Thursday, July 31, 2008
It takes a teenage riot to get me out of bed
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sheepish
Also considering a little 'irony' flag on some of my posts. I'm clearly rubbish at satire.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
In which I consider a boob job
Anyway, there is no denying it, my boobs have begun the long journey south. They're alright, they serve their purpose, but they could look a bit more... happy? There is only so much magic Princesse Tam Tam bras can achieve now without surgical help.
I've never considered it before, mainly for these reasons:
- Cost.
- I'm an utter coward, and the thought of someone slicing my baps open with a knife makes me feel all faint.
- A vague idea that they might explode at high altitude.
- An even vaguer idea that it's somehow cheating.
- (There's also the breast feeding argument, but it's looking increasingly unlikely now that I will continue the Black dynasty. Plus you know, breast-feeding is just a patriarchal conspiracy propagated by men who can't be arsed to get up in the middle of the night for bottle feeds.)
Monday, July 28, 2008
things I would have held onto if I had known someone was one day going to invent ebay
An Alaia jacket (found for £6.00 in the All Aboard charity shop on Finchley Road)
The Face magazine all editions circa 1987-1989
Deadline comic (starring Tank Girl) (ditto)
Doh!
You?
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
In which we mingle with Hoxton Twats
It's a rare occasion, & I was interested to see what the kids are dancing to these days in the hottest, coolest, most cutting edge of clubs in all of East London. Do you want to know what the kids are dancing to? I will tell you.
Mother/333 It is early, I grant you, but the DJ is spinning to an empty room techno mashups of... Enya. Yes, that's right, Enya. Enya of the Orinocco Flow. All I remember of Enya is my sister dumping her boyfriend when he gave her an Enya album as a birthday present. There was more unlikely techno tunage - the only one I recall now is Crystal Waters' Gypsy Woman. This is what they're playing in Hoxton on a Friday night.
We remove ourselves to the Electricity Showrooms next door. The basement club is rammed, this is more like it. What are the kids going mad for on the dancefloor? Can it really be...? Yes it is. The kids are going mad for Hall & Oates. Maneater, to be specific. Good lord, have I entered a timewarp? Did the last 20 years never happen? Did they dress up in all their Hoxton finery to come out and bust some shapes to Hall & Oates, really?
(Eventually we give in to the 80s madness and our joy knows no bounds when we find a flashing coloured dancefloor, like John Travolta's on the cover of Saturday Night Fever.)
Friday, July 25, 2008
one word
1. Your cell phone? ancient
2. Your significant other? belated
3. Your hair? disastrous
4. Your mother? shrinking
5. Your father? workaholic
6. Your favourite thing? sleeping
7. Your dream last night? erotic
8. The room you're in? purple
9. Your fear? tictacs
10. What you're not? relaxed
11. The last thing you did before logging on? awoke
12. Where did you grow up? Southgate
13. Favourite drink? vino
14. What are you wearing? vest
15. Your TV? black
16. Your pet? eventually
17. Your computer? dusty
18. Favourite place? bed
19. Your mood right now? pensive
20. Missing someone? sometimes
21. Something you're not wearing? hat
22. Love someone? passionately
23. Your favorite color? purple
24. Kids? dunno
25. Your life? baffling
It really, really makes you think about it when you have to answer with just one word. Good brain exercise. I tag all those lazy arse bastards claiming blog fatigue. Get on with it, you lazy arses.
More of this sort of thing
*though I have bookmarked it.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Everything must go
So, it's time for the great record clearout. Here, listed for your delight, are the entire contents of my dusty box. Does anyone want them? Or I'll stick 'em on Freecycle...
(NB these do not entirely accurately reflect all my catholic musical taste. Girls have a great facility for suddenly passionately caring about the bands that their current boy of choice are into... I never realised, for example, that I had so many chin-stroking 'nice' jazz albums, for example. Then I remembered who it was that I was trying to impress back in the day.)
Anyway, can't bear to offload them to the charity shop, so they're free to a good home. You will have to pick them up though. Or we can meet and have a drop off. DJ Del, I have put aside the Spacemen 3 for you.
Billie Holiday – The Lady and the Legend
Led Zeppelin 3 – (complete with magic cover!)
PJ Harvey – Dry
The Throwing Muses – The Real Ramona
Astralasia – Sul E Stomp (I’ve no idea)
Jah Wobble – Visions of You 12 inch
The Best of Little Walter
The Pixies – Come On Pilgrim EP
Dinosaur Jr – Bug
Happy Mondays – Step On
Sly and the Family Stone Greatest Hits
Al Green Latest Hits
The Goats – Typical American 12 inch (did I ever post about the Goats? Remind me to sometime)
Urban Species & MC Solaar – Listen 12 inch
Robert Johnson Delta Blues
Throwing Muses – Throwing Muses
Cry Cisco – AfroDizziAct – a house 12 inch which samples The African Queen, I seem to recall.
Happy Mondays – Bummed
Funkadelic – Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow
“i” AR Kane
Spacemen 3 – The Perfect Prescription
My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything
Un-named live album by Spacemen 3
John Lee Hooker – Urban Blues
Led Zeppelin II
The Best of Kid Creole and the Coconuts (he was much underrated, oh look, fuck off, alright?)
Bjork –Debut
Grace Jones Island Life (she was much – oh fuck off.)
Stevie Wonder Innervisions
Sister Sledge Thinking of You 12 inch
Disco Nites – 16 Giant Disco Hits!
Jimi Hendrix Experience – Smash Hits
Atlantic Soul Classics – 16 Hit Tracks
Throwing Muses – House Tornado
Mary Margaret O Hara – Miss America
Portishead – Numb EP
Abba – Greatest Hits
Blondie – Parallel Lines – actually I think I might have to keep this one.
John Coltrane - Giant Steps
Bomb the Bass (remember when they had to change the name during the bombing of Iraq first time around? Also Massive Attack had to change to just ‘Massive’ hahaha!) – Bug Powder Dust 12 inch
Depth Charge – Hubba Hubba Hubba EP
New Order – Blue Monday 12 inch
Lou Reed – Transformers (I’m 15 again! Dancing around Cathy’s bedroom to ‘Makeup’ whilst applying eyeliner very badly!)
Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are you Experienced
The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground
Charlie Parker Memorial Volume 3
Elmore James – Red Hot Blues
Definition of Sound – Now Is Tomorrow (remember ‘Wear Your Love Like Heaven’?)
Tricky – Overcome 12 inch – He looks very fetching in a wedding dress on the cover
Furniture – Slow Motion Kisses 12 inch
13th Floor Elevators – The Bull of the Woods
The Bessie Smith collection
A Tribe Called Quest – Can I Kick It? 12 inch
John Coltrane - Coltrane Jazz
Robert Johnson – King of the Delta Blues Singers
Slanted and Enchanted – Pavement
The Sugar Cubes – Life’s Too Good
Bessie Smith – Empty Bed Blues
John Coltrane – Blue Train
Method Man & Mary Jane Blige - You’re All I Need To Get By
Sonny Rollins Quartet – Worktime
Stravinsky – The Rites of Spring (how did this get in here?)
G Love & Special Sauce – Cold Beverage
L7 – Pretend We’re Dead 12 inch
Fugees Blunted on Reality
Louis Armstrong - Sensational Satchmo
The Breeders – Last Splash
John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
My Bloody Valentine – You Made Me Realise EP
Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland
Spacemen 3 – Playing With Fire
Piano Music of Eric Satie
Portishead – Dummy
The Smiths – Hatful of Hollow
Tricky – Maxinquaye
Joni Mitchell – Blue
Beastie Boys – Ill Communication
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin
Lee Perry – The Heart of the Congos
Red Snapper – Reeled & Skinned EP
New shoes
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Waiting for Tiscali *
Flashing red signal. DSL connection: idle.
What can you do on your computer when you have no broadband? Re-discover the delights of Solitaire. The Queen of Clubs is giving the Queen of Spades evils. The Jack of Diamonds is winking at me. 9 hours of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies hold music later... I’m in the queue, then my mobile credit expires.
A charming man in Scotland with the kind of Edinburgh accent that could soothe a tiger with a toothache tells me he’s TV, not broadband, he can’t help me. A techie boy with a Scottish accent. I’d happily chat to him all day just to hear his voice, and nearly ask him out.
9 hours of Handel’s Water Music later, Ankor (?) in India, sticking closely to the script and uttering ‘Not to worry’ ten times, tells me since I changed my phone number, my broadband connection has been terminated. I will need to phone a different number to let them know my new phone number. Surely I could just email them…? Oh, but I have no broadband. Duh.
It’s fine, it’s fine, I can do without it … can’t I?
OMIGOD I CAN’T I AM AN ADDICT AND I NEED HELP
* apologies to Samuel Beckett
Monday, July 21, 2008
Twenty-seventeen
'He's got a chain of flowers... and sews a bird in her knickers'. Bravo, Björk !
*Not really. You're all invited to birthday drinks. Bottoms up!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Friday, July 04, 2008
My baby's so vain, she's almost a mirror...
She makes me feel so ugly
My heart is really on its knees
But I keep a poker face so well
That even mother couldn't tell
Shivers, Boys Next Door
Look at baby Nick Cave! So cute! Little chuchi face. (Unlike now, old cadaverous face.)
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Plungering
When he finally prised it off, the suction had created a huge red circle on his forehead which remained highly visible when he woke up on Monday morning, so he had to bunk off school lest he risk social pariah-dom for the rest of his schooldays.
This episode led to the word 'plungering' entering our common language. (The opposite to 'plungering' was 'ulcering' which is self-explanatory.)
God, I'm bored. Where's a plunger when you want one?
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Weddings
Why must they do it? Why? Whatever happened to good old living in sin?
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Halp
Hate it forwards, backwards, sideways, every which way. Hating it passionately. Hating it seriously. Just hating it.
What else can I do? What what what what?
* I know I'm not alone in this. Just check out the TES message board, it's filled with the likes of us desperate to escape.
Getting away with it
Okay, imagine that you are explaining the verb 'run'. Simple enough, you might mime someone running to your foreign student, easy, they understand run.
Then they show you a sentence that has utterly baffled them in this English book they're reading, it says 'We've run out of coffee.' They still have the image of someone running in their head, and it makes no sense. Following the verb with a preposition changes the meaning utterly - here 'to run out of' means 'to finish' (to which your poor student might say,'Then why can't you just say finished'?)
Consider these:
Run into (to meet)
Run up (to make)
Run through (to practice)
Run down (to insult)
Run off (to print)
Run on (to talk a lot)
Or these -
get into classical music (enjoy)
get up the nerve (summon)
get round to it (procrastinate)
and my personal favourite for confusing foreigns
get away with (to escape without punishment)
'You know, it's like a thief who escapes without punishment, he gets away with the money' you explain.
They just about grasp that as an expression, but then they read 'Kylie Minogue is the only woman in her thirties who can get away with gold lame hotpants' and they give up in despair and decide to go and learn Japanese instead, it's easier.
Talking of getting away with it, one Tony Parsons book is set in a language school. He has a beginner Japanese language student utter the phrase 'Don't take it out on them.' Not just a phrasal verb, but one followed by two prepositions. Tsk tsk Tony.