I. HATE. THE. WASHING. MACHINE.
Ever since we bought a new washing machine three months ago, it has, for want of a better phrase, FUCKED ME OFF! It’s been leaving little bits of clothes fibres, hairs and dust over everything it washes, and clothes seem to showing signs of wear and tear far more rapidly than they used to. The people on the helpline told us to try running it all off cold water and letting the thing do it’s own fucking heating. Well, I’m trying that tonight and if it doesn’t work, Mr.Comet or Mr. Hoover are going to get a phonecall off me. Well, maybe off Marie as I hate using the phone.
I almost invalidated my warranty this morning by trying to put my foot through the washing machine door. Don’t tell anybody but I think I occasionally have anger issues with inanimate objects. That’s between you and me, okay? Good.
Some of the tracks off the new muse album make my head fizz. That’s a good sign. I hope the rest of it follows those few tracks, if so, it might climb quite highly up my end of year album charts.
I always do a top ten album list at the end of the year, well I have since about 1994. That year, the inaugural award was won by The Manic Street Preachers, for The Holy Bible. I can’t remember some of the years, I know Embrace won it in 98, Blur in 99, Muse in 01 and Doves last year. Who won it in 2000? 95-97? I’ll have a think, maybe look through some old books and let you know. I know you’d like to know now. Hmm, I’ve had a brain block.

Last night I went to the cinema, to watch underworld with 5ft4 munchkin Marie, and 6ft something ex-hippy John Hudson.
It was okay actually, I liked the premise and anything filmed in a grimy way, will appeal to me. The acting was a bit ropey in places and some of it was unintentionally laughable but it left me with ideas in my head, which can’t be a bad thing.
About fifteen minutes into the film, the warner brothers complex had a power cut, everything went black and the emergency lighting came on. We sat for ten minutes, after which people started to leave. We amused ourselves by throwing popcorn over each other – I was still picking it out of my hair several hours later. After about half an hour, we were given free tickets and told we may as well leave. As we reached the car park however, the lights came on in the whole complex. So we went back inside to see the rest of the film. Hooray!
Free tickets as well, so it was well worth the inconvenience.

I like to look for early morning signs about what sort of day I’m going to have. This morning, for the positive, I hit every traffic light on green on the way into work. This is a good thing, a rare thing and one which puts me in a brighter mood than normal for work. On the negative side of things, I seemed to be driving towards the darkest clouds I’d ever seen and true enough, about a mile from work, the heavens opened and liquid bullets dropped from the sky. I’m still damp now. A second down-point is the fact that the motor is dying in the tape player in my car. Tapes are starting to play at noticeably less than the correct speed. Even the brightest indie-pop can sound like Leonard Cohen in my car. This makes me want to punch the tape player repeatedly until bits of blood and skin from my knuckles are left hanging all over it.
Still, I reckon things are fairly even about now on whether this will be a good or a bad day.

Something has gone wrong with my head. I’m becoming hooked on Fame Academy. I only started to watch it about halfway through the series, but in just two weeks I’ve become strangely enchanted by it. I want Peter to win and was actually nervous for him on Saturday when I thought he’d be “expelled” – that’s what they call it on the show. He’s a bit of an idiot, but he likes indie music and therefore I feel I should support one of my brothers. The website lists the fact he loves The Libertines and Radiohead, plus he lists his favourite CD of the last year as being the Tom McRae album.
Anyway, I like the show as it encourages the people in it to be musicians, and learn instruments and the art of songwriting. It also allows you to get to know them.
Like I said, I think I’ve gone a bit wrong.

I need to sort my money out, I have some big bills coming up so maybe need to calm things down for a few months. Every time I get a bank and credit card statement, I recoil in horror at it, but looking at it, it’s quite easy to see where my main problem is. A hundred quid on gig tickets here, a hundred quid on CDs there, mix with several DVDs, and stir it all up with eating out and booze extravaganzas and it’s really easy to see where my money goes. It’ll be really hard curbing my spendthriftness as I love “things” but I can do it. I have to or who will feed the children and keep the mill running? Aye, t’nobody that’s t’who.

I hope the new muse album turns up soon. I have a feeling it may make my head blow open with joy.