Sunday, May 29, 2005

Saturday Curry...

I saw Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith today! My God. I'm totally speechless about it - it was absolutley amazing. I nearly cried twice!! Have to see it again soon!

As lottie was away to Homelands this weekend Mooro arranged a night out for everybody else who didn't go. First up was a lovely slap-up curry at the Westbourne Tandoori (spelling?) I had me al proper lovely house special. I ate as much as I could but I did have a sneaky beans on toast at home about an hour before left and it had totally bloated me out! After a good number of beers we set off for a couple of pint at the Goat and Tricycle. The girls (Simone and Fran) wanted to go home - they weren't up for a heavy night out drinking so it was just the lads.... pic....



Conversations mainly revolved around music... cool band names, potential set list for These Charming Men (a Morrisey cover-band one-off gig), Betika's new album and Trues Swamp's new album. And then it was off to the casino.... yet again more blurryness occured as my alcahol levels reached dangerous heights. I must've been drunk - I remember blurting the fine details of my marital downfall to Griff and Mooro. We also had a massively long conversastion about TV comedies and how the good ones always have a limited number of series before they start to get stale! So true!!

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Final Friday

This was to be the last day for Kirsty at Glenigan. It was an odd day. It felt like every other boring, long, dull, dragged out day at work... except one of my best mates who comes upstairs for chats all the time at random intervals is leaving. It's gonna be weird when she's gone.

I did the big mistake of going to the pub for lunch. But it was cos of Kirsty's last day so it was ok... and besides the hair of the dog would've done me good (ok, I'm trying to justify it to myself here!) Went back to work with a tad smelly breath but that was OK, I had chewing gum. The rest of the afternoon made me want to sleep.

I got home and the first thing Glen did was pass me a spliff... which I took from him through habit. Another BIG mistake, I couldn't be arsed to get ready. It was sooo nice out on the patio with the housemates and a cool beer taking in some of the rays. It was nearly 7pm and I coulda stayed there all day, but I had to get ready. I also had to do the washing up... and shower.... and shave.... and eat.... oh God, I was running outta time!!! I quickly sent a text to Kirsty telling her that I'd be there at about 9ish (original plan was to be at Casa for 8!!!) .... but she didn't get the text - both her and Gareth were texting me asking where the hell was I!

Anyway, I got there, like I said, at 9ish. But I felt really in my shell, I didn't feel like talking to people - must've been that spliff I had earlier!! That was soon rectified after a couple of beers - ended up chatting loads to Kristian and snapping myself out of it. Then it was onwards to Bliss. Here's some pics....


Kirsty and Simone


Kirsty and me (ahh bless)


Kelly, Kirsty and Jodie er... experimenting!!


Gareth's probably being rude - as usual!


Just downed a Sambuca - spot the hardcore drinker


Kelly, Kirsty and Jodie looking sweet


Me showing off my camera to Gareth!

It was really packed in Bliss. Full of pretentious people... but then this place always is. The only way to get around it is to not give a toss and act like you own the place. I know it sounds silly but sometimes that's the only way I get around it! But anyway, I had a good time here. Most of the time it's the company you keep, right? And they guys from work are a good bunch and are a great laugh. Had to have a couple of Sambuca's though! Had one with Kirsty and one with Kelly and Lauren (see pic above). Had a bit of a dance (as ya do). I also knocked somebody's drink out of their hand - I really couldn't tell you who's fault it was but I bought him a replacement anyway, it's the least you can do in that kinda situation.

Then we went into Toko just up the road. It took Kirsty and I ages to get people to finish off their drinks and follow us to Toko. In the end we just left them and said "We're going to Toko, go there when you've finished your drinks". When we got there we bought ourselves a couple of drinks and circulated to see what we could see - stopped off on the dance floor on the way and made our way back to the entrance 30 mins later. The group were only just starting to turn up.

Things are pretty hazy around about now... and I didn't take any photos, which is a bummer. But I do remember having a good time. I also remember bumping into the guy from Bliss who I knocked the pint out of the hand of (Grammer??) He stopped me as I was walking past. I didn't recognise him at first cos he was all smiley and was like "Hey, man. How's it going?" I exchanged probably 2 or 3 sentances and then got bored and went to chat to some girls... as ya do.

Fuck knows what time I got home. I walked Kirsty to the taxi and then walked home from there. Went straight to bed!

Friday, May 27, 2005

New Flat - New Horizons!!

I went to see my new flat today. I'm gonna be moving in with Chantal, Rob from Perico and.... er.... can't remember her name! Mind you, I'm surprised I can remember anything at all of what happened over the weekend - I've pretty much got wasted every night from Thursday night through to Monday night. I think I've probably erased some of my braincells!

The place need a bit of a tidy up but hey, it looks good enough for me. My room will have its own patio - which will rock in the Summer... not to sure whether it'd be much fun in the Winter though! But then I might not even stay that long!

Rob was having a bit of a stress about a bass rig that he's been trying to borrow for the weekend and time was running short. But everything was a-ok after a couple of hours and so we headed off to Alcatraz to see Glockenspiel and The SK-5 at the Panda Flesh night. It was pretty weird going to this venue. I used to go there every Thursday and Saturday when it was the X-Treme years back. And it looks the same but different.... very odd. It was only the groundfloor that was open though - upstairs and the basement were closed. There were quite a lot of people there... regulars were saying how it was busier than normal. Now I don't want to run the risk of sounding like my grandad but fuck me, the music was soooo loud! I know there's a stigma attached to saying that particular sentence, and thus most people don't complain about it and just continue being deafened even though they're finding the volume uncomfortable! Typical brits!

Glock were a bit more comprehensible than usual tonight! I dunno why, maybe it was because I was actually listening to them, but hat's off to the Glock. Then SK-5 were on. They were using their first stage prop - a tent!!! That's right, all four of them squeezed into a tiny blue dome-tent and played random music made up on the spot, with Lee (Dutch Husband) occassionally holding up cards with the name of the songs. They had a video camera watching them inside the tent at all times and it was being projected onto the big projection screen behind them. So it wasn't like they alienated the audience by hiding inside the tent.

After the set, which went from being ok to being good to being amazingly kick-ass and back to good again, the boys packed up their equipment and came over to me and Lottie and said everyone's going to the Casino if I wanted to join. I thought why not!

I chose not to bet again as I was already pretty wasted by this time. So I just hung back, watched and drank while everybody else went on the table. Richard Chasemore (the artist who does the Star Wars Cross-sections books) orders a massive pile of ham and cheese sandwiches. The good thing about Casino's is that a few rounds of sandwiches are free if you're playing on the tables - you only pay a tip so Rich gave the waitress a quid!! hehe!

The rest of the evenings events went a bit cloudy from here on in. But I seem to remember getting up and going to work without any problems.... must've still been drunk!

Thursday, May 26, 2005

A Homage to Kirsty

No longer than a couple of months after Kim left Glenigan and Bournemouth to live with Paul in Leeds, Kirsty's time to leave is closing too. She'll be staying in Bournemouth thankfully but is leaving the company so I won't get to see her everyday anymore! Boohoo!! We will be staying in touch as much as possible though.

Like Kimmy, I love her to bits and am gonna miss her. Raise your glasses one and all to Kirsty.




Another London Visit!

Quick update: Went to London AGAIN on Monday with Scott. here's a few pics...









...Also spotted Tanya Byron in Hammersmith tubestation. She's that child psychologist bird off the tele.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

A little late - O'Neills

I've really got to try and start getting on top of this blogging. If I leave things for too long I forget stuff and can't be arsed to type what happened. So apologies in advance if everything here sounds a little vague. I'm also gonna leave the post times and dates as todays date so I know when I busted my ass to try and cover a week and a half's worth of stuff...... I'm sooo gonna miss stuff out (especially stuff like; went home, was bored, played Xbox, went to bed! which is what most of the last week consisted of due to being skint again!)

So, Thursday 19th May 2005 (you'll notice already that I missed out a weeks worth of stuff!) was a dreary rainy day. It kinda reflected the mood of most Star Wars fans that couldn't get tickets for the opening night. It was cold, windy and drizzly so when I got to O'Neills I was soaked. I was advised by Dave Purse to take some form of photo ID with me cos the bouncers were being stupidly strict - I brought my passport. Dave said that one of his mates got turned away the previous week even though we was clearly older than 18!

Anyway, I got in without a problem, found a corner to stick my jacket and found Gary and Simone straight away, went to the bar and also spotted Mooro at the end of the bar - he'd just arrived too. We had a chat and a laugh for about 10-20 mins, caught up on Gary and Simone's holiday etc. Gary gave me a CD of 6 songs to learn for our new band (name still undecided - Amateur Butchers or Stapler are a couple of names we're playing with!) And then Betika came on stage. Time to get to the front and take some pics....









They played a stonkin set again, the sound levels were set correctly this time (compared with The Villa gig!) and therefore sounded fuller. At the beginning of the gig Dave ushered everone forward to close the Bournemouth Gap, and even managed to get some audience participation with tamborines and shakers being handed out to the audience. This was the second time I'd seen Betika and its also the second time Dave snapped a string - I guess I must be a bad omen or something!! I told them I'll come in disguise next time! Ha!

After Betika I bumped into Rob Garment - an old mate from college (we were on the same courses from 1992 up until 1995) He was with his new girlfriend (Sarah) and his boss from work(Rachel - who I thought was pretty cute). In fact they'd went to the pub straight after work and ended up at O'Neills so they were still in their work clothes. I pretty much stayed with these guys for the rest of the night - catching up on old times and helplessly flirting with Rachel - and then left with Lee and Sarah.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Rubber Soul at O'Neills on Thursday nights

I was totally aware of Rubber Soul moving to O'Neills and having it as it's new domain. I was equally aware that this was the opening night. I even knew that True Swamp Neglect were playing on this night. What I didn't know was if anybody I knew would be there. As I was about to start the enquiries via a massive group text session (ooer, missus!!) I received a text from Scott. I believe he had the same idea and started making his own enquiries!! "Fancy going to O'Neils mate to see TRUE SWAMP and MY HI-fi SISTER tonight?" it said (including spelling errors and erratic capital letters!) "Fuckin' right!" I replied and set about arranging a time and a place to meet up. Everybody in my house had their own plans and disappeared to do their own thing. Glen and Kate went to babysit for a friend and Sarah went to her mum's. So I said come on round and we'll have a few beers and kill some time with some MTV2/VH2 before we head down to O'Neills.

I love MTV2 and VH2. If there's nothing else on the tele (and let's face it, is there ever?) then this is my usual channel hopping territory. The Killers were a very propular choice with the VT Operators of BOTH channels on this particular night. In fact MTV2 were doing a The Killers Vs The Strokes special. Anyhoo after a couple of beers each (and doing a couple of Dexy's impressions!) we made for O'Neills (via the NatWest cashpoint where we bumped into Dave and Carolyn from Betika)

£2 was the entrance fee and every penny worthwhile IMHO. My worries about not thinking anyone I knew would be there were soon quashed. As you know I'd already met Dave and Carolyn, I also saw Mooro, Rizlo, Sarah Speakers and BF (can't... remember... his....name!! .....er....Singer from Dutch Husband anyone? edit: it's Lee by the way), Immogen (also of Dutch Husband), and a girl that used to be the girlfriend on one of my best mates (Steve) - her name's Lucy Brasher (was a keen ametuer photographer when I knew her and did a few pics for HFM's website) but I didn't get to speak to her ..... or should I say, I avoided speaking to her cos of the amount of alcohol I'd consumed by the time she'd arrived. I would've ended up trying to say "Hey, Lucyyy, how ya doin'? Long time no see" etc. and it woulda come out as "Eeey, Looosshyy, aahyadin? Lohtimmmosee!" while spraying saliva all over her face. Not good, especially when it's an old mate.

When we first arrived I thought I could hear the psychedelic instrumental section from one of the tunes on Pink Floyd's first two albums being played in the background.... but it never went back into the main tune section!! That could only mean one thing.... Glockenspiel!! Sure enough, Glockenspiel were on stage, with a drummer this time. Now, there's always been a mixed oppinion on Glockenspiel. Kinda like the Marmite factor - you either love 'em or hate 'em. A recent conversastion on the Rubber Soul messageboard reflects that perfectly. I thought they were interesting and different. I mean, who else do you hear these days that plays instruments in a random chaotic way and yet still project a dark sound of fear and paranoia. ..... You couldn't dance to it though!

Next up were Gish's new band, My Hifi Sister. Yeah these guys were cool, had some pretty good tunes. I don't know how long they've been on the scene but they still had The Bournemouth Gap in front of them - this usually indicates a new audience. Anyhoo I thought they rocked. Cue pictures...








(apologies for the total redness of the pics - The Rubber Soul lads accidentally brought only red cells for the lights that night)

After these boys had finished and a couple more pints have been consumed, True Swamp Neglect were on stage. The Bournemouth Gap closes, and a blistering set ensues. I'd never seen them before (when I say this to people most of them gasp in horror!) and this was the primary reason for turning up tonight. I gotta say that I was totally blown away. Their performances were tight yet purposefully sloppy in an old-school Seattle Grunge sense. It's all too easy to compare these guys to Pavement (they're even self confessed Pavement-a-likes) but that's what I like about them. If you were a teenager in the early nineties and owned underground grunge albums (I'm not talking Nirvana, Alice In Chains or Soundgarden here, I'm talking Pavement, Sonic Youth, Sebadoh... maybe Pixies) then you've got to hear True Swamp Neglect. Nuff said!











currently listening to: Bloc Party

Monday, May 16, 2005

THX 1138



On Wednesday I went round Scott and Fran's for a take-away and a DVD. I didn't know what film they wanted to watch so I took 4 round, we finally decided on watching THX 1138. Now for those people who have never heard of THX 1138 before (which is probably most of you!) it's actually the first professional film George Lucas ever made after he left film college and helped founder American Zoetrope with fellow film director Francis Ford Coppola. The film is actually very VERY arty - probably too arty for most people - but it is also, in fact, one of the most hypnotic and creepy sci-fi films you could ever watch. It's essentially about a bleak futuristic society located beneath the Earths surface. Society has outlawed sex, with drugs to control the people. THX 1138 stops taking the drugs and gets LUH 3417 (his wife/girlfriend/assigned unit!!) pregnant. Both are arrested, separated and sent to jail where they plan their escape. I thoroughly recommend this film to anyone but always remind people that this may be too arty. I made a point of saying this to Scott, Fran and Pri before we put the film on. Fran decided to have a bath but us remaining 3 watched it and loved every minute of it. The version we watched was the Remastered DVD - and in true Lucas style has been cleaned up and tweaked to improve it. Thankfully the remaster is a lot more sutble than the Star Wars Special Editions where the changes only enhance the original vision. For a run-down of some of the updates click here. Here's a couple of stills from the film....










London revisited ....continued

It's about bloody time I updated this thing, isn't it?!? Luckily I've not been too busy this week so... but what I do decide to write up here will have to be summarised - otherwise I'll be chained to the keyboard for a week. And then I'll have to write a blog entry detailing the time I was chained to the keyboard for a week. And then...... etc etc etc

Right, so when we got to London the first thing we did was get ourselves a Travelcard for regions 1 and 2, and set our way to Spitalfield Market. On the subway Scott was checking the camera settings on his camera and took a random snap of Fran and Pri. When we looked back at it later we noticed this guy stood behind them looking like a fuckin' crazed psycho!! Check it out... it's well creepy!




When we got to Liverpool Street Station we bee-lined our way to Spitalfield Market - we found a few bits of banksy's grafitti on route. There was some pretty funky stuff in the actual market, very studenty. Fran bought herself a wicked magazine rack. None of us bought anything else though ... except a curry!




After some food we wanted to find Brick Lane - some random stall-holder just happened to overhear that we were looking for it and gave us directions.. so off we went......










This place was great. It was totally full of proper cockney marketstall holders making a living out of selling pretty much anything. A Fruit and Veg stall was always available - we came across several at different intervals, selling a stupidly large amount of fruit for a "pand" (that's cockney for pound! - pictures of that coming soon!) Amongst the stuff for sell was also some really old and dusty laptops, video cameras the size and weight of breeze-blocks, and shoes that have probably been prized off of some dead fella's body!!

Me and Scott used most of this time taking photos of all the characters, graffiti and stuff. Fran and Pri bought some grapes (which we all lapped up!) and a couple of purses.

With just 3 hours left before our bus headed back for Bournemouth we headed over to Oxford Street via tube and looked for a suit for Scott... and see what else we could buy ourselves. Like I said in the previous post, I bought some jeans, trainers, trousers and shirt.




All the shops were starting to close at this time so we made our way back to Victoria Station on the tube to grab a Subway and catch the bus home. We weren't able to muck about and have as much fun on the bus this time cos it was so busy. We managed to get the back row seats on the top deck but then some guy come and sat right in the middle of us all and told us to move our shopping off the seats so he could sit there! Cheek!!! That basically put a wedge in between all of us so we just behaved and slept! Boo!!