cNutgroist

3 ex-Presidents died this week.

James Brown, Funky President, gave the world FUNK! He was to black music what Elvis Presley was to...er...yeah, well anyway. I've always rated him an equal to Elvis as far as impact, influence, innovation and sheer majesty. I don't think he got the credit he deserved (and he got a lot of credit) . Funk has always been an undercurrent in those crazy, syncopated rhythms of jazz and blues but he really did turn r&b into a new genre. Genius. I'll raise a glass and possibly punch my wife to him tonight.

Gerald Ford. Gave the world Chevy Chase. Pardoned Nixon. Employed Dick Cheney. Betty helped save countless addicted rich and famous people. What a legacy. I'll raise a glass to him tonight and check myself into his wife's clinic tomorrow.

Saddam Hussein. Gave the world 3 wars plus at least one genocide. Vaguely legitimised two generations of the Bush family and together with Khomeini managed to destroy a whole generation of their countrymen. But he had a lovely moustache and didn't give the world Chevy Chase. So i'll raise a glass and possibly fire a gun into the air tonight for the man.
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and what of next year's resolvencies?

1. Mention Sara in my blog, as requested at 05:00 G&T from central Dull Witch on the Skypotron.
2. Yawn loudly whenever anybody says anything
3. Enter my yoga studio and publicly apologise to the class in advance for the farts im going to do. Then find a comfy spot wedged between the two daintiest women there and shat myself
4. Resolve the essential inner tension at my theatrical core between the burning desire to entertain the world and being a bit shit at it.
5. Start using prepositions again, soon
6. Live-blog a wank, blow-job or fuck. Interested applicants to the usual address please. No experience necessary. On-site training will be provided. You must be of legal age in your state or country, or at least look it.
7. I gotta tell that 'ho "no"
8. Finish the list after my poo
9. And im back. Wipe my bum after every poo
10. Donate to the Bile Bank
11. Another poo?! Fuck that, I'm not wiping again.
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these were last year's resolutions, let's see how i did...

1. resolve the Israeli - Loyalist conflict that's absolutely ruined Cyprus THIS WASNT FUNNY ENOUGH TO CARE ABOUT
2. boil things that normally require frying THIS CONTRIBUTED TO THE RUINATION OF MY FISH&CHIP EMPIRE
3. write down everything i don't say and say everything i don't write down IF I'VE HAD ANY SUCCESS AT STANDUP, IT'S NOT BECAUSE OF ADHERING TO THIS PRINCIPLE*
4. discover a new colour and forget to patent it I ACHIEVED THE LATTER CLAUSE WITHOUT THE TROUBLE OF HAVING TO DO THE FORMER
5. eat an arse, with chips and peas OH I WISH. BUT I HATE PEAS
6. update anti-virus software to protect against online bird-flu NOT *COUGH* FUNNY *COUGH* ENOUGH
7. whenever I see a dead bird i can't identify, consult my Observer Book of Dead Birds, my most useful xmas gift this year YEAH, WHATEVER
8. take a photo of a photo of a photo I GOT CONFUSED AND TOOK A PHOTO OF A PHOTO OF A PHOTO OF A PHOTO. FAILED
9. stop humiliating myself in private ACHIEVED BUT ONLY AT THE EXPENSE OF MY PUBLIC HONOUR
10. accept Jesus into my life, then reject him, just to see his face IT'LL BE ON YOUTUBE AS A MASTERCARD 'PRICELESS' ADVERT BEFORE YOU CAN SAY "NO IT WONT. STOP LYING"
11. dig my own grave, fill it with a bejewelled golden hair and publish the co-ordinates in a cryptic book of perplex mysteries I NARROWLY FAILED TO ACHIEVE THIS ONLY BECAUSE I DIDNT UNDERSTAND IT IN THE FIRST PLACE
12. hide my feelings of guilt, shame and inadequacy under a thin veneer of showbiz success. GOT CONFUSED AND TURNED THEM INTO "SUCCESS"
13. spend more time blogging and less time noodling around on myspace.com AGAIN, THE LATTER WAS A PIECE OF PISS. WHO CARES ABOUT ONLINE FRIENDS UNLESS YOU SUDDENLY MOVE COUNTRY....UM...?
14. stockpile Vaseline in anticipation of worldwide Petroleum Crisis MOVED ONTO BITUMEN, STILL NOT FUNNY
15. stop coveting my neighbour's ox though i really can't help it. that's some fucking good ox there. THAT JUST WASNT FUNNY ENOUGH TO DO MUCH ABOUT
16. fight to clear Albert Schweitzer's good name I FOUGHT AND WON BUT HAD TO KILL A FEW NAYSAYERS ALONG THE WAY. TECHNICAL FAILURE. LITERALLY UNFUNNY
17. stop thinking of nipples when i hear the word 'Chestnuts' used in polite conversation. DONE. UNLESS IT'S ROAST CHESTNUTS. OR HORSE CHESTNUTS.
18. and stop thinking of discharge when i see 'Bird's Custard' in the supermarket DONE WITH REGRET AT HAVING TO DROP A LEVEL OF SOPHISTICATION IN MY HUMOUR
19. shall i even bother with Daddy's Sauce? NO. TECHNICALLY UNFUNY
20. spend more time campaigning against religious tolerance IF YOU'VE SEEN MY STANDUP, YOU'LL KNOW I HEAD THAT CAMPAIGN WORLDWIDE
21. stop listening to people I OVERACHIEVED ON THIS ONE, AGAIN. IM SO GOOD AT IT, IF THEY ASKED ME TO REPRESENT ENGLAND IN THE OLYMPICS AT THIS, I WOULDNT REPLY


*I'VE NOT HAD ANY SUCCESS AT IT

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Last Christmas I gave you my heart
And the very next day, you put it on Ebay

What a week it's been. too much has happened and i cant spew it all up though god knows i sure havent digested it all yet. I've been danced, yoga'd, hugged, stuffed, stoned, blessed, blushed, tripped, chapped, rapped, rocked, jazzed and latined, Hustled, Dylaned, but best of all Best-Manned. And im going to be Irrigated by the end of the week. My anal flora can't wait.


So instead, here's what happens every day when i go to the gym.

My gym is run by a dick. I'd love to be charitable and say he's just trained that way, deep inside he probably has a respectable interior life, interesting quirks and is a good friend to many. But i sincerely doubt it. He's a young guy who speaks from the corporate motivational manual where his brain used to be. When I walked in there a few weeks ago to join, I approached him and explained how i'd like to join. His response?

AWESOME!

Right, great, thanks. Can you just give me the form to fill out please?

AWESOME!

What do i want to do? Lose weight and get fit. Not too interested in building up muscle or anything

AWESOME!

(thinks) If you say it again, im going to walk out of here

(thinks) AWESOME!

so anyway, i come in daily to work out, run myself into the ground and stare away from fat women in lycra. that's all i want to do. i dont want a conversation with anyone, unless they are wearing lycra and have impressively pointy womens' bits. But if he should see me, he always comes up to me and asks 'How's it going?'

I calmly, naturally answer 'fine, thanks'

and he just as naturally answers

AWESOME!

every. friggin. time.

last week, i decided i'd had enough. i walked into the reception area and he was standing there behind the desk. I knew it was coming and i prepared myself for it. and so...

'hey, how's it going?'

I'm awesome

... *splutter*...um...great?

I don't think he'll be asking me again.

Now I just have one more to throw off my trail. Normally, thanks to my all-conquering OCD I have a room, everyone and everything in it scoped out quicker than you can say Ritalin-and-coke so nothing surprises me - I don't give awkward looks at strange people and i can make myself invisible quickly. But increasingly I am starting to beat this survival-instinct remnant and so, when a man with a slight, feminine body and a face made entirely of (what looks like) pink plastic (but must be skin, i suppose) began lifting weights in front of me i could not take my eyes off him. Utterly grotesque, i just sat and stared. He stared back, i thought with disappointed resignation at what must be a familiar sight. I was embarrassed and looked away.

I was wrong, though. Quite wrong. He's been following me around ever since with a look of interest. The most disconcerting thing isn't his fake face or big starey eyes, no. It's the suspiciously empty-looking space where his groin should be. What IS he? I thought for a minute he might not be located in my changing room but sadly he is. I now dont take a shower but instead rush in, jump back into my clothes and run sweatily out of there asap.


This year, to save me from having to buy it back again
I'll give it to someone less special

One bidder, twice the price
I keep commission, it comes back packed in ice
Tell me baby do you recognise me?
I dont have a plastic face, so you should
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Two jews walking down the street towards eachother. One dressed in full 18th century polish outfit, the other in 21st century sensible clothes.

"Hey, are you Jewish?"

-Yes. How did you...

"Do you want to buy some Hanukkah candles?"

-No thank you

"You can have them for free"

-Still no

"Free!"

-Nothing comes for free


15 minutes later, on the return journey


"Hey are you..."

-No



Oy, humberg. Merry Chrismukkah, everynone.
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So I go back, intending to buy his other cd's with some extravagant sum of monies, same time same place where we met yesteday and yes of course he's not there.

Rereading the post below im not surprised by how silly and sentimental it all is. I knew that when I was writing it. And yet, Im leaving it up because it did happen and i was touched, no matter that i don't believe in any such thing as spirit and find most discourse on such matters woolly and completely detached from reason. It meant something at the time and whilst i have had a wealth of spiritually striking encounters with such people throughout my life and just when I needed them, i never had the ability to let them effect me for long. I dont remember most of them and the lessons weren't learned.

In all the yoga i've been doing and all the buddhist literature ive been reading, i have had to wade through a tremendous amount of big smelly bullshit. But in every nugget of dung, there's a wise piece of undigested sweetcorn. For someone who never believed in Karma, I really was taken with the explanation that it's not about rewards or punishment in this or any other life. It's entirely a matter of what's happening now, specifically the things that enter or leave our lives that are lessons which can improve our ability to cope in the future.

What's not to love about that? No need for a bearded old man in the sky, a big-bellied laughing baldie or any kind of controller behind it all. We live, shit happens, you may ignore it or you may decide to derive 'why?', for a reason, and the next time some shit goes down, you are prepared.

In other news, Ive been a semi-vegetarian for god knows how long - a year I guess. I normally eat meat only when on social occasions, preferring to cook at home without it unless im entertaining (why darling, you're always so en-ter-tain-ing, what are you talking about?). Last week I decided to give my body a rest from dairy and eggs for a while, which ive been living on my whole life and love so dearily. But are cow-juice and chicken periods really so good for us? I reckon not.

So im in my local coffeeshop/bakery and standing in line for a non-meat tea when i think 'id like a fucking dessert with that'. The place has a huge range of criminally tasty-looking cakes, cookies, scones, pretzels and pastries but Im looking for one without butter or cream or eggs and since there isnt one that i can find, I ask at the counter. The guy serving goes 'we have these Vegan cookies here' and points to a jar which shows clearly that no animal products of any kind go into them (apple butter anyone?). And then it hits me - hang on a cocking second, I'm a Vegan?!? How the steamed fuck did that happen? What kind of idiot am I? I've become vegan through no religious or ethical principles at all?! (not entirely true, of course - i dont farm intensively) ?! But am I really that stupid not to have noticed?*

*Yes, I am really that stupid not to have noticed.
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Ive had a life of people wanting to befriend me for no reason, it's what's kept me sane in Canada but sometimes i can get a bit blase about it, so today was a reminder of why I should and do appreciate.

Walking home from the gym, outside the U of T I hear the most beautiful zither playing (!) coming out of the dark. I turn off my mp3 player as i get closer but something else drowns it out - a steaming, screaming fire engine, to be precise. I give the old guy playing a dollar and a glance and he stops...

"Where you from?"

and with that, we embark on a quick life-story exchange and very early on it's clear that he just knows me - and every story told of past and present is understood and relevant and offered without judgement or need for approval. He rifles through his knapsack for a poem he wrote almost 20 years ago outside Cambridge Uni and gives it to me to keep. I read it quickly - it's really quite charming - and then we continue and as I tell him more about my life he stops and gives me another poem, this one a long story about how he exiled he felt when he arrived in this city 7 years ago, only having come for a month to look after his once-ailing mother and not having returned to England since. It's about missing the good parts of England, something I rarely dwell on (although strangely had a long chat with someone special who feels the same only 2 hours before) and it nails exactly what it is about the country that i still love quite a bit. But the point of the poem is how this isnt really an exile - that's for people who can't go back. As if that hadnt made me feel better enough, him giving me as a spontaneous xmas present one of the cd's he was selling just blew me away. And his advice on love was smart and succinct. Much older than I, he'd clearly been through it all and every which way, so I accepted his gifts with good grace and silently vowed to return with some actual money to chuck in his hat. And to ask him permission to post a track on this blog.

A lot of people who ive met here have reminded me of others from my past and Ive taken the opportunity when I can to treat them better than I did the 'originals'. This guy though seemed more like someone I know from my future - the amount of advice he gave me, im inclined to think it's me. Like the Professor from Back To The Future, i've come to meet my younger self and give him just the things he needs to know right now. Sadly zither lessons wasn't part of the deal.


His name is Michael and this is a track from his album "a song for a child growing..."
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Spum is RIGHT! (see comment box in post below)

There are animals being extinctified every day now - and it's unfair to focus just on the fluffy ones like dolphins. You could still buy its fluff on the black market in Hong Kong until a couple of years ago

Other species under threat around the world:

1. The Yucatan Pinata - if ever there was proof of the existence of a god with a malicious sense of humour, it's to be derived from this poor beast's fate. A friendly, peaceful and entirely defenceless animal that hibernates in the spring and autumn, it loves to make friends with children and would no doubt make an excellent pet if not for one cruel irony of biology - its guts are composed entirely of free sugary sweets. Despite dwindling numbers every year thanks to its increasing popularity in US culture, it is nevertheless hunted down, forcibly strung up and the-fuck-out-of-it beaten by children and adults alike. Been around for at least 400 million years, scheduled to die out for good very soon.

2. The Mousefish - due to extreme hunting by the Catfish (itself endangered by the Dogfish, its natural predator) it migrated en masse to peoples' houses where it promptly died due to lack of water and seacheese

3. The Arctic Penguin - these flightless fancies have long been overshadowed by their southern hemisphere cousins (a common myth, of course - they're only related by marriage) because they refuse to resemble Patrick Moore, astronomer to the stars. They are caviar and chips for Polar Bears.

4. The Headless Horse - since the extincition in the early 20th century of the Headless Horsemen, these hardy nequine studs and fillies have been struggling to find a purpose in life - and somewhere to put food. Only bought by fathers for their pony-obsessed, hated daughters, they inevitably get neglected and are soon gratefully stolen and tortured by gypsies. Always come a close second in steeplechases.

5. The Wormbird - although it looks just like the common or garden earthworm, the Wormbird is actually a completely different species is in fact a close relative of The Sausage. With no functional wings to speak of, it flies through the air only at very short distances and is its own worst enemy, having to get up earlier than all the other birds to avoid being eaten and yet turning round and feeding its children on eachother. Not expected to last the week.

6. The Woodsnake - is there an unluckier creature on god's good planet than the snake made of mostly wood? I doubt it very much. Forget the Sargasso Sloth and the Legless Luxembourgish Wildcat, the Namibo-Westphalian Woodsnake is the most immobile of animals - usually to be found very near old trees throughout the world, it has been killed in its billions by hikers, gardeners and enthusiastic dog-owners. A high-profile ad campaign last year to highlight its plight every Bonfire Night did nothing to reverse its shitty fortunes. Lethal venom, useless fangs.

7. The Turducken - native across the southern United States, this curious combi-fowl was the official multi-bird of the Confederate Army and was thought to be able to whistle a passable rendition of Dixie (while attacking blacks). In recent years, with the late 20th century introduction of tolerance, respect in the region for the poly-Polly had dwindled to the point where they were eaten daily, deep-fried and served with sauce a l'orange au cranberry a la stuffing. Now a resurgence in being an ignorant, bullish, biblical dick has brought it back from the brink. Difficult enough for biologists to explain how a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey could have ever evolved without Intelligent Design, it's the layers of pigmeat and spices in between that really fox these Darwinazis. Safe, til common sense prevails.

8. Schmankton - Hitler may not have succeeded on land, but his jackfinned allies the Nazi Whales have done a whole lotta holocaust on the oceans' considerable Jewish Plankton communities. When you hear people talk about the lost tribe that's where they went. The sea is an unforgiving place in many ways but being a filthy, plotting yid was just fine down there. Til a chance encounter between a U-Boat Captain and a working-class, disaffected Humpback in 1941 led to a special commission made at the aptly named Wansee conference. Make a fucking film about that Steven Spiegelberg.

9. The Pygmy - deep in the Congolian rainforests these small umbongo-drinking hunter-monkeys exhibit some curious, almost-human like characteristi....oh hang on, that's horribly racist - and intentionally so, inspired by the real life episode of Ota Benga, who was one of the residents of the Bronx Zoo, living with that well-known central african ape the Orangutan!

10. The Dinosaurs - yes, that's what i said, the fucking dinosaurs. Has any species been as hard-done by? They get almost wiped out by an asteroid, forcibly shrunk into lizards, crocs and birds and then the last few of these majestic beasts are wrangled into a thousand hollywood movies and shot, stabbed, drowned and blown-up for joe public's bloodthirsty entertainment. Is it any wonder they went underground?
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For 20 million years the Chinese River Dolphin, that ive never even heard of, lived perfectly well in the Yangtze. Clearly kept itself to itself. I didn't even know there were such things as freshwater dolphins.

Anyway, it's just been declared extinct.

Well done to each and everyone of us. Are we not just total and utter cunts to this world?
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Ballbag calls it like it is, to be sure
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00:30

*knock knock*

-Hang on...!

I wrap a blanket round my manly province and proceed to the door. Halfway there I suddenly remember that nobody's ever knocked for me before since I don't know anyone well enough that they'd turn up at my apartment block, somehow get in and then make their way to my door without phoning me first, or at least ringing the buzzer downstairs. That leaves only three possibilities:

a. a homeless addict has got in to the building, possibly armed with a syringe - and im about to open the door naked

b. it's the police or *shudder* immigration. definitely armed - and im about to answer the door naked

c. booty call at the wrong address - and im about to etc.


Please let it be c. Please let it be c. Please let it be c. Please let it be c.

*click*

It's d.

- one of my neighbours, a tall spotty friendly student-type who always says hello. Got a half-irish, half-german accent, poor bugger. No idea where he's from or what his name is.

"Sorry to bother you. Do you have any tin foil?"

-Sure. Is it for weed, crack or heroin?

(im joking, of course)

"Both (?!). Would you like to come in and have some?

-thanks, um.....i've given up smoking for a while

(and I have. An absurdly psychedelic episode last month made me rethink, again, the fragility of my hard-wo(r)n sanity. Aside from seeing the world through an increasingly complicated geometric kaleidoscope for 2 hours, entirely destroyed and then recreated after every breath and listening to every single note of a furiously funky, propulsive jazz piano solo as if it was played in slow motion, it was actually a pretty tough time. The weed here is fucking amazing and very 'up' but if you're prone to introspection then be prepared for a long, hard couch trip. I have no wish to repeat it in anything but the most ideal of circumstances. ie. 5 paces from my bed with the Man from Del Monte's own personal supply of dimpled Vitamin C spheres and one quiet, trustworthy friend to hold me and release me while i'm rustily crowbarring open my Ego, the dungeons in my head, and most scarily of all my pineal gland.

"Ok. Thanks a lot. I'll bring it back in a minute"

That was 90 minutes ago. How could he have forgotten?
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Received a long email today from an old friend in dublin - and just when I thought I wasn't missing my former life, I was. We connected over a shared sense of indulgent woe about these things. Everything in life is unfair, according to us. And everything is worth talking about and linking up into one vast conspiracy. He doesn't know how to tell a short, boring story - he has the true Irish gift of the gab, even if the tale is one about how his local shop ran out of cotton buds.

Now, depending on who I am telling a story to, you could get the impression that whatever changes in life I go through, it's either sauce a l'orange off a duck's back or The Final War of Armageddon. I think he's captured that mellow/dramatic thing in his letter below.

Miss you dude, myself and M concluded that your work must have been done here, and you then did the Messianic Panda gig, ate, shot and got crucified, but in the following acts of your corpuscles we were all just running around without you and greadually were all consumed with more self doubt than we had when you were here,

Altogether now….


1 2 3

Oh the suffering Jew is a person in your neighbourhood,
in your neighbourhood, in your neighbourhood
Oh the suffering Jew is a person in your neighbourhood,
He’s the comedian that you meet,
when you’re walking down the street,
he’s the Jew that dies more deaths each day!

Altogether now….


1 2 3


if you ever had your doubts and you become a larger lout
he’s the Jew that dies more deaths each day!
If you ever die on stage and your looking for a wage,
he’s the Jew that dies more deaths each day!
If you ever have to emigrate or your soul will just disintegrate
he’s the Jew that dies more deaths each day!

When life’s feeling pretty shitty
And you feel like walter Mitty
he’s the Jew that dies more deaths each day!

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My ex-girlfriend called me up yesterday to tell me she got married at the weekend.

*SERIOUS POST ALERT! SERIOUS POST ALERT! MUSIC REWARD AT THE END FOR THE CAREFUL READER*

Not, you understand, that ex-girlfriend (though it'll probably happen some day, it occurred to me later) but my first, serious ex-girlfriend. The one who taught me stuff, shared a year and a half together (pah! a drip in time, a blink of a wink of an eye, now I look back), sold my mum her mum's house and shared some great music together. It was never going to last - we had very different minds and ambitions but we did have fun for a while. And now she's MARRIED?!? That's at least two of the exes hitched now. I can well imagine *all* the others being done by now too, to be honest. Only the Ex was unconventional enough to entertain a whole life without unionising the partnership. But that was then and nothing would surprise me now. Upset? Yes. Surprise. No.

It got me thinking, if that's not already clear above, about my time with the now-married ex. And I remember how we ended it. A cheesy beyond extreme way but kind of fitting. It was during her tenure that I first discovered Jeff Buckley, a man whose music I have had a different kind of love affair with over the last 13 years or so. And I admit to splitting up with her to the strains of Last Goodbye - and I meant it, too. She taught me a lot, I was a total child before she explained to me that the world doesnt revolve around me and occasionally I might have to do stuff for myself and not rely on the run of luck that has meant people will always do things for me. I sometimes still remember that lesson. And the love had died. It was really obvious. I don't think either of us mourned it too much.

And I felt weirdly guilty for the longest time with my Current Ex (is that the way to refer to her?) that I didn't discover Jeff Buckley with her - indeed I remember getting her into him a matter of weeks before he died. And I didn't even take the Now Married ex to see him. A year later I was with someone else (the Interim Ex?) who got to go instead (and there's tv evidence to prove it - Glastonbury 1995, front row, tongue out) and though she loved it, I know that someone else would have loved it more. I just hadn't met her yet.

A friend of a friend here made a film about Jeff, I believe humourously detailing how many of her decisions in life had been based upon his music. I laughed heartily, then haughtily, then hollowly. Didn't I do just the same?

So I did, indeed, find the courage to end that relationship to the soundtrack of one of Jeff's breakup songs. And then I remembered how in the last few months of my last, recent relationship, my Current Ex became obsessed with the song Forget Her, a long dirge about explaining to himself that he has to, oh can you guess? Yes, that's right... forget her. Apparently she was heartache from the start. Pretty subtle stuff. I certainly never got the hint.

My friend died 5 years ago and her son asked me to choose a song for the service that would be appropriate. I'd got her into Jeff and so on the day, after a difficult enough funeral service, her youngest son faced the congregation, while walking up to a cd player and said 'this was one of mum's favourite songs', then pressed play. Hallelujah came on and EVERYONE just lost it. I listen to it very rarely now.

Fair play to the priest, who is also her brother, in the snivveling silence that followed the song quietly remarking 'that's a beautiful song' - all the more so since it's not often you hear 'Maybe there's a God above but all I've ever learned from love is how to shoot somebody who outdrew yer' ringing round a Catholic Church.

I thought I had everything that was out there, both officially released and the numerous bootlegs. I have a few tracks I still haven't played yet, as I do with all my favourite dead artists, since I know that there's only a finite amount of stuff and I want to savour it slowly. I've been listening to his dad, Tim Buckley, for 15 years and I still haven't heard all his albums (and there weren't many). Curiously, I also first heard Jeff in 1991 but that's another story that I suspect only the true Buckley nut would care to hear.

And then, this evening, I happen on this...

a blog posting SEVEN songs that nobody ever heard before! I am in ecstasy at the prospect of 3 new originals, 3 alternate takes plus a proper Led Zeppelin cover! And Im in some large distress at my terrible ISP which won't let me download them at the moment (or upload them to this blog, which is why im linking to these songs and the ones above.). I have already made a pact with myself over the playability of these tracks. Im going to download them, put them in a folder marked 'Deathbed Playlist' and then absolutely ignore it and just play the fuckers. Life's too short, especially when you're on your own.
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Didn't you know...

That the burmese language has no word for 'pistachio' and so is referred to as 'the nut we do not have a name for'?

The pistachio nut is often roasted and salted before it is even slaughtered. For years there have been reports of live nuts being discovered in nut assortments, often too late as they only make their presence known by screaming when being eaten?

The name Pistachio is English, as are all Italian words that were developed during the late 18th century, the language having been colonised during those years by the British Empire?

Before the Battle of Rourke's Drift, it rained pistachio nuts on the Indians and General Custer took it as a sign of his impending victory over the Hapsburgs?

Pete Doherty originally got into Heroin, Cocaine and all the other things that Rockstars do except make good music because he was desperately trying to wean himself off hazelnuts?

He was on hazelnuts because he was weaning himself off pistachio?

If you got an infinite number of Shakespeares together and gave them an infinite number of typewriters, eventually they would produce the complete works of 'Monkey!'?

If you got an infinite number of walnuts and gave them an infinite number of pecans, it would get pretty nutty round here oh ho ho ho ho HO?

Just 29% of people are fatally allergic to pistachio nuts. A further 14% will die just upon seeing them, even in a photograph. Mercifully, only a small 8% will immediately die upon thinking about them?

The pistachio nut and the zebra are on the natioanl flag of Sweden?

Speaking of Shakespeare, apparently Tony Parsons is very fond of pistachios and buys them?

The pistachio nut is not actually a nut per se. No, it's a nut in and of itself?

In fact, it's a nut's nut. The nut other nuts want to be. The Man of nuts. Yup. It's The Nuts?
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i cant sleep.

this sometimes happens after a party

or getting stoned

or watching a dvd

stoned

after a party.

Or thinking about what my guests were saying about the money they're putting away for the future.


Every time I start,

my car breaks down

Or I have to lend someone money

Or all the bills come at once

Or I have to move fucking country again

Enough is enough

That's it

New leaf

Watch as I turn it over

No more stressing about it

No more half-assed plans

From today


No

More

Saving
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Ditto



Ditto
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Even the fog here is cooler than in London



Courtesy of Torontoist
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This hasn't happened in a long time but I've noticed a definite apartheid on my playlists. I've also noticed a profusion of music blogs where supposedly hip young things (what are they doing on the internet then?) offer their thoughts and mp3's on a variety of reasonably decent music, mainly centred around Sufjan Stevens it must be said. I wanted, briefly, to join in on this phenomenon. But rather than go full strength into such an endeavour with passion and commitment, I thought just for a change i'd do it in my usual half-arsed way.

So, inspired by recent events and by friends who make excellent, eccentric compilations I'm compiling a disc of tunes I can't actually listen to. Perhaps when I can, i'll know im *over* it... But you can go right ahead, though if you're in the middle of things with someone don't blame me if connotations get attached while you do. They're not all sad, not at all. But they all have that thing. Click the tunes to share my pain!

1. Salif Keita - Yamore
2. Fat Freddy's Drop - Flashback
3. Peter Gabriel - Open
4. Basement Jaxx - Feels Like Home (just tried listening to this, failed miserably)
5. Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Vega
6. Ampop - My Delusions
7. Joseph Arthur - Innocent World
8. Van Morrison - Slim Slow Slider*
9. Kate Bush - Sunset
10. Fat Freddy's Drop - Del Fuego

Bonus Track:Sunhouse - Lips

Hidden Track: Geoffrey Oryema - Lapwony

*actually the whole of Astral Weeks and all of Veedon Fleece too. Not surprising really, since Astral Weeks is about how two young people in the first throes of love utterly fail to make it last, and Veedon Fleece was recorded straight after Van's divorce!

There's also an 'embarrassing' top ten which for the hell of it, i shall list too. Funny, maybe, but just as painful if not more so because such mawkish, manipulative fondue music shouldnt elicit such heavy tears. Anyway...

1. U2 - With or Without You
2. Tracy Chapman - Fast Car
3. Coldplay - Warning Sign
4. Jose Gonzalez - Hand on your Heart
5. John Legend - Ordinary People
6. Otis Redding - Cigarettes and Coffee
7. Matthew Sweet - You don't love me
8. Michael Hedges - Woman of the World
9. Prince - Condition of the Heart
10. Tracy Chapman - For You

Some cunt in marketing would sign off this post with 'What's YOUR embarsassing weepy tune?' as if the client gave a monkeys, but I shan't do that. That's not to say a comments box full of such admissions wouldnt warm the cockles of my winkle....
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That's E. E. Cummings to you, bitch!
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It's sunny and snowing! Outside
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