and small. I helped to create the earthquake at Madstock in 1992. I have seen Bad Manners quite literally rock the stage until the speakers fell over at the Blandford corn exchange. I was there in 1993 in France when Russell from the mighty Bigshot wandered over to me and told me he “Couldn't play as his lips were pissed.” I've seen ska legends like Prince Buster, Pauline Black and I've had my pen stolen by Laurel Aitken. I've seen groups as diverse as Mud, 808 state, Carter the unstoppable sex machine, The Buzzcocks , Morrissey, 999 and The UK Subs. I've also shouted/sung myself hoarse to Ian Dury twice.

That said the other night's excursion to the Specials tour was something rather … special (sorry). I enjoyed my annual 'being dragged out to the Bournemouth International Centre by Jimmy' last year when I went to see Paul Weller. That in itself was a fantastic concert populated as it was by 50 something mods in their 'just unpacked from the army surplus' parkas complete with the tell tale square crease in the back.

27th of October however is a day that I shall not forget in a hurry.... and not just because I've been constantly playing the gig on my iPod for the last week either. After the two support bands, By the Rivers and Stone Foundation had both done their excellent sets and had praised the crowd for being better than Brighton and Plymouth in atmosphere and actually interacting with them The Specials began.
A brief slide show began on the backdrop starting as it did with the enormous visage of Herr Margaret Thatcher to rapturous boos. This was appropriate as we all know the band came to the attention of the world on the post punk wave of anger that followed the winter of discontent of James Callaghan's Labour party that lead to the inevitable rise of Thatcher's evil reign. (long memory very angry still). Anyway the slide show continued with the heroes and villains of the last thirty years, British troops (cheers), Paul Gascoine (big cheers) royal couples (mixed cheers and boos), Blair, Brown and Cameron (enormous boos) and then all of a sudden John Barry's theme from the Persuaders dies down and Neville greets all with the now famous opening “Bernie Rhodes knows don't argue.”

The years fell away for all us elderly Rude Boys and Girls. There was none of the usual minutes of banter between songs for the first few tracks at least. The set list was almost all of the two albums. No Guns of Navarone or Skinhead Symphony but here's the set list.

01-Intro – Gangsters
02-Do The Dog
03-Dawning of a New Era
04-Up To You
05-Monkey Man
06-Blank Expression
07-Rat Race
08-Too Hot
09-Doesn't Make it Alright
10-Hey Little Rich Girl
11-Pearl's Cafe
12-Stupid Marriage
13-Concrete Jungle
14-International Jet Set
15-Friday Night Saturday Morning
16-Stereotypes (parts 1&2)
17-Man at C & A
18-Do Nothing
19-A Message To You Rudy
20-Nite Klub
21-Too Much Too Young
22-Enjoy Yourself
23-Ghost Town
24-Little Bitch
25-You're Wondering Now

A cracking set altogether I think you'll agree. Terry was funny all through the night with his remarks about “You'd better be worth it I'm missing fucking Sarah Beeny's restoration project for this.” Linval came out and told us all we were the best crowd on the tour so far during the interval before the encore. Yeah sure there was no Jerry Dammers, Dick Cuthell or Rico Rodiguez but the keyboardist and brass section did a more than adequate job to fill in for them. The three string instruments at the back added to the sound and I'm glad I bought the cd. To be honest out of the five gigs or so that I've been to at the B.I.C. This was the most packed I'd ever seen it, even Apul Weller and Madness had space at the side of the Wessex hall dancefloor.

Despite Terry's insistence on singing Wham's Last Christmas and declaring his love for George Michael the set continued and I could see the mass of skinheads and feather cuts danced and bobbed away and danced and sang as the music played... sounds familiar, anyway as I sat in the best seats in the house, (thanks again Emma), I felt my age by thinking how glad I was to be not on the dancefloor what with my bad back and all. Mind you most of the crowd below were my age group and it was just me being a curmudgeon or realising I'm no longer 19 take your pick.

If you get a chance to go to this or the hinted at 2013 tour go for the love of all that is precious go. I spoke to several of my cunt-stomers in the shop the next day who had obviously gone to the gig and we were all unanimous that it was the best gig we'd all been to in a loong long time.

2011-09-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

If I told you things I did before, told you how I used to be
Would you go along with someone like me
If you knew my story word for word, had all of my history
Would you go along with someone like me

Well it's been a while hasn't it? Sorry about that, I'd like to say that it's because I've been bust banging away at the keyboard writing the latest in a series of hit novels. But alas it's because I've been banging away at the PS3 and Xbox 360 controllers. Even more alas not because I've been banging away at Anne Hathaway either. Still since we last partook of this drivel I've been to Norfolk to the wonderful company of my niece, nephew and sister. The photo of the phone box above is the one that I originally planned my escape from. I did this whilst no one was looking by ringing up my Gran and cunningly asking if I could come and live with her in Bournemouth. Then once it was half day closing in Norfolk and everyone else was asleep like Bagpuss and his friends I sneaked out aboard the National Express Rapide service to London Victoria.

All that seems like quite a lifetime ago now and for some of you it probably was, 1990, England had just crashed out in the quarter finals of the world cup in Italy and Gazza was suddenly famous for crying and kicking a ball about and I still drank beer. I had the waistline of 30" and could do whatever I could afford to drink and still get up for work in the morning. Now I feel pain if I get up the next morning after a session of gaming. It was nice to go to the old country even if nothing has changed much, apart from all the pound shops have gone from Cromer and Great Yarmouth makes Blackpool look classy. I tell you if you could get the Jeremy Kyle show to cast a big net over Great Yarmouth he'd have enough guests to film well into his 43rd series. Honestly if you like fat women in vest tops that clearly show the tattoos of their children's names on their breasts and scrawny men in sportswear then Great Yarmouth is the place for you. Also imagine my feelings as I wander around the many crappy souvenir shops when at the head height of my two pre teen relations were not one but several spread over a two meter wide shelf, no end of ornaments shaped like gentlemen's vegetables. Nearly every shop I had to stand between the kids and certain shelves, then if it wasn't bad enough that I had to contend with a few people for whom the Johnson & Johnson company could not help a whole shelf of gollywog dolls loomed into view.

I did try though to get my sister to buy a present for her mother for whom we have the code name 'GB' which stands for ginger bitch, but she insisted that she would definitely not appreciate a miniature headstone with the epitaph 'In loving memory' which would be a lie in itself. Some people just don't appreciate the thought you put into gifts for them. I've always said that I hope she dies on the same day as Margaret Thatcher that way I'll only spend one day of my life dancing. Anyway we went to the fun park near the pier for the kids and I must say that I know that I joke that Norfolk has the ability to appear as if nothing ever happens or changes but in this case it truly hadn't. It was the exact same rides as when my sis and I went there in the late seventies or early eighties. No wonder the staff looked bored its still 1978. Speaking of which I failed to find a 1978 Norwich shirt in my travels although having spent most of my money on the kids and only ten quid on myself I would have found one the moment I was skint. I did however manage for some reason to buy myself a 1940's Tommy helmet, not quite the same as the long looked for Naaaaarch city shirt but there you go. As souvenirs from holidays go it's not one you would usually associate with a quick break away. I could paint on it some phrases to make it seem more in keeping with my holiday like the traditional 'Kiss me quick' adding 'I taste of KFC' or the more appropriate 'I went to Great Yarmouth and all I got was a sense of moral outrage'.

2011-07-16T15:56:00.000-07:00

"I am not a sailor
I am not a sailor I'm captain
I'm captain I'm captain

Bamba, bamba
Bamba, bamba
Bamba, bamba
Bamba"

There are many things in my life that I am disappointed with, my lack of a sex life, my lack of financial gains via the lottery also that a great deal of my customers continue to breath. How people let you down either personally or just in their actions. The one thing that I'm never disappointed in is myself, this mainly because I never expect much of me and I've yet to be proven wrong. The main thing I'm totally frustrated with is the fact that I now have to work until I'm 70 thanks to successive failing governments. It's the equivalent of running a hundred miles and they then move the finishing line another thirty kilometres. Of course the latest thing to disappoint me in a long line of disappointments wasn't the fact that Murdoch was figuratively throwing small crippled children behind him to the tigers that were chasing him during the whole News International phone hacking scandal but the fact that two large people who weren't exactly starving and penniless won the Euro lotto £166 million.
Imagine the deep fried Mars bars those two Scots could buy. I could have done so much good with all that money... and some of it may have been directed towards others. My long desired trip across the states in a vehicle of some description would have been high on my list of priorities. Although the older and lazier I get it has changed somewhat. Once upon a time I would have done it in a classic fifties muscle car like a GTO or a large caddy. Whereas nowadays I want to do it in a large motorhome that has a PS3 and/or Xbox 360 in it not to mention all the comforts of home like a shower and a bed etc. The older I get the more I think "well I keep all that stuff at home why not just stay there?" This of course would have been totally abhorrent to my younger self and he to me also.
The only non disappointment was the tank festival at Bovington, sad man that I am I stood in a field for several hours looking at tanks go round a circuit. Very nice tanks but a load of tanks nonetheless. I had one of the sandwiches pictured above. It may not look that appetising to you and admittedly it wasn't presented very well in the photo. But organically reared and butchered hog roast. Spit roasted in front of you and freshly cooked. It was lovely with the still hot meat and stuffing with apple sauce on top. I can honestly say that I looked forward to that as much as the Tank festival itself.
Speaking of disappointments my zombie novel is almost ready to send of to some publishers, just a few more tweaks and I'll be happy. Whether it'll ever get published I don't know I just hope that it's better than the worst novel I ever read or shared with several people who all told me exactly the same thing about the book. I also started the story set in the Britpop era but I got stuck so I carried on with the war time story and then also got stuck and haven't written for weeks. I also wrote a script for an ex friend who let me don't recently which I thought was quite good and so did he. I've been mulling ideas for the stories in my head and may have to get back to them soon as I want to go Hulk on many of the local residents in town.
Still I have to go back in time soon and visit Norfolk that'll cheer me up to see my favourite Niece and Nephew and my sister who'll probably continue to tell me off for buying her a nice tv. I think it's because it'll scare the locals what with it's electricity and tiny talking people.

2011-05-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

"Some people think I'm bonkers
But I just think I'm free
Man I'm just living my life
There nothing crazy about me
Some people pay for thrills but I get mine for free
Man I'm just living my life
There nothing crazy about me."

Occasionally we get an interesting customer, not often but just every now and then. One such person came into my store and purchased four jump starters at £30.00 quid each I thought perhaps he had a taxi firm or something, no nothing so mundane. As I helped him carry the big old boxes across to his car in the multi storey (no bloody tip), he told me that he was fighting pirates in the Red sea and they had these things called LRADs (see diagram) Long Range Acoustic Device in non military speak. He seemed disappointed that I knew what they were, maybe he was trying to catch me out? They do that you know, tricky little fuckers these customers. Anyway whilst I was thinking for the rest of the day that other people have much more interesting lives and are allowed to harm others with lethal and non lethal weapons and I'm not, which I think is unfair, I was wondering if I could make one for all those scumbag shoplifters?

The thought cheered me up no end as I imagined myself plugging it in and taking over the world with my death ray until they unplugged it and carted me off to Arkham Asylum. I'd test it out on two of my former friends whom I'm very disappointed in. I won't say what they did but they know and It's cost them some of the best friends they would have had. Still their loss.

Just found these links

Here and here

I have a week off coupled with the fact that it starts on a pay day I could build the thing.... or more likely I'll just go to that there London and spend my wages in Forbidden planet.

2011-04-27T12:28:00.000-07:00

"There is nothin' fair in this world
There is nothin' safe in this world
And there's nothin' sure in this world
And there's nothin' pure in this world
Look for something left in this world
Start again"

It must be me, I seem to be the only person able to stand here and say that I wholeheartedly do not care about the upcoming nuptuals of two over privileged individuals. Everyone else it seems is going to have a free day off, not us though we have to turn up to serve some old cheap and nasty crap to cheap and nasty customers. I would like to just play 'Anarchy in the UK' and 'God Save the Queen' by the Sex Pistols but since he played at the Jubilee that means absolutely FCUK all anymore.
It seems rather unfortunate that I can't just do what I did during his Mother's wedding and go and play football in the park. 1981 was a year that I would have been wearing a New York Cosmos shirt and running around pretending to be the commentator telling everyone what a great goal that was by Pele. I was blissfully unaware of the fact that I was a ten year old blonde white boy with very little footballing prowess in the middle of nowhere, (Norfolk) and Pele was, let's be honest here none of those things.
Strange that there are similarities between the two weddings, civil unrest, depression, unpopular conservative government and a royal marrying a 'commoner'. Although Princess Kathy is hardly a foul mouthed docker's daughter from the old East End of London who thought "Enoch was right" that you see in the history books. That would be something I could get behind, imagine that someone that even Prince Phillip would go "hang on a minute you can't say that."
I suppose that there will be enough people sad enough and smelling of cats to buy all the commemorative plates and tea towels etc. despite being in a 'credit crunch'. The sort of people to camp out on the streets of London for days in order to see a glimpse of someone go past in an ostentatious, some say garishly adorned coach not seen since Disney's Cinderella, whilst looking between the shoulders of two people in front.
I also remember where I was when Prince whatsists mother died, so conspiracy theorists can't put that one on me, I was happily asleep and was quite content to remain so. I was awoken on a Sunday morning by a banging on the door which made me think that the world had ended or at the very least the house was set ablaze by my alcoholic landlady. But no it was just the news that one or two people had died from not being able to drive through a tunnel at high speed whilst intoxicated.
Call me cynical if you like but why do these things always seem to happen when the country is in turmoil? Could it be that like a puppy who will not give up chewing a certain piece of footwear until you waggle the lead and suddenly going for a walk is the latest thing to focus on.
My day will consist of waking up, ignore wedding, wash, ignore wedding, go to work blaring out music from over full iPod, ignore wedding, work all day selling stuff to people I despise, ignore wedding, reverse journey with iPod, ignore wedding, have my tea play several hours on Star Wars Lego 3 and add to so far high score of 2.6 Trillion (honestly), ignore wedding.
If you wish I will publish a route of my journey at which point any of you may camp along the paths to wave at me and cheer my good health as I breeze past blissfully unaware that any of you exist.

2011-02-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

"Wash with new soap, Behind the collar
Keeps a clean mental state
Don't usually bother in cold weather
But still I'm getting into work late."

It's getting all a bit much lately, work is less and less fun. Just when you think that you'll buckle down and try to get on with the noobs and and even greater effort towards the dumbass customers the new area manager keeps piling on the pressure to make us get the customer to buy more and more, usually an unrelated item. This is not what retail is all about as far as I'm concerned. I know it's a bout making money but the pressuring of people to buy stuff in this day and age will drive people away. We now have to ask them a huge four things at the till and it's all crap. Add on product, data capture, catalogue, additional sales and you can see the customer getting bored and annoyed as you speak to them. I mean you do this for a hundred transactions a day, I have to keep Lockets in my pocket to sooth my throat. Now the manager doofus is coming to have a little chat with those of us who are under the required 30% (I'm 28.7% pffft as if a few more pounds will make a difference), it's all to make it look a better prospect to any buyers.

I just need a holiday I think. I have one coming up in about three weeks but probably won't go anywhere other than maybe a trip to that there London or just Southampton. Mind you I always plan to go but never do. I just end up spending my money in a certain comic shop in Poole and drinking lots of tea. I think I may have upset my manager today when I told her that due to all this crap at work I'm planning even harder to leave and may just go on this film course that my mate who left at christmas went on. I went for a breakfast the other day and to see Paul at the cinema (go see it it's hilarious btw) I was talking to him about his course and it isn't just about film making there's the writing and directing side too. The trouble is I haven't saved fuck all. I need a couple of grand to tide me over until I can get work again and I certainly will not go back to Maplin once I leave, not even as a customer.

I wouldn't mind my lifelong dream (so far) of driving across the states or in my case probably going by greyhound, again I need money. I'd like a winnebago like in the movie Paul with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. This was a movie where for the first time it was more than polite laughter in the background or a gentle murmur of knowing self indulgent smugness as you get the joke and you wonder if those around you do also. For the first time people actually openly laughed and clapped at a joke in the movie. It was a movie akin to a Tex Avery cartoon ie joke after joke after joke, pause for breath, joke joke joke and the end credits. It really was worth draggin my mate Chris to (he didn't want to go due to fact that he's skint and I said I'd pay, after all what are mates for?) Although it does mean that I can't get my haircut for another week or so which is really annoying it's touching my forehead, ears and neck which is very long for me, I'm almost a hippy except I don't smell. :) At least I hope not.

Anyway we'll see if I'm a man of leisure after tomorrow when the area mong-ager makes me hulk out and I throw him through a window. I'll have more time to write my books (20,000 words into the second one btw) I hope I keep my job because I like money, not very much in this one but there you go..

See you on the other side (presuming someone is still reading this that is).

2011-02-10T13:17:00.000-08:00

"Runnin' Bear loved Little White Dove with a love big as the sky

Runnin' Bear loved Little White Dove with a love that couldn't die"

My current addiction is Rockstar games' Red Dead Redemption, I've been playing it for over 72 hours so it can be classed as an addiction. The game itself is so long that you end up playing as your own son. Aside from the fact that I'd amassed a small fortune of $22,000 during game play and suddenly it all disappeared without a trace whilst I trotted around the old west I thoroughly enjoyed the game, this I subsequently found out, is a common glitch in the game. Still at least it meant that I could go on a murderous rampage again. By the end of the game I had gotten out of the habit of accidentally shooting my horse in the back of it's head whilst evading the pack of wolves at my hooves that suddenly appear out of nowhere.

I'm currently trying to gain the achievement of slicing up a grizzly bear with my knife. This is harder to do than you'd think. I finally found one with it's back turned to me as if they see you they attack at once. So I jump off my horse knife in hand and begin slashing away at Yogi. It runs away and I chase it slashing at it's hindquarters repeatedly. It continues to run around in random directions with me hacking away at it everytime I catch up. After about five minutes of me slicing bits of fur off it's arse and my shouting "Stand still you furry bastard I want to kill you." It runs up into the mountains where upon a large bear travelling in the opposite direction decided that I was lunch. It quite literally appeared out from behind a tree and decided that it would bite my face off until I was killed to death.

Once I respawned back in my log cabin I decided to get the easier trophy of tying a woman to the tracks ala the old silent movie villains. This was also harder than it first appeared. Firstly no matter where you are in the map, there will always be an eyewitness who will go and tell. So anyway there I am going for the Andy Gray woman's rights trophy or whatever it was called there was just me and the lady sprite in the middle of nowhere, I figured this would be better then my first few attempts at trying to abduct a woman in a town where they seemed to be more prevalent. Was I wrong? There she was just wandering around in the middle of nowhere, obviously confused by the offside rule, where upon I lassoed her like you are supposed to and a man who was in a bush, the only bush within miles, suddenly he screams and runs off he runs off I shoot him then suddenly there's an eyewitness of my murdering the eyewitness... then another... and another. I get bored by the constant shooting of eyewitnesses only to find another eyewitness. So I stop shooting and get on my horse to bugger off in the direction of away with the woman over the back of the horse. The local western rozzers turn up and rescue the woman by shooting her to death... and then me too.

Finally I manage to evade the local cowboy plod and stick the woman on the tracks. I wait for the train and wait and wait. It occurs to me that it does seem a little perverse that I'm quite happily sitting on my horse in the game and on my sofa in reality waiting to get one single solitary trophy for what must be the ultimate in white van man-esque misogyny. Still at least I realise this. I also realised the train was late. So I check the map and lo and behold it has gone a different way. I decide to make sure by taking the woman all the way to the train station in the town. The towns folk just walk past and say hello to me, tsk I dunno game sprites today huh? Anyway train comes and she explodes into bits of bonnet and breast and I get my trophy and I wonder was it all worth it? I'm now curreently on top of a Mexican Hacienda with a machine gun trying for the Jeremy Clarkson trophy or whatever it's called for killing 500 people with a mounted weapon. I need a real life.

2010-12-16T15:29:00.000-08:00

"Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn

Vor uns liegt ein weites Tal

Die Sonne scheint mit Glitzerstrahl"

So my dull job just got a little duller lately, the reason being two of my favourite people decided to leave for pastures new. I can't blame them really I'd leave if I had the opportunity to do so. Still, I must carry on regardless of how tediousl I find it. The other day I actually got asked what colour chrome was. I can feel my mental powers waning as I talk to these people. Although my manager is no better as she doesn't believe that waning is a real word !?! She thinks I made it up, honestly. Mind you the woman claims never to have heard of Kevin Keegan so what could I expect?

'Tis the season and all that and despite my favourite co workers buggering off I'm quite getting into the spirit. This year I've decided to rein in my spending and only buy small(er) gifts. I wasn't expecting much from anyone and I have already received seven from my great big little sister. Mind you I made it hard for everyone this year by buying all the FPS games on the PS3 for myself, currently swearing my way through Call of Duty:Black Ops and World at War on Veteran levels. Glutton for punishment I suppose, I've played Black Ops so many times in the last month that I lost count. Also Medal of Honour was one I've done on all levels too. Basically I had a selfish year where I did and bought what I wanted instead of treating everybody else to the stuff I wanted. I have taken exception to the sequences in Black Ops where they're in Vietnam but to my mind the sprites look thoroughly too modern in appearance. besides which they are carrying far too much equipment for a humid climate like Vietnam. Still that's the reason why my zombie landlord downstairs refuses to watch war movies with me, my military nit picking spoils my enjoyment somewhat. I mean don't even get me started on the Battle of the Bulge film, or orange explosions from hand grenades ooh I could go on. but probably won't for fear of boring you (several years too late I fear).

2010-12-02T15:02:00.001-08:00

A Town Called Malice

2010-12-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

"Ghost of a steam train echoes down my track
Its at the moment bound for nowhere just going round and round,Ohh
Playground kids and creaking swings, lost laughter in the breeze
I could go on for hours and I probably will but,
I'd sooner put some joy back in this town called malice.
Yeah"

Good news everybody, my embargo of the Bournemouth Inter-nazi-onal centre is over. Also it was a very successful night. In complete contrast to the Madness gig the atmosphere was much better and despite my attempt to smuggle in my smaller camera I was too far away to get a good shot.
Mind you we were right in the gods' and right smack in the middle so good seats,especially as there was no one behind me, not a great fan of people behind me for some vaguely paranoid reason. FIrst on were a band called Cow whom I quite liked but Jimmy was a little disparaging about, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Blunt, was his opinion but I'm not that clued up on James Blunt to tell the truth. I bow to his superior knowledge in this regard. Secondly were The Bees whom I was vaguely aware from their hit ( Chicken Payback), which was on BBC6Music more often than not a couple of years back. ANyway they are going to go on my ipod as soon as I find the money to buy it on itunes (that's how much I liked the set), Already chuffed with the fact that the evening was a hundred times better than last year's Madness debacle. Firstly I'd not been treated like a criminal and poked by security staff. Secondly I wasn't bored due to the lack of support and having to sit for two hours listening to the tracks I already had on my Ipod. (Many people I subsequently heard were miffed at this), The longest we had to wait was the twenty minutes as they cleared the Bees' equipment off the stage. Once Mr Weller lit up the stage with his presence the night was an unbridled success. Most of the current album was given an airing with a few of The Jam and Style Council thrown in for good measure some of As Is Now and Stanley Road, although sadly for me no Changing Man were aired. It was a long set for a man of Weller's age but not for his talent. There was something for all present. The light show was fantastic too and the two large screens either side of the stage which beamed bigger pictures for those of us with altitude sickness to see better. it was a nice touch to have a camera crew doing this liek you see at the big festivals. At one point Paul said that "Bournemouth was very quiet tonight what's the matter hadn't we had our tea?" Well no, I hadn't thank you for asking. It was my own fault though as I'd only stopped playing Black Ops long enough to cook dinner and watch Naaaaarch City trounce Ipswich town in the Old Farm derby. But anyway I digress, as fans of this blog will know is a female digre, the gig was a success as I say. I had an inkling that the people heading for the exits were gong to miss the third encore, rule of thumb if the house lights don't come on then the band is about to reappear, anyway was right. Almost literally the house was being brought down to rapturous noise whilst the opening refrains of Town Called Malice echoed around the balcony. It is going to be one of my 'happy place' memories alongside the whole crowd at the first Madstock singing along to Come On Eileen. I may work it into one of my books somehow. I want to go and see Paul Weller again and more gigs, even at the B.I.C, Apparently my surprise christmas present is to be a Specials ticket for 2011 but shhh don't tell me or I'll find out. It'll be another first for me as I never saw them first time around. All I want now is to get Big Audio Dynamite and the Housemartins to reform and I'll be happy. The only downside is the lack of an item of merchandising, I couldn't find anything from all the t shirts that I wanted. In fact I was hoping that there would have been an mp3 of the gig like at the Madness one last year but sadly not. Still you can't have everything can you? It took me half an hour to get my coat from the cloakroom so I'd have missed the last bus home if there'd been two queues to get through. Anyway if you have tickets to see the tour I hope you have as much fun as I did and I hope you see as many brand new, just opened before the gig and not yet lived in fishtail parkas as I did.

2010-12-01T13:48:00.000-08:00

One more card and it's 22
Unlucky 4 him again
He never had respect 4 money it's true
That's why he never wins

Well, here we are again, another payday and another shit load of stuff to come from ebay, Amazon and Play.com. I don't particularly need it but it is payday and I want it. Besides I've made a lot of room by donating 60 or so books to the PDSA shop down the road. There were so many that they had to send a van and two men. Still it'll be good for the sick aminules.

In other news I've reached nearly 41,000 words in my zombie story. I'm going through a second draft at the moment. I'm actually thinking of submitting it to a couple of publishers before I save up the £1,000 to get it self published. Mainly because I have a job saving enough to cover my bank charges each month let alone save a grand. Still I did manage to get my tv last year so maybe if I pull my finger out and stay off eBay etc.
In other news my embargo with the nazi's at the Bournemouth International Centre is over with a great successful night watching Sir Paul of Weller. It was my first time seeing him in any of his incarnations. But when someone is as rabid a fan as my mate Jimmy you say no at your peril. (More of a review of said gig next post). Also I have reinstated Madness to my itunes, but sadly not my iPod yet. This is due to the fact that I'm now using my 10" notebook as a main computer being as the one I bought from my workplace broke and the manufacturer's warranty was over a year before I bought it. Bloody Maplins!!! So anyway with this and the Hong Kong company not sending me the bit for my computer I needed to read the old hard drive I've not gotten around to the laborious task of transferring my itunes library. Why do computer's only ever fuck up when you've got them just how you like them? Still I'll treat myself to a big proper sized laptop after Christmas. Providing I don't quit my job like two of my favourite people there. Still at least they've escaped to better things, me? i'm stuck there with new staff who are an unknown quantity and staff I've worked with before whom I don't want to work with. I remember when work was fun.
But anyhow It will give me the impetus to escape myself. Right I'm off to listen to the new Mark Ronson album and write this Paul Weller review.

2010-09-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

"Stick it up, mister!
Hear what I say, sir, yeah...
Get your hands in the air, sir!
And you will get no hurt, mister, no no no"

As I write this I'm sitting on a National Express coach and there's one of those families on board. You know the ones, they speak loudly and seem like they were first cousins waaaay before they were ever husband and wife. The ones at school who had a reading age of eight... when they were sixteen. They all look remarkably the same, all three generations are going on holiday ...to my town sadly. The granny is busy taking photos out of the coach window on her mobile. The noises are both switched on her phone and on her family. She is busy taking photos of everything, a post box, a phone box, a boat of some description, a lampost with Battersea bridge in the background, Chelsea embankment, The Thames, a tree. Presumably apart from the river she has none of these things in her town? I haven't the heart to tell her that none of the shots will come out because she is using the flash. It wouldn't have been very interesting anyway I'm sure but several shots of just a white square may be of interest to Yoko Ono but not normal people.

Thankfully as an intellectual barrier between myself and the family that smell of cabbage is a couple of ladies who are talking about architecture and the design of some of the buildings we pass. I think it's a good job that dumbness isn't contagious otherwise the whole bus would be infected by the time we reach Hounslow and the two intelligent ladies would be discussing X Factor before we reached Hammersmith. Deciding that they couldn't be heard despite them sitting next to each other they first eat some nice smelling food and then kip. Damn my anti dumbass firewall is down. I put my ipod antidote on and watch as we pass Hammersmith, Chiswick and join the M4 where we pass the world famous Heston Services (fuck I sound like my father who would spend hours talking about the route he would drive between North Norfolk and Bournemouth... with every junction included). I watch as the higgeldy piggeldy rooftops turn into to trees as they flash past. The home counties are a blur and I try to type on my netbook as we bump over the cats eyes into a different lane. My legs are killing me, I have blisters the size of apples on my feet and sweaty socks. It's been a rather succesful day as I didn't spend every penny I had in one go in Forbidden Planet, just some of it in Mega City Comics, Camden. The fact that I have money left means that I don't have to spend the rest of my week off in solitude playing on the Xbox 360 and PS3... but probably will anyway.

2010-09-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

Keep feeling fascination
Passion burning
Love so strong
Keep feeling fascination
Looking learning
Moving on

Hello Upsetter fans (if there are any left after all this time). Well The writing has leapt from the 'having thousands of pieces of paper everywhere' stage to the 'actually writing and shit' stage. As we speak I'm about 10,500 words into it, what kicked my arse into gear was the fact that I bought myself a netbook (Samsung N130) for £150 on eBay. Now every morning I get to work about an hour early and I usually write about 800 to 1,200 words before realising that I should have been on the shop floor five minutes ago, my tea has gone cold and my Crunchy Nut cornflakes have turned into mush. So far I have killed three of my work colleagues and a dog... in the story. The thing was I couldn't come up with names for some of the characters so as there was a couple of issues of FourFourTwo football magazine I just flicked through and amalgamated some names of footballers. No the main character isn't called Xavi Beckham. I'm quite chuffed that it seems to be coming along nicely and fairly easily. I sit every morning and think "how is this going to go?" half the time I mean the writing and half the time I mean the story. But I just tart up the last paragraph I worked on and carry on and it just like me when I was a teenager it seems to come rather easily.

The whole zombie thing hadn't occurred to me being as I hadn't watched anything of the genre since Shaun of the dead and previous to that since Barry Talbot's house in the 1980's. I had a dream one night of zombies attacking some people at a health farm or something like it and(spoiler alert) the army coming to the rescue. So I wrote it down as it was such a complete and linear dream. Now I'm writing it and I'm about a quarter of the way through (according to Steven King who reckons the novel is about 40,000+ words). Hopefully I'd get this and the others published. I'm going to cross genres and not just do the zombie thing though. I have got one rule for this current story though... ZOMBIES DON'T RUN!!!! That always gets me about the modern interpretation of the creatures is the fact that somehow the walking dead have become impatient. They are reanimated corpses and therefore the muscles would have atrophied and in a lot of cases limbs have been broken. The reason that there were so many victims was the fact that the survivors were often outnumbered, partially armed and not completely well balanced by some of the George A. Romero films I've since re watched.

I have however given a few nods to Shaun of the Dead. I.E the opening scene the driver is listening to White Lines (don't do) on his iPod and he uses the phrase "How's that for fried gold" which paraphrases the line "How's that for a slice of fried gold?" amongst others. Amongst other things. Anyway when I'm all big and Hollywood I won't forget you unless I'm in bed with Winona Ryder then to be honest I'd think you would the thing farthest from my mind.

PS I may start posting music again soon

2010-09-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes you picture me
I'm walking too far ahead
You're calling to me, I can't hear
What you said
Then you say go slow
I fall behind
The second hand unwinds"

Hello blog followers, I'm feeling nostalgic at the moment which is always a bit of a dangerous thing. I get a bit maudlin afterwards. I don't miss my childhood so much as I miss the fact that I wasn't a cynical middle aged bastard who views everyone as a potential criminal or ne'er do well, just a miserable young 'un dreaming of escape.Maybe there's more of my father in me than I admit to? Both for being a miserable bastard and for the little bit of Policeman that's in there. Mind you I'm not totally my father because I don't have my job and my hobby were I tell people what to do, he was Policeman and local leagues football referee. Ah well, it's my own fault really for downloading all the mp3s of old pirate radio broadcasts. I'm trying to jolt the old memory there into thinking about ye olde tymes of my childhood in Norfolk. I used to be clamped to Laser 558 during the day and then later I'd turn over for John peel or Annie Nightingale on a weekend. Luckily a good proportion of the mp3s are from the period I listened intently so I should scrape away the layers of memory and go back in time. Ugh that would be dreadful if I actually went back in a Life on Mars way. Anyway before I shudder myself to death the reason I've been listening to these files is that as well as finally writing some books and story ideas on my new netbook every morning before I start work. I'm currently ploughing my way through the zombie story that came to me in a dream one night and I'm filling all the blanks in. It's also got me back into watching Zombie movies and I've been also enjoying the graphic novels in the Walking Dead series. Read them if you can they're great. Also the reason for the nostalgia recently is due to thinking too much, in between idiot customers, about the past. I've got the outline of a story and a few ideas jotted down in many notebooks. It's going to be a cross between Shane Meadows' work and Son of Rambow (great movie watch it if you are an '80's child).

I want to spend some of my next pay day and or trip to that there London perhaps buying some old '80's technology. I have folders on my pc that have photos to jog the memory (the closest I've come to jogging since the army). It's amazing to think of things you've forgotten. Mind you I am bidding on a Hitachi TRK-3d80E Ghetto blaster. I wasn't going to bid, but I saw it and I got over excited because I used to have one when I was younger and I got rid of it when I joined the army. Still, if I bought every piece of consumer electronics I've had over the years I think I'd have around 32 Hi-Fis alone. At least ten VCRs, six or seven DVD players, two DVD recorders, five or six TVs, around eight computers seven cameras and twelve or so games consoles. Several grandstand games and/or watch & games plus god alone knows how many digital watches. I'd be skint and have a bedroom full of electronic paraphernalia that would make the Gadget Show's competition look like dog shit... but I'd be happy. I mean why did they make an alarm clock with a radio and a TV on it in the Eighties but not today? I had one I remember buying it from Barry after we all left school. I recorded Top of The Pops, so I could listen to it on the way to work on my yellow waterproof walkman, (cost me £11.99 from Cromer). I remember recording things like The Good The Bad and The Ugly and listened to it so much I could quote the list of Tuco's crimes verbatim. It was also a great radio so John Peel got a good ol' taping as did Annie Nightingale. One thing I never owned was a Casio VL Tone, Which usually go on eBay for around £15... I'm just saying is all.
It would be handy if ever I set up that Trio tribute band, there is a reason as this is the only German I know. Mind you as far as I know there was only that and Get Carter by The Human League ever recorded using a VL Tone so the set list would be short. I only ever knew one kid that had one, his father was an electrician or some such bollocks but anyway he had more money than the rest of us kids. He was still an arse. But then aren't we all?

2010-07-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

"Listen to the voice of Buddha
Saying stop your sericulture
Little people like your offspring
Boiled alive for some Gods stocking
Buddha's watching, Buddha's waiting"

Well we're out of the world cup, Brazil that is, but at least they went out playing football. Unlike England, but let us never speak of it again. I want this football game above to be broadcast so I can then justify to myself the expense of a Freesat HD box. I know they aren't that expensive but to be honest I have only watched Top Gear, The World Cup, the IT Crowd and the odd movie here and there recently so it's not worth the hassle of banging the nails in to hold the dish up. I can't say that I'd be overly thrilled at the shots they seem to show in slo mo on the tv at the moment. Wow that's a high def shot of a bloke sliding along the ground with grass flying everywhere or wow that's a shot of someone missing the goal. Can't say I'm that excited about the prospect of seeing the yellowness of Jeremy Clarkson's teeth as if I was three feet away or the giant puppy dog eyes of Richard Hammond that the ladies of a 'certain age' all seem to like in 1080p glory either. Neither would I want to be blinded by James May's awful shirts. But I suppose I'll succumb to it all in the end, I just hope they don't broadcast it in 3D. I truly cannot see the point of cartoons in HD though I mean, how yellow can the Simpsons get? 3D is of no interest either, I downloaded some 3D porn he other day out of curiosity's sake only to wish I hadn't. I found myself ducking as the man swung around in a 'state of arousal' as If avoiding the boom of a sailing boat, the 3D boobs were kind of nice on the lady though. But when fluids started flying about I had to check to see if I needed to find a cloth for my screen. I can't say it would catch on in my house, I deleted it. Some movies would be good I think in 3D how about Aliens? The face hugger would be even worse flying towards you than the porn was.
At least the BBC have decided in it's 'infinite wisdom' (ie unforeseen resistance from fans far and wide, well done us) to not axe BBC6Music. Best thing the channel has done in years apart from axing the Last of the Summer Wine that show stopped being funny shortly before it was broadcast for the first time.

Anyhoo I'm not doing any music this time due to the fact that Rapidshare is playing silly buggers with people's accounts. I'm going to probably do Hotfile or some such next time unless Rapidshare sort there pricing policy out. Ugh, second Gay pride event in as many months in Bournemouth and STILL no straight pride parade with me on a truck watching top gear I tell you it's political correctness gone mad I'm off to write to the Daily Mail.

2010-07-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

In my backpack
I got my act right
In case you act quite difficult
And your resolve weaken
With anger and discontent

Some are seeking and searching like Nimoy

England to win the world cup? It's about as believable as those 'long hot summer predictions' we get every time there's more than two sunny days n a row... or Christianity. Every time we get the whole belief thing and the papers wheel out the tired old 3 lions bullshit and the slightly disguised references to the war when we meet the Germans. Personally I think it makes the journos look stupid and slightly racist. Although not as stupid as the players that took to the field at the last match against well, everybody in the South Africa World Cup. Personally I'd like to see The F.A take the shield off the shirts and not put it back until they've earned it. Kind of like the way that the Royal Artillery was made to wear the white lanyard as a mark of shame after deserting the guns which ultimately led to the disaster of the 'charge of the light brigade'. If I remember the lessons from all those years ago whilst trying desperately not to fall asleep and get extra P.T. or fatigues. Maybe they could all wear pink kit or made to play in their pants or something?

All I can think of is maybe to get rid of Capello like the media is clamouring for? Who would replace him, Stuart Pierce? My money would be on Harry Redknapp, Roy Hodgson, Martin O'Neill or David Moyes. Maybe the F.A is trying to groom David Beckham to be the next England manager after all there was no other reason to be there other than that. I can't see him being a motivational speaker. My Zombie landlord downstairs thinks they should have someone above Capello who basically makes his position untenable so he leaves otherwise he'll hang on until The F.A sack him et voila, large payout. Still, my main team, Brazil, with the exception of the match against Portugal which nobody needed to win, played well. As I write they are winning 3-0 against Chile so I foresee a good match between the Dutch and Brazilians... mind you this current competition has rendered me wrong an many an occasion. Let's face it who would have said Japan would have gotten as far as they did? This is why I'm temporarily Brazilian every four years at least if they go out of the competition they've gone out whilst actually playing football.

Anyhoo here's the music
Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
James Brown - Greatest Breakbeats vol 1
Half Man Half Biscuit - This Leaden Pall

2010-06-21T15:18:00.000-07:00

This time, more than any other time, this time,
We're going to find a way,
Find a way to get away,
This time, getting it all together

I think that my decision to become Brazilian every four years has been vindicated. Especially after the debacle that was England Vs. Algeria. It's no wonder that we hold the 1966 winners in such high regard when the current team don't perform to the potential that I know they have. Mind you all in all it's been a dull competition so far with the odd brief highlight thrown in. My prediction, which will no doubt prove to be woefully wide of the mark once I predict it, is the last four being Argentina, Brazil, Italy and Germany. Although going by results in this competition I could be wrong. It'll turn out to be Paraguay, Ghana, Ivory Coast and New Zealand in the Semi finals. If that's true then remember you heard it here first folks!!!
My virtual Panini sticker album is coming along nicely on Fifa.com because collecting the real one would be, at my age, considered sad... I get that next pay day along with loads of packets of stickers. I've decided that if England isn't up to the job of work why don't the F.A. do what most companies do and outsource the work to the Polish or Indians? They'd be cheaper and win in half the time although they may not turn up until half an hour's been played already. Still it couldn't be worse can it? I think I've worked it out via my ready reckoner, Fifa wall chart and slide rule that it could. England could come up against the Germans in the next round and we have such great record when it comes to playing them. Mind you at least we're not doing as badly as the French with Anelka going home and the fitness coach being sent home after a bust up with Evra. The French team have refused to train two days before the crucial game they need to win.
To quote the namesake of one of my friends, Jimmy Greaves "it's a funny old game"

In the meantime whilst we await the knocking out of all the European sides here's the music.

Bad Manners - Ska n B
Genesis - The Platinum Collection
The Beatles - Past Masters (remastered 2009)

That's it , links in the comments, see you next time

2010-06-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

"A bunch of lonesome and very quarrelsome heroes
were smoking out along the open road;
the night was very dark and thick between them,
each man beneath his ordinary load."

Well hello there, it's been a while hasn't it? Been a bit busy what with working and being dead tired from all that bollocks. To be honest I was thinking about stopping this blog altogether what with not being able to think of anything to write, (since when did that stop me?) "So what's happened in the last few months?" I hear you ask. Well I now have no Madness recordings and no cds or dvds by anyone whatsoever having sold them all for a few hundred pounds. All my cds are now digitised and either on my iPod or hard drive. I'm another year older and getting grumpier, although I think this is due to my work rather than getting old. Note to cunt-stomers... I hate you. Stop talking to me as if you think I care about what you are doing outside of giving us money for the product you just bought. Thank you.

In the next few weeks I'll be English up until the quarter finals and then I'll be Brazilian. Yes, it's time for the world cup. Luckily all the matches bar the opening one and one or two others are going to be an evening kick off so I won't miss many. Also this time I have a brand spanking new 42" LG LCD TV (42lh3000 in case you are interested) I know it's smaller than the 50" I was saving for but my Zombie landlord downstairs bought the same model and I decided it was big enough for the space I had. But I've now rediscovered all my games in the resolution they were meant to be and started watching all my blu-rays.

The book writing is speeding along like a snail. I have several hundred more bits of paper and carry around notebooks and pens in all my different coats and rucksacks etc. I must collate the stuff and find how much I've got so far. It's just finding the time for all the stuff I want to do.
Still, It'll all come good in the end I'm sure. I could do with a holiday to the north west of Scotland at a writer's retreat that I've spotted. The only thing stopping me is the fact that you gather around a fire in the evening and read your stuff aloud and then do some dancing. No thank you I'm English/Brazilian. Although they used the Gaelic word for dancing which I had to look up. I am worried about the fact that I may come back after a week or two speaking like William McGonnagal after all I did come back with a slight Brummie accent when I went for Army selection in Sutton Coldfield... for a day and a half. The other thing that worries me is the fact that it looks remarkably like the Scottish Hotel in Little Britain.

Anyway here's the music I've been enjoying of late. Some Half Man Half Biscuit (Camel Laird Social Club And ACD) and Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones. Links in the Comments.

2010-06-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

If everyone joined me on facebook and voted for my Visa fixer entry that would be great, new post(s) imminent btw.

Join Me

2010-05-09T00:55:00.000-07:00

2010-02-22T13:28:00.000-08:00

Hello, some of the more astute amongst you may have noticed a serious lack of posts. To tell the truth since Christmas I've been considering stopping but I'm only taking a break for a bit. Hopefully to concentrate on a bit of writing. Keep 'em peeled though as I may post a bit later on.

Bye for the moment.

2010-01-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

"Come all you rambling boys of pleasure
And ladies of easy leisure
We must say Adiós! until we see
Almeria once again"

Eugh some dirty cunt-stomer gave me germs and stuff and made me have to have two extra days off. It wasn't all that unpleasant really having to sit there in my armchair playing my PS3 games from Christmas and eating my sweets of yore. (drumsticks, sherbet fountains, black jacks, chalk lollies and parma violets) Mmmm lovely. Anyway I forgot what I was going to write about so I'll try to come up with something. I'm a little bit disappointed about the fact that everywhere got snow fairly heavily and we got it for about a day and a half. Although my road is still covered in a sheet of compacted snow yet to melt. It is quite funny to watch people walking past as if they've had an accident in their trousers. To tell the truth I'd rather have about three foot outside the door and more on the way so that I could get snowed in at home so I can get further along with Call of Juarez and Wolverine whilst chomping away on sweets. I'd like to have been bedecked in my new Modern Warfare 2 t shirt whilst also playing that game but for the life of me I can't find it, just like my sex life and self esteem it has just disappeared into thin air.
Still, pay day this weekend and I've got it off for a change so that'll be me off to Poole for a full English, comics and a laugh at the great unwashed. I must remember to take a notepad to write down my witticisms and scathing character assassinations.
Anyway in the meantime here's the Jam box set 'Direction Reaction Creation' for you. Enjoy the music.

2009-12-24T14:29:00.001-08:00

"Now watch this
Toodle langa langa Toodle langa fang
Toodle langa langa
oodle langa fang I'm in heaven
I'm In heaven I'm In heaven when you smile."

I made this (It's the Internet) for a friend at work. If you haven't seen it it's from the I.T Crowd which is really funny and I hope there's a fourth series. Anyway, I did really well this year as far as presents go both received and given. Everybody was happy with what I bought them and some people even resisted the urge to open them before the big day itself. I was pretty pleased with all the stuff I got for others too. I had a change to the original plans for Christmas day instead of the planned fry up we went for Pukka pies, mash and peas mmm lovely. My favourite present (although they were all good) was the unexpected bonus box of sweeties from my childhood. I'd forgotten how much I liked Sherbet Dib Dabs, Sherbet Fountains, Black Jacks and Fruit Salads mmmm. Anyway Christmas was a very nice break only spoilt by the fact that I had to go back to work on Boxing day to put up with people bringing back stuff that their son Mungo has broken by smashing his fists on them whilst chained up in the basement. I was upset not for that reason but for the fact that I had to get a taxi into work as it was pissing down and there was no bus service on Boxing day but the company won't reimburse me the thirty quid I had to spend. If I'd known I'd have stayed at home and taken the loss of wages instead. But the reason I didn't walk out after shouting at my manager was the fact that I wanted my 50" tv. New year's eve was spent playing one of my presents Batman Arkham Asylum so I missed it all. That is until I suddenly thought at around 0030 hrs "Hmm there's a lot of fireworks... must go to bed... Oh it's new years eve." Suddenly I felt sad that I wasn't getting a New Year snog (or better) but this was passing so I went to bed. I finished Arkham Asylum the next day (great game, buy it), and ate more sherbet (Thanks Jimmy) I need more now so come pay day I'm going to probably end up a diabetic. The first working day of the new year was interesting... well I say interesting I meant bloody awful. The full moon did it's usual job of bringing out the 'special needs' cunt-stomers. How I remain calm I'll never know. I have tired of retail and am wondering what to do next, will I go back to the old ways of working in a factory, laundry or just wash dishes for a living because I'm tired of thinking for others? Or shall I stay put for the while and endure like I always do? As ever the future is spread out before me like a great junction without road signs.

Anyway here's the part you've all been waiting for. The Music, it's the 5 disk box set from The Style Council - The Complete Adventures of. I've written all the id3 tags and named the tracks so they come up on mp3 players named correctly now.

Enjoy

2009-12-21T14:04:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

To

You All

2009-12-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

"Harry rag, harry rag
Do anything just to get a harry rag
And he curses himself for the life he's led
And rolls himself a harry rag and puts himself to bed"

So imagine me happy go lucky old me. There I was enjoying life at the moment and on my way to an event I've been looking forward to for at least six months having booked the day off for the gig especially. I take my camera along (not the great big one but my pocket camera), but the moronic security turds make me put it in the security office because its a camera with a lens on it (to quote them). Well all cameras have a lens on them otherwise they aren't cameras just box of electronics doing nothing. But they were insistent so I went and put it in there. The dumbass in the office said I'll give you a receipt for it in case you forget to come and get it. "Not bloody likely it was quite expensive" I say and snatch the receipt and walk off whilst he's in mid sentence. Then the gorilla-a-likes snatch the bottle of Lucozade from my hand and rip the top of the bottle saying I couldn't have it with a top on in the arena, but gave no explanation as to why. I only bought it for after the gig. I wrote to Chrissy Boy on the official site only to be told that it was at his request as 'he owns all the rights to the Madness photos'. So that's it as far as I'm concerned the Madness stops here. That was my final gig. To be treated like that at the behest of a band I've supported through thick and thin is a slap in the face to say the least. If I can't take a camera in to a concert to have a memento of a gig by a band I've loved and followed for thirty years all of a sudden then fuck it. To be honest what kind of shot would I have gotten from the balcony? Certainly not a professional shot by any means. I mean when it was the lean years of '86 - '92 when I bought Voice of the Beehive, The Nutty Boys, The Madness, Butterfield 8 and The Farm just because of the connection with Madness. They couldn't do enough for you if you met them in a pub or at a gig. I remember when they split up I'd been in M.I.S for about four years by then (I still have the card), I got a parcel of merchandise from them twice as big as they'd advertised just because that's the type of guys they were, generous. But I suppose as they hurtle towards retirement they are feathering their nests more and more. Well you pay for them to do that if you want but I wont anymore.
The irony is that I've just written a piece for my company magazine all about Quadrophenia being a story of betrayal and how the whole film is a flashback of all the reasons why Jimmy walks away from Mod by killing the Ace Face's scooter, and now here I am doing the same suddenly realising the true faces of my heroes. I've always tried not to put people on pedestals as I've always been disappointed and I hadn't realised I was still doing that with Madness. I should have known really that with the whole 'look at me thing' that celebrities do because they can't do the real world stuff like the rest of us 'norms' do, all celebrities are self serving arses without exception. Case in point during the gig Suggs asks us all even though we've bought Norton Folgate and Total to buy the remasters of Absolutely. Why? So I can own something I already own in several different formats? Basically all they are doing is selling me the compilations I used to make when I was a kid so no, no more albums, gigs, books, t shirts or anything related to the band. He referred to the band as a 'corporation' there is always a kernel of truth in every joke.

And now I feel the need to kill something on Modern Warfare 2... again.

Anyway here's a video I found online called Ska Beatz, which is directed by Joe Massot and seems to be alternate takes from Dance Craze. A great post by the original poster. Also I've given you Bollocks to Christmas an alternate and punk Christmas album.

2009-11-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

"Broken windows and empty hall ways
Pale dead moon in a sky streaked with grey
Human kindness is overflowing
And I think it`s going to rain today"

Do you know life's ok at the moment, even with arsehole customers and idiot colleagues (Note: drying your footwear in a microwave is disgusting and will result in me making you buy a new one you disgusting little Frodo lookalike). Ok, so I spent most of this months wages within a week on ebay and Amazon most of it was for the baby Jeebus' Birthday so that's ok and some of it was due to forgetting how much I had left. But, there you go. I mean OK I had to stand in the cold for nearly an hour the other night due to the bus being late and it was eight before I got my dinner which is more frequent occurance than I'd like. Still shit happens I suppose? Let's look at the positive side of things I have some very good friends and a really nice social life to boot. Every month we go out to a meal on payday and have a nice couple of hours sitting having some decent food and a chin wag and occassional laugh or two. Sometimes the meal is followed by a film it depends whats on. It might not be the cup of tea that everyone likes but that's fair enough I enjoy it and so do the rest of us. There are people who think it's a great night out if they spend all their money on spewing up and having a fight, personally that's never been me even in my days as a Skinnyhead. I enjoyed my long weekend off the other day as I found out my weekly bus ticket that I buy enables me to go out into the sticks which I did. I had a trainspotting moment where I just had to get out of the town and into the green and brown world. It worked, then the next day I went to Poole and with its crowds of badly dressed people, hoopy earrings and leggings everywhere it was. By the end of the trip to Poole I really wanted to be out in the country again. I wish I drove then I'd be out there more. The third day I just spent blowing shit up in Modern Warfare 2 which I must say was well worth the wait. Maybe it's just me having a midlife crisis or something but I've really had enough of people at the moment. I think I need to retreat from retail ...or just become a hermit. But, I'm glad I'm not the bus driver I served the other day who had to buy a spy camera to protect himself from racial abuse on his bus. He told me that he came to Britain 10 years or so ago and drove in London and suffered no abuse or anything he then gets here and is called a black so and so. I wasn't suprised when he told me the area of town either but there you go, I felt for the guy and told him so. It made me ashamed of this burgh for a bit, but then with my new found positive attitude that I try to foster I realised that there are more intelligent non racist people in the town than there are knuckle draggers.

Anyways up here's the latest Madness concert I went to in Bournemouth. I bought this as an mp3 on a little Madness logo shaped USB stick which was nice. Great gig spoiled by the B.I.C Gestapo more of that next post. Plus I've posted Bad Manners Skinhead and We Are The League by Anti Nowhere League and finally Ministry of Sound Electronic '80's.

2009-11-01T14:33:00.000-08:00

"Shaking in me knee bones and me elbows,
its driving me around the bend
Uncontrollable feelings sends me reeling,
There's no need to pretend"

Well hello there, I suppose I should have posted a bit whilst off on holiday but you know what with one thing and another (Call of Duty, Force Unleashed and the Jeremy Isaacs series Cold War) I forgot to do it. One thing I didn't forget to do though is half my Christmas shopping leaving the final four presents to buy at the end of November. This leaves me with a sizeable chunk to be put aside for the TV I want (it will be the size of the one above, although sadly not with the oriental lady) with the December pay packet. I would however like to state that my blog will not be affected... much anyway. Although with all the writing I've not been doing lately I had to kill my Farm on Facebook as I had over 5 million points and it took two hours to fully harvest, plow then seed every night. So I stopped it. Pity farming isn't that easy in the real world then I could get an EU subsidy to not grow anything in order to help reduce the EU 'wine lake', 'butter mountain' or 'cheese hillock' or whatever nonsensical newspaper invented thing there is.
I did however think (again) about dumping the blog, but thanks to the comments that came flooding in quite literally in their ones I have thought again, despite the 'worldwide blogging downturn' in WIRED magazine. After all however will you get your daily quota of ill informed badly spelled and grammatically incorrect load of old bollocks if I retire after these 4 years or so?
My colleague and friend at work has decided that she is more or less going to go to the good ole' USA of A for 6 months next year. I said that it's better to do it now and not wait like I did and find yourself never doing these things. I had all the enthusiasm but none of the money when I was younger to travel and now I have the money to do it I don't want to go anywhere. Bloody life.
I am however making friends again at work with some of the population of Bournemouth through my cheery demeanour (no really), I have an elderly gentleman who comes in now and again to chat about aircraft with me. I've just given him my copy of Vulcan 607 which you should read if you get the chance. It's about the story of Operation Black Buck against Port Stanley airfield back in 1982. Although there's no jingoistic flag waving 'up your Junta!' Sun type cobblers in it, it does what a good book should do and just present the facts from all sides concerned and lets the reader decide what's what. Personally I thought it was a miracle we hit the runway at all when you read the book not to mention the typical British 'sellotape bits to military equipment to make it work' ethos. So all this hoo hah at the moment of not having the right kit and not enough helicopters etc is nothing new.

Anyway here's the music Madness' - Remastered version of One Step Beyond and The Housemartins' Deluxe Edition of London 0 - Hull 4.

Oh by the way a friend of mine gave me this article to read. It basically says what I have always maintained. Home taping never killed music and it never will. Here's the article

The music as ever is in the comments.

2009-10-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

"I never give you my pillow
I only send you my invitations
And in the middle of the celebrations
I break down"
John Peel
30 August 1939 - 25 October 2004

Well it's that time of year again where we all remember the late great John Peel and how British broadcasting is all the poorer for this loss. Can it really be five years since the evening I was stopped dead in my tracks on the stairs when I heard the terrible news of his untimely passing coming from my landlord's TV? I recently listened to some old radio shows of his that I still have on my iPod it can often bring a smile to my face when I hear the three occasions where he mentioned me or my friend Raymone from the South of France or Yara from Mexico or with some Peelesque witticism . Quite often back in the days of dial up interweb we'd all be sat there in our respective homes either side of the Atlantic ocean listening to him play fuck knows what. The Atlantic was our reeeeaaallllly big coffee table as we sat there IM-ing each other with what we thought about the tracks the thing is with his playlists was that if you absolutely hated the three minute thirty of some Germans banging metal tubes and/or screaming then just wait because the next one would be better. It was through him that I discovered a lot of bands and rediscovered others. Peel sessions excluded I think it would be impossible to calculate the amount of groups or artists that he'd given me since 1978 when I first discovered that the radio carried on past the time my parents insisted I went to bed and the delight headphones can bring you. The two main artists that I remember most though would have been Madness' Peel session in Aug 1979 I can't remember what it was exactly what caught my ear about it because so much more music has happened to me since. But I suppose it was a bit different from the normal punk and post punk around at the time. It was certainly different enough for me to notice in my formative years. The other was when the late John Walters, John Peel's then producer, came bounding into the studio late for the start of the show explaining the fact that he'd just seen live this wonderful artist called Billy Bragg, whom (if I recall it correctly) he then played. I also remember the Smiths but I think I missed the first session and heard David Kid Jensen play them first one evening as we travelled to get a Chinese meal from the next town over and then caught one of the many times they repeated the session. PJ Harvey is another artist he introduced me to. There have been many more artists that I liked but the ravages of time have taken their toll on my memory and I no longer remember where I heard them first. . But suffice to say that my iPod is a testament to the fact that if John Peel taught me anything it was to listen to diverse music and try to hear new stuff as often as possible and above all share it all.

Speaking of which here's the music. All are Peel related, either groups he championed or introduced live. Obviously I can't upload every group he championed otherwise I'd be writing this for another couple of hours or so at least so make do with what you get here, download them all and play them loud and remember a great DJ.

Billy Bragg - Back to Basics
The Buzzcocks - Spiral Scratch EP
David Bowie - In Concert 1973 John Peel
Half Man Half Biscuit - Peel Session 1999
Humble Pie - BBC Sessions
Various Artists - The Pig's Big '78's
Various Artists - John Peel A Tribute
Joy Division - Peel Sessions 1979
Various Artists - Festive Fifty 1989
Madness - Peel Session 1979
Various Artists - Right Time Wrong Speed
The Wedding Present - Peel Sessions (1992 - 1995)
TheFaces - Live Paris Theatre 1973
The Fall - Grotesque (After Gramme)

That's all for now.

2009-10-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

"You know, now we get worried about what we say
We shouldn't be that way
You know, I don't care who comes,
cos as far as I'm concerned,
Its, eggs bacon beans and a fried slice"

You know I'm quite happily minding my own beeswax enjoying the world in colour, when something happens to make you sit up and take notice of the old monochrome world. Yes, it's time for the semi frequent Norfolk bashing again. Well not much of one really (sorry to disappoint) but I'm really getting happy about following Naaaaaaaarch city FC again as this season they seem to have pulled their collective fingers out and manage to cobble a few good results together. Thereby doubling the club record of one win in a row to two a record that going by many many years of following the club will long be held. I was shocked at the fact that Naaaaaarch managed to score 5 goals in one match, I was so shocked at the result on the BBC 1 show late Saturday night I had to have a lie down for eight hours. I have dusted off my old scarves and bobble hat and now proudly tell people I support Naaaaaarch City rather than hang my head in shame, although after the first game where we got royally rogered 6-1 I did have my 'Barnstoneworth!' moment of rage.
However this wasn't what got me interested in North Norfolk (if anything ever did of course) but after wondering why I haven't heard from my lickle sister for several months has she been constantly drunk all this time? I just was bored so I YouTubed the town of North Walsham and got a rather interesting flyover video someone had posted. You see the whole town and in my mind had it been the eighties then I would have quite happily accepted it as the view from a lone Russian bomber paying a visit and dropping a little present on us and I would have been incinerated along with my Madness record collection and ten speed racer. Then I got a video of Christmas time in North Walsham and coudn't get the rendition of 'away in a manger' out of my bloody head until exorcised with a little help from AC/DC.
However this wasn't what got me interested in Norfolk either. What did was the random bolt out of the blue where a beautiful woman I used to love but didn't feel I had what she needed for a good life and so distanced my self from her physically and geographically added me to her Facebook. And some things get better with age she is the living proof. To tell you the truth I was about to delete my facebook account as I got a little bored with it after all I have mastered the FarmVille app with 4 million coins and climbing and I just spend too much time on it as well. I always thought that people were best remembered in memory as what they were. Because I always go back to the Charles Dickens story of the woman he loved but didn't get involved with but many years later when his own marriage had gone awry he found out that she was a widow now and he went to see her. But she was no longer the great beauty that he had remembered fondly but a worn out old woman. I suppose that you could argue that he didn't really love her and that he held on to a forlorn hope of happiness with something that could never be. A theme I am all too familiar with. Still, a man can dream maybe in another life I get to win this time? For a long time I couldn't listen to The Jam's 'A Bitterest Pill' without picturing her, her husband and my forms in the various parts in the video playing in my mind. But anyway it's all water under the bridge and builds character and as I've said before I have the best built character I know I wouldn't mind a little bit of crumbling facade every now and then thank you.

The music is Kraftwerk - Autobahn and a load of Trojan singles from the early period of the label. Enjoy.

2009-09-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

"Come on my friends, I would now like to propose a toast-
To the strength I see that's surrounding me and those who've cared,
Oh yes, I've been scared and I'm telling anyone who'll listen
I've seen what's on show and now there's no more to know,
Oh I've been there, I've seen there, I've seemed it, dreamed it,
Schemed it.
You see I know this to be true,
Now would I lie to you?
And I'm not waiting for approval from you."

Well it happened, I succumbed to the thrall that the mega pop star band Madness continue to hold me in. I am as we speak awaiting my ticket from the gig down the road. For the first time in several tours they are playing the B.I.C and I may be persuaded to part with some of my hardly earned and miss a payment on my 50" tv (unless I have saved enough by then that is). I've already started looking around for different providers of electrical goods. All I need to do is stay employed (some days are easier than others). One of these days one of the homeless scum will push me too far by stealing some of our crap. I chuck them out and new ones just come the next day. I really will write to the council with regards to my gas chamber plan or 'Final solution' as I like to call it. I mean let's be honest, life is all about choices. Obviously there are the right ones and the wrong ones.
Here's a story about me from my dark dank distant past in the dark ages (Norfolk in the Eighties). Picture the scene, I was fostered with a bunch of c*nts exactly twelve miles from anywhere. I was banned from seeing my old friends (not that that stopped me) I was made to walk twelve miles to Norwich job centre and back instead of the one four miles in the other direction for fear that I'd see my old 'ruffian friends' (ha if only you knew those three, I was the ruffian). With only a broken walkman with one tape of Mad Not Mad and Radio 2 the only station available and the grey and brown landscape flat as the prospects of a job for a school leaver with little or no qualifications and holes in his shoes. Now in the midle of the often cold days I'd be hungry due to the large amount of excercise I was being made to take and the quite often dull and windy weather around the North Norfolk countryside. I was permanently skint as the fosterers seemed to have thought I didn't need any. Picture the scene behind what was woolworths in Norwich and still is Marks & Spencer's and some jewellers I can't remember the name of is an alley way leading up to a multi storey car park and a short cut to the old job centre which was next to HMV down the road from the Theatre Royal. In the days before cctv I could have quite easily done over the little old lady and taken her purse full of notes. I don't know how much it was but there were a lot of brown and blue notes the corners of which were poking there noses out into the cold grey morning. I'm ashamed to say that the idea crossed my mind fleetingly, but I'm not ashamed that immediately I dismissed it. The woman was obviously unaware that I was there and I could have made a small fortune to me in those days. But she was someone's mother/grandmother/aunt and possibly I would have been caught and my life could have had a drastic change. The thing is to illustrate my point that if I can make the right decision and never regret it no matter how skint or hungry I may be I will not tolerate it in others. Despite the whole world getting more and more grey areas as we get older some things remain black and white. Always make the right decision. Apologies btw if I've told this tale before.

Music is Morrissey - The Mirabell Sessions and a repost of the Madness - Liberty of Norton Folgate boxset. Enjoy

2009-09-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

"Laugh and say I'm green
I've seen things you'll never see.
Talk behind my back
But I'm off the beaten track.
I'll take on anyone
Ain't scared of a bloody nose,
Drink till I drop down
With one eye on my clothes."

Quadrophenia:The Rock Opera

Ok so let me set the scene, there I was expecting a school musical crossed with the Troy McLure Planet of the Apes Musical from the Simpsons. ("He can talk he can talk" "I can siiiiiiiiing!") etc. Musical theatre not exactly being the first thing I'd rush out and see. I did steadfastly refuse to watch more than the first twenty minutes of the Madness musical Our House due to feeling quite angry after all. Even after several attempts of trying as well. I had further misgivings outside the Mayflower theatre Southampton when the opposite courtyard was awash with scooters and 'more authentic than me' middle aged mods. I immediately thought that it was going to be like the Rocky horror dreadful bollocks show where everyone has to dress up and sing and dance in the aisles and all that unBritish crap.
But, no I was blown away from the opening moments, a live band who although were no where near the quality of The Who (who could be (no pun intended)), still gave an immense performance. The cast were fantastic and had no kind of the usual 'performance art school poppet' about them at all. The only downside that I've got with it is the bloke who played 'The Godfather' character resembled Eddie Izzard rather than the Mod icon pop star and although had a passable voice couldn't reach the powerful notes and sounded like Eddie Izzard being strangled at one point... which would be no bad thing if it were actually happening. The girl who gave a fantastic performance of 'Love Reign Over Me' sang so powerfully almost brought a tear to my wizened old self (adjusts to manly voice "No it was the air con that affected my contacts ... if I wore any"). But seriously she can't 'alf belt out a tune that one. I might even buy the dvd if one comes out. I have recently listened to the album as a result and can quite honestly say that due to the cast singing individual lines as I think Mr Townsend meant it to be sung. The album has become a totally new experience by that I mean the album instead of me thinking it was sung by one or two characters turns out to be sung by several. It now has resparked my interest in the album and I will have to keep it on the spare MP3 player I use when falling asleep. I wish I'd taken my dictaphone as I planned to do originally and do a bootleg for you all. When Jimmy (for it was he) told me it was the greatest present a fellow ageing Mod could give another for a birthday present I was a little dubious to say the least. When I had to break my embargo on Boscombe to get to his flat to be picked up walking past the Police wrestling with the homeless drunks in Boscombe gardens I was a little dubious. When I saw the (fellow) ageing mods outside I was little dubious when the curtain went up and the band launched into 'The Real Me' (brilliantly choreagraphed (oooh get me) by the use of four Jimmy the Mods to represent the four facets of Jimmy's personality) I wasn't dubious anymore. I don't even mind the having to set foot in Boscombe anymore (the first time since the incident at wankinson's (oooh the bitterness is still there then?)

Anyway I'd like to thank Jimmy and Emma for the 40 and half birthday treat. It was the greatest birthday present an ageing mod can give another that doesn't involve Winona Ryder and a jar of honey and certainly beats a paltry ten pound note from family into cocked pork pie hat.

Anyway enough bitterness here's the downloads. Firstly I've upped the Anthology albums from the Be - At Les for you to enjoy. Also I've upped the original vinyl version of the Quadrophenia album which I found on a torrent. Enjoy.

2009-09-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

"Nothing, it seems, lasts forever
People change just like the weather
Some for good and sometimes never
I hope things work out for the better."

My pic from Bournemouth Air Festival 22/08/09 Guinot Wing Walkers

I think I may have hit upon the reason we all like to share online content. It's because when it all comes down to it the MP3s or whatever are pretty worthless really. Yes there are some great items posted by everyone but when all is said and done they are after all just electrons albeit electrons arranged into the tunes or video you like or have just discovered. I don't see them as a 21st century version of a record collection I see them as a modern version of taking your record collection around your mate's house and saying "you've got to hear this". If they tape it so be it but in my experience most of my friends have gone out and bought physical copies of the DVDs, albums or whatever that I've lent them. I have also done the same as my shelves will testify. I haven't bought all admittedly but a fair proportion of them all the same. Maybe it is just me being cynical and middle aged but home taping didn't kill music after all, Pete Waterman and Simon Cowell did but only if you listen to the charts which I don't. If you listen to BBC6 Music (here) then you realise what great music there is about.
What got me started thinking about all this was the current madness single is released as an MP3 only and therefore will leave a gap in my collection, many others on the official site were miffed too but a few took the 'my band right or wrong' stance and just became insulting which is pointless and anti democratic, everyone should be able to opine rightly or wrongly without some Daily Star reading moron banging his chimp like knuckles on the keyboard in argument so I deleted the bookmark and don't plan to go back to the site. My beef is that when they wanted forty quid from us nothing was too good, the Norton Folgate box set was good value for money and I'll buy another for my mate at Christmas. But when it comes to providing a solid object for the paltry some of £1.79 no one thought it was worth the effort. It's like if I'd paid to see the aircraft at RNAS Yeovilton Air Day back in July and they'd just had some bloke walking past the crowd with pictures of the aircraft instead. It's a pity because Madness of old would bend over backwards to give you value for money and sometimes (more often than not), you'd get more than expected. There were always reasons to buy the 12" be it a remix or an extra track or two or free comic. The fan club as I'm sure many of you were aware was great value and was voted so back in the '80's. But then I suppose like everyone else the band and the management have succumbed to the 'Me' generation and are feathering the nests for retirement? I will of course buy the Madness book (here), the Suggs book (here) and the new Madness compilation (here) even though I have all the tracks. You can never really get over your first love can you? They cheat on you but you still throw money at them in an effort to get them to be wholly yours again but it's never the same. Despite it all you still yearn albeit with a bitter twang at the back of your mind.

Here's the music from a certain popular beat combo from Liverpool the stereo remasters. (ahem) For a clue here's a clue type clue. Certain amount of joy to be found as they are all on my ipod.

2009-08-18T12:54:00.001-07:00

"Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun.
If the sun don't come, you get a tan from
Standing in the English rain.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the walrus,
goo goo gajoob ga goo goo gajoob."

At last the Bournemouth Air Festival is upon us. Yay I hear me cry. I've had the four days booked off for at least nine months or so. This is my window display what I did (it's better than working), I'm pretty chuffed with it although they made me put stock in the window too, sigh, not enough aeroplanes. I have in idea for next year (providing I'm working there of course) I want to add flashing LED lights to the planes. Although me being me they will have to be the correct colour in the correct position, after all any of the other shops doing a display did a few planes. But because I was a pedantic arse as usual I did nine planes because there are nine Red Arrows. There was a charity auction prize that I'd bought a few bits for but no one replied to my emails so I withdrew it as being paltry and not worth the entry. So if anyone wants a book on the Red Arrows, a Red Arrows mug and teddy bear then let me know via email and I'll send them to you for nowt.
I'll also post the links to the first three days' worth of my photos on Facebook I do need a better camera but these have come out alright I think. Most of them have been from right down on the shoreline, making my feet get a bit wetted every now and then. The Red Arrows are always a favourite of mine and I've lost count of the times I've seen them. I always remember them though. It would seem from the reaction of Friday's crowd that there are many others who appreciate their efforts as well judging form the spontaneous applause upon well executed manoeuvres. The Battle of Britain memorial flight made an appearance on Friday afternoon and was widely applauded too, a nice gesture but you have to ask why when they can't hear you. Anyhoo nice to be appreciated I suppose. In between texts from friends who were at work asking me how the airshow was I was enjoying the displays. I didn't expect to enjoy the wing walkers Team Guinot but I certainly did. It was an amazing show on the Thursday and even better with the lower winds on the Friday and with my better placement along the sea. The Blades were good too with, as you'd expect from Ex Red Arrow pilots, an excellent display in the late afternoon sunshine. Also I've finally seen it in action for the first time since the Eighties... the Vulcan. This is the third airshow I've been to where it was supposed to fly but couldn't due to a bit falling off, low batteries or something but by god when it roars overhead in the left hand bank it doesn't half go right through your chest. Speaking of which another first for me was the Eurofighter Typhoon which also packed a wallop. This had to be brought forward on the programme due to increasingly leaden skies. It only tipped down on the way home for half an hour so all in all it wasn't bad. The Thursday we only had one Black Cat display Lynx but two on the Friday. The Yaks were pretty good too. We had a fleeting flypast on Thursday from a Chinook but I suppose that they are in great demand lately in Afghanistan so it would upset the Daily Mail to have one frolicking about for the delight of the airshow fraternity. I haven't bothered with the stuff going on in the Gardens due to the fact that I'm skint and only go home to do everyone's tea for them. It would have been nice to share my day(s) with someone but I'm the only sad ass plane/car/tank nut that I know. Here's the photos day 1, day 2, Day 3 Plus if you go to YouTube you'll see some clips I took and posted.

Here's the music for you. Bad Manners - Live & Loud, Adam & The Ants - Antmusic (The Best Of), CRASS - Sheep Farming in the Falklands finally David Bowie - Low (remastered).

Bye for Now

2009-08-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

"She's going out tonight but drinking just champagne
And she has been checking nearly all the men
She's playing her game and you can hear them say
She is looking good, for beauty we will pay"

I'm quite chuffed to say the least, "why?" I hear you not ask because you don't care? Well I'll tell you anyway. It was recently pay day, a reason in itself to be happy for day at least, but also because I'd changed my phone number so no more 'missed calls' from some investment company or spam texts from someone wanting me to do the Irish lottery. But I'd managed to finally pay off my last debts (yay I hear you not cheer but I did it for you anyway). Then after I'd done that we had a really good day at work with regards to takings etc. Then we all went out for a very nice Chinese meal in the restaurant up the road from the shop and had a quite decent time. I had a hard time deciding on what to have and my mind changed itself more times than I can recount. The longer we had to wait for the other parties to arrive the more I'd pick up the menu and choose again. The main reason for it being a bloody good day though as that I have finally managed to use chopsticks without spraying my fellow diners with my rice or noodles. Although my assistant manager Rosie to my right managed to get rice on my left hand (she said it was sign of affection but quite frankly I only accept a hand down the trousers as a 'sign of affection') and supreme leader ...sorry, sales team leader Chris managed to order more than he could handle (please note chicken curry without rice is not a good idea nor is filling up on sweet and sour chicken balls first ...and vodka and coke doesn't take the sting out of a spicy curry dish ...as he found out). My main portion of sympathy is for Ben who decided to order something off the menu because "it sounded funny", Seafood Ho Fun, anyway I told him he reminded me of the scene in Mr Bean's Holiday where he orders food in the French restaurant not knowing what it is and is seen chewing on a lobster. However, I having managed to master chopsticks somewhat after the best part of forty years not being able to, was having a mild time and enjoying it, (I'm too old to have a wild time). I want to go again and nearly went on my own a couple of days later even though I was so chuffed that I began showing off and tried to get a Chicken ball in my mouth with the chopsticks this all went well until about two centimetres from my mouth and it made a bid for escape so I stabbed it with a single stick and drowning it in sweet and sour sauce and chomped the old choppers down then carried on shovelling the old chicken chow mein in me cakehole. For some reason as I sat at my laptop writing this afterwards, a pigeon (who had made the flight several times before without mishap) decided this was the time he'd get drunk and try to fly onto my roof above the bay window where I sit creating legendary literary drivel. To say he misjudged it would be an understatement. The roof was about two feet above my window unfortunately the pigeon was working in metric and the house was built in imperial. He flew into the top of my window pane and made me jump. He slid stunned onto the window ledge and fell over. By the time I'd gotten downstairs to see if he was alright some thirty seconds later the thing had completely disappeared making me wonder if I'd actually imagined it. I asked my landlord if he had heard it and he had but he thought it was me dropping my D.M.s off my feet at the end of a long day. Where the pigeon went I have no idea but I do have a pigeon smudge on my window to prove I wasn't imagining things. I mean if my imagination was that good I'd be constantly wrapped up in a threesome with Justine Frischman and Winona Ryder with Kate Humble on alternate weekdays and there'd be a hell of a mess.
Anyway here's the music for you. Max Romeo - War In A Babylon, Mikey Dread - Dread At The Controls, Mikey Dread - Dread At The Controls Dubwise Version, Lee 'Scratch' Perry - The Mighty Upsetter, Prince Buster - 70 Singles, Mark Foggo - Ska Pig That should keep you busy.

2009-07-31T13:38:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Sir Bobby Robson

2009-07-26T14:39:00.001-07:00

"Drive to the forest in a Japanese car
The smell of rubber on country tar
Hindsight does me no good
Standing naked in this back of the woods
The cassette played pop tones"

I've decide that I'm going to go on holiday behind the old iron curtain, purely for the fact that whenever in my shop I see a really good looking woman from the old Soviet Bloc she is nearly always with some real ape like creature for a boyfriend. Nearly all the time you see this and it's sickening that the really attractive British women have higher standards... until it comes to money that is. But as Paul Weller sang "stop dreaming of the quiet life because it's the one we'll never know" which is true, unless the lotto gods smile upon my grumpy arse I'm never going to be rich. At the other end of the scale though I suppose that I could change my name to Dean or something and 'read' the Star 'Newspaper' over a full English breakfast whilst my girl'fiend' sits beside me with her size eighteen body crammed into a size 12 tracksuit with the word 'bench' across her arse and hair pulled back into a 'council estate facelift' ponytail and she's wearing large hoopy earrings that I refer to as stirrups and one of those jackets that have a short body and really long arms and furry hood. While our dirty faced baby screams for more Quavers and RedBull. Whilst she texts away to some other Chav bint into her phone and chews gum noisily. But then it would seem I have standards. Unlike many people I know. Anyhoo the thing is it's hard not to be jaded when you've been turned down by so many attractive women as I have (you know who you are). Their mistake and my good fortune as at least I have a PS3 and no mortgage, kids, hire purchase on the car, credit cards, but I do have lots of disposable income which I dispose of readily and rapidly. Well I say lots I'm talking figuratively of course buts it's fair to say that 50% of my income can be (and is) disposed of by me and thankfully not by the aforementioned made up but all too ubiquitous munter. Don't believe that people like this exist? Then by all means hang around Poole on a Saturday.

Anyway enough judgemental rantings here's the music for you. Firstly there's a requested repost of 'select cuts from blood and fire' then I've given you Orbital - 20 and finally the Blondie Singles box.

Enjoy

2009-07-12T14:37:00.000-07:00

"She came from Planet Claire
I knew she came from there
She drove a Plymouth Satellite
Faster than the speed of light"

Well, Yeovilton was a tad disappointing in some ways due to the low cloud cover and limited what are referred to as 'flat' displays. That is to say that the displays were without any height in them, shame. Even the Red Arrows were limited to only two or three flypasts in different formations. Still it could have been worse I suppose? It may have rained incessantly all day instead of right at the end. I was with a couple of friends and apart from the arsehole I nearly had a fight with when he stood right in front of me when I was shooting a frame only to take loads of shots in a seemingly never ending stream. I think he was a professional photographer but still he shot off when I spoke up. Imagine if you will that you are a short arsed man in his fifties taking snap after snap of an AH-Mk1 Apache having been fully aware of the fact you've just stepped in front of someone as he was about to take his. The you hear a restrained but angry voice akin to the gravelly growl of a pissed off Clint Eastwood coupled with the vocabulary of a Samuel L Jackson character saying after a few minutes "are you going to be long Mother Fucker?" You then turn around to see an angry middle aged ex skinhead with a headache and you depart. Still, all that aside we had a good time despite the weather and the over priced food. I was impressed by the lady sailor who said to some kids "come down to our Navy day and see where the sailors eat, work and sleep" To which my ears attuned to like radar on an aircraft she was a bit attractive to put it mildly. All day I had the feeling that I'd wished I'd joined the Navy instead of the Army. But there you go despite the fact that at 40 I'd be a better soldier/sailor/airman than I was at 19 I find myself wondering what if?... Never mind I'm at least only going to die on CoD 4 rather than in real life. Anyway despite the fact that we got wet at the end and true to my British nature during the only five minutes of sunshine (literally). As soon as the sun made even the slightest hint that it may have poked it's head through the cloud I shed my jacket and sprayed myself and several people around me with Ambre Solaire factor 15. I was determined to use it I'd paid twelve quid for it dammit. It was probably my fault as I'd bought the stuff for the first time in 40 years. It smelt of oranges I discovered after about three quarters of an hour wondering where the smell of oranges was coming from. I did enjoy seeing the Apache close up and fall in love with it. I wonder how long before I get enough pennies together...? No no be good 50" tv first. I'm still umming and aahing about applying for the Naafi job in Afghanistan, but I'd get fired for spending all my time playing in the military equipment like a five year old in his dad's car. Yet again I've to see the Vulcan (XH558) flying as they always call in sick whenever I'm around to see them, do I make them nervous possibly? Hopefully the Bournemouth air show will have them. Sad bastard that I am I already have the vantage point already selected and my route to it too. After all it is only a month away.
You can enjoy some of my better photos which are on facebook here and Bovington Tank Day 2009 here hope you enjoy them. Next year I plan to have a better camera although there was nothing wrong with the Fuji S9600 I did get a bit of camera envy with some of those nice Canon EOS 450d etc. there ooh those were really nice cameras and great lenses. No no be good 50" tv first.
Anyway here's the music firstly I've posted Club Ska '67 which was always a favourite in my vinyl collecting days and then I've posted a large 15 CD eighties compilation. Enjoy

2009-07-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

"I request, that the best of our minds,
be impressed to repent of their crimes.
For the truth, is there all for to see.
What can be said in defence of man's tyranny?"

It must be said that I truly enjoyed the tank festival in Bovington again this year. Although I was asked to keep the noise down as they couldn't hear the tanks over the bacon-esque sizzlings of my forearms in the open skies. I should learn never to believe any forecast that I hear saying that it will be showery all day. But I have learnt from this though, as being burnt for the second year in a row will tend to drive a message home with me. I have done something that I have never done in forty long and dull years of being on this earth ... yes I have bought sun block. I haven't ever bought sun block before not out of the need to be like those casualties you see on TV progs where they are resembling radishes in football shirts and flip flops, mainly because I don't usually sit in the sun if I can help it, it was just that the tanks were very interesting to look at. More so when hurtling around the arena than sitting static in the large and newly refurbished museum. Now sometime later I have finally stopped shedding dead skin all over my flat and shop I'm feeling slightly less ashamed of my forearms which at times made me look like Ben Hur's mother. Next stop Yeovilton Airday but this time hopefully no skin like leather covered in cornflakes. This will probably be because it will now rain and my sun block will end up in the back of the cupboard until it runs out of the use by date, just like all the condoms I have ever bought :( . Unless it stays fine for the four days where I go to the sea front and stare into the sky for four hours a day (Bournemouth Air Show Link). You see to get me to go anywhere on holiday you have to have a smattering of military hardware lying around. My ideal destination would be that Davis monthan AFB (link) (Vid Link) in the desert somewhere where all the mothballed aircraft are. Just me my camera and a some bottles of coke and I'd be as happy as a pig in shit. Mind you there is always the US ordanance museum (link)(honestly you should see my Google Earth it's like a map of nothing but friends' houses and military installations / museums). The picture above all this inane ramblings comes from a M4A1 Sherman in the Bovington collection although I tried to claim it had my name on it therefore it belonged to me they failed to see my point of view, this is why I should never sit in the sun. SO with that in mind maybe I shouldn't go to Davis Monthan AFB as I'd have a lot of obsolete aircraft in my back garden and be back in debt again.

The music today is all the Nutty Sounds I could find Volumes 1 - 5. These are repost requests so I do get around to them eventually.

2009-06-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

"I'm adaptable
Now I like my new role
I'm getting better and better
I have a new goal
I'm changing my ways
Where money applies
This is not a love song"

As the headline lyric suggests I feel that I'm getting better at handling my money. Not least because I reeeeeeeeaaaaaally want the 50" tv I've set my blood pump on (prepare your drool link). It will, thanks to the summer season being one were I'm going to lots of events, take about three months to save up. On the bright side it will look shit hot with the PS3 on it. For a start I may be able to read the font on PSN without sitting three feet away from my 28" 16:9 CRT TV. All of this is providing that I can manage to stay in employment rather than get totally enraged by some shoplifting scum or some dumbass customer who will no doubt incur my wrath and then it's Hulk Smash!!! After the tv I've made a list of all the gadgets I want, I really should stop watching Geekbrief.tv but then it's a devious person who decided to get an incredibly beautiful woman to wave gadgets in my face via my iPod. I went off her slightly though when I found out she was happily married and loved Jeebus Chrust too. Mind you I have got my great big little sister's birthday coming up, but even though she sent me a tenner for my 40th coupled with a note saying "it's not much but it's better than a cheese sandwich." Come August I will send a Tenner, cheese sandwich with a note saying "The difference between us is that I send the cheese sandwich as well." Petty? Me? I'd like to point out to any person expecting a big present this christmas is to be sorely disappointed I'm afraid. Maplin gift tokens all round I'm afraid. Unfortunately there's nothng much to buy in Maplins, I know after all, sadly I work for them. Well that's probably a mite unfair, he adds in case someone should reach for my P45 before I save for my new tv, there's just nothing I would want... apart from some of the women that walk past the big windows.

Here's the music, this time it's Every Morrissey single, b side and extra track from his solo career from 1988 to 2008.

2009-06-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

"We are driving on the Autobahn
In front of us is a wide valley
The sun is shining with glittering rays
The driving strip is a grey track
White stripes, green edge
We are switching the radio on
From the speaker it sounds:
We are driving on the Autobahn"

Well, it must be said that amongst the visits to the cinema recently, my work, my PS3 and downloading shit loads of digital media of all kinds I have summarily failed in my bid to become a writer of anything other than shopping lists. This is mainly due to my lack of discipline and wholehearted laziness I want to collate all these hundreds of scraps of paper into some sort of order but like I say I'm easily distracted. The next few months shouldn't help either as I have to go to Tank Fest '09, Yeovilton Air show and Bournemouth Air Show. Damn those lottery gods!!!! I need to be well enough off so that I can concentrate on my writing (or more likely play more on the PS3). I have been to the cinema more this month than I had in the previous year. Watchmen wasn't bad but will never be as good as the graphic novel. Terminator Salvation was immense and by far the best film I've seen in quite a while. Star Trek however I suppose was too much of a fan of the original series to enjoy it fully? I suppose if I watch it again without being more concerned about whether the disabled man would be able to get back in the room again once I'd let him out I may enjoy it more, that and the twat in the front who didn't seem to be able keep the decibels down on the popcorn he was chewing. The thing is I never have my rifle on me when I need it. I must have missed at least thirty homeless in the last week alone. Mind you with the £5.20 I won on the Euro Lottery this week at least my plans for world domination are slowly coming to fruition so it's not all doom and gloom soon I shall have my gas chambers and work camps. Well on that kind of budget the death camps sorry ahem, rehabilitation camps the huts would be made out of cardboard and the Zyklon B would in fact be Wilkinson's own brand talcum powder but still, it's a start.

Anyway here's the music firstly I've found a copy of Tricky's first album Maxinquaye which for me was a bit of a lost classic. Also I've uploaded for your delight Ashes to Ashes Second series soundtrack, Various Artists - Dancehall '63 (Ska). Lastly you have The Best of Prince. Enjoy.

2009-06-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

"Everything goes when you're dead
Everything empties from what was in your head
No point in waiting today
Stupid revenge is what's making you stay
Its going to happen - happen - till your change your mind"

I was so 'impressed' with the game I recently bought called 'Eat Lead' I found myself so full of bile at the waste of money that I wrote a review on Amazon, I thought I'd publish it here as a precautionary tale against buying the big pile of steaming Batha Poodoo.

"Quite frankly there have been many times in my life that I have regretted my actions... but none more so than when I bought this game. To be honest I just wanted to boost my PS3 trophies a little and that is the whole reason anyone should buy this game, in fact for a start don't buy, rent it. Let me just say that in all my years of gaming I have never had any game that I've played on my trusty old PS1, 2 or 3 crash the system, until now that is.
The game play itself leaves a hell of a lot to be desired, for a start the main character himself points out one error in judgement by the programmers, the fact that there is no 'jump' button. Also missing in action is a 'run' button ...although I did find the 'Off' button, thankfully. Movement of the person you are playing is akin to when you see these really old men jogging, you know when they would move quicker if they walked? The bad guys on the other hand run like Sonic the Hedgehog on speed. They aren't encumbered by the need to take cover much either and quite often will be suddenly at your side whilst pumping you full of lead projectiles at high velocity. Meanwhile whilst you try to aim as accurately as possible to actually be in any danger of registering a hit on the baddies, you die. There is absolutely no aim assist whatsoever. I'm no basic gamer I've been playing fps for years and can count all of the 'Medal of Honour', 'call of duty', 'Doom', several 'star wars' and 'Brothers in Arms' games amongst others in my experience. So please don't think this review is in anyway because I can't play the game due to a lack of ability... I can't play this game for sheer exasperation at the lack of first time playability. Most of the action is either shoot lots of guys expending lots of ammo or go through large areas of the level with no one there. I wish I was as tough as some of these baddies though I mean if real people could take two or more shots from a .357 magnum to the head and survive then we'd be in as much trouble as the developers of this game should be.
All in all it is a terrible shame that such an original idea, sadly lacking in modern gaming, was so poorly executed, let's just hope the people that produced this abomination are executed much more thoroughly."

Maybe I should start to write for the gaming magazines? I mean there was a few more things I had to say like the cut scenes weren't lip synced and there were large tracts of the levels where there was no bad guy sprite and then suddenly there were twenty or so all with perfect aim but if I'd have written everything Amazon would need a bigger server. I've corrected the spelling and added a couple of sentences so basically Upsetterfans you all got My Review:The Director's Cut"

Anyway here's the music (Divine Madness (Remastered Version) and The Clash Combat Rock and reposted video of Bronco Bullfrog.

2009-05-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

"They don't fight, they look just right
In their tonics and button downs
If you see them around, don't put them down
They're the coolest guys in town"

I truly believe we have become a spoilt and decadent society. Not just because politicians are raping the public coffers for all they are worth only to have to pay it back and be "very sorry" but only once the public outrage reached biblical levels . Not even because little Jordan or Chardonnay Chav from the estate has to have the latest phone/trainers/games console only to have it appear in Cash Converters the very next week. My main concern is that all the homeless/drunkards/Big Issue sellers I see as I stare out of my large shop windows whilst gainfully employed (hey it's a living) all have very nice mobile phones, nicer than mine too. Now call me picky if you like but years ago the local tramp in our village felt himself blessed if he had enough money for a pint and/or a paper. Let alone sometimes we kids would share our portions of chips with the old feller. I know that I have in the past been slightly 'anti' the odd homeless or two, but lets not get bogged down with who threw who out of who's shop for attempted shoplifting or who advocated the sending to work camps and the gassing of whom. I mean how much can the credit crunch be hurting people if the lowest members of society have the accoutrements of the middle classes? How long until I see one of them pull up to his painted spot to stand on in his car? Sooner or later one of them will be overheard as he converses with a fellow seller about his summer in Tuscany? Maybe because it's because I'm bitter about having to deal with the latest scrote in my shop whom I found stealing the other day? How I don't punch people I will never understand. His drunken logic to why I stopped him was he "was just holding it". "Yes, just holding it inside your bag sir" was my reply. Then he counters with "why would I even want it?" "I don't know you tell me you were the one who was stealing it" I retort. I hate retail. All that and my favourite person failed to come to see me when visiting the town like she said she would what a crap week.
Still, on a brighter note here's the latest upload from yours truly. Quickly has a rummage through his external hard drive, Right here goes. We have Paul Weller - Hit Parade, Japan - Oil On Canvas and finally PJ Harvey - Jungle Queen Demos. Hope you enjoy them.

2009-05-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

"Was chilled to the bone
At 8am On a Bournemouth morn
There was a drum deck
Outside room 51
Two nights before Bristol ball
A runner took backdrop, exit hall"

I'm getting overrun by tanks, I made the mistake of subscribing to the DeAgostini 'Combat Tanks' magazine not stopping to think that I didn't really have the room for the little plastic models. I suppose either of two options will happen #1. I'll make room or #2. My Nephew will receive a large box of toy tanks in the near future. I'd rather have a real tank though to tell the truth. Sometimes I think it's because I want to drive over the area manager's skull just to voice my disdain at his bullshit two half hour breaks edict which I have refused to take for the last 7 months or so. Other times it's because I want to drive around in a tank at the Tank Fest 2009 as it looked so much fun last year, I'm so sad I have the videos of last year on my iPod. I'm also off to Yeovilton air day with a couple of friends later on in the year. This may not be of interest to you but hey I find it much more interesting than sitting around watching 'Celebrity come dancing on ice has talent' or some such inane drivvel. Mind you I haven't watched my TV for ages now apart from the odd hour here and there. If it wasn't for Top Gear, Match of the Day or Time Team I'd not bother turning the damn thing on apart to play the PS3 or watch my downloaded shows. My landlord downstairs hasn't watched the TV for over six months. In fact he only tuned the freeview box on to partake in the recent retune. There isn't a great deal on really is there? It can honestly be said that I spend most of my time in the second world war though. What with the (rough estimate) 150 books I own, the several hundred games, myriad movies or documentaries and rapidly growing number of model tanks. Still it would be a better place if we could all just shoot people in the face that we didn't like... or in my case on Call of Duty World at War, fry everyone in sight with a flame thrower. Regular readers will no doubt have read of my wibbling on about all the Medal of Honours I have played and completed. And would like to apologise for the late arrival of this current post but blame the makers of CoD WaW right, whilst I'm off to do battle in the Reichstag (again) you can enjoy the current uploads.

I've uploaded Black Sabbath - Paranoid, Madness - Practice makes perfect (rerepost) and the 2 Tone story. Enjoy.... now where did I put my flame thrower?

2009-04-23T02:02:00.001-07:00

"It's getting near dawn,
When lights close their tired eyes. I'll soon be with you my love,
To give you my dull surprise. I'll be with you darling soon,
I'll be with you when the stars start falling."

'The dream factory' (i.e. where I write this crap)

As you can see from the photo above 'the dream factory' is a mite untidy. Untidy desk tidy mind I was always told, so not wanting to prove people wrong... My laptop continues to be the workhorse as you can tell what with it being connected up to all my USB peripherals, several not shown as I was tidying up (can't you tell?) and had unplugged them. Basically this was me trying out new lenses for my D-SLR... playing some might say... with my new toys. I do love my gadgets and probably kept the economy going by myself for a few months as a result with all the spending I did. Maybe I should save up for a bit? I could get myself a hooker or two as I have been disappointed on my birthday for the last ooh let's say thirty nine of the last forty years not to have had a hooker bought for me or at the very least a topless brunette jump out of my giant cake. And this year was no different. At least I'll be able to bolt on another USB product from the hard drive I'm getting from my mate, thankfully this will give me somewhere to put the seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer I downloaded recently, freeing up several gigs on my laptop. I really am a nerd aren't I? I dare not even mention the four seasons of Star trek Enterprise I have ... oh dear. It was a strange birthday this year, I was the birthday boy and I gave away the goodies (not in a sexual way, although I was as willing as ever). I mean here I was with my one present, £10 and no sexual favours whatsoever and I gave away a dvd recorder and three Buffy DVD box sets I had lying around spare. Some big milestone, just another day really. I don't know why I get my hopes up as the wizened old bearded toothless hag downstairs always says, "expect nothing and never be disappointed" Once again the bastard's right. I shall remember this next year and when buying presents for everyone else could this be the start of my career of evil?... Nah probably not, it just means everyone else is getting book tokens from now on.
The downloads this post are Lost Property (link) which was a personal favourite compilation of mine. Then I'm going to give you the complete Half Man Half Biscuit Peel Sessions. Finally I'll give you Eek-A-Mouse - Wa Do Dem. Also by the time this is posted there'll be a new link for the Liberty of Norton Folgate (full album) .

2009-04-05T14:23:00.000-07:00

"Workin' all week with Barso driving the van
Filled with old lawnmowers and petrol cans
And by day just a working machine
But by night a cosmic, electric, boogie limousine"

I have to say that life is good at present, I've got my birthday coming up (17th April) and it is okay at work at the moment. I put my iPod on and go up into the warehouse upstairs to do the work needed and blast out my sounds. The main album being played at the moment is the new Madness one (the Liberty Of Norton Folgate) and the new Morrissey one (Years of Refusal). Both of which have my partially undivided attention. I have been getting into my Jazz recently too, a little bit of Miles Davis' The birth of Cool and Kind of Blue being the current favourites. then sometimes I'll swing the other way (only musically speaking) and stonk out some AC-DC, Nirvana or something else loud and disturbing for the guys in the Animal store next door whether they want it or not. It also confuses my colleagues as I play such random music they can't pigeon hole my tastes. I'm also enjoying work currently due to the large amount of beautiful foreign student ladies knocking around Bournemouth lately. I would offer my services to teach them the words "penis" & "insertion" amongst others. They in turn would teach me their languages, specifically the words for "fuck off sad boy" and "help Police!" So we'd all learn something. I may not be the world's most educated man but who better to learn English from? I'm about as English as a Pork pie wearing a pin stripe suit & Doctor Marten's whilst eating crumpets and drinking tea. Don't get me wrong I'm not 'English' in a "I drive a white van can't spell or read eat nothing but crap from Lidl and go home to my fat wife in leggings and scrawny dirty ill educated JJB sportswear wearing kids whilst avoiding getting my knuckles wet as I drag them along the ground and think that the Daily Star is gospel I don't like them darkies wot come over here and steal our jobs" kind of way but I am pretty set in my ways don't like hot weather that much and I think I am better than most other people in the world and quietly tut as they do things I don't approve of and hope they'll apologise and stop. I must be in with a chance with someone of the opposite sex though, most of the women you see often have a boyfriend in tow that could only be described as a 'gorilla after botched facial surgery'. Whilst they in turn are gorgeous. It makes no sense whatsoever, unless of course it's to prove me wrong and there is a god & he's picking on me.
Anyway enough blathering (I was going to put enough blasphemy but, you can never have enough blasphemy). Here's what you really came for. The music this time is Dr Alimantado -Best Dressed Chicken In Town followed by King Tubby - Dub Gone Crazy then Junior Murvin - Police & Thieves last but not least the one you've all been waiting for (judging by the impatient emails etc. ) Madness - Practice makes perfect (disk three from the boxset).

Enjoy.

2009-04-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

"I get up in the evening and I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired Man I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help"

I was thinking the other day that for every silver lining there's a cloud. I mean there I was at work actually doing something I enjoy (I.E. painting not retail work). The sun was streaming it's golden joyfulness through the open fire doors whilst I slapped some paint on the walls (and floor) I was mostly left to my own devices & got on with the job in hand, John Peel shows were blaring out throughout the warehouse via my iPod and I was full of a certain light creamy cream cheese baguette and coffee so like I say life wasn't at all bad. I'd managed six walls with two coats, 1 Door glossed, 18 feet of skirting board glossed, the canteen wall repaired & a large wall about 18 feet square repainted a very nice blue, two notice boards and six coat hooks all put up in one day. I did quite a nice job even if I do say so myself (and I do... often). I even did all the prep work before painting too, I'm not some old slap and dash merchant me! Basically I wasn't bored once & I never looked at my watch at all for the whole day. Neither had I spent all day staring out the window looking forlornly at all the attractive women who don't know I exist. I even for once got a nice lunch, I came home without too much waiting around for a bus, had a nice Tesco ring donut with a great cup of tea and enjoyed the rest of the warm spring evening. But there's always a smelly fart in the lift as they say. The only thing to spoil the whole day was a "we know where you live and are sending round the leg breakers" letter from the bank bastards at Abbey Nazional. It's my own fault I suppose? Perhaps with hindsight (which is always 20/20) I shouldn't have spent £120 on graphic novels but in my defence it was tax credits and therefore free money and would have only been wasted on some war or other. Don't think of it as several special edition graphic novels in very nice hard back editions think of it as one less artillery shell. But there you go what's did is did. Besides if it weren't for them I would have been out of debt two and a half years before I was so they can sit and swivel as we used to say at school. They didn't spoil my day, I refused to let them. In fact the only way the day could have been any better was if I'd gotten to do that thing where a man and a woman, who love each other very much, (or are very drunk and regret it in the morning) and the man puts his oojymaflip in the lady's whaddjacallit and they make babies until he rolls over knackered and farts before falling asleep leaving the lady slightly disappointed. But you can't have everything can you?
Anyway enough drivel here's the music firstly we've got Devil Hopping by the Inspiral Carpets, then I've given you the very good album which I've rediscovered St Etienne - Foxbase Alpha and finally the full Madness - Liberty of Norton Folgate which finally arrived through my door. Links, as ever in the comments

2009-03-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

"I left the North
I travelled South
I found a tiny house
And I can't help the way that I feel
Oh yes, you can kick me
And you can punch me
And you can break my face
But you won't change the way I feel
'Cause I love you"

Finally, I got my iPod I've been promising myself for ages and sexy though it is I wouldn't take it out of the house until I'd got the screen protector and rubber S&M gimp mask for it. It stayed in my room ensconced for three days in it's original box as it if it were the ark of the covenant itself. It only emerged to be synced up with my iTunes. It is now as individual as I am with regards to all the stuff I've crammed on it. I've still only used about 20gb of it's 120gb capacity. It's just nice to not have to listen to some dumbass on the bus every time I want to travel to and from work. With comments like "my boyfriend made me tapioca last night, I don't know what was in it, but he put jam on it. It was disgustin' well it was alright but I didn't like it." I tell you sometimes it's just like travelling on a bus full of Mensa candidates. I haven't felt my I.Q drain away as quickly that since I was forced to watch "I'm a nobody get me back on the telly" when Mylene Klass won it. I suppose it was better than the blow by blow (if you'll excuse the unintentional pun) account of one girl's sexual encounter with her boyfriend who she only did it with because she seemingly didn't really like him apperently, not that I listened intentionally you understand but even the driver at the front was driving with his hands over his ears so as not to hear. I'll spare you the full extent of it, mainly because it's been so long for me now I've forgotten what most of the words mean. But it was not the sort of conversation you'd normally have had on a bus at full volume. What happened to women? Why have they stopped being nice? I blame the moment society started advertising for ... looks sideways and speaks quietly out of corner of mouth) ...'women's products' on telly. Once they started advertising those ... 'women's products' the floodgates opened (so to speak). Firstly, as I understand these things, once a month a lady would pour blue liquid into these ... 'women's products'... and then go horse riding, rock climbing and sky diving. Now, not content with that they have to be on telly talking in restaurants about being bloated and having hard stools.....well bloody move to a different chair then... or have I misunderstood again? If these people were men they'd just fart like a docker and laugh about it and/or come out of the toilet having 'unloaded breakfast' leaving teeth marks in the back of the door saying "If I were you I'd leave it for a few minutes" Problem solved. I miss those nice ladies that used to be on tv.
Anyway here's the music for you let's see what do I have in my magical sack (ooer) of music? Hmmm How about The Style Council - The Cost Of Loving, The Jam - Setting Sons and Bad Manners - Forging Ahead. Enjoy.

2009-03-10T13:05:00.001-07:00

"I'm writing this to say
In a gentle way
Thank You ... I will live my life as
I ... want For whether you stay
Or you stray
An inbuilt guilt catches up with you"

Hi Upsetterfans. Here's the thing, in the last few years or so I've gone through some changes. Some might say better late than never, be that as it may I'll let you in on one of the lessons learnt. I know this maybe futile as advice is often given but seldom taken. I know some people are going through a lot of stuff that seems important right now. I look at my Facebook and Myspace 'friends' and see the comments put up and I see they worry about this that or the other and for what? More grey hairs? Early baldness? The one main thing I've gained over the last few seemingly endless years is that none of it really matters. In the end whether you feel unloved or are out of work or think that you'll never get a girlfriend or anything like that doesn't matter. Only to yourself. Problems are only problems if that's all that you think about. I know that I didn't always think this way, you only have to re-read this blog for the last few years (if you dare) to see this. But I've come to realise that if I never get a relationship with that beautiful brunette lady who fills my heart with butterflies, stirs my loins and ties up my tongue, If I never get that Sunseeker yacht or Aston Martin DB9 and big house it doesn't matter to anyone but me no more than it would to me if a monkey gets eaten by a lion in Africa or a woman gets knocked over by a car in Japan. I tend not to worry about things that may not be. Don't get me wrong if the very nice lady that I like decided that she'd rather be with me than some bloke in a better job and a bigger bank balance then I'd naturally love it, obviously. Maybe in another life if the Buddhists are correct I'd get her and the life I'd want? Maybe, maybe not that's a lesson I'll hopefully have to wait a long time to find out about. I'll just sit back and have a cup of tea and know that they'll all miss out on the best and most loyal man they'll never know.....If that doesn't sound too conceited (I used to have an inferiority complex you know? I used to think I was the same as everybody else ;) )
Here's the music, firstly I've upped Prince Buster's Fabulous Greatest Hits, Then we have Pulp - Different Class, Various - Mojo presents Heavy Mod and lastly St. Etienne - Smash The System Singles 1990 - 1999. Enjoy them as much as I do when I do in my warehouse at work. (I.E Loud!!!!!!!!!!)

P.S If anyone hasn't already, go over to Cassettes & Chocolate milk and download the podcasts they are great.

2009-03-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

"And then you offer your one and only joke
And you ask me what will I be
When I grow up to be a man
Me? Nothing!"

It's strange how much my life has changed over the years only to stay the same. I mean here I am still single (not for a lack of wishful thinking) still relatively skint but at the time of writing I'm taking off my Harrington jacket, untying my Doctor Marten boots and untucking my Fred Perry polo shirt whilst reading an article about Jerry Dammers and The Specials. It could well be 1979 rather than 2009. I mean let's face it we had in 1979 an unpopular Labour Government, rising unemployment and hugely strained relations with Russia, the middle east and several African nations... what the hell am I on about? Sorry, it's nothing like nowadays is it? It's a shame but parties on both sides of the slightly rusty Iron Curtain seem to be fanning the embers of the still warm campfire of mistrust between the cold war adversaries.... ooh I must be on drugs. Wow that was a bit poetical like weren't it? Kind of Andrew Marr crossed with John Cooper Clarke (the only poet I could remember as I could not spell John Betjeman....quickly sidles over to wikipedia to check spelling) Oh I was right. Ooh that were a bit like Andrew Marr ... oh never mind. Anyway the thing I was getting at was we all try to escape our past (most of us) and end up standing still. Like a man rowing a boat for all he's worth thinking he's going far only to look around to see he's still tied to the dock. (Wow I've really been taking the metaphor pills tonight haven't I?) It must be one of those fish finger sandwiches I ate what with all it's Omega 3 blah blah blah. Brain food indeed sharks eat fish all the time and they aren't that smart.
Anyway the music this time is a couple from Morrissey - Viva Hate & Viva Hate Out Takes and a couple from Fun Boy 3 - Waiting & Fun Boy Three. Hope you enjoy them.

2009-02-23T13:51:00.000-08:00

"Here we all are sittin' in a rainbow
Gor blimey hello Mrs. Jones How's old Bert's lumbago?
(He mustn't grumble)
(Tweedle dee bite)
I'll sing you a song with no words and no tune
(Tweedle dee bite)
To sing in the khazi while you suss out the moon - oh yeah"

Well I don't know what that was all about. I have been having really weird dreams lately. This one in particular more than normal. There I was in the film 'Waterloo road' which I haven't seen for years. I was in black and white as well. Me and John Mills were going up the road to this pub where they had his 'D-Day special' chicken (?) and he wanted to pay his final nine pence towards it. The bar maid went away and then came back to say "Sorry deary it's not here" To which I replied "I bet that cunt Grainger's got it." At which point Stewart Grainger comes out from the back of the bar from behind a curtain in a doorway jumps at me across the bar and I grab him by the belt buckle and the collar and threw him across the room to a table whereupon he lay upside down and dazed, then there was some other crap about the Italian army carrying these exaggerated machine guns and ammo boxes which were huge and made them look like those Warhammer figures that sad people in the Bournemouth shop play. The Italians were in colour for some reason then sadly my alarm came on and I woke up listening to the partially annoying Shaun Keaveny, still at least he's not the really annoying people on Radio 1. Some woman came in the shop the other day asking for a 'Wind up radio' I said "it's any of them that receive Chris Moyles Surely?" She didn't seem to understand. I also met my Gran and Grandad in a dream the other night in their old house up the road from here. I was so excited to see them and I was amazed to be able to feel the corduroy material of my Grandad's sleeve saying "ooh I can feel corduroy" I could see that my Gran seemed annoyed as I was too excited to listen to what they had to convey to me in the dream. I know I go on a lot about my dreams lately but they tend to be more interesting than the tediousness of day to day real life. The thing is we in our little electronic emporium are bored with the crap of day to day life within the company and tend to make our own amusement. With the merchandisers, decorators and builders all having made a slightly better sow's ear out of the silk purse it was we have very little to do lately other than serve the people who come in to the place. Most of the time we tend to spend staring out of the window at the plentiful amount of good looking women that go past. We tend to share I.E. "you have to blonde I'll have the brunette" that sort of thing. Well, it's better in one way than what we used to do. That was to send water rockets down the stairwell nearly decapitating ex members of staff and hitting aerosol air fresheners with hammers thereby turning them into lavender fragranced exocet missiles, (mentioning no ex members of staff called Ben Dawson lately of Guildford). I suppose it keeps us all of the streets and in our lovely grey and puss green shop. I can honestly say that if there was another job I would be off quicker than the air freshener rocket, which was fast, I hardly had time to dodge out the way as I was laughing so much. Anyway enough nostalgia for better times here's the music. Links are as ever in the comments.

Tonight's posts are Prince Buster - The Outlaw, The Smiths - Louder than Bombs and finally The Clash - London Calling/Vanilla Tapes/The Last Testament (The Making Of London Calling)DVD. Enjoy!

2009-02-19T15:18:00.000-08:00

"Just a-walking in the sunshine,
Try to keep from going under,
I think I`ll drink a little red wine,
Ain`t no use to sit and wonder."

You know it's no wonder I get annoyed with things in life. There I was under the impression that I'd won a competition in T3 magazine for a 32" LCD, PS3 and a copy of Mirror's edge. I entered via text which is not something I usually do. I received a text back saying "congratulations you're a winner why not celebrate your genius by visiting T3.com" Ooh I thought I could do with a new telly and the PS3 could be a great Chrimbo present for someone later in the year.... or just a spare for me in case I break mine again. I waited for the requisite 28 days like it said in the rules, then I hadn't heard anything by two weeks after so I contacted the editor, he passed me onto the assistant Editor who in turn passed me onto the Competitions person. She said she'd look into it. 24 hours later I got three emails from each member of staff saying unfortunately the text system is a "bit archaic and occasionally there is a glitch in the system & sorry you haven't won". Oh that's nice I thought here's me with a message saying "congrats you've won" only to be told that I hadn't. They wished me good luck in any future competitions. Which was nice, unfortunately there won't be anymore competitions as after nearly ten years or so of being an avid reader I am not buying the mag anymore. I suppose it just goes to show that you never get anything for free.
Still it has made me more determined to save up for myself and get a bigger TV than the won I lost in an 'Al Gore' type way. If I may be allowed to slip into the vernacular? Bollocks to 'T3' magazine and any competition the second rate mag may run in the future, scousers will have the Sun newspaper in their houses before I buy another copy.... and breath. That off my chest I can rest easy with my cup of tea, wagon wheel and copy of Stuff magazine. A far superior gadget and technology magazine. My PS3 will be graced by a big LCD tv later this year. After I buy an iPod.

Anyway here's the music The Small Faces - The Ultimate Collection, Various Artists - All Things '60's Mod, finally Bauhaus - Singles 1979 -1983. Enjoy.

2009-02-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

"A healthy depression fuels the aggression,
I can’t stand the suspense so I’m hitting the floor,
An all round slump is tempting my pump to
Spray a little lead through a plate glass door."

As Dr Strange from Marvel comics might say "By the enchanted soiled under crackers of Ummammu the portents are cloudy ...at best." At the start of the year I read as many of my horriblescopes as I could, you know those ones? They all start off telling you how "indecisive you were the previous year but how you have it within you to fulfil your hearts desire if only you'd try, Uranus is in the ascendancy" etc... Only you swear that you read exactly the same thing the previous year. But this year "Saturn is giving you a chance for your star sign to excel if only you'd give it a go and not procrastinate". It's amazing to think that these enormous gaseous heavenly bodies are swirling about in the gravitational field of the sun just for the benefit of my enormous gaseous body .... and the 5.2 million other people in my star sign in this country alone. It's all bollocks I know that this may come as somewhat of a surprise to some of you but it's as useless as religion in giving answers to life's complexities. Stand up on your own two feet, lead a good life and try not to hurt other people and you can't go wrong. It's quite interesting to see that the horriblescopes all say roughly the same thing, "you will have the chance to succeed but only if you do that vague thing, you know the one you were thinking of doing but never quite had the courage to do? Well, do it and see yourself soar into the sky triumphantly". Unless of course you do it and fail in which case it'll be "that wasn't the thing you were meant to do it was the other 'thing'. Mercury has other plans for Aquairians." etc. My philosophy is that life is preordained and when you think you are swimming against the current you're not you are still caught in the flow. Life is chaotic and can take sudden turns, "the best laid plans of mice and men"...etc. I don't believe that anything is meant to happen for a reason shit just happens. But I do believe it's only because we look for meaning in life when there isn't any apart from the the fact that we can only rely on ourselves for all that we need to survive and get through it. This is probably why I never have taken anything too seriously, because it isn't.
In a weird dream the other day I was walking from Bournemouth to Brighton, for some reason. Now there's no real reason why I would... unless it is for a woman, but neither of the three beautiful women that I know live in Brighton would be interested so that's that. Bournemouth for those of you who don't know is quite a distance to drive let alone walk. This is probably why halfway through the dream I decided that is was folly to carry on and would only result in disappointment and went to a train station when I had reached halfway somewhere on the other side of the Solent to buy a ticket back to Bournemouth via London and was exasperated to find that it was £80 one way. I dunno what the meaning of all that was but there you go. Maybe I should stop eating chocolate before bedtime?

Anyway the music links are in the comments. I've posted some Don Drummond, Lee Perry and The Kinks. All albums I like hope you do too.

2009-01-25T11:58:00.000-08:00

"Rockunroll is bred,
When its shiny skin is shed,
With a poison pencil lead,
You all rock until you're bled. "

My PS3 gave me a scare the other day for it stopped playing disks. For A few days there was a big hole under my tv, clearly marked by an oblong shaped dust imprint, until they replaced it (The PS3 not the dusty hole). I suppose I shall have to dust under the tv now? Damn it it just gets worse and worsererer. My hands have become locked in the permanent claw/death grip and they have become fused from holding the controller for hours on end. I've lost all my game saves but luckily I still have the trophies I won YAY! I must say though out of all of the customer service people I have ever rung (including Maplin's own) they were the most professional, courteous and helpful I have ever dealt with. Not like when you ring AOL where you have to try and hear the person over the top of a babble of about 5,000 other operators and then understand them. I had four different people tell me four different things in regards to my problem with them only to find that it was none of them.
Still, as I was busy writing a chapter of one of my stories whilst I should have been doing that work type stuff at my job the other day I began to think. About bloody time really I mean I'm nearly forty. But you know, better later than never. It's time I got a better job before this one gets me down. I even applied to work in a NAAFI in Afghanistan for six months, that's how down I get in this job. Still I know it could be worse. I just hate the regional manager's new stupid idea to give two half hour breaks rather than the one hour we used to get. I haven't taken a break at work in 6 months because of it. Time to leave before I punch the little prick. Oh well.
Hmm note to self don't write blogs whilst you have a headache. A note of interest the above witterings where to have been the 201st post but the blog people objected to me posting Morrissey's unreleased album due to the fact that I had 'copyrighted material' on there ... what about all the other posts? Oh well. Downloads do not cut artist revenue in fact many people on another forum or two I post on have stated that they will buy the album and others due to the fact that they've heard it first by download. Quite right I mean I do. Besides name me one pop star who has starved to death lately? From now on I'll put the links into the comments, just so as there's no hotlinks for people to follow.

Have fun and remember to buy cds.

2009-01-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

"But in weather like this,
you should wear a coat, a nice warm hat
A needle and thread the hand stitches of time
Battling Levinsky versus Jackie Burk
Bobbing and weaving, an invisible line"

I remember that several years ago when I lived with the Scots couple that being as they liked 'a wee dram' (or several) of the product from the 'auld country' that If I heard those naughty sweary words that the big kids use, then it was time to put the headphones on and thwack up the music. Just lately though if I hear those grown up words it's usually complimented by the sound of an AR-16 automatic rifle. Both the gunfire and colourful language come from my mate downstairs this is because he's playing Left 4 Dead on his Xbox360. I tell you for a hippy of 'some' years behind the (raffia work) belt, he isn't half violent. The other day I came home from working in the hectic paced world of electronicalist retailary when he suddenly reminded me of the bit from Platoon when Charlie Sheen's easy going character suddenly loses it and shoots at the mentally challenged Vietnamese kids feet shouting "Dance Mother fucker DANCE!!!!" Whatever happened to peace, love and understanding? as Elvis Costello once sung. I didn't think that Tony Blair and Dubya pissed him off quite that much that he has to take it out on the pixelated undead? Mind you it is quite funny to find the walls of the hospital level splashed with blood and decapitated body parts and a panting landlord as he'd held his breath for the length of the onslaught and emptied several hundred rounds into the fracas. Mind you he's pretty much the same when playing Fifa 09 although he is getting better I'm the one who has problems with the offside decisions. Although strangley whilst playing 'runny shooty' type games I'm quite the opposite I'm all calm and collected and then whilst playing some kind of platform game I'll swear like a sailor with Tourettes' syndrome who has just stubbed his toe whilst barefoot. I don't know what that says about me? But then again who cares? They are just games and so long as I don't go around calmly shooting people in the street it doesn't really matter. Although there have been some close calls...
Anyway onto the music firstly I've uploaded Big Audio Dynamite 2 - The Globe which is quite a rarity

Globe

Then I've uploaded The Who Sings - My Generation (Special Edition) for your pleasure

The
'oo

Finally I've found all the Madness - Wonderful B Sides and Rarities as opposed to just the bootleg covers that were posted on another blog (they are included)

B Wonderful

Enjoy.

2009-01-07T14:54:00.000-08:00

"Why deny that the lie that is sent
Makes you live work and die for some rent
If you're happy then to leave it up to them
The only road you'll know's that hard road my friend"

I was going to use the headline "Stop dreaming of the quiet life, it's the one we'll never know" But I've used it before and I'm in a 'Liberty of Norton Folgate' frame of mind still. Besides which I like dreaming of a quiet life as it's what keeps me going. I can see myself in the picture above with the most beautiful brunette in the world laying out on the upper deck with most of my crew having jumped over board to escape my sea related impressions (Long John Silver and Captain Bligh) around about 3,000 miles previously. I know that this may well never happen no matter how many Lottery tickets I buy. I will still have to trudge up the hill to work on freezing cold mornings stopping only to snap dogs from lampposts. I have however had enough of idiotic customers and possibly going to be punched in the face area manager. I probably won't do it though as I need to pay the Abbey Nazional to clear my old account with them and would quite like to not have a police record (other than Zenyatta Mondatta). Although I get quite angry I would like to point out that I haven't raised my hands to anyone since 1989 or 90 when I was in the Army, I can't even remember his name or rank let alone what he did to rile me but I do remember him as 'horse head' as he had a head that was quite long. Since then I have had better things to do with my hands but sadly lately not fumbling with the bits of a lady as often as I'd been happy with. Unlike Tom Robinson I'm glad not to be gay I mean let's face what would be the point of being a homosexualist when women have got all the best bits? Except those women in my shop the other day that is. It was as if someone had left the side of the telly off and the Jeremy Kyle show had fallen out. Not nice. To be honest today was one of those "I wish I was still in the Army shooting things" days or maybe I just wish I still had a gun? Then I'd probably shoot many of the customers and be arrested for wasting rounds. Although I would be okay with blatting one off into the area manager, (Not as filthy as it sounds). Still, I will try to keep my job as it's my ambition to try and save a grand or more by the end of the year, hopefully more. Especially if I can stay away from Amazon and ebay et al. By the time I'm 149 I should have enough saved for the yacht in the picture but alas I'll probably not get the brunette. She's far too intelligent for that.
Anyway here's the music you'll have trudged through that wittering old bollocks for. Firstly I've upped Madness - Camden Cowboys bootleg vinyl rip.

Cow

Then I've done Dance Crasher a trojan compilation of note from the late eighties that remember well on long hot summer drunken nights etc....

Crash

And lastly I've given you Street Corner a ska compilation from the late nineties that I remember well on those long hot sober nights etc....

Corner

Bye for now Upsetter fans.

2009-01-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

"Cos in the Liberty of Norton Folgate
Walking wild and free, in your second hand coat,
Happy just to float
In this little piece of liberty
You’re a part of everything you see"

Well here we are at last ...2009 ... the future. Mind you it doesn't look very futuristic does it? Where's my flying car? Where's my robot and spaceship? Weren't we supposed to be living on the moon by now? And eating food pills? The past lied to us just to keep us going. MInd you would we have continued to live our lives the way we have if in the past a presenter came on to Tomorrow's World and said "Basically people we're fucked."? Who could have foresaw that we'd be up to our necks in the proverbial shit? Terrorism, fiscal downturns that make banker's wall charts look like roller coaster blueprints, unpopular wars, suffering on a huge scale the world over, national and international companies crapping themselves over whether or not there will be a tomorrow for them. I tell you we'll be moving towards soup kitchens next and scenes reminiscent of the dustbowl America in the '30's. But hey let's look for the brightside shall we? After all there are many more things to put us in an early grave so don't worry about anything. If I've learnt anything over these last few years is that things always seem worse before the dawn. And stuff always seems worse if that's all you think about.
If any of you haven't bought the new Madness albumumumum yet I urge you to do so as I can't stop playing it, as you may well tell from my Last.fm profile. At last they have produced an album that I believe to show the potential they were always capable of but always fell short of (since their reforming that is). It's what I was doing New Year's eve, I had been invited out to a party but I would have been the oldest one there by about twenty years and didn't feel like standing around watching a load of kids get drunk. I had my mp3 player on with my PSP in my hand battling the Nazis (again) who says men can't multi task? Still, I had to drown out the fireworks anyway and the drunks wandering around in the freezing night air wearing only a t shirts, jeans and beer jacket shouting "Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhappppeeeeeee nooyeeeeeaahhhh" etc. Go away I don't care. All the passage of time does is depress me so I try not to think about it. I suppose I'd be more inclined to celebrate things if I was with a woman but I've given up on that front now. Onwards into my dotage ploughing a single furrow through life!!! It would have been nice to have the 2.4 etc but life isn't blue printed the same for everyone sadly. As I told the Christian at work the other day "If god wants me for a sunbeam he'll give the incredibly beautiful girlfriend and British touring car driving career I want or it'll mean he isn't that bothered about me being a god botherer." I even gave a list of names. We'll see.
Anyway here's the music, firstly there's the new Madness album just to make you go and buy it as I think the box set is worth it especially if you read the list of extras you'll get with it.

Folgate

Secondly I've uploaded Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Apples as I don't see that one posted that often if at all.

Apples

Then lastly I've given you The Style Council - Confessions of a Pop Group.

Pop

Anyway

2008-12-10T14:48:00.001-08:00

"Each day just goes so fast
I turn around - it's past
You don't get time to hang a sign on me
Love me while you can
Before I'm a dead old man"

Buy Liberty of Norton Folgate

I must say that the release of the new Madness album 'The Liberty of Norton Folgate' coincided with my pay day and as a result ended up with me clicking on the above link to purchase of the said product. It's a bit Kinks, a smidge Beatles,a tad Victorian music hall, a hell of a lot Madness with a smattering of Sir Ian of Dury. Which lets face it is no bad thing. The Liberty of Norton Folgate track itself is a track about London life (as are they all) and reflects that in the way it like the city, changes pace every now and then without warning, is large and very busy. I must say that I have enjoyed it on first listen much more than I did with Wonderful and certainly made it through without turning it off as I did with the Dangermouse sessions vol 1. or whatever it was called. At last the good ship Madness has found it's way again. On top of everything else you get the cd version, vinyl version, badge and some other collectible gubbings for your money, the record company Nazis are always moaning about interweb piracy and I've always believed that people want a solid object in thier hands (ooer) and have very little regard for electrons purchased over the interweb so I'm glad they have done this boxset with all three formats for the money. I'm just waiting to see what the 30th anniversary of the band produces. Note to self, don't think about all the time passed since you first heard Madness you know the passing of time makes you morose. None of which was what I set out to write. Flicks through note book to find out what it was that I wanted to wibble on about.
Ooh another thing which was wierd.. now let's see if I can get this right as everytime I try it just ends up confused and doesn't sound right but lends weight to my theory that life is preordained or maybe I'm just pshycic somewhat. Some years ago I had a dream ages before I worked in a shop. I dreamt I was stood in a darkened shop that sold electronic and electrical objects and was looking at a new phone going "oh it's got an fm radio on it" which at the time I had the dream seemed obsurd but, lo and behold the other day I was standing in my darkened shop that sold electronic and electrical objects looking at my new phone going "ooh it's got an fm radio on it" which kind of made me go "oooh spooky". I quite often get deja vu from stuff I dreamt about which means that maybe I'll get to have sex someday soon, meet the blokes from Top Gear and go out with Winona Ryder. There's always hope I suppose. Also looking forward to the day I win the lottery which has happened several times in the past in my dreams at least. And still that wasn't what I was going to say. Anyway enough inane wittering old bollocks. Enjoy the Christmas period and here's my contribution to you all. Only three posts I'm afraid I did plan more but you know shit happens, but hopefully you'll like them anyway. Big Audio Dynamite's greatest hits on video for you enjoy.

Bad 1
Bad 2
Bad 3
Bad 4
Bad 5

Then I've posted The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow.

Hollow

And finally Phil Spector's - A Christmas Gift For You.

Gift
Merry Christmas

2008-12-01T12:33:00.000-08:00

"Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It's beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won't you come out to play"

I see that Pirates had recently taken over an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, I expect there to be a glut of cheap knock off oil tankers on the market soon as all they needed was an original for all the poor exploited workers in a back room somewhere to make facsimiles from. Still, if you need a cheap oil tanker no questions asked...
I'm trying to figure out why I'm skint lately and I try to discern why I've spent so much money on the baby Jesus' birthday when I'm a godless atheist (according to sources). Maybe if I'd been a bit more selfish and less selfless I'd have been able to go and get that reaaallllly big telly in the front of Curry's for my PS3. 42" should suffice I'd say. Maybe then I wouldn't have to squint at the blu-ray movies (they don't look good on a CRT). Anyway the Chrimbo period is upon us well and truly at work whereupon we stay open until eight PM. This is all well and good but no one is in the high street at that time of night especially when all the other shops are shut except Subway and Tesco, apart from the homeless. It must cost the company money to stay open for the extra two hours whilst the takings stay the same as they were at the usual closing time of 6. Still what do I worry, I still get compliments regarding my work which just goes to show what would happen if I actually gave a crap. I think (nearly) 40 years of age is a bit too late to start applying myself to a career, so I won't. Underachiever and proud as Bart would say.
My new latin motto I've decided will be "Silens Tamen Mortifer" which apparently means "Silent but deadly" I offered this to the M.O.D for use as the motto for the Submarine arm but they politely refused. I thought it fitting but obviously not so I've adopted it, waste not want not. Speaking of foul odours can I ask that if anyone reads this and comes into the branch.. would they mind washing first? If I have to try and explain the finer points of a DivX capable dvd player whilst breathing out for five minutes at a time I will pass out or go mental(er).
There are two women at the moment that Iliked who recently came into my shop one a girl from the Subway over the road (sandwich shop not some homeless woman living in a subway) and the other a beautiful green eyed girl with dreadlocks neither of who liked me (naturally). The Subway girl apparently fancies the Christian bloke at work. Maybe this is god saying "see what you get for being an athiest?" Maybe, but he doesn't believe in sex before marraige (until I showed him some photos), now he does. Still, that's the way the cookie crumbles (they do nice cookies in Subway) but I no longer go in there as I don't like the taste of the food as it's tainted by disappointment. Which is a flavour I am overly familiar with.

Still on that bright note here's the music. Firstly I've put up the Arkology box set from Lee Perry which I was chuffed to find again in my Data DVD mountain which has now been transfered to an enormous external hard drive (Amazon cheaper than my shop even with staff discount-Official) ... now where was I? Oh yeah, than I've uploaded Roxy Music's - For Your Pleasure which has been gracing my iTunes for a few weeks now having rediscovered it also languishing amongst millions of dvds. Lastly I've upped This Is Ska a compilation from around about 1989 which was played many a time in Simon's Ford Fiesta or Gavin's skip on wheels back in the day as we trundled noisily around the backwoods of Norfolk en route to some pub or other.

Ark
Is Worse
Than
His Bite

Pleasure

This Is
Ska

I will not leave it too long before I post again as I've already written the next two and have a huge selection (I said "selection" wash your ears out) on my new hard (ooer) drive. And thanks if you've become a follower. Nice to have you along for the ride plenty more room on top, ding ding, move along the bus please.

2008-11-25T13:39:00.000-08:00

"Shrinking in the sea so cold
Topless ladies look away
A he-man in a sudden shower
Shelters from the rain
You wish you had a motor boat
To pose around the harbour bar
And when the sun goes off to bed
You hook it up behind the car"

This week has been a bit fun in the shop as I threw out a couple of Big Issue sellers for being drunk and disorderly and swearing. They took it ... not exactly well. Still they ought to be glad I'm not the lottery winner I wish to be as I'd have bought my way onto the local council and used public funds to construct camps just outside major towns where upon the smelly buggers would be carted into cattle trucks and .... hang on a bit..... hmmm, slightly right wing there this may do two things. One, prove once and for all the truth about reincarnation and two, explain my penchant for wearing black shirts. I would like to be a despot though, not that I've thought about this ... a lot ... whilst bored at work... but.... I have a list of things I would bring in.
Trousers would be made out of the same stuff that cooker hood filters are that way we wouldn't be bothered by 'under leg smells'... just the noises. They could come in extra thick for the elderly so they don't smell of wee. Foreign people would come with subtitles so I could understand them better in the shop. Chavs would also be gassed in the camps, therefore McDonald's and Iceland would need to be subsidised by government. All women would be forced to be as attractive as the Girls Alouds ... apart from the ginger one, with the funny face, my god she's thin, and pale and has a funny face did I mention that? I did? Ok and she's a scouse... and with cruelty like that I prove there is no god. Anyway where was I? Hmm? Oh yeah my despotism, Any waistline over 38" would not exist, treadmills being compulsory on council estates. Cheese Doritos would still taste nice but no longer smell of Saturday morning shop doorway vomit. My landlord would be cured of the need to watch those movies where two naked ladies appear to be trying to blow each other up like beach inflatables.

On which note I upload some bootlegs by The Smiths. Firstly there's Unbroadcast Smiths, then Shoplifters From Manchester and lastly there's Old Grey Whistle test. Hope you like them and to those people who have made requests I'm searching for the items now.

OGWT
Shoplifters 1
Shoplifters 2
Unbroadcast

Enjoy

2008-11-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

"The sun slips down bedding heavy behind

The front of your dress all shadowy lined
And the droning engine throbs in time
With your beating heart"

I'm currently suffering from playstation post dramatic stress disorder, sitting for hours and finishing Bad Company and then being most of the way through on Brothers In Arms:Hell's Highway will do that for you. I kind of get playstation combat flashbacks whilst shaving, I think I need to buy some light and fluffy games so that I can rejoin society... well that's what I told them at work but they still made me go. Damn them!!!! Anyway it could be worse I suppose I could be working for a long stretch without a day off ... goes off and checks rota ...damn them!!!!!
I've rejoined MySpace I don't know why as I've only got three friends on there ... well two excluding Tom. A bloke I know from the days of following local ska Leg-ends Bigshot to Cherbourg & a bloke whom I used to work with from Wilkinson's who is kind of a shorter version of Kelly from the Stereophonics sort of a Lidl own brand lookalike really. Anyway I was bored the other day at work (a given really) when Chris called up on the company computer system how much money I'd made for the company for the last year, £127,000, I asked for a raise they said no, so I asked for a cookie they remained steadfast.... I'm not a very good negotiator. Some of my merchandising ideas were taken up and some weren't. Products placed in the store wherever I suggested and proved successful so I put forward the idea of a theme day. Being bored with speak like a pirate day I suggested a speak like Samuel L Jackson day... they said no.
I find that lately I have to write everything down or I forget it, I recently threw out a wad of paper scraps about a centimetre thick because my notice board was becoming unstable. In some far off day any future archaeologists whilst digging up a landfill somewhere will say "well, we learnt nothing about ancient man except he really needed to buy an external hard drive next pay day"
Anyway here's some music for you, firstly I've upped The Wedding Present - Watusi and Take Fountain. Then I've put up the tape that gave birth to Indie music (apparently) C-86

Watusi
Take
C86 1
C86 2

Enjoy

2008-11-02T06:39:00.000-08:00

"There's a great crowd of tourists and they're coming down the street
Pleased as punch with brand new Doctor Marten's on their feet,
Past stalls with leather jackets, old bric-a-brac
Indian sunglasses or a Chinese bobble hat"

You know despite my walking at least five miles around London the other day I can see myself putting on a few pounds what with my addiction to both mint humbugs and my latest PS3 acquisitions of Bad Company and Brothers in Arms:Hell's Highway. As the headline would suggest I went and bought some DM's in Camden town from what used to be A.H. Holts (of Madness video fame). The British Boot Company (link) They are getting their own back the boots are because I have yet to break them in. I wish I'd soaked them in polish for a while first but I guess I'm just getting lazy in my old age? I mean I haven't even bulled the toe caps yet as I used to. It was nice to get away from work for a bit (three weeks) but it has made it a bit of a grind to get back into the swing of things. I am in demand though as my old company rung me up to offer me a position but I had to turn it down as it was less hours and only temporary. Still, nice to be wanted and it just shows that I must have been a fairly half decent employee afterall. The more astute of you may have noticed the new blog layout, (please vote to let me know if you like it or not), this was totally by accident start with as I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and pressed a different button, but it turned out well I think. Perhaps the brighter looking blog reflects my brighter looking outlook? Who can tell? Whilst in London I had to go to the Imperial War Museum, mind you I could have gone anywhere really just to stop myself spending money but it was the closest place that was free to get in and would hold my attention for the three hours required. Although it didn't stop me spending money for long though as I am the proud owner of four more Osprey military history reference books. I had to physically drag myself away from the dvd section (which is quite hard to do) before I bought anything else... luckily they have an online shop. Work has been kind of hard to get back into as I said but it'll be back to being just plain old bored as soon as is feasibly possible. In the mean time here's some music for you. I recently watched the 'Ashes to ashes' series on my PS3 after I downloaded them all out of curiosity. I must say I've enjoyed it more than 'Life on Mars' possibly because of the music is better, possibly because I'm more of an eighties man than a seventies man (Drakkor Noir rather than Hai Karate), Possibly because I like the Audi Quattro even more than I did the Ford Cortina but more than likely it's to do with Keeley Hawes who... excuse me a moment.... Mmmmmmm Keeley Hawes, sorry about that, who is a fine actress. Anyway here's the music from the series. Sony BMG only put out the 25 track CD so I went and found the rest of them from the series (full list in comments) I even paid for some of them on iTunes, in the words of Charles Brown "Good grief!" Also I've uploaded Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine Straw Donkeys (The Best Of). Followed by The John Peel Show from 1986 with the Housemartins in session although they were billed as the 'Fish City Five' As soon as I find the tracks as individuals I'll post those too.

The
Fish
City
Five
On Peel (New Link 08/11/08)

Ashes
To
Ashes

Carter

Enjoy & let me know if you like the new layout. Right, Im off to drown out the sounds of explosions from Guy Fawkes' night by playing Brothers in Arms:Hell's Highway on the PS3. :)

2008-10-12T02:50:00.000-07:00

"The windows are open wide
Georgie Fame for those outside
And answering the call
Blue flames leap up the wall
Who would have thought it strange
That all of us would change"

There are many things that I've done during my holiday. I've caught up on a lot of movies, books and done a hell a lot of gaming, mainly playing Bad Company Demo it has to be said. But you can't say that sneaking around the objective to find the Russian artillery target finding device to use on wiping out a single soldier isn't fun. I've finally organised most of my albums into some sort of order and even put them into folders and sorted out iTunes to show album covers. I wrote a few bits too and as promised posted a bit more frequently on here. True I could have had a more productive time and maybe gone out and about a bit more if I'd had the money to do so but hey the lottery gods have yet to smile on me. I've also kicked Abbey Nazional into touch and joined, for better or worse, Lloyds TSB, all have to do now is finish wiping out my overdraft with the Nazi fuckers at the Abbey bank. It's a pity the artillery device from Bad Coy. doesn't work in real life or I'd be half way up Winton high street pointing it at their direction. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if it wasn't for them I'd have been debt free for an extra two and a half years ooh they make my blood boil not withstanding the fact that I'd recently nearly got sacked because of them. It's a pity that I didn't get the reimbursed bank charges just to rub their noses in it but there you go. As my landlord says I'd "only waste it on beer and Batman comics". Well the stuff I'd waste it on has changed a bit but the sentiment's correct. Let's just hope I come back from London on the 24th with the rent money ;)

Anyway here's the stuff you really came for rather than just to read my blatherings I've uploaded a recent ebay find of mine which I ripped to AVI for you. The Longest Day colourised version, enjoy. Also we've got Future Sound Of London - Environments 2 which is nice and restful, then we have Big Audio Dynamite live at the Brixton Academy from November 1986. Followed by UB40's Signing Off. See you next time.

Longest
BAD
FSOL 1
FSOL 2
UB40

2008-10-10T01:19:00.000-07:00

"They were making noise, manhandling toys
That's the girls on the block with the nasty curls
Wearing padded bras sucking beers through straws
Dropping down their drawers, where did you get yours?"

Well, the end of my holiday will be nigh when I go to London for the day. But I shall be going on pay day so it won't be all bad. (Incidentally for any Americans reading this that's London, England near France ;) ) A spot of Christmas shopping in Hamleys, Camden town and maybe a bit of going nuts with one of my new cameras in a museum or two. I was thinking Imperial war museum, National army museum or maybe even the British Museum. I was supposed to be going up with a mate or two from work but they just ummed and ahhed so I thought sod it I'll go on my own and then I can please myself where I go. Maybe this time I'll actually get to go up Primrose hill? It's about the only Madness related site that I haven't been despite having been as far as the Chalk Farm tube station on the cover of 'Absolutely'.. and taking a photo in a sad sad sad kind of fan boy way. I wouldn't mind going to Abbey Road studios if it's interesting (checks interweb) Oooh a web cam of the abbey road crossing... guess that's a no on the interesting part then? Anyway I'll probably buy a shedload of crap from Mega City comics, Forbidden planet etc. I used to love going to Carnaby st. But as the Jam? sung it's not as good as it used to be. I mean whoever heard of a Boots the chemist in the bloody street? I hope Sherry's are still there though as I prefer them to The Merc. I will however spend a couple of hours trawling through the markets of Camden town and no doubt buying a tacky souvenir maybe even two. From Oxford street although even that has succumbed to the innevitable encroachment of Sainsbury's, Tesco, Boots et al, never mind you know what they say? Nostalgia's not what it used to be.

On another note in recent days it's come to my attention that some readers are actually inspired and/or entertained by this humble little blog. A couple have even been inspired to start their own blogs which is good. Although I would hope that they copy the good bits and not all the depressed moaning bits of a couple of years ago. :) I'm not used to people thinking what I do is great and I thank those concerned from the heart of my bottom, for the compliments. I've added a couple of links to the right hand side of the page and the more astute of you will realise that I've removed the MySpace links. This is due to my being bored with the whole social networking thing and getting rid of my MySpace and FaceBook pages. And now after wading through all that old drivel ...the music.

Firstly I've updated an old tape I did back in 1996 of Pulp Live at Glastonbury the previous year. Then we have Paul Weller's Album Stanley Road from around the same time (albeit the remastered version with extra gubbings) and finally I've given you The Rutles by The Rutles.

Pulp
Paul
Weller
Rutles

Enjoy and See You Next Time

2008-09-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

"hey girls, hey boys, superstar DJs, here we go"

Call me a doubting Mike if you like but as I was shaving the other day I wondered if Jesus (if he ever existed, which he didn't) had in fact pulled off the world's first documented (made up in the world's first piece of fiction) insurance scam? Think about it, man 'dies' on cross (although he didn't because it's all made up), several days later the suspect (who didn't exist) was seen having a slap up meal with his mates (which also didn't happen because they were all made up too). It happens all the time, I myself have conned the insurance, although I drew the line at being crucified. Mine was a little lower on the scale and would not have resulted in a best selling science fiction book like the bible. All I did was take out some home contents insurance on my crappy stuff, make one payment for £12 and claim for a new radio cassette player costing £85 because the old one "fell out of the back of the car when I moved house" (which it didn't because it was all made up). All of that did happen and Jesus was guilty too (or would have been had he existed which he didnt). I then cancelled the insurance policy once they had paid up. Maybe this credit crunch (which sounds like a banker's breakfast cereal to me) is all my fault having snowballed from my 1989 insurance scam? It's possible, I mean look what happened (which it didn't) 2,000 years ago... yes that's right shortly after 'god' created the world and everything in it (except the dinosaurs) creationists, jesus (made up person) tells a lie to get a free nosh up in the the local kosher McDonald's with hs posse and the lie just grew from there. It all just got out of hand... funny the things you think of whilst shaving isn't it?
Anyway enough sacrilegious hoo hah (which is fine because it's all made up anyway... did we cover that? Here's the music firstly, The Beat - You Just Can't Beat It (Best of) then Dead Can Dance by Dead Can Dance followed by Lee Perry's Panic In Babylon.

Beat 1
Beat 2
Dead
Lee
Perry

See You Next Time

2008-09-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

"This is the happy house-we're happy here in the happy house
oh it's such fun We've come to play in the happy house and waste a day in the happy house-it never rains"

If I can just interrupt my ebaying of Madness records to say Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!! The douchebag in charge has been fired. Him and his ponytail have been ditched (finally) by the regional manager. So now we have a new air of freedom and we are making up for the lack of professionalism in the past few months. All I now have to do is resist the urge to get fired myself. Which is less and less likely thankfully due to the fact that our new boss is one I know from when I was being trained. The upside of the wanker being sacked is that I now have three weeks of October off paid holiday. This was due to the fact that previous incompetent pillock took so much time off that none of us could take any holiday. It'll be like being unemployed ... only better paid. Still at least I'll be able to do all my VHS conversions, my writing and loads of other stuff ... mind you I'll probably do none of these. I do want to go to London though providing I don't spend all of my money on Madness records that is. I only need a few more picture disks and then my credit card will be safe... until I find something else to collect. Christmas is coming and I don't think Santa considers me to have been naughty or nice so I'll decide for myself and get all the gadgets I want. Well it saves him a job and I look silly sat on his knee at 39.
In the past few weeks in Bournemouth we've had the UKIP and the Liberal Democrats in the B.I.C doing their utmost to considerably raise the temperature of the Earth with all the hot air they've been producing. I must say though that the UKIP lot even though they were all over seventy year old Nazis for the most part were a lot more chatty and friendlier than the Lib Dems. Ooooh what a bunch of miseries they are. I suppose it's because they know in their heart of hearts they know that no matter what they say they are never getting into power. Anyway here's the music for you. Careful as this one is so fresh it'll burn your hands so watch your fingers. I only converted it a couple of hours before posting this that's how fresh it is. Firstly we have Bad Manners' Gosh it's... which is a tape I meant to do ages ago and forgot, sorry then we have my recent 12" rips, of which there is a list in the comments as per usual.

12" 1
12" 2
Bad

Enjoy I'll try to broaden the musical spectrum for the next few posts, see you next time and please keep the comments coming. TTFN.

2008-08-24T08:52:00.000-07:00

"People call me villain oh its such a shame

Maybe its my clothes must be to blame
I don't even care if I look a mess
Don't wanna be a sucker like all the rest"

You know as I hurtle towards the second half of my life I'm becoming more reflective and I don't mean that I am slightly shinier than I was either. I've begun to think that I'm great which is true but also a complete turnaround from some years ago or even pretty recent history. Here I am possibly about to be fired for reasons that are beyond my control and none of my doing (both the manager and area managers are arseholes) and are just sucking the joy out of the job, but anyway I digress. I'm beginning to wonder what the hell I'm going to be doing with the rest of my life? I really can't see myself putting up with this Muppet at work without killing him. He really is harder to get rid of than dog shit off a Doctor Marten sole. I mean if any of the rest of us were 'lending ourselves' money from the tills we would be gotten shot of right away with possibly a ride home in a white car with a blue light on it. Then there's the fact that he's been trained twice in his probationary period and is still unable to do his job properly. I suppose the most annoying thing is the fact that they are making us take two half hour breaks at work rather than the full hour we recently used to do. I refuse to take them as I really am not going to get indigestion for anyone. Still, it's a good excuse to pop into the Chinese take away on the way home. I recently enjoyed about thirty five and a half minutes of the Bournemouth air show which lasted four days one of which was sunny. That was the one I went to after spending the first two days being annoyed at only seeing glimpses of the Red Arrows and/or the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight. I got photos of some vapour trails from the back yard of the shop (see photo below).

I did however get disappointed with my camera as I needed to get a longer lense and may spend my money on one ... if I don't spend it on several other things first. One of which being the VCR to USB from Ion so that I can get some better quality vhs rips. Which of course will be posted for you. Anyway here's the music for this post, firstly we have Bad Manners Fat Sounds, Bad Manners Skinhead and The Small Faces Best of.

Small
Fat
Skinhead

2008-08-08T07:35:00.000-07:00

"I don't care, when they stare, at the way that I'm always with you we're a pair, it's not fair when they say we're a special brew! woh woh woh woh ."

Well, here I am back from Norfolk with an empty wallet, extreme tiredness and germs caught from my Niece and Nephew. Still it was nice to actually get out and about and see the old crapholes again. Lots of ghosts of the past which no longer exists. The only problem I have with Norfolk is the fact that it's so far away and I have to travel for a minimum of four and a half hours to get there. Still, I went all sorts of places and spent my hardly earned spondoolicks. The funny thing was that due to all the car boot sales and shops I went to I ended up having to buy a new holdall to bring it all back (vinyl will be ripped for your delight asap). I travelled to Great Yarmouth which is somewhere I hadn't been for twenty years or so. It pretty much is the same as it ever was although if you try to walk on the pier you'll get wet as it burnt down or something (witchcraft according to the locals). Speaking of witchcraft I wasn't as I first thought burnt at the stake for having a PSP and laptop with me. Still I met up with and old friend or two, we had a good old chinwag about the past and maybe one day I'll go back, who knows? To Norfolk not the past. I must say that despite all my reservations about visiting the place I am looking forward to going back... My god I'm sicker than I thought. Mind you the last time I came back from holiday a week later I was out of work so I should be grateful I've only come away with flu this time. (Don't read this too close to the screen as I may get you ill). I did like my mates mobile home though in fact I wouldn't mind one myself and despite my reservations it didn't look like a Star Trek Shuttle pod after all... well not on the outside anyway ;)
Anyway enough old bollocks here's the music. Firstly I've uploaded The Brit Box which is the dogs bollocks as far as I'm concerned just look at the track listing in the comments. Also there's Connected/12"s 90's which has a great track listing too. That's it for now I'll upload a load of vinyl what I've been doing in the next post

Brit 1
Brit 2
Brit 3
Brit 4
Brit 5

90s 1
90s 2
90s 3
90s 4
90s 5

Enjoy

2008-06-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place
Where as a child I'd hide
And pray for the thunder
And the rain To quietly pass me by

Tank heavens or what I did on my day off.

So we all met up in the morning bleary eyed and excited, if only for not being at the shit shop for a day or two. I'd wandered around the Bournemouth gardens for an hour to practice with the camera I was lent. I tried getting pictures of the tame and friendly squirrels but was only witness to rats. After we trundled off at high velocity in the Seat Leon it began to get hotter and hotter. So much for the forecast rain. After a while of pretending to read the map we just followed the brown road signs and got real excited once we saw the gate guardian in Bovington camp. So we park in a field full of horse apples directed in like an aircraft by the Air Cadets, we were parked with military precision. No sooner had we got in we became instant experts me and Ben through many an hour played on all The Medal Of Honor games. Oooh look an StG44 ooh look an M1 ooh a .303 Lee Enfield with scope etc etc. Quite honestly if I'd had another couple of grand in my pocket I would have needed a van to get home what with all the stuff I drooled over. I was acquainted with an old friend whilst walking around the trade stalls, an old L1A1 7.62 FN Fal rifle, I'd forgotten how heavy the bloody thing was, no wonder I was so fit. Anyhoo as soon as the tanks came on we were engrossed all of us stood there taking pictures, video and HD video. I must say that mine came out better than Chris' stuff anyway, this being the hottest day in a while and it also being relatively close to Salisbury plain we were covered in no time at all a fine layer of orange clay dust, cameras et al. What with the smell of petrol, diesel and cordite we must have stunk by the end of the day. There was actually too much to do in one day especially at my speed. I'll have to go back with more money a rucksack or possibly a van. By the end of the day with not a cloud in the sky all day we were a tad burnt, Chris more than most. I still don't know how we got lost on the way out though. Somehow we'd gone wrong , the first clue being the bus with Exeter written on the front, the second the fact that we were going towards the sun rather than away and the final clue was the sea was on the wrong side of us. So we turned about and after a while we managed to find out where we were... by the time we got to the outskirts of Poole at least. Still it all made a nice change from serving numpties and working for a manager who is an incompetant arsehole still twenty quid for three bottles of drink, two burgers and chips and one hotdog? They saw us coming. Also what idiot at the Dorset Echo decided what the goodie bags really needed on a fucking hot day was some chocolate cup cakes and a chocolate truffle? Dammit, I really wanted my old rifle.... I would promise not to reactivate it and take it to work. Ennywho jus' tuh let yu kno oim garn tah Norfuk tuh see muh sistuh, entit? At thu end or thu munth oim looken ford tuit teh tell yuh thu trooth, arn as yuh cun tell oi've bin lurnen a noo way a torkin suzz thet oi dunt stand oot loik a toorst. Oim looken fard to seein moi little neice an neffew arter a long toime so oi spect oil jus spoilum.
I expect I'll get emails from the locals complaining that the magic box what does the interweb is taking the piss but what the hell? Ahead and damn the torpedoes. Although I hope that this time I come back from Norfolk I don't end up being pushed out of my job by some arsehole in charge. It's happened before it'll happen again. Here's the music for you, we have The Beatles - 1, The Stones - 40 Licks, The Who Quadrophenia (remastered) and Prince - 1999.

Beatles
Beatles
Stones
Stones
Stones
Who
Prince
Prince

Enjoy.

2008-06-24T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Some nights I still sleep on the beach.
Remember when stars were in reach.
Then I wander in early to work,
Spend the day licking boots for my perks."

I've made myself have a night off from watching every single doctor who ever ... sad bastard. Hence the T.A.R.D.I.S at the top of the page. Anyway I've decided , if there was any doubt left, that my brain hates me. There I was just ambling along in my life enjoying my job and liking at least two of my colleagues at work. Meandering my way along through life not caring a jot about being single with little or no prospects of getting the old 2.4 dogs with a semi detached wife and children with a shiny coat and wet nose or whatever it is. All of a sudden my brain says "yeah you are" and makes me dream of 'the knees' in the first she's glaring at me in the corner of a pub whilst I walk past to some of my oldest friends and say "what's the bloody point?" in the second I go past a place near here and where I used to work and she's glaring at me as I drive past in that one she's all preggers etc. I can't actually drive so I assume I was a passenger but anyway cue being depressed for a few days. The third dream wasn't too bad though as I was in Icelands and I walked past ther but was more interested in the Fruit fill Weetabix as if that'd be true. I'm over it now (until I go to sleep and my nasty brain wot doesn't like me decides otherwise) I'm just looking forward to the Tank Day on Saturday 28th June (Link) I'm going with two friends from work who were interested, also it leaves a dilemma at the shop as that day there are no managers to open. One is coming with me to look at big metal things designed to kill people and eat hot dogs. We will eat the hot dogs because, as far as I'm aware, there are no big metal machines designed to kill people and eat hot dogs ... I hope I clarified that? The other decided with two minutes notice that he was due a weeks holiday and promptly took one and the arse sistant manger is off wearing his knees out at the church that day, waste of fucking time but there you go. Still I'll be bouncing around like a sugar fed two year old at all the military hardware on show so basically if you are coming to the Bournemouth branch of Maplin on Saturday 28th of June ... erm don't. I'm trying to convince the other two fellow tank enthusiasts to try and find German first world war or second world war helmets and wear them at work the following day whilst serving cuntstomers but we'll see.

Anyway here's a shed load of vinyl as promised to you upsetter fans, with a full tracklisting in the comments file.

1
2
3

2008-05-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

"He started out walking
Never looked back
It was too much pain
Between Glasgow and London
One hot summer he forgot his name."

Well after some long swear words and a lot of fist waving at the PC in an inert rage at an inanimate object as is my wont I've now managed to go wireless. Thanks to the bearded toothless one (My Landlord) who was like a dog with a bone until he got it right. I'd pretty much gotten to the stage of "I'm telling AOL to go fuck themselves and their mothers are all whores etc etc" until I decided to take it out on the Germans in Medal Of Honor:Airborne on the PS3. Still as I was offline for a week it meant I got to do three more levels. It is the greatest game ever and will no doubt mean I will be uncommunicative to anyone in the same room as me whilst playing. (This was in fact proved to be the case when my landlord came in to ask if I want a new cuppa having not noticed that he'd put one down besides my armchair two and a half hours previous.) It's a pity I can't take it to work then I'd have an excuse for not talking to the cunstomers. The main worry I had when I went back online was I'd lost the torrents of the Doctor Who episodes I've been doing for weeks now (200 plus gb) but luckily I'd manged to save them elsewhere. So far I did a reinstall of a validated copy of windows XP (the first genuine copy I've had since the first six months after I bought the PC), added a new extra hard drive and an extra external one (the pleasures of staff discount at Maplin). For the first time in my life, (and possibly last), I'm about to buy 2 gb of ram from a friend at work for the princely sum of a burger king meal, albeit a triple whopper with extra chips but a bargain nonetheless. My god I'm a nerd, eep!!! I need a job that will end my nerd-dom, ...tooo ... many ... gadgets ... in ... stock ... not enough ... money!!!!! Must ... resist... temptation...Arggh! Actually, we were all discussing Star Trek at work the other morning so we are nerds!!!!!! Still, as I sit here with My , PC, PSP and PS3 all online wirelessly and with the new improved and repaired phoneline installed I'm quite happy... I could do with getting laid 'tis true but then who couldn't? I'm not quite so worried about all that though so long as I can shoot thing on a games console it stops me thinking about it... for a while... also saves on tissues. I can also wander around the house listening to Radio Nigel if you like the kind of stuff I post on here then you'll like the playlist on there.

Any hoo. Here's the music I've posted three recent requested reups. Firstly The Housemartins' London 0 Hull 4 and The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death and then The Specials BBC Sessions. Next time there'll be a shed load of vinyl that I've converted. It would have been this time but between playing MoH:Airborne and downloading every single Doctor Who ever I kind of got distracted. Also I'll try to post more frequent than i have been doing, sorry Upsetter fans.

Hull
Grinned
Spesh Sesh

Enjoy

2008-04-18T12:26:00.001-07:00

" It's time to relax, now you've worked your arse off
But the only one smilin' is the sun tanned boss
Work and work and work and work till you die There's plenty more fish in the sea to fry"
I'm now at that stage in my life where I see kid's fashion and think "That just looks shit." The ones that really make me laugh are the 'emo' kids, whatever the hell an 'emo' is I dunno and more to the point I don't care, but I digress. They have all the dress sense of a Japanese housewife crossed with a manga character and a slightly gay goth in a sort of bizarre Jeff Goldblum in 'The Fly' transporter accident. Some of them are truly bizarre, like they were halfway through a haircut suddenly remembered a life or death appointment and crashed the car into a jumble sale on the way home. Other people that piss me off are the ones that have the waistband of their trousers under the bumcakes. Get a fucking belt people. I don't want to see a crack of some blokes arse when I turn a corner in my shop just because you want to see something on the bottom shelf, we have somewhere to park our bikes. I keep wanting to go up to them and hoist their trousers up and say in a stern manner "You dress properly young man or I shall have words with your mother" Whilst wagging my finger at them. There was a girl the other day looking at the batteries with about six inches of bum crack showing, I nearly played 'arse cake darts' with my pen but thought better of it. And to think that 100 years ago you were considered a slut if you showed too much ankle. I used to despise the 'chavs' around the area, what with their pastel coloured baseball caps perched on the back of their heads, with the hem of the tracksuit tucked into the white sports socks but now I just laugh at them with their ugly dogs, also the animals they hang around with. Mind you I suppose some thought has gone into the outfit as it's ideal for the purpose it was designed for, running away from the police/shop security. I get to carry the security radio around with me all day at work (joy) and it can get quite exciting at times, just like some radio drama. If it's not chavs it's big issue sellers being watched and followed all day. Bournemouth for some unknown reason seems to be inundated with Big Issue vendors at the moment. None of them have seen soap for a while, which beggars the question why try to convince me that you are trying to decide whether to purchase the portable dvd player for £100 or not? Personally I follow them around like a cleaner version of their own shadow until they take the hint and fuck off. I mean if you have £100 to spare, (which I doubt), Then try walking down the hill to superdrug spend £20 on soap and such and use the other £80 on maybe the first step in sorting your life out? Just a thought (a surprisingly right wing thought... for me anyway). Instead you waste my time in making me follow you around so that I can't serve other customers you know the ones that had a bath this side of oooh let's be generous and say Christmas. I'm certain that if they had been around Hitler would have added Big Issue sellers to his 'Shit list'....Hmmmm there is an empty shop across the road from us. I wonder if the Prince Of Wales Trust would give me a grant in setting up a gas chamber? Maybe not but I'm pretty certain the Duke of Edinburgh would fork out from his own pocket.

Anyway enough middle aged (sigh) rantings here's the music. Firstly I've upped a shedload of my latest vinyl rips (list in comments) and I've posted a couple of great albums firstly Legalize It by Peter Tosh and David Bowie's Heroes.

Vinyl
Vinyl
Tosh
Heroes

P.S. Sorry for the lengthy delay.... I now have a PS3. With you've guessed it Star Wars Lego on it....well it does have extra levels and characters... and a PSP with Medal Of Honor Heroes 2 on it so I'm pretty muched fuck as far as social contact goes.

2008-04-08T12:31:00.001-07:00

"There`s been a brainwave at the radio station
Old idea from the woodstock generation
Calling all the kids from across the nation
In some it brings out love in others termination"
My current gaming cv consists of my having completed every Medal of Honor in the series apart from Airborne and that only being because I haven't got a 360 yet. I've just blown many a pixelated nazi away in Vanguard including the last level which was so hectic I don't honestly believe I wasn't breathing for at least three minutes. I'm currently engaged in battle upon my psp at work which mainly results in swearing and cheese toasty fingerprints all over the controls, but what the hell? It's what stealing the alcohol swabs from work is all about. Mind you when we come to want to remove the security tags from the products the swabs seem to inadvertantly disappeared.
When not shooting sprite based nazis I'm to be found in a lego galaxy far, far away... I have now finished Lego Star Wars 2 on PSP (Surely the greatest thing to hold in your hands since the invention of breasts?)... , PS2 and PC... because I'm sad. I did try to get it on my mobile phone but it's so old that it would probably result in it breaking like and elderly man having a stroke on a hot day. Anyway I forget why I started this particular post as I sit here resplendent in my Lego Star Wars "I Am The Master" t shirt & supping PG Tea from my clone trooper mug. I found myself all 'a tingle' in a sad fan boy stylee for the new star wars clone wars CGI series coming up. Basically it's going to be Episode 2.5. It's looking good if the trailer on Star Wars.com is anything to go by... I wonder if this is the reason my equally star wars fanatical fan boy nephew, Ryan, froze his mother's computer recently? Anyway I'm hoping that it'll show why Anakin decided to go over to the darkside more than he just had a bad dream and a tizzy with Obi Wan? I mean it's a wonder, if that's the reason, why I never went over to the darkside after Wilkinsons'? Or did I? I do dress in black a lot and wish I had the ability to crush people's throats with a gesture of my hand... I'm hoping that there will be a gory scene of the massacre of Jar Jar Binks' people (The Gungans) hinted at in the Clone Wars comics, we can only hope. (See? Dark Side!!!)
It's my birthday on the 17th so I'm hoping that life begins at thirty nine and not forty like the expression says as I'm getting bored with waiting. God... 39 now that's depressing. Right I'm off before I get into a fugg I can't get out of.

Here's the music Big Audio Dynamite albums, This Is B.A.D, No. 10 Upping St. and Megatop Phoenix. There'll be some more vinyl by my next post for the fans of that kind of thing.

Megatop
Upping 1
Upping 2
This Is

2008-02-25T12:23:00.001-08:00

"Oh, We're heading for Venus (Venus) and still we stand tall, 'cause maybe they've seen us and welcome us all, yeah with so many light years to go and things to be found (to be found) I'm sure that we'll all miss her so It's the final countdown."

Well, it's finally happened the twentieth century has reached the furthest, darkest regions of North Norfolk just in time for the twenty first. Yes, my sister has finally given into the temptations of the interweb and gone and been and got herself connected... so no more disparaging remarks with regards to Norfolk. I will try and quickly delete any comments alluding to the retarded nature of her fellow Norfolkonians although literacy and electricity are yet to become widespread amongst the populace so I'm ok for now until I return to visit her & the kids in the summer when my ritual burning at the stake will commence. I shall, when apporoached by the screaming masses pull out my brand new PSP and I shall be worshipped as a god amongst 'tards. People will bow down before me as if I were Moses returning with two tablets of commandments from god. Ooh that's an idea maybe I could make my own commandments?

Commandment 1, Thou shalt not worship Robbie Williams for he is untalented.
Commandment 2, Noel Edmonds shall be buried with ants and a jar of honey smearedeth about his person.
Commandment 3, Thou shalt not worketh on a sunday, but putteth thine feet up for a bit whilst watching 'Time Team' with a niceth cup of tea.
Commandment 4, Any tv executives that maketh a programme with 'dancing', 'ice' or 'celebrity' in the title may be set upon by rabid guinea pigs-eth.
Commandment 5, At some time in the future, whenever convenient for her, Sarah Silverman must layeth down with our lord Mike... and not complaineth when he falls asleep upon her bosom nor when he awakes with a nipple imprint upon his cheek.
Commandment 6, ...Or Hilary Swank...
Commandment 7, The elderly must not smell of wee.
Commandment 8, All naturists must actually looketh like the ones in my head and not like the ones who resemble a badly stuffed bag of spanners.
Commandment 9, All women must not wish themselves dead when I witter on about world war two, cartoons or star wars... Or ask them out.
Commandment 10, All religion to be abolished... apart from this one obviously.
Commandment 11, Everyone is to tell me how great I am-eth.

The gospel from the book of Kevin

In the beginning there was the dark and Mike said "somebody switch on the light". And somebody switched on the light, but not before closing the curtains, think of what the neighbours might sayeth. And Lo! God created man and as he had a bit less clay than he needed and the shops were shut what with it being easter bank holiday weekend god used half a tub of Helman's mayonnaise. God said "Behold for I have created man and he shall be called Mike". And so Mike roamed the Bournemouth Pleasure gardens of paradise (in the nuddy) and Mike was unhappy (and cold). God asked "Why art thou unhappy?" "I am alone in this world god and am a bit bored." Mike answered "Does it really have to be 2 billion years before they invent the Playstation o Lord?" "Yes it does but stand back and watch this shit" said god for he was nicely toasted as he often was therefore explaining the animals of Australia. God reacheth down and took one of Mike's ribs (for he had had take out delivered), "that's not much of a trick" sayeth Mike unto god "you just nicked my dinner and you didn't pay for your garlic bread." God wasn't listening (as usual) but with a flash and a mighty hey presto God created woman. And it was good. As Mike stood in the nuddy before god's newest creation a woman not unlike Hilary Swank in the naughty naked nude (as she often is in my head) he looketh her up and down as he noticed a stirring in his loins. He looked Hilary in the eye and said "You'd better stand back I don't know how big this thing gets."

As my regular viewers will no doubt remember I'm calling my new religion 'I Can't Believe It's Not Buddha.'
Here's your music for your listening pleasure. Firstly we have a load of my recent twelve inch buys, some of which are repeated because the new set up I got before Christmas gives a better sound quality, especially if you've got 5.1 surround sound on your PC like wot I does. Then I've got the latest NME classics album (track listing in the comments) and a load of Ska (again track listing in the comments). Ttfn and see you anon black dog allowing.
Ska 1
Ska 2
NME 1
NME 2
NME 3
12" 1
12" 2

Enjoy the rest of the Easter Weekend

2008-02-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

"Stop me, oh, stop me Stop me if you think that you've Heard this one before Stop me, oh, stop me Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before Nothing's changed I still love you, oh, I still love you ...Only slightly, only slightly less than I used to, my love"

Well, I've been away for a bit, from my blog at least. No real reason I just felt like a bit of a break mainly I couldn't think of anything to write (as ever) but, also for the reasons of the usual black dog and trying out my new gadgets that I keep buying from ebay and Maplin (good old staff discount). I'm still there despite my best efforts, it's a bit better because the manager has left along with a couple of others they were fine it was the manager we were glad to see the back of. Anyway I'm here now, what've you been doing? Oh Really? How nice anyway enough about you get your own damn blog!!! Let's have more about me. Life has improved since my buying of a two slice sandwich toaster, we all get the toastie fever which, for once, is not an illness caught from some disgusting customer, and there are so many. Still, it's all material for the old books. Ooh, I've just read the latest Douglas Coupland book (The Gum Thief) and I must say that it was about several employees who work in a 'Staples' and are totally dissatisfied with their lot in life. It struck so much of a chord with all of us there at Maplin that I was tempted to buy everyone a copy. Also I have now watched the first eight episodes of jPod the tv series and I can say I'm more than impressed. It's actually betterer than I thought it would be. I've warmed to the characters or rather the actors playing the characters even the one who looks like the idiot out of CBBC's Dick & Dom whom I want to thump heartily just because he's a dick although I'm not sure if he's called Dick or Dom so I'll just go by sight. But anyway I can recommend the show despite my reservations at the start. I tried to broaden my reading recently by trying to read some Oscar Wilde.... It's not often that I won't finish a book but there you go. Well bloody Morrissey has been wibbling on about him for years, amongst others so I thought why not? I'll tell you why not, bloody boring upper class pillocks do things and say terribly terribly 'witty' things to one another. I may be an inverted snob but what the hell, I find little interest in the comings and goings of victorian society. Although I have read some shakespeare so I'm not your usual shop worker, for whom a book is a thicker version of TVChoice. I keep seeing people I don't want to see and not the ones I do life's a cunt... as I believe Rene Dustcart said.

Anyway here's some music for you to enjoy, whilst I shut up. Madness' Absolutely and Seven and The Smiths bootleg 'Asleep' and the album 'Strangeways here we come'.
Madness - Absolutely
Madness - 7
The Smiths - Asleep
The Smiths - Strangeways here we come

2008-02-10T01:36:00.000-08:00

Camden Markets destroyed by fire

Full story here

2008-01-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

"We're so incredibly, utterly devious
Making the most of everything.
Even bottles and tins.
Pick up the pieces and make them into something new,
Is what we do!"

Hmmm, it seems that it's come around to another payday and I'm spending loads on ebay by buying lots of vinyl (how unusual I know). I'm also the proud owner of a TEAC cassette deck which I've plumbed into the USB turntable to allow me to finally start getting rid of all my cassettes (woo hoo). That was another ebay purchase. Sometimes I feel that I'm keeping them in business you know? Also I may have formulated the theory that all the crap tv is my fault along with several others, going on my equation that 'if you are doing or thinking something then someone, somewhere is doing or thinking exactly the same thing'. I've been filling out an online survey for British tv and radio in the hope of winning money. You may scoff but I already got £20 in Amazon vouchers, so there. The reason though that I believe that I and possibly many others have screwed up the tv schedules with celebrity dancing and list shows is that I just make shit up when filling out the forms. I don't watch the tv a great deal, in fact now that Top Gear is off the air I hardly watch any broadcast stuff at all apart from the occasional repeat of QI on Dave tv. Unless of course you read my survey answers. In which case you'd see that I'd be sat in front of the tv even when at work, sometimes watching two channels at once. Even with channels I can't receive I enjoy the programmes immensely... apparently. Well, what with watching politicians all these years I thought I'd try to earn some money by being dishonest too.
I learned this week that they are now broadcasting a show based on my recent favourite book, jPod by Sir Douglas of Coupland. I downloaded the first two episodes but I don't know if I'll enjoy it or just be disappointed in it. The actors are just the usual vanilla types you get in all these things and are in no way how I imagined them in the book. Still Sir Douglas is involved with the show so who am I to argue? The pod itself seems to have been designed by the set designer from all those CSI type shows. IE it looks nothing like a place really should but looks really good on TV. All in all the fact that I only watch three or four programmes on tv at the moment makes me wonder if I really need to save up for the 46" plasma I've recently fallen in love with or not? But then I think of My Name Is Earl and what would the world be if I couldn't enjoy a 46" wide image Jaime Pressly? Today's music (which is what you came for after all as you sit there like greedy relatives a will reading waiting for your name to be read out only to find it's all gone to the cat's home as your dead uncle didn't like you after all) .... and breath in.... is Man...Or Astro-man? Your Weight On The Moon, Various Artists - Ragga House, Stewie Griffin - Stewie's Sexy Party video and last but by no means least Madness - One Step Beyond...

Ragga
Man
OSB ...
Stewie

2008-01-06T13:35:00.000-08:00

"Oh yes conscience and all of that stuff
We'll sort that out later you've time enough
Right now you must realise that not much is fair
When you hunt with the hounds now you run with the hare"

Happy Nude Rear everybody

With regards to my still trying (and sometimes failing miserably... literally) to see the positive side in everything. I've now decided that bing single is okay and although I have no bosoms to fondle at night except my own, I can however break wind with impunity (and do). Without a care in the world an 'under leg noise' not unlike a 1974 Harley Davidson starting up in my undergarments would issue forth but, if I were in a 'relationship' I would no doubt be asked the question "Did you have to do that?" Well I think it would be quite patently obvious that I did otherwise I would be inflating over the years until I was foating along the living room ceiling near the light like some discarded balloon at a children's party.
Furthermore my positiveness (new found) has lead me to have little or no altercations with Numpties getting in my way in the high street this Christmas. I have even burned and played a Christ-a-mas song cd (with all the negative or rude ones taken out). Just ask my mate Jimmy who tried to get me to to do the same when I worked on nights with him at Wankinson's. At times it was like trying to get an extremely determined cat into a pet carrier... it weren't gonna happen. I was going to play it at work, which is why I took out the rude punk ones. It's hard to carry USB turntables etc to the tills with piles of shocked urine ingrained old ladies' carcasses everywhere. I even wore ... a christmas hat and have been seen and heard to wish people a "Nice Christmas". Although it has to be said that I couldn't quite bring myself to be "upbeat" enough to say the word "Merry" aaaaand okay my hat did say "Bah! Humbug" on it but, you know it's a start in the right direction. Let's face it last year I wrote "Bah! Humbug" on my world famous window and would have glady ripped the throat out with my bare hands of any carol singers let alone Christmas well wishers.
My two new year's resolutions are

1, Finish a writing project.
2, Don't make any New Year's resolutions
3, learn to count when making lists

Recently I served a customer in my shop who came from Coltishall in Norfolk. A place I know all to well. I spent many a long cold grey summer's day there back in '85 and have many people I know associated with the place. I asked him if he were there to drag me back as there would be kicking and /or screaming and not all of it coming from me. He assured me that he wasn't and bought a remote control helicopter and left. I wishI could leave too but I'm stuck there at least for the foreseeable.
How did you spend your New Year's eve? Me? Well on the stroke of midnight I was having a dump. There were thundering noises and loud reports and then the fireworks started so it drowned me out. I began to feel a little alone & went to bed. Perhaps it's not so okay being single after all.

Anyway enough mad witterings here's the download for you a dvd rip of Madness' Take it or leave it (avi) and an old album that I have been looking for for ages. Ska Beats Vol. 1 I had this and played it to death when I was in the Army. In fact it's this one and De La Soul's 3 feet high and rising that I used to play on my walkman whilst shooting my rifle from a slit trench. So if anyone has these with rifle and artillery fire noises over the top then I would love to relive old memories. :) Also if anyone wants me to email them when I update from now on drop me an email marked 'add me' and I'll put you in the mailing list.

Madness 1
Madness 2
Madness 3
Madness 4
Madness 5
Madness 6
Madness 7
Madness 8
Ska beats 1

2007-12-25T07:21:00.001-08:00

A Merry Christmas to all my readers:

What I got:
Freaky Flyers (PS2)
R-Type Final (PS2)
Band Of Brothers box set
Hyperdrive Box set
Alien Quadrilogy Box set
Hot Fuzz dvd
Alexei Sayle's Stuff dvds
Long way round dvd
Lot's of chocolate, biscuits and crisps
Aftershave
Socks and some nice jumpers and fleeces.

So not a bad little haul I say. Even my Christmas gifts from my Maplin store weren't bad.
Mini r/c Helicopter that you can't buy for love nor money,
Maplin playing cards that you wouldn't want for love nor money,
A Seagate note pad,
An AMD teeshirt,
A tin of biscuits,
A packet of Roses, (Chocolates for those of you who aren't aware),
A large bottle of Beck's Bier (given away as I'm teetotal and boring),
A Tom Tom mobile phone lanyard. I did get the feeling that it was mostly lifted out of the promo packs from stock but hey, last year at Wankinson's I only got a 99p Milky Way selection pack from stock. Also they were buy one get one free and I only got one. I was so impressed that i gave it away immediately. Still water under the bridge, where, if I had my way, the former manager would be hanging. I say former because he was promoted but then we all know that shit floats.

Right I'm off to digest my enormous meal wot I cooked and kill lots of things on Blitzkrieg. I'm feeling a bit like Mr Creosote at the moment.

Happy Christmas

Dance Craze 1
Dance Craze 2
Dance Craze 3
Dance Craze 4
Dance Craze 5
Dance Craze 6
Dance Craze 7
Dance Craze 8

2007-12-14T14:56:00.000-08:00

"Simple though love is, still it confused me. Why I'm not loved the way I should be, now I've lived with heartaches and I've roomed with fear. I've dealt with despair and I've wrestled with tears."

This is my christmas list
Okay, so this time last yearI was as miserable as sin, you may have noticed as such. This was due to many reasons which would make an excellent soap opera storyline. But all in all I'm glad that I didn't chuck myselff of the cliffs on the Eastcliff overdrive or under a yellow bus. I'm alive (barely) I'm better off (once relative's and the baby jesus' birthdays are out of the way) & I've got some nice new bright shiny objects which I've bought myself (I deserve them for putting up with me), I'm down to my last few friends, this being due to them dropping off like a leper's fingernails (You know who you are). So I'm not going out with the woman of my dreams (whom I considered the most beautiful woman in the world... despite the accent), and yes I've lost the urge to bomb Blackburn. True it was mainly because I couldn't afford a B-52, I mean you try to hire a long range bomber and loading it with HE laser guided bombs they tend to frown upon such behavior. Mind you with my budget being tight around christmas I'd be lucky to get an hang glider and a bucket of rocks. Anyway, onwards and upwards it's soon going to be a new year and I'm optimistic about it being better than ever. Yes yes I know I said that before and look what happened it went tits up and not in the good way that would have left me bandy legged and smiling for a week either. No this time I'm reaaaaaallllly optimistic for the coming year ....fingers crossed. Yes every woman I see that vaguely resembles, has a hair-do or wears a similar coat to the woman who broke my heart makes me think of how it could have been all oh so different. Still water under the bridge, time heals all wounds and plenty more fish etc etc. I'm getting better and I look at it this way I could have been married to Heather 'Hopalong' Mills I suppose?

Here's the music we have A bumper Christmas bonanza this week. Firstly there's The Big Stiff boxset, also The Beat - Wha'ppen? for you. And I just found a couple of Madness live shows on a torrent site in wmv format so as it's Christmas....

Stiff 1
Stiff 2
Stiff 3
Stiff 4
Stiff 5
Wha'ppen?

Madness Wrexham
Madness - KROQ

Merry Christmas. Next post will have Dance Craze in avi format.

2007-12-05T14:37:00.000-08:00

"Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits. Raised on a diet of broken biscuits, oh we don't look the same as you, we don't do the things you do, but we live around here too, Oh really".Wednesday and the rest of the week is all downhill from here. That is to say only two more days of working with pillocks who wouldn't know good customer service if I jumped up and smacked them in the face (which is increasingly likely). So far this week I've had old ladies ask me for 'electric lighbulbs', (as opposed to all other types of lightbulbs I suppose?) and the obligatory person who asks "Does this buy one get one free ticket mean if I buy one I get one free?" These are the 'tards I thought I'd left over the other side of the town, but obviously they are everywhere....RUN FOR THE HILLS.
Anyway I've got a long weekend coming up which means Tuesday is going to be hard to go back to work. The weekend I'm going to check out a poster I see from my bus advertising a position nearer to home. This would save the aggrovation of dealing with nutters in the town centre. Like tonight the following happened whilst waiting for the buse(s) to turn up or not if they feel like it. A bloke gets off the 13 bus carrying a beer can (nothing unusual in that nowadays I'm afraid) but I notice that he has a slight one and a half inch gash on his head with semi dried blood on it. He shows the bus driver before he gets off then the person in front of me the gash, he seems proud of it. Then it's my turn.
Him:" 'ere mate check this out" (slurred words) "Tha's not right is it?"
Me: "you ought to get that checked out mate" feigning concern but really I'm trying to avoid getting blood on my coat or good trousers.
Him: "Naw it's fine" Whilst pouring with blood. "Check it out, that's not right is it?"
For a moment I thought I was trapped in a temporal time loop but then as he wandered off as far as the person in the queue behind me I realised that maybe it was the head injury and/or drink that was making him the one trapped in the temporal time loop. The person behind him got the same conversation... and the next ... and the next until all twenty had been shown his gash. The bus pulled away leaving him talking at two young kids who suddenly wished that they'd come to do Christmas shopping another day.
It's not what you need after a hard days putting up with immaturity, I just put my earphones back in and carried on listening to classic motown in the rain, still on the bright side I got home to find my new copy of Get Carter by Ted Lewis had arrived from ebay along with a £50 gift voucher from Lovefilm.com, so it's the rough with the smooth I think.

Right, here's the music we've got acompilation close to my heart called Bollocks to Christmas wot I found about the place and Madness live from the Bournemouth Stateside rooms (wherever they were) 16th Dec 1979 which I found for you. When I used to do the old glue and newsprint in the thumb Upsetter fanzine I used to get a review copy of 'Bollocks to christmas' every year from Dojo records. Enjoy.

Madness
Bollocks

Oh and before I go I have just bought (yet another) xmas present for myself of the Big Stiff box set (here) which I will share next time (providing I remember).