My Incredibly Boring Veiws and Life Written Down

REFLECTIONS ON THE AV REFERNDUM AND MY SUDDEN PANG OF SYMPATHY FOR THE LIB DEMS!

2011-05-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

I’m currently watching the election results on TV. The Lib Dems are getting a thrashing, it seems that they are being systematically wiped from every council up and down the land. There are Liberal Democrat MPs are sitting across from David Dimbleby looking glum. Is this a good thing? Well, we all know the arguments for hating the Lib Dems, they have let a generation of voters down, well the members of the government have and the MPs in Parliament have. So should the councillors, who, I’ve heard are generally quite nice, do good work and still try to implement traditional Lib Dem polices get punished? What I’m saying is, that I’m all for giving the Lib Dems a kicking, but this is a massive kicking which will harm the Lib Dems, but not, directly at least, the Lib Dems in parliament. Tonight’s results show that people blame the Lib Dems for the appalling decisions which are currently being made in government, but the party who should really be blamed, the party who are really behind these savage cuts are the Tories. The Lib Dems, should have asserted their authority in the coalition early on, dug their heels in instead of being swept away by the Conservatives and the novelty of being in power, at the very least they should have showed that they were fighting to get their views across instead of bending over and taking the metaphorical cock of the Conservatives up their collective, metaphorical arse.

If they lose the referendum and the chance for electoral reform (which I think is almost certain, unless God himself comes out in favour of AV and overturns the result) they will have nothing to show for their time in government except the fact that most people in the country hate them. But what can they do? They are trapped in a loveless, abusive marriage. If they get out now, take a stand and leave the coalition, it wouldn’t matter, the damage has already been done. The Conservatives would probably call an election, they have far more money than Labour or Lib Dems, so would get back into power with a comfortable majority, because any anger at the government seems to be being directed at the Lib Dems, and David Cameron and co would have a free hand at ruining the country.

I’m not going to vote Lib Dem at the next election, but then again I don’t want the Liberal Democrats to be kicked so hard by the voters that they fall into the annals of history. Because at their heart they are a great party. They preach things that I agree with (or at least they used to, and I know they still want to, they are uncomfortable when defending decisions they’ve made in government.) They stood up for Liberal values when they needed to be stood up for, we need a strong Liberal voice in this country. However, in the next election they need to ditch Clegg, he’s toxic waste, he is the political equivalent to leprosy, everything he touches turns to shit. Including the AV referendum.

Although I want to remain optimistic, it looks like the British public has shown its stupidity again, only a week after getting completely distracted by gawping at bright colours and shiny things in the guise of the Royal Wedding . They again managed to look like fools by turning down a chance to finally change our rotten electoral system which is ancient and has given us minority governments for years. Now I’m not going to go in the arguments again, it’s too late, and I’ve been doing it for months. But you didn’t listen, did you?

Both campaigns were poor, the YES! Campaign was well intentioned, but was executed wrong. Focusing too much on MP’s expenses rather than explaining the benefits of AV, they had lots of celebrity endorsement from people whom the public trusted, they should have played up to that, because that’s what people want nowadays, shit to be explained to them by famous people. They put on some good events but it felt like they didn’t reach the people they should have, preaching to the converted and all that. Also we must admire that they managed to keep their heads held high whilst facing an barrage of abuse, smears, personal attacks and downright lies from the, much more well-funded NO! campaign, they should have really torn them apart, threatened legal action, complained to the electoral commission etc.

The NO2AV campaign should be ashamed of themselves for the way they behaved, and this isn’t sour grapes, I said it throughout the campaign, they openly lied (David Blunkett admitted it http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/05/campaign-figure-blunkett) and used dirty, underhand tactics. But they won’t be ashamed, because the people who block change are heartless evil shits.

So yeah, thanks ‘the public’, thanks, I am someone who is passionate about politics, I am always absorbed by politics, especially during elections. I have no allegiance to one political party, so I always make an informed judgement. But now each election I’ll vote in I will not have any effect on the result, local or national, my vote will be wasted, my voice won’t be heard. This was the one chance to change things and you blew it, I hope you’re proud Britain…you twats.

We lost the vote, but we didn’t lose the argument. Every one of the NO! campaigns arguments I could shoot down, they had no good arguments, but they did have money, so could reach people the YES! Campaign couldn’t and if I could I would have gone to every door and just explained to people the benefits, but alas I can’t and I didn’t. I, like many other people, will continue to campaign for electoral reform, we do need it despite what old people, the uninformed and the brainwashed think.

I think I’ll end this comment with a quote from a man I rang up whilst campaigning for the YES! Vote. He said “I want STV, we won’t win, it’s probably rigged, I’ll go out and vote but there’s no point, this country is run by arseholes. If there’s a ‘NO’ vote I’ll leave this country, because this country is a shit hole.” Well, sir I wish I could join you, and I tend to agree with you. STV would be great, this country is a shithole and is ran by arseholes and now we won’t get a chance to change that. We could have been run by arseholes who were elected more fairly, but instead we are still ruled by arseholes elected on a minority vote.

Touch My Chin, Anthony Eden Commentry

2010-08-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

Hi, so The Atomic Penguins have just finished their third album! And we’re joining the likes of Harvey Danger, Mikrofisch and The Crimea by giving it away for free over the internet, mainly because most of you refuse to pay for our music and we’re anti-capitalist, so it made sense. So I thought that I (Nathan) will give a commentary of all the songs, just to you know, flatter my ego and give you some sort of insight into the songs, if you feel you needed some...

DOWNLOAD IT HERE

Firstly the title of the album, ‘Touch My Chin, Anthony Eden’ was first conceived of as a bit of nonsense in mine and Ed’s English class, and was originally going to be a line in a song often talked about, but never recorded, ‘One Penny’. We still liked the stupidity and surrealism of the phrase. But looking at it now, it has more meaning, than we first assumed. Anthony Eden waited for years before becoming Prime Minister, and when he finally did many thought he was too old and past it. Much like us, in a way, as we have been waiting for years to be offered gigs, sound OK, and gain a small following, its lost potential and all that, he had the Suez crisis; we had to turn down a gig from Beercart...

Right now to the songs...

The Sell-out Manifesto.
The Atomic Penguins have always been conscious of selling out, so we thought we better compile a list to check back to so we could make sure we never sell out in the future. If anyone criticizes us and says “you’re not in tune” or “you’re not in time” or “you can’t sing” we say “if we could do all those things, we’d be selling out.” Bulletproof response.

Virginity and the Cathedral City
The title was thought up by me, Ed and Luke while sat in Wetherspoons watching in horror as David Laws resigned from the coalition government. As the dream of making a movie with that title faded away, we thought it would be a good title to this song, our love letter to Canterbury and its fine drinking establishments, where we all hold many memories, some good, some not so good, but all alcohol fuelled.

Bullshit of A Preacher man
We needed this to vary the song topics, plus I liked the name. We also wanted to do a song with drums, bass and guitar. Just because we had all of said instruments within our grasp, in the end this was rushed and we’d never actually rehearsed it with words and music together, which explains the lack of coherence between the two, but nevertheless, it, does not sound as bad as I imagine it would. Plus finally we have had the courage to come out and say what we think about religion, a subject we have strong views on but have never expressed them in a song, until now.

I Hate All Bands!
This goes down an absolute storm live, with the crowd singing along and people seem to remember it, I wish we’d written it sooner to be honest. As a band, we’ve always liked songs done by smaller bands who then call the really big successful bands shit, because I love the idea of little people shouting about big people but never making a difference. We were also annoyed by constantly going to local gigs to see local bands, who just sounded like every band who have been on the radio in the last five years, we felt there was no creativity, no passion and nothing unique, just very boring, bland, generic sounding bands, who were getting more gigs than us. All this is simply summed up in the phrase “I Hate All Bands (Apart From the Ones I Like)

Hyperbole in Love Songs
This is made up of lines from various different song ideas, but I really liked the idea of offering girls exaggerated language in love songs, I thought it was sweet, and after all, that’s all love songs are, people promising things they’d never do to people who are not as beautiful as the song suggests. But looking at the final product, I feel the song is more about how no man is perfect, we all secretly have an animalistic side to us, but hoping girls will forgive them if they received hyperbole in a love song they’ve written. (I say “them” I mean me, really)

Lo-Fi Lady
I had the idea for this song, when I realised that all the women on lo-fi records sounded very attractive, and their voices I found sexy (the woman who used to sing on early Mountain Goats records, Kimya Dawson and the like) may be a bit weird, but the chorus of the song was “lo-fi lady” sung to the tune of “sex farm woman” by Spinal Tap. Ed seemed to laugh at that but neither of us could be bothered to write the whole song, so we went back to our roots and sang it accapella and laughed childishly over a wank joke.

Difficult Acceptance
We messed up at the start of this song so we are a bit out of time, and the keyboard is probably a bit too loud and overpowering, but we have never been perfectionists so I guess it’s alright. I don’t like the title of this song, but it was originally going to be part of some sort of musical trilogy about the three stages of accepting a girl going with someone other than you, the three stages in my mind were Anger, Romanticism then finally Acceptance, I’m yet to think of a better title, although I’ve dropped the brackets around “acceptance.”

18
This is a song left over from the time when we were seriously considering becoming a serious political band (well trying to anyway, we were listening to a lot of Crass, and becoming very angry about society) this song made the cut when the song ‘Pah, Bloody Capitalism’ didn’t. This is split into sections, along the lines of Green Day’s Jesus of Suburbia, but at 4 minutes are attempt is not so grand, but such a style of song is pulled off in our own unique style. It is basically about the saying “if you’re not liberal when you are young, you have no heart, if you are not conservative when you are old, you have no brain.” Also denouncing Nick Griffin and the BNP via a Kinks parody.

Kiss Me Quick (Before You Realise I’m Doing It Wrong)
A song about paranoia, plain and simple, a girl once told me that I didn’t kiss properly which sent me into great fits of it. The song later turned into a take off of a R’n’B record, (hence the “bitch” reference, I would never call a girl that in real life) we thought it would be funny if a R’n’B record was produced which sang about such paranoia’s, especially since most of it seems to be awful men bragging about how good they are at sex. And by the way, I’ve kissed girls since and had no complaints, so I’m guessing I’m alright at it, ladies *raises eyebrows*

Single Man’s Pit
I’d been playing around with the lyrics to this for ages, adding verses, taking verses out. It’s a whiney break up song, but one that I think we pull off well, Ed wrote a really sweet riff, and I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Going To Germany
A song which was totally written and recorded by me, Ed had no part in it. I really did write the lyrics when pissed and recorded it when hung-over. The lyrics are fairly self explanatory I think, eagled eared fans will notice it is incredibly similar in subject to Ramblings (Part 2) (Nathan likes girl, Sees girl with another boy, Get’s very drunk, hates boy, makes a tit of himself, makes girl feel very uncomfortable.) Rest assured, as long as I keep making a tit of myself in front of girls, I shall write songs about it, I’ve done it so many times, it’s all part of the therapy which follow such events. The night it happened I came home and listened to two songs over and over and over and over again: the beautiful “Now You Are Pregnant” by The Wave Pictures, and “Half Moon Street” By TAP TAP, look up those songs, and get some of the references in the song. As for the music in this song, I didn’t know how long it was going to go on, so my drumming occasionally wanders off with random, not very good fills, but I like that, it’s messy and conveys the messiness of the night in question. The title is referring to the “Going To...” series by John Darnielle, although this song is no way as good as anything he has written.

The Best Ever Anti Electro Folk Musical Comedy Duo Out Of Whitstable
This has been floating around the sphere of The Atomic Penguins for a while now, and we decided it would be the last song we ever performed live. For those of you who don’t know, it’s going back to our parodying roots with our ‘version’ of The Mountain Goats classic “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton.” The Mountain Goats, are probably, if we had to choose, our favourite band of all time, though I think we both hesitate to cite them as an influence because we sound nothing like them, and we are probably incapable of writing a song anywhere near as good as that of John Darnielle’s, the only thing we have in common with them are the lo-fi recordings. If you are a fan of The Mountain Goats, please don’t moan at us for murdering one of their songs, we did it with love in our hearts. But after a few tweaks this song was a fitting ending to that of The Atomic Penguins, I do hope that The Best Ever Anti Electro Folk Musical Comedy Duo in Whitstable will indeed; in time, both out pace and out live you.

Herne Bay Gazette, 07 Jan 2010. Pages 8 - 9

2010-01-07T03:55:00.001-08:00

Audio Storm Moving up in the world...You know you've made it when you are in the Herne Bay Gazzette

Herne Bay Gazette
07 Jan 2010

10 SONGS MADE IN THE NOUGHTIES, WITH LINES THAT DEFINE THE NOUGHTIES

2010-01-03T13:43:00.000-08:00

Harvey Danger – This Is the Thrilling Conversation You’ve Been Waiting For

“Don’t try on the suit if you can’t afford it”

Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobious Pip - Thou Shalt Always Kill (De La Soul edit)

“Thou Shalt not assume because I am a Leo I will act real proud, Thou Shalt not type “LOL” unless you’re really laughing out loud...Thou shalt not think everyone with a beard is a terrorist, thou shalt not think having a blog makes you a journalist”

The Attery Squash – Haven’t you got enough disillusionment in your life?

“ OK – conceded I never read it, Let's Wikipede it, "Citation needed", Teen actress in a bar, Stumbling into her car, What does it really take To get the sack these days?”

Jeffery Lewis - I Aint Thick, It’s Just A Trick

“They tried to get me with the TV show, But I wouldn't have none of it, no, no, no. Standards and values on the living room screen, Sarah Jessie Parker acting mean. She's got it all, that's what they want you to think, But if you read between the lines, you'll see the missing link. She's just a puppet in their indoctrination plan, "Be like me girls and become a real man," Live to the full, always act flash, Don't use your brain when your body makes a splash.”

Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire – Thatcher’s Children/Joe Strummers Grave/Snack Crack (they all basically say the same thing)

“A mobile is ringing, the ice is getting thing, and terrorists might get you, the tunnels caving in, the countdown’s beginning the winner can’t win, save your own skin...everyone’s a loser.”

Tim Minchin – YouTube Lament

All my brow-dependent jokes, All my mirror balls and smoke, All my tilts at wit and whimsy,All my poetry, my swear words and my smut...Will never get as many hits as Kitten Waking Up.

The Lancashire Hotpots – This Lancashire Town

“We both held hands outside Matalan, I tucked in my vest outside the old NatWest, I dreamt of Gherkins outside Dorothy Perkins, in this Lancashire town, MY Lancashire town.”

Mikrofish – The Kids Are All Shite

“Their Shite’s all over the radio, the faces on the morning show, they’re played in every supermarket, when the sell-out hasn’t even started, each Monday there’s another clone – they all look like Johnny Ramone. Unit shifting, shabby looks, chart potential...fuck the Kooks!”

Jarvis Cocker – Running the World

“It’s the ideal way to order to the world: Fuck the morals, does it make any money? And if you don’t like it, then leave, or use your right to protest on the street, yeah use your right but don’t imagine that it’s heard...no, not while cunts are still running the world”

Harvey Danger – Diminishing Returns

“Farwell to the days, of having it both ways, the booms are bust now, but thanks for your concern.”

Audio Storms Best Albums of the Decade

2009-12-27T05:14:00.000-08:00

Audio Storm’s
TOP 30 ALBUMS OF THE DECADE

Right, some of you may know that me and my friend Ed do a show on Radio Cabin called Audio Storm, on last week's show we counted down the 30 albums that, in our opinion, are the best of the decade just gone (the noughties.)

So just incase you weren't listening (which you almost certianly weren't) then luckily I've written them down and added my own personal thoughts on them, because I literally have nothing going on in my life, and attempted to sound all poncy like a music reviewer in the Guardian or some shit, but I mainly sound like a twat I think.

I own all these albums (apart from the ones I haven't written anything about, they are Ed's choices, although I do like what I have heard so have nothing against them) and I own the Young Knives album as well, but for some reason didn't write anything about it.

So I hope you enjoy reading it (if you choose to) and I hope you go buy all the albums because me and Ed said they are good.

I also hope you listen to Audio Storm's on Sunday nights from 7pm at www.radiocabin.co.uk

30. The Lancashire Hotpots – Never Mind the Hotpots – (2007)
Best Track – He’s Turned Emo

Although this is probably the only countdown of the best albums of the decade which will feature this particular record, we think it deserves it’s place, it does put a smile on your face, and it is thoroughly a noughties record, with many pop culture references. “Nigella, MySpace, Fall Out Boy” And an endless stream of songs about the new technology that has flourished in this decade.
It also has a nice little song about the inevitable globalisation of the country and the loss of Identity of a Lancashire town, when the singer strolls round his home town after been offered a job in Coventry, remembering all the memories he has of his Lancashire town. “they chopped down that tree to build an hmv...good” and “it’s all changed since my day, used to be a comet down there now it’s a Currys digital.” They play to a very stereotypical view of a Lanchishire resident, mentioning greyhound and whippets, there are little quips from the lead singer, which always make me smile and it is just a really fun album. Although it will by including it, this list almost certainly looses credibility.

29. Portishead – Third (2008)

28. Johann Johannsson - Fordlândia (2008)
Best Track - The Rocket Builder (Lo Pan!)

I only discovered this album lately, but I listened to it on the new medium of Spotify and fell in love with it, just beautiful haunting strings.

27. British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music? (2008)

26. Andrew Jackson Jihad – Issue Problems

Best Track – Brave as a noun

Not really an album, as it is just over 10 minutes long. But what a ten minutes, just brilliant from beginning to end, and most of these songs have appeared on some of his other releases, but I can not stop listening to this so that’s why it is here, 10 minutes of non stop music of lyrically intriguing, fast paced, beautifully punky anti folk. Tackling everything from murder, survival to love and the human race. Plus because now it is out of print, it is available for free on their website.

25. Howling Bells - Howling Bells (2006)

24. Decemberists – Hazards of Love (2009)
Best Song – The Rakes Song

A beautifully crafted rock opera masterpiece. An hour of uninterrupted, mystical, haunting epic story telling. And even if you don’t follow the story you can enjoy the sheer craftsmanship of it all.

If you don't then you have to hand it to them, they have written the catchiest song (The Rakes Song) about killing children.

23. David Croenburg’s Wife - Bluebeard's Room (2008)

22. Arctic Monkey’s – Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not - (2006)
Best Track – Mardy Bum

This may come as a shock to many Audio Storm fans as this is a popular band, but this will be the album that people look back on as the seminal album of the decade. It caught the public imagination and started a wave of “Indie” bands with twangy guitars and distinctive accents. Their indosyncrantic nature of writing showed that Alex Turner could produce some of the wittiest, clever most observant lyrics in modern mainstream music. “There aint no love no, just Montague’s and Capulet’s or banging tunes and dj sets.” And “so tense, never tenser could all go a bit frank Spencer and I’m talking gibberish, tip of the tongue but I can’t deliver it” and “He’s not from San Francisco he’s from hunters bar, I don’t quite know the distance, but I’m sure it’s pretty far.”
Their number one hit “I bet you look good on the dance floor” became an instant classic and the soundtrack of the MySpace generation. And will inevitably be played over montages of the noughties in future documentaries. The arctic monkeys retained some creditability by shunning the cameras and making few Television appearances, they followed up with a very impressive second album. Which showed the hype was justified, even if it was from Gordon Brown trying to get down wiv da kids!

21. Brakes – Beautific Visions (2006)

20. Sigur Ros - Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust (2008)
Best Track – All Alright

Sigur Ros ‘s latest album “With A Buzz In Our Ears We Play Endlessly” or “Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust” is brilliant beyond belief, and I think, my favourite of all the Sigur Ros albums. It has all the usual heart rendering beautiful, slow music. (I have stated in the past that Sigur Ros are the only band who has the power to make me cry!) But also on this album are more upbeat, happy tracks. My favourite of these is the second track on the album “Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur” It starts off with some muffled trumpets then, bursts in with some piano chords and the main riff starts, it continues, I defy anyone to listen to this track and not have a smile on their face. Sigur Ros are such talented musicians; this track shows that they don’t just use their talents for making quite sombre music. Halfway through the song breaks down and only the piano, violin and the instrument playing the main riff (sorry cant work out what it is) are audible then the drums and vocals kick back in, then the bass, then more vocals, then the strings become more noticeable, then the trumpets, then the drums get faster along with the vocals, (which also get higher). It’s building to something...I get exited, then all the instruments stop, and just the main riff instrument continues, suspended in mid air for a few seconds then...BANG! The drums kick back in along with all the other wonderful instruments, the victorious sounding trumpets capping off a truly excellent song.

This is the effect this band has on me and, I think, every other one of their fans. They have the ability to take you out of the real world, and into another. Sometimes you’re happy to be there, other times it can be upsetting, and even, at times, scary. Listening to this extraordinary band you paint your own images, meanings and subjects to the songs. As most of their songs they speak in, to quote the title of their songs, “Gobbledigook” or “hopelandic” their made up language, or just plain old Icelandic. Despite this you instantly know, or create, the meaning of the song.

When I listen to their music I get sucked in and become almost oblivious to my surroundings. For example I was listening to a song on my iPod from their new album, the song was called “Festival” and I was standing in a car park. I just shut my eyes, and was cut off from everything around me and for nine minutes or so I was in Sigur Ros’s world. Then when I opened them again, I did find it hard to re-adjust to normal life. Only a truly special band could do that to someone like me, and Sigur Ros are a VERY special band. Make no mistake about it.

19. Lightspeed Champion – Falling Off The Lavender Bridge (2007)

18. The Crimea – Secrets of The Witching Hour (2007)
Best Track – Raining Planets

The second of three albums in our countdown which are available to download for free on the internet. (Incidentally all of them done way before Radiohead had the idea) is a stunner. Secrets of the witching hour has an air the apocalyptic and bleak to about it conjuring up imagery such as “Terradactal taking on the helicopter gunship” “there’s no need to start freaking out, it’s just the end of time.” And “it’s all down hill once you learn how kids are made.” The lead singer’s strained; almost child like voice gives every song a bit more poignancy and haunting effect.
From what I believe this album has saved the band, who were repeatedly dropped from their record label, now have a steady run of gigs. And one of the songs of the album, Loop a Loop, was used in an advert for chewing gum, (Which ruined it a bit, although the advert did not feature the line in the song “throw another small child on the fire”)
A simply wonderful album, beautiful, haunting and epic, with the last line of the album “the bastard that made us all” sung by what sounds like a choir (though it’s probably vocal dubbing”) is spine tingling. A simply stunning album and it’s for free so you have no reason not to love it!

17. Kaiser Chiefs – Employment (2005)
Best Track – Saturday Night

This commercially successful album has made its way into the countdown, for sentimental reasons more than anything. This was the first album I (Nathan) brought which was recorded by a modern band, with my own money. I had just started listening to Radio 1, and this album kind of symbolised for me the start of my teenage independence in musical terms, listening to bands, buying records and moving away from what the local radio used to tell me was good, i.e. pop and stuff from the eighties. As you know now my music taste has now evolved and I tend to shy away from the more commercially successful music. But this album is still a great album, with many anthemic tracks which again were sing along hits to the noughties young at festivals.

16. The Robocop Kraus – They Think They Are the Robocop Kraus (2005)

Best Track – After Laughter

We discovered this band when they were supporting Art Brut at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, their live performance was brilliant. The lead singer sold me a T-shirt which was too small for me, I then told him how good I thought he was but didn’t have enough money to buy one of his albums.
The German indie electro band that are the Robocop Kraus, in this album created a brilliant collection of bouncy pop orientated, catchy songs with some fairly serious issues.
A friend becoming a religious fundamentalist for example in Concerned, Your Secular Friends and the song “Life Amazes us Despite our Miserable Future.”
A very enjoyable album.

15. Elbow –The Seldom Seen Kid (2008)
Best Track – Starlings

Quite rightly this album was presented with a host of awards upon its release. Such a magical body of work. Guy Garvey's, personal, beautiful, touching lyrical poetry accompanied by epic orchestral sounds.
The album produces songs about love, being in a band and the loss of a friend, with such tenderness that it is hard not to be moved by them. The anthemic power of “One Day Like This” can still make you feel incredibly happy and optimistic about the world, despite how many times it has been played over gaudy montages of weeping idiots or supposedly uplifting moments on the telly.

14. Tim Minchin – Darkside (2005)

Best Track – Ten Foot Cock and A Few Hundred Virgins

The first of three live albums from Minchin this decade, there seems to be no stopping his rise to stardom at the moment, but here is where it all started. A brilliantly crafted comedy show and the songs proved that this musical comedian was very special. As his songs were so brilliantly put together they could stand alone without out the comedy label being attached to them.
He injected the comedy song, with insightful, intelligent, philosophical, polysyllabic intellectual lyrics.
If it’s not laugh-a-line “Inflatable You” which is nothing less than a perfect comedy song, treading the line between innuendo with genuinely hilarious lyrics. Or the brilliant beat poem “Mitsubishi colt” or the superb “Rock and Roll Nerd” and the touching, thoughtful tones of “Not Perfect.”
Whether Minchin is attacking religion “Which suggests that God's omniscience
Is nullified by His ambivalence, Unless it turns out that He's impotent, And if God can't get a boner, I guess that explains the plethora Of huge erections in His honour -Because we all know a steeple's just a subconscious compensatory manifestation of a huge stiff penis” or the Israel/Palestine conflict “...why not, not eat pigs together?” He blends intellectual qualities with childish humour.
He raised the bar for musical comics and I believe that the he is the best of a generation. Always challenging always thought provoking and above all always funny. This was the show and the album where it all started for Tim.

13. Jeffrey Lewis – 12 Crass Songs (2007)
Best Track – Big A, Little A

This album is guaranteed to make anyone who listens to it, depressed, paranoid and angry. Bit don’t let that put you off. It is a stunning record. The brilliant Jeffery Lewis covers 12 songs by the anarchic punk band of the 70s, Crass, hence the name.
What Lewis does is add a certain depth to the songs that the original versions in their chaotic, unorganised (though great) recordings lacked. He presents the lyrics (some updated by Lewis) over stunning musical arrangements. The lyrics preaching about the sinister “systems” that have control over us all our lives, or the demise and commercialisation of Punk, are a still as relevant today as it they were when they were originally written.

12. The Young Knives – Superabundance (2008)
Best Track - Flies

11. Art Brut – It’s A Bit Complicated (2007)
Best Track – Nag Nag Nag Nag

Art Brut’s only album on a major label (EMI) and it is a cleaner produced, more polished sound, as opposed to the more “rough” sound of their first and third offerings, this is full to the brim with punchy pop tunes. However, this is not a bad thing; Eddie Argos’s unique voice carries the songs, and can’t help but make you smile. The lyrics are as witty and charming as any other Art Brut record “river deep and mountain high, there’s some lyrics that will never apply, because I don’t lie awake at night, dreaming of river depth or mountain height” or “all the best pop songs are girl meets boy, and there wasn’t one song that I didn’t enjoy, but I lacked confidence when I was young so things didn’t work out the way they get sung” and it is consistent as that throughout the album. For example the song “I Will Survive” is lyrically one of Art Brut’s best, I think.
The album also contains our favourite Art Brut song, ever. Nag Nag Nag Nag, which is an absolute (to risk sounding cheesy) corker of a song, and features the immortal line “I feel nothing for my peers except, envy and hatred...how many girls have they seen naked?”
This is a brilliant album not a bad song on it, from start to finish each song makes you want to jump around, sing along and smile.

10. Green Day – American Idiot (2004)
Best Track – Jesus of Suburbia

This generation’s seminal angry political album. Recorded in protest towards the Bush administration, it kick started a wave of good old fashioned political song writing, with artists complaining about mainly the war in Iraq.
This is a brilliant album and really captures the mood of many liberal, disenfranchised young people who felt alienated by the American government. The title track became an anthem for these people, but the rest of the album is equally as thrilling, all the singles were politically charged and characterised the way many Americans were feeling in the after math of September 11th.
All over the world people could relate to the band singing about paranoia, their annoyance at the government, the anger at the war and the state of the world. But take away the politics from this record and it is a brilliant piece of rock opera.
Plus the 9 minute epic, “Jesus of Suburbia” is one of the greatest rock songs ever written, I think. The lyrics and production on this song is something to behold, a masterpiece of modern music.
This album is so important because it was one of only a handful of successful, angry, politicised records and spoke for a generation and established Green Day’s place as a truly mainstream act.

9. The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee (2003)
Best Track – No Children
The Mountain Goats first non lo-fi offering tells the story of “The Alpha Couple” an alcoholic married couple who live in Florida.
The album paints a vivid picture of the couples’s lives, and their dependence on alcohol to stay together in their failing marriage. Each song is painfully realistic, particular highlights include “Game Shows Touch Our Lives” a beautifully touching song steeped in imagery and really emphasises the character’s need not just for alcohol but each other. “Oceanographer’s Choice” describes the couple giving into each other and having sex. And “No Children” is the brilliant, hateful, self loathing sing along tune.
John Darnielle's insightful lyrics and vivid depiction of his reoccurring characters are brilliantly bought to life in this album, and is a brilliant example of story telling within an album.

8. Art Brut – Art Brut vs. Satan (2009)
Best Track – Demons Out!
Art Brut’s latest offering revolves around two main themes. The bands dislike for mainstream music “...the record buying public, we hate them, this is Art Brut Vs Satan” and the sometimes disastrous effects of alcohol “I finally decided to tell you how I felt; I mistakenly thought that the drink would help.”
Whereas Art Brut’s first album was released by Fierce Panda, and so had an almost home made feel to it, and as we discussed before their second album, released by EMI had a much more polished feel to it, this third offering is somewhere in between the two, recorded as live by Frank Black in just a couple of weeks. And it shows; the record captures some of the energy that the band put into their live shows.
Eddie Argos is still on form with his humorous, clever lyrics “why is everyone trying to sound like U2, that’s not a very cool thing to do. Why would you want to sound like U2? Just press record and play it straight through”
Other topics covered include, teenage nerves when talking to girls on “Am I Normal?” Public Transport on “The Passenger” and DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake on, err, “DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake.”
Another brilliant record from the band.

7. Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobious Pip – Angles (2008)
Best Track – The Beat That My Heart Skipped

“I aint gonna take it no more” proclaims Scroobious Pip at the start of this album, before launching into an attack on the state of the music industry and fame culture. “Soulless music, artless lyrics, goalless movements, heartless gimmicks, controlled and clueless, careers lasting a minute. If this is the big life, well I aint looking to live it.” This is a theme which runs through the album, on Fixed he tells us that “hip hop is art, don’t make another pop hit, be smart.”
This album is lyrical poetry from start to finish. Each song is thought provoking whether it’s the comment on Human behaviour “letter from God to Man”, the poetic monologue littered with profound advice “waiting for the beat to kick in” or “Angels” the role play story of suicide and revenge killing that teaches us that “things in life aren’t always quite what they seem there’s more than one given angel to one given scene, so bear that in mind next time you try to intervene.”
Or “That Shout Always Kill” which is again littered with good advice plus more pop culture references than you can shake a stick at.
This is a sensational album, different, unique, intelligent and thought provoking this is a must have album, regardless if you consider yourself a hip hop fan or not.

6. Half Man Half Biscuit – CSI: Ambleside (2008)
Best Track – Took Problem Chimp to the Ideal Home Show

Half Man Half Biscuit show that they still have it with this brilliant album with tales of, and annoyances at, the 21st century.
Nigel Blackwell’s lyrics are as witty and as sharp as ever. For example in the blistering opening “Evening of Swing (has been cancelled)” “And a plague fell upon the Retail Park And a storm broke over Henman Hill And the christening party arsehole Who hitherto had blurred My conception of man as nature’s final word Was fleeing from the lava His SatNav pleading thus: “I’m not from round here mate, you should have got the bus” Enter then a real rat pack Millions pouring in And Ezekiel punched Dan Brown And the nights are drawing in And your Evening of Swing had been cancelled”
The biting and hilarious lyrics continue “If you look carefully in the background of The Scream
The couple on the bridge are both Robson Greene” and no target is safe, the song “Totnes Bickering Fair” is a snipe about those kind of new age hippies who go on “journeys of self discovery” and install “solar heating” or “vow to rescue donkeys.” Blackwell cuts through all of this with the brilliant chorus “I’m going to feed our children non-organic food...and with the money saved, take ‘em to the zoo.”
Or if it’s, my personal favourite on the album, “Took Problem Chimp to the Ideal Home Show” which is a song about taking a chimp to the ideal home show “in the heart of darkness there are no hassle free cabinets” Nigel Blackwell snarls.
There is not a song on this album that won’t make you crack a smile, the album ends with the six minute rant “National Shite Day” all about a day where everything seems to be going wrong or has been put there to annoy the lead singer. He shouts the immortal lines “I try to put everything into perspective Set it against the scale of human suffering and I thought of the Mugabe government
and the children of the Calcutta railways This works for a while But then I encounter Primark FM”
Brilliant!

5. Jeffery Lewis and The Junkyard – Em Are I (2009)
BEST TRACK – If Life Exists

He has been described by Jarvis Cocker as “The best lyricist working in the US today.” And this album from 2009 justifies this claim. With Lewis wrestling with life, death, theology and everything in between.
In “Whistle Past the Graveyard” talks about the big question and ways up all the big theories and comes out with gold such as “If we lived for ever we’d really wanna find out, so what a relief we all die, so there is nothing to worry about.”
This level of insightful although humorous lyrics continue through the album “going bald is the most manly thing I’m ever going to do” or the line “I tell the earth thanks for the hair, the skin and the bone, although I slowly give it back I still appreciate the loan” a quote I may have to put on my tombstone.
On the song “Broken Broken Broken Heart” although a familiar subject in popular music, but Lewis manages to turn the song in to something which only he can and makes it sound like no one has ever written a song about a broken heart before.
Or in “Bugs and Insects” he paints an idyllic view of the afterlife as being too crowed for humans because all the zillions of bugs and insects who have died over the years take up all the room.
And “roll bus roll” would be brilliant to see live as it has so much sing along appeal
Plus if that’s not enough for you, the album ends with “mini the moocher from the future” a beautifully surreal, comic book, tale.
Jeffrey Lewis is one of the most consistently interesting, special, unique and talented song writers in the world, his lyrics are like streams of poetic consciousness, as well as being thought provoking and charming.

4. The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree (2005)
Best Track – This Year

This 2005 offering from John Darnielle's Mountain Goats is a stunning record. Focusing on the singer’s childhood, and his relationship with his abusive step father. To whom he dedicates the album to in the linear notes.
The Sunset Tree is incredibly personal, and at times when listening to the songs you can feel intrusive because of the songs content. For example the songs “has thou considered the tetrapod” and “Pale Green Things” are almost unbearable to listen to as the power of Darnielle’s voice with just an acoustic guitar really shines through.
Each song is touching and personal, whether it refers to love or death or domestic violence each song takes you right back to where the singer is talking about and you are right there in the moment. Lines like “I'm in the living room watching the Watergate hearings
While my step father yells at my mother.
Launches a glass across the room, straight at her head
and I dash upstairs to take cover.
lean in close to my little record player on the floor.
so this is what the volume knobs for.” From Dance Music
The sign of a very special song writer.
The album ends with Darnielle remembering the day his step father took him to the races, the song then ends with him receiving a call from his sister informing him of his step father’s death.
This is a simply sublime album.

3. Harvey Danger – Little By Little (2005)
Best Track - Little Round Mirrors

Little By Little is the bands third album, this album is far more piano based with only one song, “Cream and Bastards Rise” which would fit on the other two albums. The sound is far more polished and the two stand out tracks for me are “Moral Centralia” and “Little Round Mirrors” which is a beautifully sad song about someone who likes music too much, which judging by the fact I’m writing a massive blog about how much I like a band, I can relate to. Although towards the end of the album their are darker songs such as “What You Live By”
And “Diminishing Returns” which is about urban and social destruction which was should have been played at the end of every news bulletin during the credit crunch over pictures of bankers who had lost their jobs walking out of their office. Which features lyrics, like the bleakly profound “...Progress shall be defined by your position on the bridge as it burns...”
And in a break from usual depressing biting form, there is a almost unbearably sweet love song in “happiness writes white” which also features the most cynical line ever written in a love song though, which is “now you’ve come along, there’s one less thing wrong.”
Sean Nelson retains his label as one of the cleverest, greatest and most underrated lyricists of our time with this album with his words staying with you for a long time after the record has stopped playing. But possibly my favourite line in the whole album is from a song called “Incommunicado” which goes “I dreamed we were alone all night in a house made out of beds...and nothing happened!”
If you don’t believe me about how good this album is, then go see for yourself, as they gave it away for free on their website, again long before Radiohead did, so you have no excuse, most albums worthy of the label “classic” aren’t free!

2. Harvey Danger – King James Version (2000)
Best Track – Why I’m Lonely

“King James Version” which was a far more angry sounding album, and sounds as if the band doesn’t know whether they want to keep the sound of the first album or go for more piano led melodies which would dominate their next album. It is a stunning piece of work steeped in religious, political and cultural references, and after only a few listens you will fall in love with it.
I found this on the internet, in which Sean Nelson describes his feelings about the album and writes about it much better than I could.
King James Version, the difficult second Harvey Danger album—not the Bible translation, silly!—was released seven years ago yesterday, on September 12, 2000. Writing sessions began in December, 1998, recording started in March or April of 1999 in Bearsville, NY, and continued in fits and starts throughout the next year. By the time it was finished, the major label that bankrolled it no longer existed, and the entire music business had entered an upheaval that, frankly, has yet to end, and isn't likely to.

Though the initial trajectory of the album was away from pop (away from melody, away from fun, away from humor, away from anything the band was identified with or, indeed, was good at), time had a way of guiding us back toward our strengths, and the resulting push and pull made an album that not only reflected the tumultuous life of success, self-doubt, internal wrangling, yearning to prove ourselves to a largely indifferent audience/totally indifferent label, and unavoidable immersion in the depths of narcissism we'd been living, but turned to the elements of that tumultuous life for thematic and even musical inspiration. What I hear when I listen to the album is not the sound of my life in 1998-2001, but the sound of our little band striving (sometimes together, but often against one another) to make it sound more like we thought it should sound. More than anything else, I think, we wanted to make an album that no one expected from us. An album no one else could make. An album that made no concessions to any idea (ours/theirs/yours) of a popular audience. An album you had to seek out. An album you had to work to love. KJV is unarguably that, right down to Tae Won Yu's beautiful/terrible/perfect cover art, which expressed our band's fractured mental and psychic state, or relationship to ourselves, our city, our project, and each other brilliantly. It's also a mess (possibly because we micromanaged him into the ground). There are sounds I hate on the album, but far more that I love. More to the point, having never before or since put so much of myself into anything with so little to show for it afterwards, there are sounds I never got over the fact that more people didn't hear. Almost never. Having met a lot of people who did hear the album and to whom it meant something, I think I am now. Which is better than never, but goddamn...

Sometimes I think we put far too much energy toward all the wrong things. Sometimes I think we were utterly delusional. Sometimes I wish we had done every single thing differently. But sometimes I think KJV is a legitimate cult gem that will one day join the ranks of Oddessey and Oracle and The Village Green Preservation Society or at least fucking Pinkerton or whatever. Not likely, I know, but I still have a dim wish.

Mostly, though, I'm glad to find myself thinking about it less. I do wish it a happy birthday, however, and many happy returns. (Thanks to iTunes).

1. Art Brut – Bang Bang Rock and Roll (2005)
Best Track – Formed a Band

I used to listen to a great little digital radio station when I first got my digital radio, called “The Storm” (which our show’s name plays tribute to in Audio Storm) it was a radio that played non stop music all day, and was run by a robot who had once broken into the studio and taken over the studio and killed all the presenters and would now do the same links throughout the day, occasionally impersonating Sean Connery. The station no longer exists, but the music it played was brilliant, not only the good mainstream stuff, but strange, wonderful music which I’d never heard before but wanted to hear more of, but the robot (or the scrolling text on my DAB digital radio) never used to tell me the names of the songs or artists.

One of the songs I heard on there started with repeated hits of a snare drum, then a catchy riff, and then in came in a man who couldn’t really sing, but was so excited to be proclaiming how he had got “a brand new girlfriend” by the middle of the song he was ecstatically shouting to me, “I’ve seen her naked, TWICE! I’ve seen her naked TWICE!” I instantly fell in love with this song, and had to tell Ed the next day at school, I sang him the line, he laughed. And then we both went on a quest (mainly on Google) trying to find this band. We typed in “brand new girlfriend song” but only found a song by a country singer called Steve Holly. We never put the “naked” line in because we were worried what results that would throw up.

Eventually we found out that the song was called “Good Weekend” by Art Brut. I went on the internet and researched them and discovered they had an album, I then went into HMV, and got them to order it for me, and then spent money I was suppose to buy Christmas presents on it. Gave it to my mum to wrap up to give it back to me for Christmas, that Christmas I drove my family mad by constantly playing it and dancing around the conservatory to it.
I was utterly besotted with this album, the cheapness of the packaging, (the cover wasn’t even a proper booklet, something I’d never seen before!) the sound of the album. I was hearing someone who couldn’t sing shout over music which didn’t sound like it was produced properly, it sounded as if it was home made. And I loved it.

From the opening track, which is the greatest opening song to a debut album EVER, Formed a Band, with the immortal chorus “Formed a band, we formed a band, look at us we formed a band!” It encapsulates the innocence and the hopes and dreams of being in a band “we’re going to write a song as universal as Happy Birthday”

The excitement and enthusiasm of the lead singer, Eddie Argos that he was in a band did not stop through out the album. Simple yet clever lyrics.

This album taught me that anyone could make music; you didn’t have to write about what everyone else wrote about. For example there are songs on this album about not being very good at sex, and songs with choruses like “modern art makes me want to rock out” and “I’m considering a move to LA.”

And two songs at the end “Stand Down” and “18,000 Lira” which don’t really fit with the rest of the album, which seemed to be very much based and about the lead singers life and views. I later found out that it was because Argos originally wanted to write a concept album about an Italian terrorist he had read about, but could only manage two songs.

This album is nothing less than an alternative classic, featuring classic songs such as the teenage love song “Emily Kane” and made me realise that like Eddie Argos sings in “Bad Weekend” “Popular Culture no longer applies to me!” Me and Ed have since seen the band live, met and spoken to Eddie Argos twice and got his facebook and phone number (because he agreed to do a telephone interview with Audio Storm, the nice man that he is), bought all their albums and merchandise and as many b-sides that we can get our hands on.

Bang Bang Rock and Roll by Art Brut is Audio Storm’s best album of this decade, the noughties.

1,967 words why you should be sad Harvey Danger have played their last shows...

2009-09-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

Last month saw one of my favourite bands ever playing their last ever shows ever. Unfortunately for me, and my friend Ed, said band’s last ever shows ever were being played in America, whereas I live in England, and had no money or conceivable way of getting to America, and even if I did, they coincide with my sisters wedding so, going would result in years of resentment from my family. Although given the choice, I would almost defiantly dump my family for a chance to watch this band play for the last time. That’s how great they are.
The band I am referring to is, of course, Harvey Danger. Chances are you have never heard of them, although if you are a friend of mine, no doubt either me or Ed at one point or another have come up to you and demanded you listen to them, and/or their shouted lyrics into your face for no apparent reason which most probably resulted in you being confused/scared or in very rare cases slightly aroused. Also if you are a regular listener to mine and Ed’s radio show (Audio Storm, Sunday nights from 7pm on www.radiocabin.co.uk) you would have heard their music, since as we play one of their songs every week, sometimes two a show.

If you do not already know I shall try to fill you in on the history of this amazing band. Harvey Danger, are one of the most overlooked bands in History. They had a huge hit with "Flagpole Sitta" in America in the 1990's, unfortunately it only made it to number 57 in the UK charts. They made a record, “Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?” which went gold in America.
Then in 1999 they made another album, King James Version, but their label folded. It got released or re-released in 2000, and did not make as big an impact as their first album. Then the band split. But reformed in 2004 and released “Little by Little” which they released, and you can still, and really should get, FOR FREE on their website, long before Radiohead had the idea.

I first got into HD when I heard “Flagpole Sitta,” which was used as the theme tune to, best show on telly, Peep Show. I looked them up on YouTube and for weeks constantly played the Flagpole Sitta video over and over again. Now this song was an absolutely huge hit for the band in the states, and because of that most people only know that song and none of their other stuff, so, to my understanding the band now resent the song, as it is used to define them, and greatly overshadows all their other work, plus it meant they were playing to a lot of teenage audiences when they would have liked an older audience. Although, by definition I am a teenager, and I think “Flagpole Sitta” is still a great song. It has everything a great pop song needs. A sing a long chorus, verses which elude to masturbation, alienation, frustration and less subtle references to paranoia. It has just the right amount of anger injected into it, but on the surface, could be seen as a fairly harmless pop song. Simply it is a great song, and deserved all the success it received, and that’s why it is the most played song on my iPod, although I would never go admitting that on the HD forums!

But yeah, if you go search Harvey Danger on hype machine and go on music blogs which have written about them, you will find one of two responses, the first being “remember the people who sang that paranoia song? What ever happened to them” or the second which is “Harvey Danger, probably best known for Flagpole Sitta, but since then they have made some great music.” Or something along those lines, and the people who said the latter would be right.
They have made 3 albums, with every song being sublime. Their songs tackle everything from religion, to war, to politics and love. Sean Nelson has one of the most emotive and recognisable voices in alternative rock, I genuinely believe he is one of the best lyricists of our time his lyrics are catchy, intelligent and thought provoking.

He writes clever songs, songs which never talk down to the listener. He writes emotional, personal lyrics, for example deeply sad songs such as “Wrecking Ball” and “Pike Street/Park Slope.” Also really very funny lyrics “I had a lovely brunch with Jesus Christ.He said, “Two words about inanity: Fundamental Christianity.”The food was very nice, but then He had to go and die for my sins and stick my ass with the cheque.” For example or “I dreamed we were alone all night in a house made out of beds...and nothing happened.” As another, or “Don't tell anybody, please don't tell anybody ABOUT MY PAUL MCCARTNEY CD!”

Yes, most of their songs have a cynical, biting, downbeat tone to them, but they are also uplifting in their own way, if I’ve had a bad day or feeling down or stressed in any way, I stick on Harvey Danger and they do make me feel better. Sean’s voice is comforting. But they do have one insanely sweet love song called “Happiness Writes White,” although that does feature the most cynical line in a love song, but probably my favourite song from any love song “I’ve never been a confident man, I’ve been in the tall grass all my life, until you came along, now there’s one less thing wrong...”Brilliant.

Or a song called “Why I’m Lonely” in which Sean captures the feeling of rejection, loneliness, and the resentment for people who are in love, perfectly and beautifully. “So I told her that everything she does is divine, and she replied with a blank expression (an object lesson in making me feel benign)... Feelings I’ve had too often still no plan in place to soften the inevitable blow (the rituals we know).... everybody follows pleasure, everybody gets somewhere. I swear I wish I could be less aware…” some lyrics are so intelligent and use big words that I have to go and look up what they mean. “This attraction-introspection-diction predilection is breaking my heart again, breaking my heart again….”

Or just lyrics which you just want to bottle up and keep, like the bleakly profound “...Progress shall be defined by your position on the bridge as it burns...” that was a lyric lifted from “Diminishing Returns” a beautiful song which is about urban and social destruction which was should have been played at the end of every news bulletin during the credit crunch over pictures of bankers who had lost their jobs walking out of their office.

I could go on quoting his lyrics for ages, but you get the idea, Nelson is an unbelievably good song writer, and criminally underrated.

It’s not just Sean’s lyrics that make this band great. It’s the whole structure of the song, Aaron Hoffman’s bass used as lead instrument, the messy sounding drums of the first two records and Jeff Linn’s catchy and complex hooks, or the fabulous, polished, neater, sounds of their piano led songs of their last album, catchy songs with clever and insightful lyrics.

The bands first album, “Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?” is a brilliant grunge-y sounding alternative rock album. It sounds very, to use a clichéd phrase, “rough and ready” which is the sound I love. It sounds almost home made at times, with lots of loud guitars, feedback and feelings of teenage angst. Although don’t assume this album is bunch of shouty teenagers, because it is not, for me it just has the feeling of a teenage sounding album. The tone of the songs and some of the lyrics, but it starts with “Carlotta Valdez” which is the plot from the Alfred Hitchcock movie “Vertigo” condensed into a 2 minute 48 second song, then there is the strangely obsessive sounding “woolly muffler” the regretful punk sound of “Private Helicopter.” This is a great introductory album for the band.

Next was “King James Version” which was a far more angry sounding album, and sounds as if the band doesn’t know whether they want to keep the sound of the first album or go for more piano led melodies which would dominate their next album. It is still a great album steeped in religious, political and cultural references, and I’ve just found this,
http://www.seannelson.net/blog/2007/09/happy-birthday-king-james-version.html in which Sean Nelson describes his feelings about the album and writes about it much better than I could.

Little By Little is their third album, and my personal favourite, this album is far more piano based with only one song, “Cream and Bastards Rise” which would fit on the other two albums. The sound is far more polished and the two stand out tracks for me are “Moral Centralia” and “Little Round Mirrors” which is a beautifully sad song about someone who likes music too much, which judging by the fact I’m writing a massive blog about how much I like a band, I can relate to. Although towards the end of the album their are darker, guitar led songs such as “What You Live By” and the previously mentioned “Diminishing Returns.”

Put plain and simply, I think all of these records could be given the label of being classic albums, and luckily you can get them all on iTunes now, Which I strongly advise you do, you will NOT regret it.

Harvey Danger do not have the worlds biggest fan base, it’s fair to say, but people who are fans, just seem to fall in love with the band. It seems that once you have got into this band. You simply love them and their music becomes a big part of your life.

They are set to become one of the cult bands in America, I hope rather than being labelled as one of the great one hit wonder bands. I hope in Britain they will be remembered as one of the greatest bands no one have ever heard of, and not just the band that sing that song in Peep Show and American Pie. Their music will live forever, in some form or another, thanks to the age we live in. Their music will stay with me forever, because every time I listen to them I hear something I didn’t hear before, or I understand a line better or I can relate songs to my life or global events when I couldn’t before.

I am really disappointed not to being able to see them live, sure they’ve split up before and have played many “last ever shows” but this time they seem serious, and that’s sad. On the bright side Sean Nelson has a number of side projects, which seem promising. So maybe they will do amazingly well and then he will come and tour with one of them, because judging by the stuff he’s put out already his song writing ability shows no sign of diminishing.

So Harvey Danger, I salute you thanks for one of the greatest and most underrated collection of songs in history. In a way I like no one knowing about you, because it makes your songs all the more special and all the more personal, as you said “no one likes what I like, that’s how I like it”. Me and Ed were talking about The Atomic Penguins recording a tribute to Harvey Danger, which may still happen, but we’ll probably end up ruining perfectly good songs, but oh well no one listens to us anyway.

Another idea I am working on is that we could have a mass, UK wide download of their back catalogue which would see them get into the charts, and then they’d have to play here.

"We hang petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office" - Aesop

2009-06-04T10:40:00.000-07:00

I am currently gripped by a TV show, each week it provides moments of drama, moments of real comedy and farce, genuine human emotion by the bucket load. It is essentially a good vs. evil story, but in every episode the lines are blurred so it’s hard to tell which is which. It tries to deal with the corruption of the establishment, but no solutions to the problems seem to be solved at the end of each episode.

I’m not talking about The Wire, on BBC2, although that does do all the above and is fantastic. I was talking about Question Time, on BBC1 Thursdays 10:35pm. In this time of economic recession, of witnessing the last days of the decaying New Labour government, and the biggest ‘scandal’ to hit the country in modern times, MP’s expenses. Politics has never been so exciting. Each week, Question Time, which used to be a civil Q&A sessions between the politicians and the stupid public, the great unwashed would ask ridiculous questions based on prejudices and ignorance, and the politicians would respond with pre-prepared bullshit, everyone went home fairly happy as there seemed to be a mutual respect between the two groups.

Not anymore, watch an episode now, and you could be forgiven for thinking that you were watching a pantomime or a boardroom scene from the apprentice (an observation made by Charlie Brooker on his excellent BBC4 show “news wipe.”) Or the audience seems to react like the audience from the bewilderingly popular “Britain’s Got Talent” as they jeer and heckle the poor politician who is trying to defend an extravagant purchase which was “within the rules.” It makes for gripping television, one week, the BBC thought it was even worthy of replacing “Traffic Cops” in the 9pm slot, a scheduling issue which I feel should stay permanent, as Question Time is the best programme on telly.

Not only does it have the supposed ‘villains’ on the panel, as well as the “celebrities” who say the most stupid, impractical comments but know that the audience will respond with rapturous applause, for example something like “I think, as a mother of two, that all politicians should have their hands cut off and made to jig around in just their underpants while the people throw actual corpses of dead animals. And I think Joanna Lumley should become our divine ruler, because she’s so bloody wonderful.”And the audience will applaud, until someone says a contradictory statement but whose voice gets louder at the end so the audience believe that therefore what that person said was great and they all totally agreed with it. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah “villains” it has the ‘villains’ i.e. the politicians on the panel but also a sinister villain which is only ever mentioned on the show that never gets seen on question time. The BNP.
But politics has suddenly become far more exciting than any of the soap operas, talent shows or sporting events on the TV. It is an on going drama filled with plots, and corruption and deception. Each day brings an exciting new twist which radically changes the whole course of this unfolding story. It’s gripping television.

Watching, what feels like, the last days of the Labour government, I can’t help but feel sympathy for poor old Gordon Brown. Put yourself in his shoes, imagine that each day you wake up and find that all the national newspapers, the general public, the TV, the Radio, politicians and even your own colleagues are queuing up to tell you just how shit they think you are. Even though you work really hard to try to fix and solve problems which largely weren’t your fault but everyone seems to blame you for. But to be fair, Labour has been in power for far too long, and all the mistakes they have made over the last few years have come back and bitten them right on their old, decaying, broken arse.

But what are the options, how will the public punish them in today’s Euro/Local elections?Will they vote conservative and David Cameron, who I can not ignore Armando Iannucci’s observation that he looks like a whoopee cushion every time I see him. I realised I didn’t like him on the party election broadcast by the Tories when he was doing a “Cameron direct”, where he stood in front of a target, a dream for any would be assassins, and talked and received questions. There was one clip of a small child informing ‘Dave’ that she had started a campaign to “save the penguins” the expression on Cameron’s face was enough to make me actually puke. Into a bucket. YouTube it, and see for yourself, (the election broadcast I mean, not me vomiting into a bucket. That’s not on the internet as far as I’m aware.)

But anyway I could stretch this out to say about the BNP and how bloody hilarious they are with their, hee hee, racist views. Or how, because I’m a young student with a naive mind that I think you should vote for the Lib Dems.

But to be honest I can not be bothered to write any more, and I doubt you can be bothered to read this anymore (though the fact you’ve got this far is, quite frankly, astonishing) I just want to tell you to watch Question Time tonight on BBC1 10:35pm. It’s kind of good to watch it when you’re too young to vote, because you feel no pressure and you can watch it as an outsider, knowing that you can, you know, not do anything. Hmmmmmmm

Swine Flu: My View

2009-04-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Another day, another reason to fear life on earth. Hoorah! Yes, “Swine Flu” is the latest reason why we’re all going to die. 100 or so people have died from it in Mexico, and the total is rising by the day, the WHO (world health organisation not the band) has said it could lead to a global “pandemic.”

SARS and Bird Flu, that’s what I keep telling myself, the media made us all scared out of wits of the fear of those two diseases, thankfully they never materialised, and only killed a few people in Asia. But recently, the news has been so concerned about banging on about the bloody economy that they took their big, scare mongering, eye off the killer disease front and now “Swine Flu” has arrived and is killing 7% of everything in its way.

Now the human race is probably due for a mass culling, nature tends to do it every one hundred years or so, just to keep everything ticking over. But with so many threats around of global warming and nuclear holocausts, this flu seems a bit tame. It was precisely this reason why I was not able to get through a whole episode of recent BBC drama remake “Survivors” because if I want to watch a mass loss of human life, I want it to be exciting, I want explosions, I want people running away from big monsters, I want plagues of locust’s to engulf the world while four horseman ride on by. Instead I get a few people coughing, sneezing and suddenly feeling very tired, how very exciting. If this is the work of some god, then it goes to show it is not a very imaginative one.

The media would probably take the same view, as this story provides no stunning visuals, the only thing they seem to have is people walking around in face masks, and politicians telling people not to worry. They still do, however, manage to make it seem like this is almost certainly the apocalypse. Expect pounding dramatic drums, stern voices declaring the number of dead, expect graphics involving nuclear hazard signs and pigs, expect quotes from scientists and politicians blown out of all proportion to make it all seem much worse than they were intended to be. All it will lead to is that I will assess my life and my legacy, think about all the things I’ve yet to do, get extremely depressed and paranoid every time I so much as sniffle. Thanks for that. Even if they do try to reassure us, it’s meaningless; our brains naturally remember the scary words like ‘pandemic,’ ‘death,’ ‘Mexico,’ ‘flu,’ ‘human to human,’ ‘Swine!’

That’s another thing about this, the name “Swine Flu” to me, this sounds like a medieval crime. I can imagine princes sentencing peasants to death because they had “Swine Flu” in other words, they were a dirty Swine, and probably related to a witch.Another reason this is not a good disaster is because it was not overtly caused by humans, not like global warming or war, the news can not tell us how bad we all are, how ashamed we should be of our fellow humans, we can not shake our heads and ‘tut’ and the moronic, idiot leaders. No, this was not our fault, this is nature so we have no one to blame, because blaming someone always makes us feel better. Although we could find out that this was caused because a Mexican decided to have sex with a pig, which would be nice as we would all have someone to blame and we could all have a little giggle, in between the coughing fits and the dying.

This is also annoying as it mainly affects young adults with good immune systems. Now that is just unfair, I’m a young adult and I would like to think I have a strong immune system, as I rarely get ill. This is what you’re supposed to have, this is what they tell you to have, and I should be in the best position. I shouldn’t be most at risk, that’s not on, why doesn’t it pick on the elderly or very young? We need healthy, young adults, we are the future.

My chances also aren’t helped by the fact that next week I am travelling to London, one of the biggest, busiest, most metropolitan cities in the world to go to a small venue in Camden to watch a gig, while fit, young, healthy adults cough and splutter all over me. Brilliant, although if I’m going to die anywhere, then an Art Brut gig isn’t the worse place for that to happen.

So in the mean time I’ll try to have as little contact as possible with pigs, birds, Mexicans, Americans, young adults, children, elderly people, people with strong immune systems, people with weak immune systems, doctors without the potential cure, dogs, cats, mass social gatherings, airports and dirty, rotten witch like medieval swines.

"People need to get a sense of humour, a grip on reality and a life"

2008-10-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

So Jonathan Ross has been suspended and Russell Brand has quit. All because they left answer machine messages on Manuel’s answer phone. Right or wrong, funny or not, this story does not need to be on the front page of every newspaper, or the top of every bulletin.

So what if Manuel found the calls offensive? Apologise to him then move on. Now I’m not a huge fan of Brand or Ross, I think they’re funny sometimes. The thing that annoys me is that the BBC received 30,000 complaints most of those from people who didn’t hear the show, they’re complaining for the sake of complaining, they’re complaining because everyone else is. Get a life. There are far more important things to worry about than two comedians behaving immaturely. I don’t know if it was funny or not, I didn’t hear it, so there’s no reason for me to complain.

The BBC seems to be caving into these, out of touch, moaning annoying people. This will result in performers and BBC editors/producers afraid to put out anything which is maybe a bit “edgy” which would be a huge shame. I’m a firm believer that most things can be made fun of and mocked, it’s one of the things that I want when I look for in a programme, they should take creative risks, this often produces the greatest programming. The BBC is the greatest broadcaster in the world, producing high quality programmes for all types of media, for all types of audience. This whole row is a generational thing. The older members of the audience, who didn’t even hear the show, complained and were outraged about “the dumbing down of the BBC” the show wasn’t even aimed at them. The younger members of the audience, who were listening to the show, didn’t see the need to complain. Well two did, but they should have apologised to Manuel and moved on. This audience divide was proven when the audience to Alan Titchmarsh’s show and “Buzzcocks” were interviewed and the Buzzcocks audience weren’t that bothered, Titchmarshe’s audience, however, were. And Never Mind the Buzzcocks have suffered as they have ditched a show that was recorded because Mr. Brand appeared on it, so the audience who are fine with Russell Brand, suffer.

Many “celebrities” have had their say on the matter, most of the sane ones saying; stuff like, although it wasn’t funny and inappropriate it has been blown out of all proportion. The best quote on the matter, though, has to go to, mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who said that the two people in question, Brand and Ross should donate their salaries to buying gifts for poor children. I don’t know how that is relevant to the issue, but what can you expect from Boris? He’s in charge of our capital, which shows that, despite all this, Britain still does have a sense of humour.
This whole debacle took up a lot of time on Newsnight last night, in which one of the presenters was interviewing, the director general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, (she was giving her boss a bit of a hard time, and there was a great moment in which he answered a question on whether Ross’s contract would be renewed, and Thompson replied with “his contract will be reviewed at the end of it (leaned into the presenter) along with ALL our presenters, well I found it funny.) Anyway this presenter bought up that on a night this week a repeated episode of “Mock the Week” was broadcast in which Frankie Boyle was one of several comedians on the show asked to think of something the Queen would not say in her Christmas speech.

He put on a high-pitched voice and said: "I have had a few medical issues this year - I'm now so old that my pussy is haunted." Now I’ve seen this episode many times, it’s been repeated a lot. But now, oh, John Beyer, of MediaWatch UK, told the Daily Mail: "It is very offensive and should not have been broadcast. It is indicative of the sloppy way in which this kind of thing gets on air.
There is a great deal of respect for the Queen and people do feel very strongly about any kind of disrespectful comments about her." Well how come nobody complained the first time this went out then, Mr.Beyer? I’ll tell you why, because the people who tune into a show like “Mock the Week” expect near the knuckle humour and have a sense of humour, I have respect for the monarchy, I still laughed when I saw that broadcast, because it was a joke.

The moral of the story is people need to get a sense of humour, a grip on reality and a life. Leave the BBC, and other broadcasters, to do their job, to push the boundaries of what is acceptable. If you don’t like it, don’t tune into the programme, let the people with who do enjoy it enjoy it. Atheists don’t complain that “Songs Of Praise” is on I don’t complain that I find shows like “Little Dorrit” piles of shit, no because I understand that different people have different tastes, and the BBC tries to cater for all it’s audience. So if you did write in to complain, you’re an idiot and need to lighten up, we’re not in the 50’s anymore.

"Loved up hearts spewed across the windows of the hall"

2008-10-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

So, apparently the new High School Musical movie had is out. I’m proud to say I haven’t watched the other two films. I have, however, seen little clips, and those are enough for me to know that this film is the most annoying, fake, happy clappy nonsense and needs to be destroyed.

Lot’s of very good looking, and very irritating people singing and dancing about being young, or in love or happy or some bull shit like that. Real life isn’t like that; everyone isn’t that good looking, everyone isn’t that happy. Do these arrogant pricks prancing around on the screen watch the news? A recent study showed that teenagers are the most depressed they’ve been for a long time. I don’t know but I doubt high school musical will have extensive scenes of one of its main characters self harming, or them sitting around, wanking. Also normal people don’t burst into song and a heavily choreographed dance routine whenever they bloody well feel like it.

America, where the film is set, is famous for its high school shootings. Here’s an idea for the next instalment of HSM. A disgruntled, fat, ugly Star Trek fan that always gets left out of the dance routines and songs bursts into the sports hall while all the happy cunts are gleefully waving their arms around and banging out another god awful tune, takes out his machine gun, which he recently bought from a supermarket, and mows down the lot of them. A shower of bullets destroys their perfect faces, their gleaming white teeth now dispersed around the room. Their gel covered heads blown off, their loved up hearts spewed across the windows of the hall.

Of course this wouldn’t be a very long film. So what I would do, as director, would be to show the scene of the mass shooting over and over again. From different angles and slowed down. Also for a rather sick ironic twist their upbeat singings about how fucking wonderful life is, especially if you are a teenager, will be played while we see the end of theirs. Roll credits.

That’s just an idea of course, Disney if you’re interested in any of my ideas for “High School Musical 4” then do not hesitate to contact me.

Some useful links:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uu8U1t835Dg

My Pennysworth on the American Election

2008-09-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

America. It’s not my favourite country in the world, in my opinion the only good things to come out of America, ever, are the bands Harvey Danger and The Mountain Goats, the TV shows The Simpsons and Family Guy, the movie Toy Story 2 and the song Hotel California. Apart from them everything else American serves no purpose in the world, or seems to be put there just to irritate me. Like many English people, I look down on Americans and see them as idiotic fat tubs of lard. I was recently reading a article in the Telegraph magazine by Stephen Fry, (that sounds very sophisticated I know) who argued that the only reason we have certain prejudices against America and it’s people is that in the UK we only get to see the weird sub cultures of Americans who are usually, racist, stupid, backwards or just plain annoying, and British TV rarely shows the normal, everyday, nice American. The other thing he said was that we can’t stand that Americans don’t care half as much about us as we do about them.

This may be true, but I’m not going on this semi-racist rant for no reason. Oh no, unless you’ve been living in an underground bunker for the past year, with earplugs in, with your eyes shut then you will know that the day is drawing ever closer for the American presidential elections. The moron who currently occupies the post is a certain George W. Bush, an idiotic cretin which every time I see him I shudder to think how much power he has and I also pinch myself to check that I’m still alive and he hasn’t destroyed the world yet, or his presidency has been a dream . (This is part of the reason; I think that we English have a certain unfavourable view to the American race, we think “if that dim witted boob is in charge of Americans, what hope is there for the rest of them?”) So like many I’ve been looking forward to the day that this imbecile of epic proportions finally leaves office and the American people elect some poor sod who has to clear up the mess left by “Dubya.” A poor sod that couldn’t possibly be worse than their predecessor.

I mean the American people now have a chance to redeem themselves for the past eight years. In the 2000 election, it wasn’t their fault, they elected Al Gore, but being the “greatest democracy in the world” what they got was George Bush. To be fair, poor old George had to deal with the whole 9/11 thing (or 11/9 to give it its correct name) but 4 years later, when you could to see what a tit he was, they voted him in for another 4 years...this is probably where I started to question my respect for the American people.

Any who, that’s all in the past now, there is still time to repent. America has an opportunity to make amends. I mean you could elect the bright, young, talented, sensible democrat Barack Obama. Or the half dead, ex soldier John McCain (who came second in a previous election to George Bush...I mean come on, that’s just taking the Mickey.) If he gets into office, he will be the oldest president, in history, to serve a first term. If he dies, which is a real possibility, and then who shall be there take up the position of most powerful person in the world? Step forward Sarah Palin.

Jesus Christ. There IS someone worse for the job of president than George Bush, who actually could be president. (Read that sentence again, then weep uncontrollably and pray for salvation for about a day.) Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for women’s rights, so I have absolutely no problem with women politicians. In fact, if women ruled the world I’m sure it would be a nicer place to live in. It would smell nice and look prettier. But unfortunately us big old stupid men have been in charge and, all in all, cocked things up. “Oh”, you might say, “A women is needed then to take control and sort this mess out.” Not when the woman in question is Sarah Palin.

For this reason: she is the equivalent of a medieval man. Let me explain, 1) she has no real grasp of the geography of the world. 2) She thinks that violence will solve everything (she has access to the biggest load of nuclear weapons don’t forget) 3) she thinks God created the world, and doesn’t believe in evolution. 4) She hunts, and kills, wild animals.

This world in which we live in is at its most fragile state in years. The economy in tatters, global warming, Islamic fundamentalism, our resources running out, heightened tensions between the nuclear super powers. Voting in the Republicans would be like saying “hey, do you know what? We give up, it’s too much, we’ve had a good run. Civilization is in terminal decline, it is shit. Here you go Mrs. Palin, do your worst. Kill us all, make it quick though.”

The world is a shit place to live in, I know, but hey I don’t want to die just yet. I’ve got so much to live for, so much knowledge to collect. Just the other day I found out that “Tesco” wasn’t in my predictive text; I’ve never played Wembley, never started a revolution, made a TV show, won a Nobel peace prize, and never had sex. But to be honest I’m not holding out much hope for the last one.

If the Americans, don’t vote for Obama, because his name sounds a bit like “Iraqi Bomber” or they think that he’s a Muslim. Or they think that team walking corpse and scary women or “hockey mom” what the hell does that mean that when you see her you want to cover yourself in protection and hit her violently with a stick? Just for the reason she spelt “mum” with an “o”, after that you can start beating her on behalf of every intelligent person in the world.

So if you are an American, I urge you, please vote Democrat. Vote Obama, and the world may be a little safer and you may just add a few more days to the human race’s life.

What We Can learn from History or Summin'

2008-09-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

So, here I am again with another warning about our imminent death. Now just to clear this up, I’m not one of those mad people who stand in the street shouting at people telling them “the end is nigh.” I just look at the world around me and see it destroying itself, everyday, slowly with more interesting and scary ways of doing so. Also it helps that I’m a pessimist so I see the worst in situations, focus on that and instantly assume we’re all going to die.

Take the big news story of today, the collapse of some big American bank, I’ve forgotten the name. But apparently it’s been the worst day on Wall Street since the great crash of 1929 which triggered the great depression. Where thousands were made unemployed, homeless and became starving. In Germany this led to the rise of Hitler and Nazism, which in turn led to the start of the Second World War, which caused the death of millions and the mass genocide of 6million Jews. Now, I’m not saying that’ll happen again. They probably won’t be called the Nazis!

PLEASE NOTE: I don’t understand economics or anything to do with the stock exchange, the economy or the FTSE. On the news they talk about it and they might as well be saying “blah blah blah blah” because that’s all I can hear, so my predictions may not be entirely accurate.

Yeah the next story I picked up on was The Liberal Democrats saying how, if they get into power, they’ll cut taxes. They can literally say anything they want. If they got to power and carried out all their promises they’d probably be the most popular government for a long time. But they will never get in power. They can say they’ll cut taxes, they’ll say they’ll abolish student loans, they could promise a free unicorn for everyone in Devon if they wanted. They’re all seeing rent boys, cheeky girls or are alcoholics.

Anyhow, I said I wouldn’t write any more blogs, but here I am, but you don’t care cos you don’t exist. You’re not reading it. And if you are, you’re sad, I thought I was sad writing it, but you reading it???

Thank Fuck We're Still Here!

2008-09-12T12:49:00.000-07:00

So we’re all still here. We didn’t get sucked into a black hole, I knew it wouldn’t happen. Some may have the nerve to tell me I’m a hypocrite because I have spent the last week telling people they’re going to die on Wednesday, and deep down, in the back of my head I knew we’d be alright, logically I knew I should trust the scientists. They knew what they were doing. It’s just that whenever something like this comes along, the logical thinking part of my brain get’s overtaken by the side of my brain shouting “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE” takes over and doesn’t let the logical side get a look in.

So yes we’re all been allowed to live for another few months*, allowed to carry on our pointless lives, allowed to carry on cluttering this world with our stupid bodies bumbling around, falling over and inventing new reality TV shows and thinking up new and inventive ways to destroy any forms of life. But now we may have slightly more knowledge of our universe. So everything’s good then.

Anyway I’m happy to still be roaming this earth, it’s alright I suppose. I did like everyone’s reaction when they found out the world was going to end. Everyone just carried on as normal occasionally making a joke about their impending doom. This was a good sign of the better side of the human race. I did have a lot of things to say I think I was going to rabble on about how life is shit and that something else will probably bring about the end of the world or some shit, but I literally can’t be arsed. Another thing I learnt from Wednesday was that, basically life’s too short, too short to waste it writing down my unimportant thoughts which no one will ever get to see. Blogging is like the sane equivalent of talking to yourself. Plus I’ve just started College, so I’m not that annoyed at things anymore, and I want to start “living” and all that shit, whatever that is. Plus now I’m doing something with my life, I won’t need to waste it on this thing.
So, until next time, (if there is a next time, there’s bound to be though cos I can’t enjoy college for ever and I need somewhere to moan!) Bye!!

*I heard somewhere that it’s October we need to worry about that’s when the LHC will destroy us. Possibly.

The Big Bang...

2008-09-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

Another day, another reason to fear for my life, hey, another reason to fear for human existence itself. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m spending a lot of time indoors and my paranoia levels are higher than normal. But everyday there seems to be a new reason why the world is going to end. SOON. If it’s not global warming, then it’s a new cold war, if it’s not that it’s something else.

I’m now fearing next Wednesday as in an underground bunker in Switzerland scientists are going to recreate what happened a billionth of a nanosecond after the “Big Bang.” If this works, it could answer some of the questions which has plagued scientists for ages, it could be the most important experiment ever carried out in human history. Our generation is on the verge of being the first to truly understand our universe.

Which is all very exiting, I know. But there are a few theories going around that this experiment could create a black hole or something worse and that’ll be it. End of the world. I don’t want to die, not yet anyway. I’ve got so much to live for; I just had my first iTunes download! I’m just about to start college. I would be really pissed off if the world ended two days into college life.
I’ve always had a fear of black holes. Ever since I saw Sam Neil’s (that guy from Jurassic Park) documentary on space. In which he informed us that the earth could get sucked into a black hole at anytime, and there’s no way of no when, and there’s no way of stopping it. As far as I know, however, no one knows what’s on the other side of a black hole; it could be like another dimension, or total and utter happiness. Either way I don’t really want to find out just yet.

Over 10,000 scientists have taken part in this experiment from all over the world. And they usually know what they’re talking about, so it should all go according to plan. If the scientists get it wrong, then what hope do we have? Maybe science isn’t right. Maybe there is a god, maybe there’s something else...

We’ll find out on Wednesday.

P.S Radio 4 is doing a special day on this whole big bang thing. And in an interview about it Eddie Izzard said that we shouldn’t worry. So if a transvestite comedian thinks that it’ll be alright to smash particles into each other. Then it must be.

AWARDS!

2008-08-31T12:45:00.000-07:00

Hello! As I’m approaching the end of my holiday, (which feels like it’s gone on forever), I thought it would be appropriate to hand out my awards for stuff I’ve enjoyed over the holidays...why? Well for the sole reason I write all my blogs...BECAUSE I’M BORED! Who knows if I’ll carry on this blog when I’m in full swing of college life...learning, partying, shagging. I won’t have time to write down my thoughts and publish them to the world. Though I’ll probably only be doing one of those things, and then writing lots of blogs complaining that I’m not doing the other two. Anyway no one actually reads this thing. Only if I tell people to, and even then I’ve written so much mindless drivel that they hardly ever read it all. Bastards.
So let’s crack on with the awards...

Best DVD...
This goes to the Armando Iannucci Shows. A brilliant and underrated show from 2001. It was screened right in the middle of the whole world trade centre being blown up thing so no one watched it. It is hilarious bought to you from one of the greatest comedy writers of recent times Armando Iannucci.

Best Album...
Easily Sigur Ros’s latest offering...see blog entitled “the insanely great musical genius of Sigur Ros.”

Best Song...
Probably Glam Chops – European Festivals, just as it encapsulates my favourite moment of the summer, plus there’s a video on YouTube where you can see me and Ed looking incredibly geeky and dancing around like idiots to a live version at Lounge on the Farm which incidentally leads me on to my next award

Best Moment...
This is slightly misleading as a moment actually only lasts for 10 seconds, but you know what I mean, any who the winner is...Lounge on the Farm, meeting, hero of mine, Eddie Argos. See blog entitled “Lounge on the Farm”

Most Annoyingly Catchy Song...
Ida Marie – I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked. I should hate this record, as I don’t like songs that brag about how much sex they’re getting. That’s one of the reasons I despise R’n’B music, that and the fact it’s tuneless, pointless, arrogant shit sung by ex criminals and self satisfied pricks. Ida Marie, however, is very catchy and does have a good old thumping bass line and does make you feel good, despite the subject matter. I don’t want to see who sings it, what old Ida looks like as it might ruin the whole illusion, I’ve built up an image of who sings it in my head, and I don’t want that ruined.

Song Which I Can’t Work Out If I Like It Or Not...
Noah and The Whale – 5 Years Time. I should like this; it features a ukulele and is lyrically dark, despite the happy sound. But there’s something about it which makes me not like it really, I don’t know, but hey they still win an award so they should stop moaning.

Worst Song...
God, where do I start? Most of the things on Radio 1’s playlist, there’s too many R’n’B, dance, Hipidy-hopidy music to pick fun at so this award goes to The Script – The Man Who Can’t Be Moved. Such a pointless, bland song about a mental man who sits in the middle of the street. The girl he’s whingeing about isn’t seriously going to get back with him if he camps in the middle of the street and refuses to be moved like some tramp or crazy protester. Grr.

People Most Deserving To Be Shot...
Terrorists? George Bush? Murderers? Other World Leaders? Rapists? No this award goes to everyone who starred in the latest DFS advert. DFS have a habit of ruining perfectly good songs by using them to advertise their never ending sale. This time they’ve tediously linked Nickleback’s Rock star to sofas. OK, so the song wasn’t that great to start with, but that makes the ad worse. These morons sing along waving their arms around and playing air guitar in the most awkward way possible, their strum technique is all wrong and their not even holding a proper chord. AGGHHH.

Most Inadvertently Funny Documentary...
The Genius of Charles Darwin, presented by Richard Dawkins. Him standing at the door staring into a classroom of children for ages. Then taking the confused children out on a trip to the beach and trying to get them to stop believing in the religion they’d been bought up on. Standing next to a gay man in a cow boy hat and nappy in the middle of New York, disputing his birthplace with an African priest. Announcing that he’s “off to meet a group of single women,” or when he was reading the abuse he got from Americans on his website, something about him saying “go fuck yourself you wanker” is hilarious. The documentary has been criticised for not presenting both sides of the evolutionary debate. And he didn’t, he used the show to preach his own atheist views. And good on him, it’s his show he can do what he likes. And it was funny when he was talking to a religious person let’s say, the archbishop of Canterbury. Dawkins would get his point across, and then when the religious person started to speak, Dawkins would put a voice over over images of the religious man still talking while Dicky Dawkins informs us that what he’s saying is complete rubbish. Genius.

Award For Making Boring Things Sound Exiting and Making You Feel Proud To Be British...
Britain From Above presented by Andrew Marr.

Best Book...
A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr, equally as good as his TV series, of the same name, plus you get other little facts which you can drop into conversation and make people go “oh, really, how do you know that?” here’s two I’ve done recently “Pakistan’s name is made up of lots of other countries names” and “Rock and Roll was originally black American slang for sex.” Plus I’ve taken a quote from the book to heart after my D in G.C.S.E maths (it was the only D I got, I did very well in my other results) 'Mathematics is the enemy of every truly creative man.' - Alec Issigonis

Best Other Book...
Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn, a collection of the brilliant Charlie Brooker’s newspaper articles. I’m currently reading his other book, “Dawn of The Dumb” in which he doesn’t just rip into TV shows but everything. Hilarious.

Saddest Departure from Terrestrial TV...
Judy

Most Welcome Departure from Terrestrial TV...
Richard

Best TV Channel...
Rabbit Chat and Date (teletext cars) See blog entitled “God Help Us All”

Most Depressing TV show To Watch...
Sexcetera on Virgin. It features annoying Americans, degrading women and at some points being dam right disgusting. While watching it you feel low, not because you’re sitting there alone, with an erection but sad for the human race in general cos we’re all sex obsessed idiots. See blog entitled “I brag to my friends that I once saw a woman’s breast on Richard and Judy”

Most Surprising Comedy Hit...
The Kevin Bishop Show, it produces at least 2 laugh out loud moments a show, which is pretty good going.

Most Disappointing Comedy...
Lab Rats, I saw the star, Chris Addison on a train, but failed to tell him that I loved him in The Thick of It, but because I’m a comedy snob I failed to Lab Rats remotely funny. And they even stole an idea Ed and I had for a film entitled “The Giant Snail”

*PLEASE NOTE: NO AWARDS WILL BE PRESENTED, EXCEPT IN MY HEAD, AND THERE'S LIMITED SPACE IN THERE*

Some useful links:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eqmjWCk36C8

HELLO HUGH!

The Magical Mystery Tour in Folkestone!

2008-08-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

God I was bored on Tuesday (26th) so like most people I thought the only cure for my boredom was to go on a magical mystery tour. Ed and I have been discussing such a thing for a while. The idea was that we buy an “explorer ticket” from the bus driver and then get on a bus and travel to a random place (in Kent, because the explorer ticket just covers Kent.) I text Ed and informed him that I wanted to go on this quest that day. He had just enrolled at college, so was already in Canterbury; we agreed to meet at the bus station as it seemed the logical thing to do.

When we were there we met up with Rob Middlebrooke who was also enrolling at wonderful college. We asked him if he wanted to “enrol” on our magical mystery tour. He grumpily said “no” because “he couldn’t see the point” and wanted to “go home” or some bullshit. We tried to convince him, we wanted to get on the bus to Hales Place, but even the bright lights and mad women of Hales Place couldn’t tempt him. Why he didn’t want to go after a small, strange looking, woman joyfully asked us if we wanted to go to this magical place I don’t know. Then we saw Jess Richards and told her of our plan, she said she didn’t want to come either as she was “meeting a friend” or some bullshit. It seemed as if it would just be me and Ed alone, discovering the uncharted land of Hales Place on our own, until our knight in a grey cardigan turned up...

Andrew Clark confidently stepped off the bus. Ed and I ran towards him, screaming, unable to contain our excitement...”Andy” we said “Andy, would you like to go on a magical mystery tour with us, to a random place (within Kent)?”

“yeah alright” Andy replied.

Good old Andrew Clark, after we said goodbye to old grumpy Middlebrooke who went off to “play with his Xbox” and walked past Jess loads of times, it was decision time. The bus Hales Place had departed, along with a load of chavs who stuck their fingers up at us as they went, probably as they knew what we were missing out on in Hales Place. After that we considered going to Rough Common, but it sounded rough and common so we decided to go to Folkestone.

It was one heck of a journey; it took for what seemed like an eternity, going through various places which contained fields and animals. We discovered later that we had taken the long route to Folkestone. As it was such a long journey we had time to speak, very loudly, about a range of topics. This included, amongst others, Anne Frank, Myra Hindley and Andrew Marr. We finally arrived at our destination, like most explorers we didn’t know what to expect from Folkestone. Would the natives welcome us?

After only a few minutes we weighed up the pros and cons of Folkestone, in comparison to Canterbury. Here’s what we came up with: Lack of CJ’s, though they have a better Waterstones. Andy had told us of a magical Wheatherspoons in Folkestone, so we went to look at it, and it was magical. But Andy failed to tell us we had to be over 18 to enter it. After our tough journey we were hungry we needed food. We went in a few shops trying to be like the Folkestone equivalent to CJ’s but refused to have lunch there, (it didn’t look that nice to be honest.) So instead we went to “Costa Coffee” which was nice we had a sandwich, and a cup of tea, Ed had an innocent smoothie. We were now ready to conquer Folkestone.

Oh and how we conquered. First we went to the beach and called Rob and mocked him and told him what he was missing. Then we used the famous Leas Cliff Lift, which was really great we went up the cliff in a really old lift. And got in for a child ticket price, 50P, bargain!
Then we went and explored the town, we went to Argos and typed in lots of numbers on the machine things. Then we went into a junk shop thing and Andy bought an elephant for his mum. Then we went in to the big shopping place and messed around on the escalators, and we finished our day by going into pound world....EVERYTHING WAS A POUND! You could get a DVD of snoopy the musical or a DVD on Harold Shipman, or some toilet roll, or an oxo cube, or a torch...all for £1!!!

Then we decided to go home, our magical mystery tour was over, until the next time. We got the shorter bus home so we only managed to play “one potato, two potato...” with our legs, Bluetooth a picture of Ed to a man on the bus and have a conversation about Enoch Powell.

"People under the age of 18 should be banned from TV"

2008-08-23T05:23:00.000-07:00

People under the age of 18 should be banned from TV. As a quite boring 16 year old, if a teenager appears on the screen it feels me with rage. They’re either the incredibly good looking pricks off shows such as “Skins” who make you think your not normal because you’re not constantly at parties, high on drugs with your cock in some equally good looking girls arse hole. Or there’s the kids who are on there because they’ve got some kind of amazing talent, which makes you think that they’re either freaks or you envy them because they’re so great at something while you’re not. You’re shit, you’re shit at everything. Then there’s precocious sods that act, sing and dance for the camera and who live out their parents failed dreams.

But I’m not sure how to classify the utterly annoying, un talented, un funny cunts who starred in channel 4’s comedy lab’s “school of comedy.” Children can’t do comedy. That’s a fact, my friend and I found this out, we had an opportunity to write a script which would be shown to someone at the BBC. Now I’m going to admit it now, we want to be comedy writers, we spend our lives watching comedy and we make each other, and everyone around us laugh. We wrote a 30 page script, which was awful, seriously shocking, as soon as we sent it off we knew we made a mistake, we’ve yet to hear back from the Beeb, and I’m not surprised. No one in their right mind would give that script the time of day. Well maybe someone at channel 4 would, as they commissioned something far worse, with “school of comedy.” I didn’t laugh once. Actually I was close to tears, maybe it was jealousy or maybe it was because I’m a huge fan of comedy, I love it, that’s why I am so disgusted to see its name associated with this drivel. It’s the same for the two shows on before and after it. The “Charlotte Church Show” and “Tonightly.”

By far the most annoying of all these little fuck wipes was “Will Pouter” or someone. He looks like the Grinch but uglier, he looks like a scrotum that’s been run over then been stapled to the Grinch’s face. Every thing about him makes me want to jump in to the telly smack him, and then repeatedly hit him in the face with a cricket bat. For his own good, like plastic surgery, I’d do it for free, make him look better. Anyway, it’s not fair to mock his looks so let’s mock every other aspect of this programme. Firstly Children playing adults is not funny, it’s weird, I once saw the film “Bugsy Malone” as a child and was confused for days. I still am a bit. Secondly, these tiny minded rat bags think that just because they can swear, they know the word “fuck” that if they say it, it’s funny. Well it’s not you fucking wankers. Thirdly, since when did miming to songs become, funny, original, clever or entertaining? Never, is the answer yet the “school of comedy” seemed to think it was hilarious. So did the audience of morons who were laughing along, at first I thought it must be canned, but it sounded pretty good. Then I realised, it was probably the parents of these shits.

If these people get a series I will actually loose the last scrap of faith I have in humanity. If the worst does happen, and some moron commissioner gives them a show, because they think they’re cutting edge. Despite they’re jokes being predictable, boring, outdated and unfunny. Then I look forward to seeing the slow descent into depression and drug addictions which befalls almost all child “celebrities.” That is something to look forward to.
Indecently my friend and I to kind of have the last laugh as our musical comedy act “The Atomic Penguins” have a spot on September’s “Whitstable Winkle.” Which for you who don’t know what that is, it’s Whitstable’s first comedy festival and we’re headlining, well playing at an open mic night entitled “Comedy Virgins” at the Smack in Whitstable, more details to follow.

Also just a qucik metion about "Richard and Judy" who sadly, some may argue, departed terrestrail TV after 7 years of their channel 4 show origianly titled "Richard and Judy." My views on these two can be found by this following the link below...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk6c2LpoFOc

and one of the funniest clips on youtube...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hAX6yi60OPY

Why The Human Race Is Doomed

2008-08-16T05:04:00.000-07:00

Global warming, Terrorism, Bird Flu, the resources running out, a third world war between the world’s nuclear superpowers, the bees disappearing (they’re dying and not, as doctor who wants you to think, going off to their “home planet.” They’re dying, and as a consequence we could to) and Aliens invading and vaporising people who have a “bebo” account. These are just some of the things threatening life on earth as we know it.

I’ve been on my own, in my house, for 3 days now and it got me thinking. “Does the human race deserve what ever punishment will befall us in the near future?” Well maybe, watching daytime TV does make you think what the point of it all is. If it’s not ugly, toothless, waste-of-skin, chavs bickering on shows such as Jeremy Kyle or American equivalents which are much worse, like all American TV. It’s over the top rubbish. Or on the BBC at the moment are the Olympics. Which are all very nice, but they don’t half make you feel inadequate. All these super fit athletes at the peak of their career. Competing at the highest level, smashing records with their huge muscles, carrying the hopes of nations on their shoulders. While I sit there, my hand down my trousers, eating biscuits after getting up just after 11.

Feeling fat and worthless I switch over to what is fast becoming my favourite TV channel. Freeveiw channel 102, there lays Rabbit Chat and Date. Basically it’s a channel for lonely people, lonely people to talk to fellow lonely people. You can text in a photo of yourself, requesting other “rabbits” to “Message you.” This is strangely addictive; I have watched it for far too long. The photo’s people send in are comical. You either get smug cunts who pose for the camera showing off their “pecks” or middle aged men, who I would suspect, either have never had sex or have just come out of a failed marriage. Each looking for love with the opposite sex, I like to play a little game, which of the men can spell the word “ladies” correctly. Half of the men spell it “ladys” a few of them “lady’s” and, very rarely, the correct spelling. These people with some grasp of basic grammatical and spelling knowledge I root for and hope some “ladies” or “gals” will “message them.” I do feel sorry for them that their lives have come to this, using text speak to describe themselves in only a few words. And trying to meet other, equally as sad, desperate, lonely people through their tellies.

But watching this is slightly scary because I can see myself in a few years time, still with my hand firmly down my trousers in front of the TV, with more biscuits, fatter, lazier and now taking a photo of my self with the message underneath “Ladies msg me, single 35 year old looking for good time with someone...please....please...anyone?” that is if we haven’t died already in a global catastrophe!

If you haven't got freeveiw enjoy rabbit chat and date here:

http://www.rabbit-tv.com/

trust me it's addictive!

Why Volleyball is Slightly Better Than War

2008-08-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve just finished watching the Olympic coverage of the women’s beach volleyball doubles. The game was between none other than Russia and Georgia, the two countries, who for the past few days had been at war with one another. As I sat there watching these women in nothing but pants and a sports bra, as they jumped to and hit the ball to each other their womanly bodies pushed to the physical limit, all four players passionately fighting for their country’s pride, sweat dripping from their immaculate bodies, I started thinking. This is much better than war, why couldn’t they resolve international conflicts like this? You know, for one thing, no one gets hurt, and hardly anyone ever dies on the court.

Plus volleyball is far easier to masturbate over than, say, dying children in a war torn country. And I would much rather see Huw Edwards say “The Russian president today announced that their country is going to focus more on their play from the back of the court” rather than “the Russian president today announced that their country is going to deploy 5,000 more troops and military aircraft into Georgia” or visa versa. Volleyball was also better as the underdog (Georgia) won! This is always nice to see the underdogs claim a victory.

This unfortunately is just a dream and it’s highly unlikely that George “Idiotic baboon” Bush will ring up the Taliban and say “Hey guys fancy a game of...err...err...Volleyball to sort out the whole...erm...war thing in the middle of the east? In I-rack or wherever you guys are!” though, because he such an imbecile and this is such a stupid idea, I wouldn’t put it past him.

"The Insanely Great Musical Genius of Sigur Ros."

2008-08-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

Hello, today I am going to talk to you about the insanely great musical genius of Sigur Ros.

I am well aware that if you love music, you’ve probably heard, and fallen in love with, Sigur Ros. If you haven’t heard them, you need to. They will change your life and make you love music in a whole different way. I first heard about this Icelandic band when I heard their epic track “Hoppípolla” on the trailer for the BBC show “Planet Earth.” That song was the perfect song to represent the sheer beauty of our natural world. So I went and bought their album “Takk...” (Which, luckily, featured Hoppípolla, this was a guess as the band tend not to put the name of the album tracks on the back of the album!) Anyway I was blown away, and then I got their “()” album, none of the tracks were named, neither was the album. That record was spellbinding

Sigur Ros ‘s latest album “With A Buzz In Our Ears We Play Endlessly” or “Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust” is brilliant beyond belief, and I think, my favourite of all the Sigur Ros albums. It has all the usual heart rendering beautiful, slow music. (I have stated in the past that Sigur Ros are the only band who has the power to make me cry!) But also on this album are more upbeat, happy tracks. My favourite of these is the second track on the album “Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur” It starts off with some muffled trumpets then, bursts in with some piano chords and the main riff starts, it continues, I defy anyone to listen to this track and not have a smile on their face. Sigur Ros are such talented musicians; this track shows that they don’t just use their talents for making quite sombre music. Halfway through the song breaks down and only the piano, violin and the instrument playing the main riff (sorry cant work out what it is) are audible then the drums and vocals kick back in, then the bass, then more vocals, then the strings become more noticeable, then the trumpets, then the drums get faster along with the vocals, (which also get higher). It’s building to something...I get exited, then all the instruments stop, and just the main riff instrument continues, suspended in mid air for a few seconds then...BANG! The drums kick back in along with all the other wonderful instruments, the victorious sounding trumpets capping off a truly excellent song.

For me this is the song to my summer. For me it encapsulates everything I’m feeling at the moment, it represents freedom, freedom from school, and new beginnings, new beginnings at college. The album cover is the band running across a road, next to a beautiful hillside, completely naked. Hearing this song makes me want to do exactly the same. (Though, thankfully, I doubt I will.)

This is the effect this band has on me and, I think, every other one of their fans. They have the ability to take you out of the real world, and into another. Sometimes you’re happy to be there, other times it can be upsetting, and even, at times, scary. Listening to this extraordinary band you paint your own images, meanings and subjects to the songs. As most of their songs they speak in, to quote the title of their songs, “Gobbledigook” or “hopelandic” their made up language. Despite this you instantly know, or create, the meaning of the song.

When I listen to their music I get sucked in and become almost oblivious to my surroundings. For example I was listening to a song on my iPod from their new album, the song was called “Festival” and I was standing in a car park. I just shut my eyes, and was cut off from everything around me and for nine minutes or so I was in Sigur Ros’s world. Then when I opened them again, I did find it hard to re-adjust to normal life. Only a truly special band could do that to someone like me, and Sigur Ros are a VERY special band. Make no mistake about it.

I think that Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur is being released as a single, but fuck that, just go and buy the album, or any of their work, it will change your life. Yesterday I bought their “Ágætis Byrjun” album, because it was in a book called “1001 albums you must own” so the album I hadn’t got, I thought I’d better get it. I bought it along with Biffy Clyro’s “Puzzle”, two very different, but great, albums.

My G.C.S.E’s results day is drawing ever closer, the day I find out whether or not I go to college. If I don’t get into college, I think it’ll be a similar situation to when Hitler failed to get into Art College. I will slowly get angrier and angrier until I win power and then try to take over the world and be responsible for the deaths of millions, and eventually kill myself in an underground bunker after just marrying my mistress. Maybe, or, more likely, go into my room, lock the door, put Sigur Ros on my IPod and cry for hours.

I would put up some mp3's but I don't know how, plus you should just buy the album from my useful link:

http://www.sigurros.com/main/AlbumList.asp?ArID=1&AID=61&lng=EN

God Help Us All!

2008-08-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve just heard that the social networking site Bebo is to try and contact alien life! The site, which I’ve had rants about before and even dedicated a whole blog to it, and why I disliked it. Apparently it’s going to send messages to a planet, with similar conditions to earth, which may have intelligent life on it. Now I can’t think of anything worse to represent human life than bebo. Have you seen the morons that occupy that site? They can’t even string a sentence together, and when they do they don’t use proper words. Thousands of years of human civilisation, human endeavour all the great things we’ve achieved as a race. Yet the first things these aliens will see of our planet will be a load of chavs discussing their boring and, let’s face it, worthless lives. They will almost defiantly see us as idiotic boobs of creatures and come invade us and vaporise us all in our homes, which is if we haven’t destroyed all life ourselves before then. We may as well send them a video tape of all the wars we’d ever fought and a picture of Ken Dodd, and directions to our main government buildings.

Anyway just a quick note about “The Kevin Bishop Show”, on channel 4. Now I shouldn’t like this show. I don’t really like Kevin Bishop, I didn’t like his, apparently, comedy award wining show “Star Stories” and I hated him as a child in “Muppet Treasure Island” he was a smug cunt in that. But I must say, “The Kevin Bishop Show”, has its laugh out loud moments. The pace is so quick that if there’s a sketch you don’t like then another one will soon be along. The show also features the man out of peep show who has a tube up his nose, can’t think of his name, I should be able to since we completed the Peep Show Party! Well we watched series 3 and 4, (we’ve cancelled the screening of series 5 and the other comedy days we had planned, and it seems people are not as hungry for cult comedy marathons as we first thought.)

Also I can now officially call myself an “inspirational writer” as this great piece of writing, (the blog), was so unbelievably brilliant that I inspired Steph Ellis (who was one of two guests that came for half of the second Peep Show Party) to write here own blog. The Nobel Prize for literature is just around the corner for me!

And some sad news now, my rebellious teenage phase has ended as I have finally conceded defeat. I’ve had my hair cut. It was a tough decision, but it was getting out of control and I was getting very hot, and sweating because of the amount of hair on my noggin. So I had it cut, then it became wet and cold, but oh well it doesn’t look that different to be honest so that was a pointless piece of information I gave you.

some useful links

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6YkAuDaLKpI
What would happen in the event of an alien invasion

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JtpmFc557Oc
some kevin bishop

"I brag to my friends that I once saw a woman’s breast on Richard and Judy"

2008-08-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

Let me give you an insight into my little world, here’s a text message I sent to my best friend yesterday:

“I’ve just saw a breast (with nipple showing!) Then an interview with Richard Dawkins on Richard and Judy! That’s probably the closest TV will come to our dream of Richard Dawkins on Sexetra!”

Please let me explain, I brag to my friends that I once saw a woman’s breast on Richard and Judy, so before the watershed at 5pm, squeezing milk on to a teaspoon, I’ve also heard the word “shit” said on the programme twice, once it came out of Richard’s mouth! So, when I saw a breast on Richard and Judy again, (admittedly it was showing about when boob jobs go a bit wrong, so the booby in question was all bruised and didn’t really do anything for me,) I had to tell my friend!

But not before Richard and Judy interviewed Professor Richard Dawkins, the respected atheist evolutionary biologist, about his new TV programme. Now the reason this is significant, significant enough for me to text my friend, is because me and my friend once had a conversation which ended up with us pondering what would happen if Richard Dawkins appeared on Sexetra!

If you don’t know what Sexetra is, it’s an American show which is broadcast on a few UK satellite channels late at night. This, as the name suggests talks about and shows a lot of sex. I imagine most teenagers have stumbled across this at some stage in their life, and the first time thought it was the greatest programme since Eurotrash. Then after about the third time they’ve watched it and got incredibly irritated at the annoying American, sex obsessed, presenters who prance around various brothels or sex parties screaming at the camera and gleefully groping helpless deluded, attractive wasters of girls. (And that’s just the female presenters, DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON THE MALE ONES!) And also notice that all the interesting, still slightly mysterious bits (i.e. the women’s vagina) are blurred out.

Anyway where was I? Oh yes Richard Dawkins, he’s the sort of man you know will comfort you, act as a sort of granddad, if there does prove to be a God on the other side, he will comfort the other non believers in Hell by handing out boiled sweets. My friend and I came to the conclusion that he should appear on sexetra, not by a string of witty remarks culminating in a hilarious concept, but a simple confusion, I was talking about a programme that “Richie Dawk” appeared on (BBC4’s The Late Edition) and my friend, (who shall remain nameless but you can have a pretty good guess if you look back at my previous posts who I spend most of my time with) was talking about Sexetra, we both thought we were talking about the other programme, it was quite hilarious at the time. You really had to be there.

Anyway, in the evening I went to see Stephen Merchant do stand up in Canterbury, for those of you who don’t know, he’s the co-creator of comic gems “the office” and “ Extras.” He’s the tall one with glasses who is seen with Ricky Gervais. I must admit in interviews with the pair, Stephen Merchant usually seems the funniest and has Gervais in stitches. He explained that he’s only doing shows in small venues to try out material on audiences to see what works until he goes on to bigger venues. I must say he was very funny, it’d be unfair to compare him to Ricky Gervais, as the media has given Ricky such ridiculous praise, I’m not saying he’s not worthy as he is very funny, but “The Office” and “Extras” belong to Merchant as much as they do to Ricky. This was Stephen’ s chance to prove that he could do stand up, though he made it clear that he was not a stand up and only did this for the money! And apologised that he may not be funny, but he was and he’s a very funny man, physically and did have the audience rolling around, and could, if he wanted to, a very successful stand up career.

He had two comics before him first up, Tom Price then Steve Carling. Let’s just say the acts got progressively better as the night went on.

Then I came home to watch “tonightly” the new channel 4 show hosted by Manchester born comic Jason Manford. Its part of the “generation next” strand of channel 4. New “talent” in other words. I was very disappointed. Other shows like this have launched the careers of comedy stars such as, the fore mentioned Ricky Gervais and Sacha Baron Cohen. Tonightly was awful, first of all it’s billed as “satirical” there’s loads of satire shows out there, Have I Got News For You, Mock The Week, 8 out of 10 Cats (to a degree), which Jason Manford is a team captain, and I’ve got to say I’ve never really liked that show. To host a satirical show, you need to have an air of intelligence about you, know what you’re on about, understand politics be able to create an air that you have a right to poke fun at people. That you are better than them and could do a better job. Jason Mannford has none of these qualities. He comes out in a shirt, no jacket or tie and has lots of “erms” and “arrs” and it basically seems that he has no idea what he’s on about. Now I’ve seen Manford’s stand up, and recently on “Would I lie to you?” and he was quite funny, so I have nothing against him as a comic, but intelligent satire. I don’t think he’s right for the job. Plus when will channel 4 learn that a big brother joke does not constitute as news. Unless it’s poking fun at the show. But don’t try to boost the ratings by talking about it on other shows. I know it appeals to the “16-24 age demographic” but I’m 16 and didn’t like it, and don’t find someone repeatedly shouting “fuck off” funny.

And to cap it all off, former mayor of London, Ken Livingston came on and made a knob joke. Which was cringe worthy.

Some Useful Links:

Stephen Merchant in "Extras"
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eK8rwRsVFBM

In his lesser known, but still as funny, role in the brilliant "Darkplace"
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bg9wSlVcAYY

Judy Finagin with her breasts out!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0apAF7GXPz4

Peep Show Party!

2008-07-31T07:24:00.000-07:00

Other teenagers have "skins" parties...

So last weekend I thought I had maybe, finally, broken into the rest of society. I thought, after 16 years, I may have started to live like a normal teenager, a normal member of society.
On Friday I accidently invited myself to a beach party, (Josh Morris sent a text to me inviting me to this gathering when it was meant to go to someone else) Anyway, this wasn’t a normal experience as I angered the lesbian community and complained the whole night that I didn’t like the taste of alcohol. But that’s irrelevant the fact is I was out on Friday night instead of staying at home watching panel shows and newsnight review.

Also on Saturday, I went to visit my brother up in Glouster and we went to a Chinese restaurant. This is not a normal occurrence for me as I don’t like Chinese food. Ever since I was a child and saw that the food looked like puke I’ve gone off it, without tasting it. There are a number of reasons I’ve kept this argument alive. Despite everyone I know likening and telling me how good Chinese food is, I hate to admit I’m wrong so although, in the back of my mind, I knew I may probably like it. I chose not to eat it. Another reason is that I’m British so I like nothing more than to moan and complain about something, especially if it’s something foreign! Anyway, I did try some Chinese food, I wasn’t that adventurous, I’ll admit. I had duck in BBQ sauce and chips, now I’m no expert but I don’t think that Duck or chips are native to China. Anyway, the point is these things may seem normal to you, because I suspect you’re a normal person but to me they’re not. I thought I’d finally broken into the mainstream, thought I joined the rat race with all the other idiot humanoids; this was until yesterday (Wednesday.)

It was the day of mine and Ed’s geekiest idea ever. It was the day of our Peep Show Party. The idea of a Peep Show Party came about before the fifth series of the hit channel 4 sitcom “Peep Show” was about to start, I suggested me and Ed watch all four previous series of Peep Show leading us up to the start of the fifth. Of course this was a ridiculous concept as we were in the middle of studying for our G.C.S.E’s. But we told people and the idea gained momentum, people said they’d come along and watch every episode of Peep Show with us! Slowly the idea went from “wouldn’t it be funny if...” to “so when shall we do this?..”

W e organized the P.P.S for the 30th of July, we invited 10 people to come and enjoy the wonders of Peep Show. Slowly but surely they all dropped out, here’s some of the lame excuses the came up with to avoid sitting in a room with two weird boys watching a cult comedy show for 7 and a half hours straight, over two days.

They were “working”

Their sister in law had just “gone into labour”

They had to “clean their house”

They had to “spend time with their family”

They spent all day “in the theatre”

They had to “look after their younger brother and sister”

They had “better things to do"

However, two friends did remain faithful, not only to me and Ed, but to peep show. These Two great friends were Robert Middlebrooke and Tom Edwards. We got Tom out of the shower and demanded he come round, and Rob got lost on his way to Ed’s house but eventually found it. So there it was, the Peep Show Party, an hour behind schedule with four people eager for great comedy and a great day.

One of the most exiting things to happen was, in one of the episodes you can see a number on a phone which is supposed to belong to Jez. Tom wanted to phone this number, to see who it was, if anyone. So we did, we rang the number and asked for "Jez" then "Robert Webb" the man hang up. We thought we'd better ring him and tell him how we got his number and he said " yeah I know it's a mistake" or something, so it must of happend to him before. Poor guy, there must be people as sad us out there!

I can confirm that it was a success, we watched series one and two, (6 hours straight) by which time our brains were just a mush of Peep Show, I didn’t know when one episode started and another finished. But we did it, proved the synics wrong, we did it.
Then we went round Tom’s house, which used to belong to Rob’s Granny who had a facelift, and jumped on the trampoline.

Incidentally, the Darkplace and Man to Man party, The Day Today Day (featuring Brasseye) and Flight of the Conchords Day have all been postponed along with the second day of the Peep Show Party!

Some Useful Links:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E1hvP5JwsKs
classic Peep Show

Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1xzxDRA93Nk
Peep Show's theme tune and a fucking great song, from a fucking great band!

(US DANCING TO THE PEEP SHOW THEME AT THE P.S.P!)

Lounge on the Farm

2008-07-28T04:47:00.000-07:00

LOUNGE ON THE FARM
11TH JULY 2008

So we started the day at College, (as it was summer school) we were telling everyone how exited we were about lounge on the farm and Art Brut. They all thought we were a bit funny I think...oh well we didn’t care me and Ed were off to see our heroes!

We arrived at lounge on the farm and were greeted b y a man playing an accordion/ squeeze box thingy, as soon as we saw that we were certain this was going to be a great day.

When we made it to the actual main event place we had a mooch around, and got exited.
We went to the “Sheep Dip” tent and saw the “Steven and Seven” crew but without Steven! We gave two of its members our “Eddie Argos, Eddie Argod” signs which one of them shoved down his trousers. They were there to watch “Semifinalists” so we stayed and watched them to. Me and Ed were having a great time and the only people in the tent who were clapping along to their songs (to be fair there wasn’t that many people in the tent in the first place) anyway the Semifinalist ‘s singer dedicated a song to us because we were “cool.” You know you’ve made it when an American 2step indie electro duo calls you cool! (That quote’s going on the next Atomic Penguins album by the way)

Then we went outside again and spoke to an incredibly tall man from the circus, who recommended we watch this band because he knows the drummer, but we didn’t. Then we saw a man jump on a huge ball and shout “it’s a massive ball” and then he threw it at someone.
Then we saw the end of a nice Irish girl with a guitar’s set, which was nice. I went and spent half of my “travel costs” on a t-shirt. Ed bought half a pint of larger. I didn’t. Then we watched a bit of “the Lovedays” set. We walked around and I bumped into Tiggy Lawson, (from my old school), she didn’t recognise me, but it was rather fun to talk to her.

Then we saw the lead singer of Black Kids and Test Icles (Lightspeed Champion) walk past, they weren’t together and we didn’t say hello.

We then found ourselves at the “school of rock” stage and saw Covered in Ketchup” and Ruby North Beany, briefly, we stayed for two of C.I.K’s songs then left, to sit outside the sheep dip and have lunch.

I ate my Cornish Pasty, Ed didn’t, he “wasn’t hungry.” While we did this we watched a couple kiss passionately and roll around on the floor in front of us. Me and Ed wondered if we should do the same, to break the tension. We didn’t.

Then we went into the “Sheep Dip” to wait for Glam Chops to play, this was about an hour before they were due to come on, so we were the only ones in the tent! So we went and caught 5 minutes of “Wheeler Street” because the drummer had offered us alcohol, sung us a song about poo and sold me my bass guitar. Then we returned to the sheep dip tent to watch Eddie Argos’s Glam Chops, we were still the only people in the tent and then the guitarist walked in, Ed and I clapped him and he looked slightly confused and waved at us, then it was awkward so we came out of the tent.

The tent started to fill up and at the front was me and Ed, some people and a boy with an “Art Goblins” T-Shirt on, we showed him our approval he looked slightly confused. The Glam Chops came on one by one, we were wondering where Eddie Argos was, we were looking, deliberating whether we should show him our sign. We saw two people who we thought Mikey B, neither of them; we would find out, were. The Glam Chops started to play, and informed us that Eddie Argos was 4 miles away, and then halfway through the set Eddie ran on stage and started singing, we were so happy, I showed him my sign he looked at it and had the reaction that he’d seen it a million times before.

He finished the set by jumping into the audience and thanking everyone for coming. We went outside the tent, then I noticed that, the legendary, Eddie Argos was outside the tent talking to some people, I pointed it out to Ed, then we both ran over to him. Ed shouting “get your pen out, get your pen out” at me. We got there and said hello to Eddie Argos, then he told us about how they wouldn’t let him into the festival, and he had to explain to them he was in a band. Then I asked him to sign my autograph book, and Ed asked him to sign his programme. He did this very slowly, almost like a child, he does his “d’s” like music note and he read the message my sister wrote to me in my autograph book. I told him I was looking forward to Art Brut, he said “yeah so am I, we got loads of new songs and the band (glam chops) are going to come on for good weekend” I told him, that he had to play “good weekend.” Then he signed someone’s rizzler, and we asked that person to take our picture, he did and I will treasure that picture and memory for ever. Then he ran off into the distance, I told him he was a legend and he replied, rather modestly, “yeah, yeah” so there he was Eddie Argos, our hero, such a nice guy, exactly how we imagined him to be, even if we did seem a little obsessive. That old saying “don’t meet your heroes” is wrong, DO!

Walking up to the cowshed and Lightspeed Champion, Ed and I just kept repeating how happy and amazed we were. This day was brilliant...AND WE HADN’T EVEN SEEN ART BRUT YET!
Lightspeed champion played, they were good. Ed enjoyed it more than me, because he owns their album. Next up was Black Kids; they were good I enjoyed them more than Ed because I own their album! We both accidently found ourselves in a mosh pit but, we never got right into the action. We were determined not to get injured before Art Brut.
Then the time came, our plan had worked perfectly, we had slowly made our way to the front and were now right by the stage. When the drunken poet who no one liked announced that Art Brut were coming on, me, Ed and another kid gave out a massive cheer, we knew what was coming.

When Art Brut walked on stage, it was like we were sitting in front of a massive computer screen and we had just typed in “Art Brut live” on you tube. But we hadn’t, it was real, they were real, in front of us...all of them!

They opened with a new song, just as our mate Eddie had promised, then Eddie proclaimed that they were going to play the first song they ever wrote together (without Jasper Future) and then they played the classic “Formed a Band.”
After that Eddie told the rest of the band to “ignore their set lists” and he started to take requests from the crowd. They played our request of “Nag Nag Nag Nag.” They played great song after great song There were so many highlights, the whole band freezing mid way through “Good Weekend”, Eddie Argos crowd surfing, his mid song rants, Mikey B standing up on his drum kit, us singing along to everything (even some of the things we’ve seen him to live on YouTube!)

The one thing however, that I think I’ll remember most is during “Bad Weekend” when he sang “popular culture no longer applies to you” and pointed to me (and Ed!)

After they’d finished we both had lost our voices and were talking with very deep, husky voices saying how amazing it was, Ed described it as “everything I imagined and more.” Then we saw Steven for the first time and told him to “fuck off” and called him a “cunt” because he said that he heard Art Brut from outside and they sounded shit. His friend disagreed which proved he was wrong.

Because we had been singing at the top of our voices for about over an hour non stop we needed a drink, I went to the bar, past all the dancing drunkards, got out my money and very quietly ordered a bottle of water, the barman looked at me confused. I felt like saying “Listen I don’t like the taste of alcohol, I’m thirsty and I like my liver” but I didn’t. Ed bought another half pint of lager, his second of the day, bringing his total alcohol consumption to a whole pint, I personally think he’s out of control and bordering on alcoholic.

We decided not to go and see Holy Fuck because we wanted the festival to end with that amazing Art Brut performance. So instead we walked around the field, acting like everyone else was, drunk, except we were, as I put it, “high on life.” We asked people if they had seen Art Brut, and one boy said he had and we congratulated and high-fived him.

Then we saw the same boy again, he accused us of stalking him, then we made him our friend, so it wasn’t technically stalking. Plus he had lost his real friends Ed, me and Joe (that was his name) discussed many things including, amongst others, Trampling a drunk baby during a rave, bins that pick up rubbish, space aliens, my sexuality (obviously) and many other things. Then I showed him all the pictures and videos on my phone which scared him slightly and then another boy who had lost his friends came up, called Fred, (Joe escaped at this point) who was stoned because he had smoked some weed with a 40 year old woman. He told us that he had just come out of a long relationship, which was very sexual and that he broke it off for silly reasons. He was 20 so we didn’t mind that he had lost his virginity. He then told us he didn’t mind that we were high on life instead of illegal substances. Fred had a combination of the munchies and natural hunger so I gave him my yoghurt bar and told him to “stay off the crack” and “the drugs don’t work” and that “heroin was the drug for me!”

Then we came across the saxophone player from glam chops, and then we asked for his autograph (his first ever!), he was impressed at my autograph book. The make up lady gave us Glam Chops badges. Then the bass player came along and recognised us and said how we’d been in the same spot for both sets (Art Brut and Glam Chops) the saxophone player was bragging how he got asked for an autograph to the bass player. We also saw the dancers and I said that they danced well.

Then I called my parents and asked them to come and pick us up. What an excellent day, shame we couldn’t camp there but Ed had to go on holiday, and I think Saturday and Sunday would have been dull in comparison to this magnificent Friday!

here's some useful links:

www.the-eddie-argos-resource.blogspot.com

Eddie Argos's blog, if you search hard enough he put up a couple of Glam Chop's songs for you to download.

www.myspace.com/artbrut

Art Brut's myspace

http://www.myspace.com/paranoiddogbark

Glam Chop's myspace (you can see my hair on their profile picture!!)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tcDg813Jpa4

Glam Chop's live, ( you can see mine and ed's sign and hair!)

Britain's Got Nothing

2008-07-27T16:17:00.000-07:00

Here’s my Charlie Brooker-esq review of ‘Britain’s got talent’

TV ‘talent searches’ in my opinion they have had their day. Popstars was mildly exiting, it was fresh and new, apart from shows such like “opportunity knocks” in the 70’s. But you’ve seen one hopelessly deluded person you’ve seen them all.So I sat down to watch ‘Britain’s got talent.’ I don’t know why, I hate the thing, but I think it was billed as being ‘live’ so I hoped that someone would fall over or maybe one of those big crosses would fall from the ceiling and impale Amanda Holden or something.

Dramatic music is played over shots of these supposedly talented drones talking about how it’s been their dream all their life. To do what? Their prize is to perform in front of Prince Charles, not the queen, Prince Charles at the old fashioned, dated now meaningless royal variety performance. These people big up this conversation like it’s a matter of life and death or something we should care about.If you’ve never seen the show before it’s basically lot’s of shit acts, who will be performing for 6 consecutive nights in a prime time ITV 1 slot, humiliating themselves in front of millions of people and the judges.

Ah yes the judges...

Who are they? Well there’s Piers Morgan. Yes a rather unusual almost ironic selection for such a show. For two reasons mainly 1.he has no talent himself, therefore is on an equal level with the contestants. 2. He has appeared on two shows recently both with the word “Britain” in the title. Shows that are supposed to rekindle our national pride. Am I the only one who remembers the reason he was sacked from his post as editor of the daily star was because he mocked up fake photos of British soldiers pissing over Iraqis. Hmm very patriotic.

Next up, pointless, crying, annoying also talentless person in a dress Amanda Holden. I don’t like her, why? I don’t know I just don’t. Her role on the show is supposed to be the beautiful, lovely girl in the middle of the two horrible men. Usually every show like this has one of these useless bags of air with nice tits and face, this is how I can survive these shows normally, I imagine the attractive female naked and giving me a blow job till the end of the credits (yes I’m lonely and have no life, why do you think I wrote this?) where was I? Oh yes I can’t do this with B.G.T because Amanda Holden is not attractive she looks like a witch...she has warts all over her face!

Then there’s Simon Cowle, I didn’t used to mind him but he’s just too predictable now. He says something nasty, often truthful then the brainless barbarians behind him (the audience) boo him, and he sits there smug as fuck thinking about his huge bank balance he’s managed to get of doing the same show in about 3 different guises.

Anyway, first up on the bill on Monday was “boogie wonderland” a dance troupe from Liverpool, made up of lots of girls and a gay, sorry guy, who jumped around on stage waving their arms around, or in other words they danced. What’s the point of dancing? What does it achieve? Nothing. Is there much talent involved? No, not really. Get off my screen.

Then there was some dog that came on with her four legged friend (boom boom.) the audience gaped in awe of this women, who according to her mum doesn’t have many human friends, walk up and down the stage while the dog followed her. Piers Morgan proclaimed the dog as ‘the most talented dog in the world.’ I don’t know, I mean Amanda Holden can talk! (Boom boom, I used the same joke worded differently to insult another ugly human being, but who cares?)
Then in the second half we saw some entertainment. An old man playing the star wars theme badly on his keyboard, in a spaceship. Brilliant. He has no talent but he took the piss right out of this god awful show which I respect him for that. To my horror, however, the audience of morons who would whoop and cheer or boo hysterically if someone coughed, started to boo this poor man, like really lay into him, on national television...is this right? Should this be allowed? These benefit collecting chavs trying to hurt and lower this poor man’s self esteem, who has obviously tried. I really wanted him to flick the V’s at the audience and tell them all to “fuck off.”

Next up was some boring, winey twat who sings from the musicals. At this point I muted the sound on my television. I couldn’t watch this show anymore; I went up to my room to angrily write this.

Still to come in the week of ‘semi-finals’ we have been promised that fat, ugly bullied school kid who’s shy and can sing “oh look at me, I’ve got a sob story, I’m a fat ugly bullied child from a council estate give me money and fame, cry for me Amanda.” Plus that ten year old ‘comedian’ he’s not a comedian he’s another word beginning with ‘C’

He’s a ten year old cunt.

Oh and then there’s Ant and Dec on a phone in show asking for your money. Need I say more?

In conclusion, if you have a brain cell or a short temper with modern society, don’t watch this programme. I won’t be because I don’t want to throw a brick through my telly.

Happy holidays

Love Nathan

xxx

Bebo

2008-07-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

This is a blog I posted on bebo a while ago, I appoligise for the errors but can't be arsed to change them, enjoy...

So, just to say how immensely proud i am of managing to last a whole year on bebo with out resorting to smashing my head through my computer because of all of the awfulness contained on this complete and utter shit website.

For starters, according to this i have 79 friends! no i dont i have about 3 and thats INCLUDING the imaginary ones. i will give you some rough statistics about my "cyber-buddies" theres only about 20 that i acctually quite like, i have 3 fictional friends, the rest of them i either dont know or don't particually like. oh yeah and there's terry ashbrooks aunty. she's cool.

Anyway, i suppose most of you just requested my friendship, to boost your own number of friends, because no one ever speaks to me, and why would they? we dont speak in the real world, or we do speak in the real world so have nothing to say to eachother in cyberspace. And i know some of you have attempted to communicate with me, but i can't for life of me understand what the hell you're saying because its in a fucking different language! all this abbrevitaed shit. many of you know my feelings on this subject as i proberly had a massive rant to you about it.

Also, another thing that really annoys me is "sharing the luv" this is just another way to see who is the most populer and who isn't. i look at your profiles and you all have like 1,000,000 love when little old me has about 21, all of them have been given to me by men. mainly josh morris and ed goodson. but even me and ed have stopped giving love to each other over the internet because we are scared of one of us being higher than the other one, how sad is that? i mean it's not like the person acctually gives you love, i mean i've never had it off a girl, but i doubt after i had recived it they would sleep with me. you may like to know that this whole debarcle has not affected mine and eds sexual relationship in the real world.

Another reason why i hate this bloody site, is the pictures which are uploaded, mainly because they usually depict you having fun at some party or other, while i'm sitting on my computer getting ready to sit on my own watchig tv and attempting to masturbsate, but usually failing misrably. also your pictures are very self indulgent, i mean dont get me wrong some of you are fairly attractive, and the girls aren't bad either but you take hundreds of photos of your self pulling a stupid face, or putting your lips together and pressing your finger against the side of your cheek, or if your a boy just genrally looking like a smug bellend.but amongst all the grammitical errors and just pointless banter between you lot. I sit at my computer staring at you all in disbelif, the hatred for the teenage community in genreal growing inside me.

But I have been doing this for a year now. why? i dont have a clue, i honestly dont. i hate bebo, i hate the vast majorty of the people on it, i hate the people who run it with there stupid little messages which are supposed to be funny, or how they tell us we can "desighn a new skin" or some bolloks like that.but i will proberly still be here in a year, moaning at exactly the same things i guess i log on to get annoyed and thank the lord that i'm not like you, so what if i dont know what "cba" stands for, or think that "lol" is an exagerated and pointless phrase? i'm proud of that fact that i haven't been seduced by the devil and am doing my bit to keep the english language alive. or the fact that i am not getting drunk every night and poisinig my liver...i could go on critsing you and your way of life but i wont there's no point, there was no point to me writing this, because one people wont bother to look at it because they never veiw my profile or they attempted to read it and gave up becaue i haven't shortend any of the words. any way goodbye.

Hello

2008-07-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

Hi to destract myself from all the porn on the internet, i'm setting up a blog

I'm a 16 year old living in Kent in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and have a lot of spare time on my hands as I have just finished my G.C.S.E's and am hoping to go to college in September.

A few things to know about me before you enter my world and may help explain my forthcoming rants...

1. I'm single and often complain about my lack of female attention and the people who have got girls
2. I'm in 2 bands, one is a comedy accoustic duo called the atomic penguins (www.myspace.com/theatomicpenguins) and another i'm has not got a name yet and is still in development stage and will be a more "serious" band i.e drums, bass, guitar...I try to play bass and sing...
3. Most things annoy me.