Wednesday 21 May 2008

The flower phoenix

It lives!

My Peace Lilly has grown a new flower.

A nice long one.

I hadn't looked at it for a little bit and then when I decided it needed another water, there it was...

One tall, lovely, white flower.

I was overjoyed.

But scared.

I was so scared of jinxing it that I have left it at least a week before telling you, the blogsphere, of my flower phoenix.

Maybe it's the weather.

Maybe I finally did something right.

I just don't know.

I only know that I'm happy.

Wednesday 14 May 2008

They Came From The Stars I Saw Them - And I did

I went to the They Came From The Stars I Saw Them gig last night at the Hoxton Bar and Restaurant.

What a brilliant night, though obviously I'm paying for it now.

The night started off with Omo, well actually it started off with a picnic, which I failed to bring any food to, and Liz talking about liking the jib of someone's coat but this is loosely meant to be a gig review so I shall continue...

I have to say I wasn't overly impressed by Omo, there first and third songs were far too arty/experimental for my liking and underlined everything that I hate about Shoreditch.

However they did do one rather lovely second song about fish coming in a tin.

The next band were more like it, sadly I hadn't started making notes at this stage, not being a professional reviewist so I can't remember their names let alone what they played.

Then on bundled They Came From The Stars I Saw Them in all their white clad glory.

I made it back from the loo in time so I didn't miss any of their set.

Of course I was dancing straight away.

Love, love, love the sing-a-longs.

Love, love, love the dance-a-longs.

More of that please.

I also noted the encore as I don't think, anyone is welcome to correct me, that I've seen They Came From The Stars I Saw Them do an encore in all of the three or four times that I've seen them perform.

Then there was another blinding band, but sadly I failed to make any notes on them so I don't even remember their names let alone the songs they performed.

Then onto The Chap, the main event.

Even before they came on I was happy because one of whom I can only assume was one of their roadies had a T-shirt emblazoned with Alabama Thunderpussy.

The mind boggles.

My only concern at this point was the girl from Omo was also The Chap's keyboardist, not more artsy crap I thought, but my fears were soon to be allayed.

They started off with a spoken piece mentioning the members of The Stars that made me giggle.

One of the songs that they performed was apparently about "proper songs" whatever they are, though Horton (a member of The Stars) shouted out that it was really about Phil Collins.

Indeed.

Even before this point I had noticed that the bassist who was in some very tight shorts, I guess it was quite hot, was showing an outline of his manhood (look at me being all coy).

My eyes kept falling on it throughout the performance and making me giggle.

Anyway more about the important stuff: the songs.

One song came complete with what I can only describe as a robot gopher dance complete with side step.

Genius.

The bassist also played the violin for some songs.

Well I say played, he actually beat out a rhythm on the strings, which worked really well, or played sporadic discordant notes, which I was less impressed with.

The violin beating also threw up an impressive amount of dust and was quite severely broken.

The lead singer even brought out a double bass or cello at one point.

Yeah I know two years of G.C.S.E music and I can't tell the difference, disgraceful.

They played a song which they introduced as "shit disco", but I thought it more liked great pop.

Despite two promises that the songs we were about to hear would be about being lost in the forest looking for a girl, well, none of them were.

Their encore songs were dedicated to Claire and Hector: Claire because she couldn't make it, Hector because he wasn't allowed to come.

There was interesting use of flash cards by the keyboardist for one song.

The end of the last song saw them freeze to the closing note.

Even Horton froze reaching up open mouthed to the stage.

Poser.

I only went to the after party for an hour, I had to get up in the morning.

Was entertained by the naked ladies being projected onto the wall, though the best one has to be the old man with the sign round his neck, which read: They came for Brian Haw I said nothing. Then they came for me.

I'm ashamed to say though I've seen this guy on countless occasions I didn't recognise his name.

Unfortunately there were some anal sex images, call me a prude if you like but I don't really want to see that on a night out.

Thanks to being disorganized I now owe Liz a fiver to add to my other debts, at least one of them I can blame on someone else.

Will have to call in the £15 debt owed to me.

So get yourself to the next Stars gig people!

Plug, plug.

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Monday 12 May 2008

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Bloody Boris, Bloody Churches

Well it didn't take long Bo Jo's already incensed me.

He wants to ban drinking on public transport.

To me this is madness, though I realise this may be a controversial view, as a disagreement with my liberal parents has illustrated to me.

Personally I think being able to drink casually on the way to a party is nice and sociable.

Obviously I don't like puke on the tube and piss on the seats, but sometimes that is unavoidable, whats more my hangovers have proved that just because you are no longer drunk or drinking at the time is no guarantee that you won't be sick.

In fact that's when you're most likely to.

I don't really understand what it can possibly be solving...

Apart from perhaps the plight of the pubs that lose business because you buy a beer bottle to go onto your mates etc. instead of staying and paying through the nose in the pub.


In other madness, some poor mother has been banned by a, to my mind, near sited church from erecting a Bart Simpson gravestone for their seven year old kid.

What's the harm?

If she wants to erect a monument that might have meant something to his child then she should have the right to.

I thought B was a good mark?

In The Guardian today there is yet more news about the categorisation of dope.

Yawn.

I'm getting sick of how the Government and experts keep changing their minds, as if they're playing ip dip do over the choice of policy.

This is a drug that is affecting people's minds and lives and they can't even make their minds up.

At this point I think re-categorisation from Class C to Class B is academic as though it may change the penalty for possessing and dealing the drug it isn't going to have any impact on how people view taking it, except perhaps detrimentally.

It's a reverse psychology thing: tell people that a drug is especially illicit and bad for them and they are more likely to want to try it.

No is very seductive.

They can't even make their minds up how dangerous and psychosis inducing it is.

This is perhaps more forgivable given that scientific questions tend to be fraught with uncertainty and controversy.

Incidentally if you search dope in Google the entry that comes up before any reference to the drug is a link to an American Metal band, it's a funny world that we live in.

Simon Jenkins has a better articulated argument on this point.

Tuesday 6 May 2008

Bo Jo's in charge

I woke up on Saturday morning with an awful hangover, probably one worthy of my top ten worst, to the news that Boris, the nit wit, Johnson is now the head honcho of London.

What a brilliant start to the day.

If that isn't bad enough the Tories had a pretty clean sweep of the local elections.

I threatened to go into hiding if this happened but given that I have a course to complete, which will probably involve doing interviews, I have to deal with the situation.

I can only hope that his Mayorship will be so monumentally disastrous that no one will be stupid enough to vote Tory again and Labour or even the Liberal Democrats will sail the next general election.

I mean it isn't even as if Boris is a good Conservative candidate.

He's not particularly moderate, he's borderline if not fully fledged racist, he's a buffoon (but the very clever kind with a scary agenda).

I can only think was that what swung it is people's fatigue, not mine I hasten to add, with Ken and the fact that Boris always seems to turn up on Have I Got News For You.

Oh well all I can do is cross my fingers and pray...

Possibly for an assassination, although obviously I'm not endorsing such violent measures.

Friday 2 May 2008

Lesbian is a great word for being a Gay woman

I was reading the paper yesterday and there was this really tiny article about the Greek islanders of Lesbos calling for the word Lesbian to be banned when referring to Gay women.

Why?

Because they say they are the original Lesbians.

The mind boggles on many different levels.

But there's my phrase of the moment again: I'm sorry what!?

People have been using the term Lesbian to refer to Gay women for fucking AGES!

Why make a fuss about it now?

Possibly this is newspaper piffle, it was in The London Paper after all.

If it isn't, have they had their collective heads in the sand all this time?

Or is this a stunt to boost tourism.

I give up.

The tories look like they're sweeping the board to boot.