cool kids

I went to death disco (which is a trendy night with live bands, followed by a disco and attended mostly by painfully cool people.) last night. I could pretend that I fit in at an event like that, but that would be far from the truth. I enjoy the music and generally have a good time but i do not fit in. I wonder is it worth it for these cool people, who look good but it all looks like too much effort to me. I turned up straight from work wearing a suit from work, which is unacceptable clothing- so cool is the evening that work wear is banned. I beat the system and got in before the boucers started work. Woo. Score one for the working stiffs...

It is also one of the types of places that have a toilet attendant, which always makes a trip to the toilet a slightly awkward one. Are they going to talk at me while I urinate?... Am I going to tip them?... If I am not going to tip them, am I going to walk straight out without washing my hands to avoid using their soap dispensing services or will I use their soap and towels and not tip?... I would be totally against the toilet attendant as a job, but there has been one occasion when they have proved invaluable. I was in Vegas, in the Rum Jungle bar, when it became necessary to have a bit of a sit down in the toilet. As previously discussed, I am an inefficient wiper, which resulted in me finishing the meagre supplies in the cubicle. Fortunately, I could call out to the toilet attendant for some more toilet paper, which was passed under the door... He earnt his dollar tip that day. Only in that situation are toilet attendants required though.

slapstick

I love genuine slapstick comedy. The funniest things I have ever seen have involved slapstick in some way. I had a new entry to my top ten over the weekend. I went to the cricket nets again and had a lot of fun. The day was made better by people getting hit comically by balls. One friend managed to direct the ball off his bat and on to the top of his head, which was good, but easily beaten for comic value by another friend's effort. After he bowled the ball was hit hard back past him. A kid from the net next to us kindly ran after the ball and threw it back. Catching is not my friend's forte and the ball was coming in fairly hard at just above head height but he gamely gave it a go. He managed to get his hands on it, but only succeeded in deflecting the ball on to his own forehead. The boy ran in to apologise, whilst struggling not to laugh and the rest of us stood around laughing. Comedy does not get much better than man being hit in head by ball. Groin would have improved things obviously, but I was happy enough with head. There is a slight mark on his head now, so every time i see him at the moment I am reminded of comedy gold.

I was also depressed at the prospect of getting old over the weekend. I was on the tube next to a party of old people laughing along with each other after having been for some sort of trip out. Old people on an evening out having fun... How can that be depressing? Because they were all idiots. I struggle to find people I like from a pretty much full pool of possibilities. What's it going to be like when the pool of potential friends is half empty? (Are you a pool of potential friends is half empty or half full kind of person?) Am I going to spend my golden years in a nursing home surrounded by arseholes, sitting in my own urine, praying for the day of release? I sincerely hope not... I do know old people who I am jealous of though. They spend their time enjoying their family and travelling the world, so there is hope.

chuckle brother accident










I was sent a link to this page which tells the story of Paul Elliot's motorcycle crash. For people unfamiliar with the body of work he and his brother, Barry, have produced performing as the Chuckle Brothers, they are a comedy duo who have been entertaining British children with their slapstick comedy show and saying "to me. to you" as their catch phrase for the last 20 years. They are pantomime stalwarts (I imagine) and have recently released their first DVD of their live stage show, Pirates of the River Rother. As you can see, it looks hilarious. They have somewhat of a cult following in the UK and it was a worry to hear one of their faces has been smashed up, as it will probably push back the filming of their 19th straight series. Pirates of the river rother 2 may never come out...

Also, I was amused to see the "show us your pics! You could win £250 off your motorcycle insurance!" part of the bike website. That is exactly the sort of seedy thing I want from the people supplying my insurance.

turning japanese

I'm going to Japan later in the Summer. The flights are on hold and I will be forking out my hard earned cash for them in the next couple of days. I would like to visit Japan more than any where else on Earth. I am excited. One of my friends is teaching English in Tokyo at the moment and everything he has told me just whets my appetite more. sushi. karaoke. weird bars. pachinko. panties in vending machines. sumo. geishas. ridiculous electronics. saying mushi mushi for hello. samurai stuff. It all sounds amazing. I can't wait. Bring on August...

Swaying

I went to a friend's birthday on Friday at the Tiroler Hut. If you like sausages, steins of beer and swaying along to accordian and cow bell music, it is the place to be. I like all of the above and had an awesome time.

Ouch

If you are unable to remove your freshly washed clothes from the washing machine until the morning after you washed them, but have no other clean clothes to wear, then I would recommend ironing the wet clothes before you put them on. Warm, wet clothes are much nicer to put on than cold, wet clothes. Be careful though. If you iron your underpants, make sure you allow them to cool sufficiently before bringing them in to contact with your nether regions. If you don't you might be going to work with scalded testicles. I am glad nothing like that happened to me today...

Comedy?

I went to a comedy show in aid of orangaid last night (a charity to help orangutans in sumatra. I do not know what they do or how your money helps the orangutans as the person they got on stage to tell you a bit about them, told us nothing about what they actually do). I had been persuaded to go by the fact that Stuart Lee was down to perform. I knew there were other comedians on the bill, and if any of them were any good it would be a bonus as I knew I would enjoy Stewart Lee. They must have had a late change and they replaced Stuart Lee with some geordie fellow. So the line up was fat fucking Phil Jupitus, Simon Amstell, Kevin Eldon, Sean Lock, the geordie fellow and Bill Bailey to finish things off. I was distinctly underwhelmed. I like Simon Amstell on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and was looking forward to seeing him and he did do a fairly amusing few minutes talking about the tsunami. Kevin Eldon and Sean Lock also had their moments. FF phil Jupitus has apparently decided him doing poetry about the famous people he hangs around with is funny. He is wrong and fucking fat. And he wears stupid hats. Fat fucking stupid hat bastard. Geordie fellow was likeable but not very funny. Bill Bailey finished things off with his wacky brand of comedy and music. He got easily the loudest applause of the night when he came on and apparently was the big name most people were there to see. I don't understand his appeal. He is clearly very talented with his whole music thing going on. The wacky comedy just isn't very funny though.

All in all, a waste of £23.50... I don't think it is socially acceptable to demand your money back from a charity night though, is it?

Simian

Bus drivers in London tend to be a little surly. I always greet the bus driver when boarding, but rarely get any acknowledgement back. To be fair, if I was driving the general public around all day, I would probably struggle to be cheery. Surely the moments when passengers are friendly to you would be worthy of at least acknowlegement. Their usual surliness made the comment I got from a bus driver the other night all the more unusual. As the bus approached in the distance I held my arm out to flag it down. As I swiped my Oyster card, the bus driver grinned slightly maniacally and said "I could see your long arm from a mile away." I politely chuckled and went to sit down. That was the first time in 29 years that my apparently freakish arm length has been commented on... All those arm stretching excercises are paying off.

And the other topic I wanted to brush on today was wiping. I have had conversations previously about styles - do you stand up or sit down to wipe? It seems to be a fairly devisive subject. For me, it has to be sitting. I don't believe you can get a good clean without it... But it is not the sitting/standing debate I want to break wide open... As well as my freakishly long arms I am seemingly a freak in the bathroom. I don't remember how the conversation came up (I had been drinking, which probably explains a lot), but we got on to the number of wipes used. Unless it is a very good day, I am at least 10, probably with an average wipe of about 13 or 14. The person I started the conversation with was a 3 or a 4 wipe man. This seemed impossibly low to me. How could it possibly be clean after that? So I threw the conversation open to a wider audience and the consensus amongst the other people there also seemed to be that a low number of wipes was the norm... What is so different about my technique? Am I doing it wrong? Does everyone else just have very pooey bottoms? Are my arms too long to be used effectively? I want answers...

The beautiful game

Wemberley was a disappointment. It was an exciting clash between 2 of the giants of non league football. But unfortunately, after going in at half time 2-0 and having dominated the first half, Kidderminster decided 45 minutes of football was all they were good for and were turned over 3-2. The winning goal was scored in the 88th minute. And Kiddy had a chance to equalise in stoppage time they should have taken. It was quite literally a game of 2 halves...

I took it harder than I thought I would. Football support is a mystery to me. Why I care what a bunch of tasteless, overpaid idiots who care more about money than whatever club they happen to be playing for is beyond me. (I am talking about the premiership now. The non league players I have considerably more respect for. They are only tasteless idiots.) And some of the teams full of human detritus I irrationally like and some I irrationally dislike. If the teams I like do well, I am happy and if the teams I don't like do well I am sad. And then after 'your' team wins something you get to boast about their achievements just because you happened to choose them as the team you support... Why do I care?

Wembley was less impressive than I was expecting it to be. The outside is uninspiring. The arch looks good from a distance but up close does not impress as I imagine it was intended to. And the rest of the outside is souless. The new Emirates stadium looks far better. Inside it does get better and it looks like you would get a good view from any seat in the house. There were only 53,000 people in there on Saturday and the atmosphere was good. When it is full it will be something worth experiencing.

eggs

Que sera sera. Whatever will be will be. We're going to Wemberley. Que sera sera.

Wise words and particularly apt when you are going to Wembley tomorrow. I am quite excited. My Dad is down to stay tonight ready for the big day. I should have tidied ready for his arrival but instead played Wow one night and got drunk and had a shit curry in brick lane the next. My new plan is to go for food and drinks first and get my Dad a little liquored up so the shock of my flat is softened. And it will be dark. Which will help hide stuff. And then tidy while he sleeps so he can wake up to a spiffingly tidy flat and won't think his son is a total waster. And I will cook him breakfast. I may even do my special eggs.

Wembley

I spent my formative years living in the suprisingly shit town of Droitwich Spa. It has a fine history dating back to Roman times, but there is very little of interest to see or do. If you would like to learn more about this vibrant midlands town check out their website. You can learn more about the town super hero - Spa Man. He is very strong, but friendly and uses salt as his secret weapon only when necessary. I think the website represents the town perfectly.

Anyway, the reason I bring that up is it means one of my local football teams is Kidderminster Harriers. (being the glory chaser I am, I support Aston Villa - who were very good when I was a child. Now they define mediocrity and their failure to excite along with the Premiership getting more and more boring has sucked my interest in football to an all time low. Salary caps are what is needed. Bring on the NFL season and the excitement of any team from 12 winning it all rather than any team from 2.) The Harriers have played their way through to the FA Carlsberg Trophy final at Wembley this weekend. They face the mighty Stevenage in the final. My Dad and I will be jumping on the bandwagon and attending the game on Saturday, mainly to see the new Wembley, but also to support the Harriers. I have been to a couple of family boxing day football matches at Aggborough and it would warm the heart to see them winning something. Fingers crossed.

Crickey

I was going to use cricket as the title of this entry but due to a happy slip of the finger I was left with crickey. Looking at it though, it looks a little odd. Crikey looks more correct to me. And after a quick internet search I was happy to learn either spelling brings up Steve Irwin, although crikey brings him up sooner.

Anyway, I played cricket over the bank holiday weekend. Not a proper game of cricket mind, we just hired a net for 2 hours - £3.50 an hour - very reasonable for an hours entertainment between a few people. It was very enjoyable, if sweaty work. A leisurely pub crawl followed and a good time was had by all. As the evening progressed I stiffened up until i was hobbling around like an old man by the end of the day. Yesterday the stiffness reached its peak and I was forced to remain as still as possible to try and avoid any pain inducing sudden movements.

And I watched Jackass Number Two. I enjoyed it very much.

Charity

I volunteered to help at a charity ball last night. (I don't like to talk about all the work I do for charity, but it was an interesting evening and it was for charity.) So anyway, I was at this charity event, which I had volunteered for - just doing my bit. Giving something back. When it comes to charity I like to get stuck in with hands on involvment, rather than just donating to quiet my conscience like so many other people less charitable than me seem to do. The charity dinner section of the evening was set in the main hall at the Natural History Museum, with the tables all arranged around the enormous diplodocus skeleton. It really was a very impressive place for a ball. The stage where the celebrities did their bits from was at the staircase end of the entry hall. The richer, more influential people got to sit closer to the stage. The usual sliding scale of attractive women, also seen at sporting events, was in evidence. The closer to the stage, the more attractive the women sitting at the tables got. And it was a fairly high standard starting from the back. I am sure some of the women there were rich and successful and attractive off their own back but I was sceptical that was the case for all of the women there, particularly the younger ladies with the older men. I wonder what makes these fat, old, rich men so attractive to these young attractive women? Perhaps they delight in tales of successful business deals? Anyway, it was an impressively run affair- the amount of organisation required to get it all together must be enormous. It all went off pretty well and they made plenty of money. (Breast Cancer Haven is the charity. Check them out. I understand they do good work.) I got to play with a glow stick, letch at attractive women in ball gowns, and got a free feed out of it and I get to talk about the work I do for charity now. Everyone's a winner...