New Home

I was going to start blogging again, but thought first I'd better sanitise this one first - fix the broken chairs, remove the tear stained pillows and destroy the self-indulgent bits of it.
However, I just spent an hour doing this and realised it would take me forever. Do you realise how self-indulgent this shit is? I don't want to wade through all the posts of what I had for tea, or what I did on a certain day. And neither do you. So, like a memorial for a horrific war, I'm leaving this blog as it is, a sorry reminder to times best forgotten.
So, I've moved.
If you want to find out why the hell I've decided to blog again you can find me on

Indietron.blogspot.com

Little Bit Of Politics

I felt bad yesterday.
I’m going to see my parents this afternoon and we’ll probably talk about the Euro and local elections. I’ll say who I voted for and explain why, but I’ll still feel like I’ve let the side down.
I’m from a family of Labour voters, the proper old skool variety at that. And I grew up as a strange little kid who desperately wanted them to topple Thatcher from power. I remember in 1987 standing outside the local polling booth and boring other 12 year olds silly with my support for Neil Kinnock. That doesn’t make you a cool kid does it?
I remember being upset in 1992 when John Major was re-elected. Why did that happen? Who thought that was a good idea?
I also remember the elation in 1997, when after 18 years, it felt that we may end up with a moral government, one dedicated to righting inequalities and governing for the many, not the few.
Boy, did they let me down.
I had doubts back then. Tony Blair’s pandering to the mythical middle England, the move away from socialism, and the watered down ideals, all these and more made me think it wasn’t going to be the great thing I’d wished. But, hey, it had to be better than what went before, and there was always the hope that once in power the proper policies could be unveiled. I’m okay with fibbing to the self-interested to get their vote.
But the Labour government appear paralysed in not wanting to rock the boat, scared that if it alienated middle England then we’d end up with the Tories back in power within 5 years. The Tories were fucking finished, they weren’t a threat! You had the greatest opportunity in modern history to push forward a progressive, fair and moral future. In America, Obama has the Republican party pulling him back wherever they can, in 97 Tony Blair had no such trouble. But still he appeared scared to make any radical move.
And then September 11th 2001 came along. And we lurched into wars, Blair ignoring what we said as he was guided by the magic man in the sky. All at the same time students found their time at university becoming prohibitively expensive (something which will have a far greater effect on poorer families), the child poverty targets were hopelessly missed, blah de blah, yadda yadda.
Radical ideas for making this country a better place were ignored, as Labour carefully trod the middle ground in politics for fear of offending those who merely give a shit about income tax levels, or how often their bins are taken away.
What a missed opportunity.
And, even though I disagreed with the Iraq war, even though I was shocked to see the level of student debt, it was this inactivity because of the fear of upsetting the electorate that finally made me vote for the Lib Dems yesterday.
I went quiet for a while, and had a restless sleep. I’m surprised I didn’t have a nightmare in which Nye Bevan came round, crying and asking me what I’d done.
I know my mum will say I’ve wasted a vote and even though I disagree, I can see what she means. To my mum, a vote for any party other than Labour is a vote for the Tories. The Libs can’t get power, I’m just letting Davey Dave Cameron get nearer to the throne. Eugh.
But something needs to be done. As Labour sits neutered in power, more obsessed with beating itself to death rather than governing the country, extremism sits in the shadows.
Dean brought in the BNP leaflet for Pendle yesterday. It’s different than the rightly mocked one which was sent to homes round the country, this one is bigger, occasionally locally focused and chock full of the hateful, disingenuous, bullshit of that bunch of twats. I laughed at how wrong it was, and how so little of it was based in reality. I couldn’t laugh too much though because there are people out there for whom it would have said everything they wanted to hear. I’m going to coin a new term for that sort of thing – twatnip. Like catnip but aimed at twats.
And, at the time of writing this, there is still a fear that the BNP could get its first Euro MP, right here in Lancashire. Dick Griffin could have a say in how MY county interacts with Europe. MY county. It makes me feel sick to the stomach.
At election time, hearing the horrific views of the BNP and its supporters on the TV, listening to all this “Get Britain out of Europe!” bollocks from people who still live in 1945, and hearing the whines of the affluent concerned about income tax levels and petrol prices, I just want to live far away from people.
Tony Blair’s Labour didn’t turn out to be the party to tackle inequality in this country, they acted in their own self-interests, merely concerned with staying in power. And by doing so, by failing to put across a strong message about the positives of Europe, by failing to tackle the poverty that causes the hate and fear that people like the BNP feed on, they’ve just left Britain ripe for a takeover by those who I find abhorrent.
And that’s why I voted for the Lib Dems.

We get what we deserve.
From the idiot who blames foreigners for the fact that he isn’t having a perfect life, to the prick who blames dole scroungers for the fact that it costs a lot of money to fill his Range Rover; all of them looking for a scapegoat. All whining about how life has dealt them an unfair hand.
We’re in the shit financially and we lash out to blame the government. And they are to blame. But, so are we. A boom based on nothing much more than moving cash around and an inflated housing market, we were all okay with that as long as it allowed us to live on unsustainable debt. To sit around now and just expect the politicians to get us out of it without a change in our ‘Me want!’ society will prove ultimately futile. We’ll just get ourselves in the same mess again. We need to live within our means, realise that petrol and other resources are a luxury and stop blaming others for our perceived misfortune. Only then will we get the government that Labour should have been in 1997. If we can’t stop them setting policies to pander to whoever will keep them in power, then we should at least try and make our demands righteous and for the good of all of us. If we stop being a bunch of dicks, then maybe they will to.

Us & Them

Let’s see if I can do this without swearing.

They’re coming to get us.
It’s quite hard to describe exactly what ‘us’ is. It’s probably best that I explain.

I don’t usually watch 10 Years Younger, in fact I think last night was only the second time I’d ever sat through the programme. It drew me in because the guy on the show seemed like one of ‘us’.
The guy was called Chris, he had long black hair and a matching mad old beard. He looked like he needed a bit of a haircut. And that was all that was wrong with him. He had a long term girlfriend and they seemed quite happy together, though she thought he needed a bit of grooming. He did, he needed a haircut and the beard needed a bit of a trim. I repeat, that was all that was wrong with him.
You see, Chris liked having a drink with his friends, he dabbled in a bit of DJing and seemed to like record fairs. You could imagine having a drink with Chris and talking about what music you both liked listening to.
He certainly seemed like one of us.
Oh yeah, he had bad teeth. They needed sorting out as well.

Now, if I was in charge of the show I’d have taken Chris to the dentist and then nipped into the barber shop on the way to the pub. It’d all be over in about ten minutes.
But the 10 Years Younger…cunts…decided Chris needed reinventing. Into a twat.
Veneers were attached to his teeth because the British mouth is seemingly a thing of national shame. Chris had perfect white teeth all in a line. His mouth lacked character. But that’s okay, that’s what these…cunts…wanted.
Chris was a man who didn’t overly care about fashion, he wore pretty cool t-shirts, jeans and had a quality array of trainers. That looked alright to me, he looked okay for a 35 year old man. He probably dressed a bit young for his age but I’d be accused of not practising what I preach if I slammed him for that. But, you know, those cunts weren’t having this. They wanted to craft him into a bellend.

So we – and Chris – were subjected to having to listen to a bunch of preening cocks talking about ‘seasons’ and ‘looks’. You know, a ‘this is the look cunts are going for this season’ sort of thing. And then Chris was transformed into an identikit Topman chap, his t-shirts replaced with a checked gingham shirt, jeans suitably distressed and – this is the bit when I became angry last night – trainers swapped for brogues. I felt personally insulted. Chris was now lost to us, he was being stripped of his character.
And then it got worse.

Chris had a couple of spots on his face. Nothing particularly noticeable but the 10 Years Young eugenicists will not tolerate difference, Chris had to be perfect. So they lasered his face, leaving him with painful looking scabs. These would apparently heal (only to return in later life as face eating cancers probably) but it all seemed such an exaggerated reaction to two little spots on the face, spots which were probably caused by the lank greasy hair as much as anything.
Then Chris was whisked off to have his hair sorted out. The beard was shaved totally off, which was a shame. With a little bit of beard I feel there may have been a remote hope left that Chris could have been retained for our gang. Without it he was lost.
The guy who cut his hair should have his hands removed. I’m not joking. I’ll do it myself.
Do you remember those ludicrous pictures they had in a barber’s shot as a kid? The guy with the ludicrous side parting? The man who looked nothing like any fucking person you’d ever seen? Well, they turned Chris into this guy. With the severe side parting and perfect ultra-white teeth, he looked like a TV evangelist. Dressed in Top Man’s bastardized and debased “indie” fashion.

Fast forward two years and we find Myleene Klass catching up with Chris. Hey, where is she meeting up with Chris? At a record fair? In the pub?
Oh no, we’re meeting up with Chris in a clothes shop. Chris is now a bellend.
Chris looks pretty much how 10 Years Younger left him, side parting still in place, brogues still on his feet and face lacking any character. I’ve just realised who nu-Chris remind me of, it’s Jude Law in A.I. He has that alien/robotic look, he doesn’t appear fully human.
So, what has RoboChris been up to? Well he’s no longer with his girlfriend of 10+ years, Chris is now footloose and fancy free. He is now the sort of person who talks about what clothes he likes, seemingly to the exclusion of anything else.
Old Chris appeared to have lots of friends, RoboChris doesn’t deserve any.
And then the coup de grâce. Myleene Klass said that they’d changed Chris outside to allow him to develop inside. What she was saying was that the Chris who liked music, having a drink and good time with his friends was somehow stunted, and not the person he should be. We should look down on and laugh at anyone like Chris; people who are oblivious to fashion seasons, who don’t carry a leather man bag or WHO HAVE ANY FUCKING PERSONALITY. According to the 10 Years Younger Stasi, people who are comfortable with how they dress or look and who think there are more important things in fucking life than fucking brogues and perfect smiles are deviants. We should have our imperfect asymmetrical faces destroyed, or at least cleansed of any feature, until we’re left resembling an egg. And we shouldn’t talk about music, films, books, art or whatever, we should be concerned solely with dressing like a cunt, acting like a cunt and then we must attempt to fuck as many people as possible in a meaningless fucking way. This must be the sole aim of our life.
Chris is lost to us now, he’s been taken by ‘them’. Chris doesn’t want to come down the pub to have a drink and a laugh, Chris wants to go to Top Man. Chris doesn’t want to come round to play Boggle, Chris wants to go down town to that newly opened ‘Dr!nk’ bar, where he can try and impress 18 year old girls with the fact that he is utterly vapid. No, Chris doesn’t want to come back after the pub to watch films, he wants to take this 18 year old girl home and indulge in meaningless rutting. Chris will be able to brag about it in Dr!nk tomorrow, hell, like some jizzy vampire he’ll have taken some of this girl’s youth by emptying his laser treated blemish free gloop onto her dress. But who cares, not Chris, he won’t see her again.

Of course, girls get this 10 times worse. Any girl who dresses kookily opens herself up to abuse from her peers. Any girl displaying individuality in the way she looks or dresses at school is going to be targeted by bullies. But I’m a man, and it took last night’s programme about a chap for the line to be drawn in the sand. After the Andrew Sachs affair, Noel Gallagher said it was “us against them”. He was right in a way, but he had the line in the wrong place. Noel Gallagher is one of them, not overly for what he wears, but for the damage he’s done to indie music. I’m sorry Noel, you’re going over there with that cunt from The Enemy.
High street fashion has been pinching from us for years. The things girls used to get grief for (hair slides, coloured tights, pretty dresses, vintage gear) can now be found on any town high street. The girls who used to sneer at the odd girl in class are now the same witches who hoover up geek-chic. I look a bit daft in a cardigan but they are there now in Top Man.
You can dress like us, but we can tell you’re different. It is easy to see that your heart isn’t in it.

I’m aware that I’m appearing increasingly supercilious in this argument, and I guess I’m guilty of the charge. Sorry. But over the last 15 years indie music has been destroyed by laddishness, and the attached indie scene (for want of a better term) is being stripped of any substance to it, partly through anti-intellectualism, partly because of the increasing fecklessness of society but also due to this theft of the indie aesthetic by designers, artists and musicians without any firm belief in the foundations behind it. They want to look kooky, they just don’t actually want to be kooky. That’s for squares.
I’m also a hypocrite. But I bet even Josie Long is in some ways. I get my hair cut at Toni & Guy, and I don’t buy my clothes from charity shops. If I cared about clothes more, maybe I would. Instead I buy stuff that I like the look of and leave it at that. I don’t buy clothes for the benefit of anyone else, that’s just daft.
Anyway, my own failings shouldn’t stop me from championing people who care more for what they are than how they look or appear to others. 10 Years Younger took a guy who just needed a haircut and some basic dentistry and laughed at his personality. They made him somebody more concerned with how he looks rather than who he is inside.
This is what I mean by ‘us’ and ‘them’.


One thing kept popping into my mind whilst writing this. A couple of years ago we were in the pub discussing music and several people (all of whom I liked) said that the main reason men were in bands was to attract ladies. I wasn’t overly surprised (I have met people in Preston) but I still felt slightly dismayed. I guess I still do.

I Keep Forgetting To Post This

Hola!
Yet again, plans to write in here more often have been ruined by life getting in the way. I thought once autumn had turned into winter that I’d have more free time to partake in activities like writing this witless shit. But, even though the garden is asleep for a month or two, I’ve effortlessly managed to fill the hours that a comatose garden has freed.
Like, I actually wrote most of this in December but still haven’t posted it up. I just forget about things, not through the onwards rush of Alzheimer’s but as I generally have a brain filled with things more important to me than updating a blog read by nobody.

One of the things I’ve been doing is making my own alcohol. Most people taking up home brewing after a gap of, hmm, at least 10 years, would have just made one thing, tested it and gauged from there if they were going to bother persevering with it. But I’m not like most people, and lack the patience to wait three fucking months before sampling my first efforts. So I ran ahead and made some more, all of it sat in the garage waiting to be drunk (one of the things I’m actually most proud of in 2008 is the fact that I cleared the garage out. I did almost kill myself doing it by dropping a hoe on my head – I wandered around dazed with blood flowing from my noggin, until Hannah patched things up).
First tasting times are as follows:

Indietron Apple Wine made with genuine Plungington-le-Ribble apples – end Jan.
Indietron Canadian Style Lager Beer – start Feb
Indietron Strawberry Wine – mid March
Indietron Cherry Wine – mid March

All offer something different. The apple wine is the most exciting because it involved me whacking apples off next door’s tree, stood on a step ladder and wielding the aforementioned hoe. I then boiled it all down, strained the produced apple juice (which smelt magic), and then added yeast, sugars and various other things. Then strained, filtered, bottled, and stuck out in the garage for three months.
The strawberry and cherry wine smelt really nice as I bottled them, the bit I tasted was alright as well. Let’s not go into the fact that I don’t really like wine.
The lager is fascinating, though I’m sceptical about whether I’ve made it right. It looks okay, stands at 5.3 % but is it fizzy enough? Hmm. We’ll see.

The biggest life time consumer (well, you know, alongside WoW) is the radio show, now up to show 15, with 24 whole hours of material spunked out on the airwaves by a man with an odd voice, accompanied by a friend with a droll delivery. I hate my voice. Which, may prove to be a problem with the – admittedly fairly exciting – things mentioned to me about the show.
I know it doesn’t sound like it but the whole rigmarole of sorting out guests, setlists and banal features is rather time consuming.
If you listen to the radio show you’ll kind of know which records appear in my top 10 of 2008, but we both know that you don’t and the reasons why. So, this will be a surprise to you. It’s that time of the year again!

Tip Top Records Of The Year 2008

I appear to have enjoyed 16 records this year so that’s what we’re going to have. A top 16. Onwards…

16. Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - Angles
15. Late Of the Pier – Fantasy Black Channel
14. Roots Manuva – Slime & Reason
13. Hot Chip – Made In The Dark
12. TV On The Radio – Dear Science
11. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid

10. Mystery Jets – Twenty One

There still seems a place in my musical diet for good guitar pop.

9. Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer

A shame, I expected higher but there aren’t enough peaks.

8. Black Kids – Partie Traumatic

This is ridiculously fun.

7. Crystal Castles – s/t

I’m probably too old for this.

6. British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?

As with Wolf Parade, I expected my socks to be blown off and was slightly disappointed when they remained on my feet. I enjoyed it more when I lowered my expectations later in the year.

5. Fuck Buttons – Street Horrrsing

Again, slightly disappointed at first but is amazing to drive around to.

4. XX Teens – Welcome To Goon Island

The best album The Fall has made.

3. Neon Neon – Stainless Style

Heh, made out of the purest eighties, Gruff Rhys has a canny way for mining melodies.

2. Glasvegas – s/t

Bleak, grey, bleak and grey. There’s hope for us yet if such a downbeat slab of music can sell so well.

1. Lightspeed Champion – Galaxy Of The Lost

If you’d told me when I picked this album up at the start of the year that it’d be my favourite of 2008 I’d have scoffed in your stupid face. Ha, I only bought it because I’m addicted to buying records. You fool!
But, as my Indietron review says in far more words than necessary, it has a brilliant flow to it, sounding like a great album rather than a great bunch of songs.

Poo 4 Sue

So, what is this number plate all about?
I obviously spend some time looking at car number plates but this has to be one of the oddest I’ve ever seen.
With all the combinations of letters possible you do sometimes get an odd plate that can make me smile in a childish way, something like ‘PK 51 NOB’ or ‘T 739 POO’, but this actually looks like a personal registration. In fact, I’m almost sure that is a personal number plate that somebody chose, rather than one dished out by the DVLA as it isn’t in one of the two normal formats seen in my examples above (new format first, old loveable format second).
So, why would somebody choose that?
Why?
I’m assuming that the car is owned (or used to be owned) by someone called Sue. Therefore, why the fuck has Sue decided to advertise that she is 4 (for) poo?
Maybe Sue is a doctor passionate about our need to eat a fibrous diet so we don’t become constipated. Or alternatively she’s a junior nurse in a hospital, often tasked with the unpleasant job of easing a patient’s constipation by poking her digits up their anus to gently break the poo free (imagine the cracking of a crème brûlée if you find it hard to imagine this job). But, why would Sue want to advertise that this is how she makes a living. Even with gloves you’d still be able to smell it on your fingers, why would you be proud of a job that would prevent you from ever eating a sandwich again. Anyway, there are better ways to ask the Great British public to look after their bowels than through a number plate that could be misconstrued for some other meaning.
It could mean something more sinister.
Maybe Sue really likes poo. Really, really likes poo.
Sue could be a star of 2 Girls 1 Cup and therefore, like Jimmy Tarbuck and his ‘COM 1 C’ registration, she has chosen to indicate her profession via her number plate. ‘1 EAT POO’ had probably already been taken by her co-star.
Or Sue may like nothing better than collecting the poo of strangers and storing it in plastic bags. Maybe she categorises it into various shapes and sizes. I don’t know, I wouldn’t like to think of how she arranges her collection.
For all we know, Sue may like nothing better than having a tasty meal but that she swaps the traditional elements of a British dinner for types of poo. Instead of sausages she could use a regular firm stool, she could substitute the mash for a post beer damp poo, and then finish it off with diarrhoea gravy. I don’t know who could even come up with such a disgusting idea, let alone go to the trouble of imagining someone cutting into a poo sausage, dipping it in diarrhoea gravy and then chomping down on it, the juices squirting through their teeth. How could anyone even think of that?
How could anyone do that, think “hmm, this is such a nice treat that I’d really like to advertise to fellow motorists that I like nothing more than eating the faecal matter of strangers”. Suddenly Sue goes from being a caring doctor trying to make us eat more bran to some sort of shit eating monster.
Actually, maybe Sue isn’t a person after all. Maybe the owner of the car is a lawyer who specialises in claims made for injuries caused by going to the toilet, or by coming into contact with some poo. You may have caught dysentery after eating oysters at a restaurant, suffered terrible wounds from razor sharp toilet paper, or slipped on a mislaid turd whilst walking through your office (okay, that one is unlikely).
I think that if anyone ever comes across the owner of the above car that they should stop her and ask her some questions. The first should be ‘What is your name?’ If she says her name is Sue and she isn’t wearing a white doctor’s gown then run away. And never, ever let her cook you dinner.

Hey Look, A Box of Mushrooms

Alright fuckers.

(Oh Glenn, is this the long awaited update to the garden situation? Are you going to fanny on to pointless levels of detail about the veg and flowers you’ve been growing?)

No, no I’m not.

(Hooray)

What was that?

(Nothing)

Did you just cheer then?

(No, I was just clearing my throat - *whispers behind hand* - I wasn’t really, I was actually cheering)

I can read what you just put you know.

(Fuck you, I don’t even exist. I don’t have to put up with this shit.)

Fine, piss off then.

(I will. I’m going right now)

Er, do you fancy a pint later though?

(Yeah okay, just buy the one though. I don’t exist remember. I’m just the bit of you that you talk to when no-one else is there).

I know, I miss you though and our little chats.

(Yeah, I know, me too. Seeya later big man).

Bye sweetie.

I’m not going to write about the garden now. I need to write that when I’m at home (and where I usually have better things to do than scribble this shit). I do need to do it soon as it’s October now and everything will die away in the garden. I need to record what I’ve grown and to take pictures of it, partly so I can look at whether to plant it again next year but also because I’m mildly autistic and think everything should be catalogued, popped into a list and categorised. That’s important.
But not for a Friday morning when I’m at work.

I’m 34 next Wednesday. Thirty-fucking-four. Fuck.
As I grew up (you’ve grown up?) I’d often think about how I’d be 25 when the clocks ticked over into the new millennium. It always seemed so far away, I’d struggle to imagine what sort of life Glenn David Allan would be having in this futuristic age. As it turned out I spent the first moments of the year 2000 surrounded by 50000 celebrating people, yet feeling utterly detached and alone. I probably could have imagined that actually if I’d tried, it was after all just a glorified example of what almost every other NYE has been to me.
Anyway, that was over 8 years ago.
I didn’t give a shit about turning 30 and have rarely stopped to take stock of things. But this year seems different, I’m now “mid-thirties”, what should I be doing with my life?
I’m even aware that it isn’t really anything to do with turning 34 why I feel a bit restless right now, I think it’s just that I seem to be going from one phase of my life (the Indietron home improvement phase) into some uncharted waters. What do I want to do next? What should a 34 year old man do next? I’ve done a good job of ignoring my natural laziness in the last couple of years, can I do that again?
Oddly, part of the problem is that I’ve rejoined the gym. I’m finding it a lot of fun and so far have avoided avoiding it, if you know what I mean. But, it invigorates my brain and I often end the evening floating in the spa pool with a thousand different ideas and schemes running through my mind. But, what do I want to do? Which of these schemes do I think are practical, fun and worthwhile?
So, at the moment I’m just filled with the frustration of “what should we do now dumbo?” running through my head. What should I do now?
The garden is practically finished and bar for a teeny bit of painting, the crafting of a lattice structure for some clematis and the possible planting of winter Japanese onion and garlic sets, the thing is on hold till about February. It certainly won’t be the enjoyable time consumer it has been for the first 9 months of this year.
The house itself is almost complete as well. I’m gonna put up new internal doors very soon and get somebody to sort the outside fascias (hideously expensive) but it’s finished bar those jobs, most of which are to be done by professionals rather than me anyway.
My house has taken quite a bit of my time in the last year and I’m really proud of how it looks at the moment. But, alas, unless we get flooded and everything is ruined, I think 2009 will be a time of enjoying it rather than fixing it.
Other things also seem to be coming to an end.
I think I wrote about how the Indietron nights had started to become a bit of a chore, but I really enjoyed the one I did in June. Even though it tickled my interest into maybe doing some more of them I thought I’d leave it over the summer as that is when numbers drop off. I probably waited too long though so when I raised the idea again with Fraser the pub was booked up till mid November. So God knows if we’ll ever do another one. There is always the option to do one in Manchester but I know full well that if I decide to do that that I’ll have to put 100% effort in. So I’m waiting until I’m prepared to make that sort of commitment.
Indietron lives on with the radio show, which starts permanently from the 15th of October. I’m sure this will be a lot of fun but it seems a bit too far away to fully concentrate on right now. I’m sure that once I get into it that it’ll take up a lot of my time. I want to make it enjoyable and professional sounding so I’ll have a think about content, jingles, promotion, podcasts and the like next week. Yeah, I’ll make some jingles and promos next week. Ripper. I’d better have a think about possible guests as well. I have 6 shows before Christmas (I’m really excited at the fact that I’m the last show on Christmas Eve – that should be ace) so I’ll need about 8 or 9 guests I reckon.
You see, it’s not like I’m not doing anything. I have the radio show coming up and have been really busy with the house, but I’m fidgety for something more.
I’ve been making more soap but the last batch went a bit wrong and it’s knocked my enthusiasm for it a bit (as it does actually take a bit of time and money to make). I’ve also started some homebrew apple wine using the produce from a tree hanging over into my garden. The use of genuine Crofters Green apples excited me. Making your own booze is fun (well the drinking of it is) and it does provide sustenance for my creativity stomach, yet you do spend ages waiting for the yeast to do its thang. Like, I can’t actually drink this apple wine till the end of January and the demijohns won’t be free for another month. As a hobby home brewing is all about patience. I don’t have much of that so I’ll probably end up necking the yeasty goodness out of the demijohn one evening.
Should I learn an instrument? Do a course? I’m interested in both but again I feel that I should be 100% focused on something before I start doing it.
Part of me wants to do something radically different. I have a few ideas but that’s all they are at the moment. I’m not telling you what they are, I don’t want you all disappointed with me when I fail to do any of them.

So, what’s it to be?
I just don’t know.

I’ll tell you what is going to get sorted, this…



Look at that! What do you mean, what am I looking at? The end bit, the bit after 500 when the graph almost levels off.
If there is anything worse than playing a tedious and pointless game for over 4 years then it is playing the game for 4 years and not finishing it. This game needs to end! Either with me spotting the number 999 by the time I turn 35 or with my death by self-inflicted number plate wound to the head.

Olympics

I know everyone will be waiting for the garden update. I opened up the Guardian Guide on Saturday and was staggered to find my blog NOT listed in the best of the internet section. Staggered. But, I’ll persevere and part 2 will follow later this week. Then The Guardian will come a runnin.
This blog concerns the Olympics. Woo, eh?

I’ve always enjoyed the Olympics, which may seem obvious for a guy who loves sport but it goes a bit deeper than that.
There is obviously the chance to view sports you rarely see on TV, and the BBC always try to help you understand - after watching the France V Iceland handball final yesterday I think I understand the rules of that odd game. I now know that archery is great to watch, whilst shooting, its gunpowder filled cousin, is dull as hell.
Some other sports still retain an infuriating mystery about them. Why was one man’s pommel horse routine better than another’s? Why, when two dives look identical, will the Chinese diver always get the better marks? What the fuckery is Greco-Roman wrestling all about?
But the BBC tried to explain, and admitted when they were a bit baffled themselves.
If I think of my favourite things about being British I think the BBC would get in the top ten. The Olympic coverage showed everything I like about the BBC; curious, informative, diverse, helpful, cynical when it needs to be yet unafraid to be almost childlike in its enthusiasm, the BBC is surely unmatched in its coverage of huge events like these world games. Almost every pundit was superb, from the wonderfully gracious and humble Michael Johnson to the giddy sailing correspondent whose name deserts me right now. I’ll miss these people chatting to me about sailing boats, boxing styles or triple twists in a tuck position with half pike. Not one of them talked down to the ignorant punter at home, every single one of them seemed warm, informative and passionate.
The BBC coverage oddly made me proud of being British, something that I find hard to admit in text, as I often feel slightly embarrassed of my nationality when it comes to sporting events. Well, football mainly.
Yet, whereas my fellow Brits often leave me cringing with how they react to football, the Olympic sports are totally different. It seems we can cheer on our swimmers without wanting to punch Michael Phelps in his goggles, and I don’t think there has ever been hooliganism at a hockey match.
So it feels nice to root for the Brits without it tipping over into xenophobia, but the biggest difference is that you actually feel you’re rooting for decent people. I wouldn’t be alone if I said that it is often hard to like footballers, and they’re often the total opposite of an Olympian.
Footballers earning over 100k a week will throw their toys out of the pram if denied a further 5k a week, Cristiano Ronaldo will interrupt a memorial for the Munich air disaster because it’s impacting on his spit roasting time, Ashley Cole cheats on his wife and turns his back on his childhood club but then claims to be a victim in his “autobiography”, the list could go on and on. I haven’t even touched on the fact that the England captain is a hateful cunt of a human being.
At the other end of the scale you have people like Rebecca Adlington, who at the age of 19 gets the top level of government funding (only about 15 grand a year), but who remains utterly dedicated to her sport and wonderfully unaffected. 400m Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu combines her training with a thesis on the etymology of swearwords, whilst double Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins is a hopelessly obsessed Mod. The sacrifices all have made to be the best at their sport is nothing to do with money and it makes for far more grounded human beings.
Hell, the cash will flow to all of them now but I’m confident that they’ll stay largely unaffected by the riches. They certainly fucking deserve the money more than most Premiership footballers.

I love the human interest stories, the German weightlifter who dedicated his gold to his late wife, the Russian and Georgian shooter who think that by standing on the same podium at an Olympic games they can stop a war back in their own countries, the Italian shooter whose reaction to winning a silver was to cry his eyes out for half an hour, the despair of other nations in the cycling…again, I could go on and on.
I love the medal table and how obsessed I come in working out if we can beat the Aussies in the table (we did) and whether there is any chance in staying ahead of the Russians (there wasn’t).
I love the fact we get to host it next time and even though we won’t be technically perfect (the communists will always do the best ceremonies), we’ll display a bit of humour, self-deprecation and playful cynicism that was missing from Beijing.
I love the Olympics, obviously. It stupidly leaves me feeling optimistic for humanity.

Garden Blog - Part 1

Warning: this blog contains a description of a garden and its contents; trees, plants, flowers and all that shit. I know it’s dull to anyone else but I’d like to record my garden of 2008 so I can look back on it next year and learn from it, both in what to plant again and what mistakes to avoid.

In March this year I invested a fair wedge of cash in employing someone who knew what they were doing (finally admitting that I’d never do it myself) to make my garden look pretty.
Here is what it looked like after the garden dude had finished…




I wanted somewhere to sit, have BBQs and laze about, so there is quite a bit of decking, as you can see. I picked up a ludicrously cheap set of garden furniture and have enjoyed several afternoons plonked lazily on that decking whilst supping beers. Sadly, I’d have enjoyed a lot more nice days out in the garden but summer 2008 has been as awful as last year. Still, there are a couple of weeks of August left and maybe September will be nice.
As well as the decking there was a newly laid lawn (again, for lounging on) and some large empty beds for trees, plants, flowers, veg, whatever.
I’ve planted a bit of everything, but in the large empty bed on the picture above and next to the giant conifer I’ve planted decorative plants. Part 1 of this blog is about my new trees and the flowers I’ve put in the large side bed next to the fence. I’ll scribble something about what I’ve put round the conifer later on. What I’ve planted in pots dotted around the garden and the veg I’m growing will be covered over the next couple of days.

Are you ready?

The Garden Pt1 – Trees, Plants and Flowers

Trees first.
During a trip to the Scotland branch of the Allan family last autumn, I remarked to my sister-in-law about how ace the giant monkey puzzle tree looked. And so, a few days before Christmas a mini one turned up in the post. It was the first thing I planted out, here it is…



Now, I don’t know if I’ve put it in the right place. Because of trees which overlook the decking, the monkey puzzle doesn’t get much direct sunlight in summer after about 9am. Maybe it isn’t the best thing for an obviously exotic plant that it doesn’t get much light. I’ll keep an eye on it, as the trees shading it are deciduous then it should get quite a bit of light in early spring.

The other new tree is of my favourite fruit: the cherry. It’s a Stella cherry tree (let’s see if I can write this without once writing cheery by accident) which self-pollinates and apparently produces dark red/purple juicy fruits. It won’t this year, but hopefully it’ll grow enough to give me a spectacular blossom display next spring, and then give me enough cheeries (no, couldn’t do it) to last the summer. Here it is fighting amongst some sunflowers, it’s the darker leaved one.



I removed a couple of the other trees but left the ludicrously sized conifer and kept another couple for privacy reasons. They’re the ones which may hamper the monkey puzzle tree.

As the garden was being prepared back in March, I popped some seeds in trays and started to grow some thing indoors. The first thing I wanted to try was sunflowers. They fascinate kids, but I’ve never grown one before so I guess I was kidlike in wanting some for the garden. I ended up with waaaay too many and have dished some out to pals, but I still found room for 8 myself.
The enemy of the sunflower is wind and I lost a 7ft one to it last Saturday. That made me sad. Fucking wind. I also lost a smaller one, but that oddly kept on growing and now has three different stalks (though no heads). Only two sunflowers are out so far, one is 8ft6 (260cm) and one much smaller at 5ft11(180cm). Here they are…





The others haven’t sprouted yet, but I have one which will probably overtake the 7 footer I currently have. It’s already almost 9ft and doesn’t look finished yet. Christ, it’s going to be really windy this weekend, I hope it survives. I can see it swaying uneasily already. I’m worried, it’s too bloody big.




The other 5 (except maybe the multi-headed one) will probably be around the 6ft mark. Being autistic I’ll record the height, position and flower head size of each one, picking seeds off the best and trying again next year.

The main choice behind flowers was whether they attracted bees and butterflies. If they did then I’d probably buy it. The sunflowers don’t seem like they’d be particularly attractive to bees but they fight over it. There were loads on it when I was measuring them earlier.
I grew up next to a house that had a giant lilac bush in its garden. I loved how it was full of wildlife in the summer, so picked up two of my own. Pictures!





They’re quite similar, though the one which is a deeper red is probably the prettiest. I don’t know which one is most attractive to wildlife, the bees seem to prefer the sunflowers so far. They’ll require strict control or else they’ll try and take over the whole garden. Lilacs are quite “growy”.

I grew some other flowers indoors for planting out. There were two types of poppies, the traditional WW1 types, which won’t flower until next springtime, and some fluffy pink ones which have turned up in the last week.



They’re a bit rubbish these poppies, if they catch the slightest breeze they lose every single petal. They also look like this on the packet…



I think I’ve been swizzed. Maybe I can get some opium out of them. *eats poppy head*

There are other flowers in the side bed with all the above, here are some.

A couple of little Campanulas, struggling for life around bigger plants.



Some begonias off Hannah’s dad that are just starting to flower. Annoyingly they’re beating up a different Campanula which I’ve planted but which hasn’t flowered yet.



I quite like this Delphinium which is quite popular with bees. It says that it’ll grow up to 5ft but it’s only small so far. Maybe it needs to grow a bit bigger yet. Is it a perennial? It appears so.



There are some plants which haven’t fully developed yet. The aforementioned Campanula is one, but there are some Amaranthus which should make an impressive display in a couple of weeks. I’ll put some pictures up then, but it’d better hurry up as we’re running out of summertime.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

I spent yesterday in the Royal Preston Hospital. But, don’t worry, my recent HIV test proved negative (actually true, I had a HIV test because they couldn’t work out why I had a massive butter bean sized gland in my neck), I was there to keep Hannah company as she had two of her wisdom teeth out.
The day involved a lot of sitting around, we got there before 12 but she was only called into theatre at 6. I had my book about the Nazis but time passed slowly. Then again, it was worse for Hannah as I didn’t have to go through an operation under a general anaesthetic at the end of it.
While she was being operated on I went for a walk around the hospital. All day I’d wanted to do what I was about to do: I put on my IPOO and listened to Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow. I looked for the Hyde Ward and Sam Tyler but even though I found neither it was so cool that I decided to do it again straight afterwards.
Hannah is okay anyway, she was a bit groggy last night and has a sore mouth today but the operation was a success.

I had a nice weekend doing some gardening, a task that previously filled me with horror but which actually turned out to be very enjoyable for once. I planted some bulbs in the front garden and have knocked up some seedling pots inside to grow some chilli plants, plus some poppies and sunflowers for the back garden. Even though they’ll take a few weeks to show up I can’t help but look at them every day in case they’ve sprung up miraculously overnight. Heh, look out for ‘Indietron Chilli Corporation’ in future months. Place your orders now.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it in here but the house has now been fully redecorated and hopefully the next thing I’ll need to do to it will be when I decided to tart up the living room. It should be okay for another two or three years. This leaves the garden, which will hopefully be finished in a week or so. I can’t wait as I have a monkey puzzle tree to plant, a cherry tree to buy and a barbecue to organise. Woo!
Apart from house things I have been mainly doing the following:

- Betting on horses
- Playing World of Warcraft
- Buying records
- Watching Liverpool

Saturday being the best day of the week because I usually get to do all four whilst drinking cups of tea and indulging in light snacking.
World of Warcraft is a great game and something I’ve been playing for the last couple of months. I won’t bore anyone with a lengthy blog about it, instead I’ll list my top 4 things about it. Everyone likes a list don’t they? Especially one that goes up to 4!

1. I’m from the generation that is still somewhat in awe about multiplayer games played over the interweb. I played around on a MUD at uni but that was obviously text based, it still seems quite futuristic that I can play a game and interact with someone in a different continent. Mental!

2. The game is split into two rival factions and it works really well. I’m not alone in enjoying helping out fellow members of my “side” and I’ve grown to actively dislike players on the other team. They’ve ruined too many quests and pointlessly killed my character way too many times to be forgiven and I spent a couple of drunken hours on Saturday evening waging “payback” on their blood elf asses. I tried to be all peace-loving at first and generally left them alone but it’s infuriating when they camp where you’ve died waiting for the easy kill when you resurrect yourself. They get nothing for ruining someone’s game, bar some obviously piapic surge in their dinkle-winkles. Horde scum!

3. The sheer size of it. There are lots and lots of different areas in the game, all with different quests, terrain, cities, monsters etc… Some areas I’ve enjoyed greatly, some have made me grind my teeth with rage.

Top three areas :- Dustwallow Marsh, Duskwood, Winterspring.
Worst three areas :- Un’Goro Crater, Arathi Highlands, Hillsbrad Foothills.

There is huge variety in the areas but there is also a tonne of equipment, weapons, armour, spells etc. I’ve got my main character to level 60 (only the last and hardest 10 to go) but I’ve really only touched about 20% of the game so far.

4. Playing with friends is great fun and I’ve enjoyed the times I’ve wandered off into a dungeon or off on a quest with a real-world chum (Dave) or the other people in the guild. Everyone is really nice and friendly and willing to help each other and that gives me a stupid warm glow inside.

See, not all lists are good are they?
Still, I wanna go home and play it now.

I Can See My Face In The Floor

What am I meant to do today?
The internet isn’t working (at work) so I can’t check out my favourite sites; no achewood, no football365, no digital spy, no Richie Herring blog, no, well, anything…
I would choose my 100 squid BAe “reward” gift from the on-line brochure (I suspect it’ll be a satnav) but that isn’t working either. Ho hum…

At least I’m leaving early because I have a landscape gardener coming round to tell me how much it’ll cost to turn the mess that is outside my back window into the ideas I have badly sketched out in my bonce. I suspect it isn’t going to be cheap, yet I’ve taken the first step of acknowledging that there is no way I’m going to do it myself. It’s my fault it is such a mess already.
I’ve been moving finances around in an effort to fund this venture, and have spent ages trying to find missing share certificates, streamlining direct debits and working out what the hell various monthly payments actually are. For instance, I found out that a 5 pound monthly payment has been vanishing out of my account since December 2000, and this is an insurance policy against a DVD player I bought for my parents that they’ve long ago stopped using.
Everything now seems in order and I’m just waiting for the right price before I cash my shares in. I’d check the price now but the internet isn’t working…

I was wondering last week why I’ve ended up as the sort of person who gets embroiled in confrontation and who finds it very hard to walk away from situations when I maybe shouldn’t have got involved. I questioned my part in various disagreements, fallings out and arguments in my past, and wondered if I should have done things differently. Anyway, I bring this up here because I came to the conclusion that there should be times when I don’t feel it is absolutely necessary to open my big mouth, yet at lunch today I did it again my friends.
I was stood in the shop across from work half-reading the Guardian I was planning to buy whilst I waited in the queue for a young woman to finish paying for whatever she was buying. This transaction was taking longer than it should because the lady was deep in a conversation on her mobile phone so was attempting to dig the money out of her purse with just the one hand. I thought this was a little bit rude as she seemed to be treating the woman serving as an irritant who by asking for money didn’t seem to understand how important this phone call was. It was only mildly irritating I guess, the same level of annoyingness as when someone takes ages putting money/cards back in their purse or wallet after paying at a till but refuses to budge out of the way whilst doing this.
What caused my head to flip was when phone-lady practically threw the money at the woman serving. She couldn’t count out her cash one-handed, so instead of showing the lady serving some courtesy by temporarily halting her phone call and handing the money over with one hand whilst holding her purse with the other she just kind of chucked the money in the vague direction of other lady. I could see the shock on the face of the woman serving and this was when my mouth surprised me by saying “what a rude bitch” out loud. Yeah, I was thinking it but didn’t expect my mouth to just blurt this out. The “rude bitch” in question looked up from her phone call and for the first time in this whole exchange seemed to realise that there were other people around. I stared at her, not with any look of disdain but with a mixture of surprise at what I’d just done and with wondering what would happen next.
Nothing happened next, the lady just scooped up her things and left without even looking at the woman who’d served her. This lady turned to me and said “I’ve never had anyone throw money at me before” and I just shook at my head at what had just happened.
Heh, I’m going to end up such a crotchety old fucker.
That’s if I’m not stabbed to death after calling some meathead a ‘twat’ in a chippy. This seems more likely.

TV Review Day

5 Thoughts On Ashes To Ashes

1. For someone prone to sentimentality and a big old reminiscifest, Ashes to Ashes was always going to trigger in me some flashbacks to the period. It wasn’t like the first episode was especially “eighties” as the fashions of the time don’t overly contribute to the plot, but the soundtrack took me back to being an odd 6/7 year old who’d nip out to Woolworths (or ‘The Record Centre’ – a shop in Fleetwood that has been shut for 15 years yet I can still picture it in startling detail, my love of music started in that shop) and buy a single that took his fancy. And even though I was far younger in 1981 than any of the characters in Ashes to Ashes I’ve still ended up thinking of those years in the early eighties when the streets and park of Fleetwood where my playground. I had an idyllic working-class childhood, not much money but safe, fun and one which has left me with an unshakeable love of my home town. I know this is little to do with the TV programme but as LOM played with the affection people had for the seventies, then A2A (right kids!) took me back to an eighties which wasn’t about inner-city riots, Thatcher or the cold war.
2. Right, onto the show. It was okay for a first episode. Anyone with a love of LOM is always going to be harsh in judging the new show because it’s playing with something that people loved. But I’ll give it some leeway as first episodes always need time to bed characters in. There were some pointers back to LOM which I found interesting (but will stick to boring other weirdoes with, rather than anyone who reads this) yet one stood out and distracted me throughout the entire show. In LOM every shot featured John Simm’s character. Everything was in his imagination so he was in every scene, which made it interesting as we didn’t see any interaction between other characters so all we had to go on was what Sam Tyler knew. However, early on last night there was a scene in which the new character who had gone back to 1981 wasn’t in a scene. And then there were a few more without her in it. Now this could just be an oversight from the producers or just a decision that they can’t be bothered doing it that way again (that seems unlikely and would be immensely disappointing if that was the case) so this opens up countless thoughts as to what is going on, and has set my nerd forums to overdrive this morning. LOM held together brilliantly, it was all in his imagination so of course we wouldn’t see anything without him in it. So, how can we see scenes without the 2008 cop in it? Is she imagining scenes without herself in them, in the way that you don’t really have to feature in every dream you have? Or is Gene Hunt and the gang somehow real? Was every conclusion taken from LOM false? To the nerd forums!
3. The tone was far more tongue in cheek and rather cartoonish. This didn’t make it un-enjoyable but one of the reasons that LOM was so fantastic was that it managed to both humorous but also rather dark and gripping. I guess it would start to grate if it was played for laughs totally so hopefully it was just a bit of fun for episode 1.
4. I hope it doesn’t spoil the affection people had for LOM by taking liberties with it. By making A2A (kids?) vaguely slapstick and by making people question what they understood from the finale of LOM (see point 2 above) then there is a worry in my head that they may somehow damage LOM’s legacy, which would be a crime because…
5. I watched the final episode of LOM on BBC 4 following A2A last night (are all these initialisms starting to piss anyone off?) and yet again I was touched by how it may be one of the finest TV programmes the BBC has ever produced. I adored all of LOM but the final episode manages to be one of the most uplifting and beautifully touching things I will ever see. When I first saw the episode I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks and last night I lay awake with it spiralling around in my mind. I know I’ve written about this before but a TV show in which the hero kills himself at the end of it yet which manages to be such a terrific celebration of life is down to a fantastic script and one of the greatest displays of acting I have ever seen. Did John Simm win any awards for it? It’d be ludicrous if he didn’t. Hopefully the script won something as well, I obviously found its romantic idea of love, friendship, imagination and sheer joie de vivre so intoxicating that I still can’t stop rabbiting on about it. It’s fucking beautiful.

The 5 Very Worst Things About Torchwood

1. The acting. John Barrowman is the antithesis of someone like John Simm. I watched the Torchwood episode on Wednesday and was staggered that the director didn’t make him retake most of his scenes. Maybe they’d already done them 50+ times and he’d given up but Barrowman’s acting is appalling. The hammy looks to display emotion, the laughable air of sexual “menace”, the inability to convincingly play an action hero…..Christ he’s shit. He comes across as a likeable and funny man on talent shows – although one obsessed in cocks – but a good actor he ain’t. The others aren’t that much better and on the rare occasions when you get a good actor mingled in as a guest star then the comparison is embarrassing. When Barrowman acted alongside John Simm in the last series of Doctor Who – but thankfully never actually shared any screen time - he should have realised his own limitations and knocked it on the head.
2. Sexuality. If I was a gay man or lady I’d be embarrassed. Fuck, heterosexual men and women should be embarrassed as well. TV needs more positive gay characters in it, and the last thing it needs is hackneyed, pathetically basic homosexual caricatures like Torchwood. But what’s even worse than the fact that gay sexuality seems to have been reduced to a cartoonish innuendo straight from a seventies sitcom is that the sexuality of the characters is so poorly drawn and seems utterly arbitrary. Out of a team of 5 there appears to be 3 bisexuals (2 of them staggeringly unconvincing), 1 serial cheater who acts all pious about how much she loves the fiancée she cheats on and 1 goblin-faced heterosexual man they haven’t got round to clusterfucking hermaphrodite aliens yet…but that they undoubtedly will. No explanation is given as to the change in sexuality of any character, it just looks like the writers didn’t bother talking to each other when writing their episodes. Which is probably the case. This leads on to…
3. That all the characters appear as badly thought out sketches. A programme like This Life had a series of different writers yet the characters behaved completely convincingly and believably from episode to episode. All Torchwood characters are utterly one-dimensional and therefore you end up not giving a blind toss about any of them. Not one of them has a background or any discernible personality that they carry through every episode. Russell T. Davies must take the blame for this as he is the series producer and surely must ensure that all the episodes hang together, and that the audience actually has some understanding of his characters.
4. Now I understand the budgets are low but the special effects are frankly wank. Whoever designed the Torchwood van should have his hands chopped off, and a story about a lost dying alien has no emotional impact on the audience because:

a) John Barrowman’s inability to show any emotion through acting. I actually laughed when it died.
b) The fact that the lost alien looked like utterly shit
c) That the interaction between real actors and CGI was utterly false and poorly directed.

5. The scripts. I actually do slightly feel sorry for the actors forced to perform this utter shit. The dialogue makes me wince and the plots are dull, cheap and about as intellectual as Jade Goody’s anal cleft. This isn’t intelligent adult sci-fi, a 12 year old would be disappointed at the lack of thought put into Torchwood. I’m only watching it because I’ve turned into a bit of a ghoul and find the whole thing unintentionally funny.

Lane Ends Traffic Flow Unfairness

I was going to write in here more often but BAe decided to block www.blogger.com. That was nice of them, the miserable fucks.
So this is typed at work but posted from home. A bit of a pain in the arse and something that might stop me scribbling in here as often as I’d like.

I went to chat with Fraser last week to tell him about something that has been troubling me for a while. I think I’ve written in here about my waning enthusiasm for Indietron nights and so last week I told Fraser that I wanted to knock it on the head, at least for the time being. He persuaded me to just have a hiatus, with the possibility of starting it up again in a few months if I get my enthusiasm back. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.
It’s a shame in a way and I didn’t take the decision lightly. It was one of the coolest things I’ve done, but after 18 months I found myself resenting the time it took to come up with an entertaining setlist, compile the silly little videos we show on the big screen, and to stick all the posters up around town. It took a bit of a kicking from the smoking ban, and a few other things combined to make it less ‘fun’ in the last few months.
But I’ve spent the last week moping about it slightly and remembering the fun things about it; the nights when friends had a great time, playing records that excite random strangers in the place, the goodie bags, the badges, the other opportunities it threw up…
And it has made me some friends and given me these other opportunities, just sadly not enough of this latter category. I think I want to try other things, see if the website can be salvaged (it’d make me sad for Indietron to die off totally), and to do other things that are creative, challenging, and that word ‘fun’ again.
So, a bit sad but maybe it’s the right decision for now.

What else has happened? Well I booked a 6 berth chalet for ATP in May, an event which should be utterly fucking amazing. Have you seen the line-up?

At the start of January I was filled with this desire to sort things out in my life. I’m doing okay financially in that respect: sorting out bank accounts, moving shares around, looking for cheaper home insurance.
I’m going to start the garden in the next couple of weeks as well, which should be good. I can’t wait to hold my first BBQ.
One thing hasn’t really gone to plan though…

Last year I became a bit stuck with CNPS. My life became rather busy so I stopped wasting time looking for number plates and in the whole of 2007 I advanced from 505 to 596. Which is piss-poor. But, realising that I had to finish it I’ve been filled with a zeal to do far better in 2008. With this illogical desire to “do well” at something so utterly pointless I bet Al at work that I could get to 800 by the end of the year. What was I thinking?
And in the first three weeks of this bet, how many number plates had I spotted?

0.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t been looking, I’d been putting a stupid amount of effort in to spot 597 but I couldn’t see it anywhere. It was depressing.
I finally saw it on the way to see British Sea Power last weekend. And how many have I spotted in the seven days since then?

14.

Ha, thought I was gonna say none didn’t you? Well, in your face mister cynic because I’ve been very successful. That “success” is of course spotting number plates so maybe I should not use that particular noun. Unless it’s in the context of “success in wasting my one go at life”.

Anyway, here’s my graph…



Oh, I’ve done some Indietron reviews as well. Go and check them out, and then write some of your own.

I had opportunities but I turned most of them down

I’m bored today. Very bored. I have this job to do but it is probably the most boring thing I do at BAe. This is a fucking amazing achievement – to be the stinkiest piece of shit in an ocean of effluence.
So, I’m putting it off. So far in the two hours I’ve been here I’ve read today’s Achewood, scanned the DigitalSpy gaming forums, read Football365, looked for bowling shoes on ebay (some nice ones from America), played the music quiz on my IPOD (though it stopped me listening to the new BSP album) and jotted down the things I need to buy.
Here is my list:
- A stair rail
- A light shade for the master bedroom
- Some clothes (not a necessity but I’d like to check out my fave shops in Manchester)
- Lots more soapmaking equipment

The soapmaking is frustrating at the moment. I’ve made two batches, one for chicks, and one for manly men who do manly men work. The latter seems to be fine, it’s virtually hardened in two days. Bonza.
The former is a pain in the arse, and after almost two weeks it still isn’t hard enough to cut up into slices. I’ll give it another week, if it still hasn’t set then I may have to put it into little pots and let ladies work out how to use it. It does work as a soap though, and it leaves your hands smelling of orange and geranium. I’m thinking the problem may be down to the fact that I grated up some orange peel for the mixture and whereas this makes it look mighty pretty, it may have altered the chemical make-up of the mixture and made it too “mushy”.
Also, I found out that I have to be certified to sell it in any shops. Bah. This is apparently because it can be dangerous if I get the formula wrong. Pfft.

Christ, this is a dull blog.

Over Christmas I was looking at some pictures from when I was a kid. And it suddenly dawned on me that these pictures of me playing football or stood in front of various London landmarks are 20-25 years old. A quarter of a century! I suddenly felt rather old and became aware that when I remembered my days playing youth football that my brain kind of thought “oh that was 10-15 years ago”. But it isn’t. The picture of the Fleetwood Gym Under 10s football team posing for a group photo on the park is 24 years old. 24. Fuck, it is 17 years since I went to Florida and it feels like it was about 8 years ago. Time really does accelerate the older you get.
But, I didn’t really mope for the fact that I’m now 33. That’ll probably hit me in a few years when I find myself sat in a sports car at some traffic lights, glance up at my reflection in the rear view mirror and the see this tragic image of a balding, podgy and wrinkled 38 year old. In a sports car…and a Carhartt jacket.
No, what left me bewildered is how old everyone else will be now. Our Fleetwood Gym manager was a really nice guy called Brian. In the picture he looked about my age, still quite young and with most of his life in front of him. He’ll now be about 57. Nearly 60.
My brother turns 40 next month and I can still remember him at high school. My parents are now in their mid-sixties. And if I think about the likeable teachers at my primary school, how old are they now? Mr.Clapp was around 40 when he taught me, he’ll now be about the same age as my parents.
I spent my youth in a race. I couldn’t wait for certain landmarks to arrive. 16. 18. 21. I remember thinking being 24/25 was ace, but that was almost a decade ago. Richard Herring does a routine in which he rightly says that the first half of your life is a race up a hill, you’re impatient to get to the top and to see what the view is. But on the other side of the hill is a steep and desolate journey to the grave, a hillside filled with disease, a decaying body and countless obstacles which can kill you without a seconds notice. And then you look at that beautiful green hill you’ve just raced up and you think “fuck”.
I’m almost at the top of this hill but I’ve started to stop and look around. I wasted a lot of my youth being introverted, shy, supercilious, aloof and downright grumpy. It seems such a waste. I had opportunities but I turned most of them down.
But you can’t let the mistakes and missed chances of the past get you down and it’s why I’m generally happy today. Just, ya know, don’t leave your life as a series of what ifs?

Do you see what I’ve done, I’ve turned a dull blog into a dull and miserable one. Go me!

It's Great When It's 2008, Yeah?

I always considered new year resolutions fairly pointless. Maybe it’s because I rarely ever achieved any of them, and even though it’s not unusual to reflect on your life when you reach the start of a new year I wasn’t really one for pretending to myself that I was going to change anything dramatic about the way I live. I know Glenn better than that and I know he’s a lazy shit who finds it hard to deny himself anything.
But I did manage to give up fruit machines for a whole year in 2003 or 2004, so maybe I’m being hard on ol’ Glenn.
I have some things I’d like to do in 2008 and even though they aren’t anything as dramatic as resolutions - as they aren’t really gonna turn my life upside down – they are ‘aims’ for this year.
I’m going to share some of them here so I can check back from my wireless enabled bunker on January 1st 2009, whilst the zombie war wages outside. See how well I did.

House

I’ve virtually finished decorating the house. I find this a bizarre state of affairs to find myself in, as the one constant in my life since April 2000 has been the urgent need to decorate my abode. Okay, it hasn’t been that urgent as it’s taken me virtually 8 years to complete, but I finally have the house looking how I want it. There are a couple of small tasks remaining, mainly sorting out what to put in the smaller bedroom and finding a stair rail, but every room is decorated and the whole thing will just require maintenance for the next couple of years until I get the crackpot idea of doing the living room up again. Or maybe building myself a conservatory out of Lego bricks.
There is one thing though which now finds itself at top priority…

The Garden

I spent most of summer 2000 sat in a reclining deckchair in my garden reading books. It remains one of the happiest times of my life. The steady neglect of my garden over intervening years has meant that I haven’t really wanted to spend any time in it since. I looked out across it the other day and felt a pang of shame that I’d like it get as bad as it has. But, 2008 will see a new shiny Crofters Green garden. I want to be able to plant flowers to attract bees, plant my new monkey puzzle tree, maybe grow some veg (or chillies) of my own, have a shed, and – most of all – to be able to host a barbecue. Woo!
I have an ace new side gate to the house which means that the back garden is now secure and secluded. I can make it a nice place to be again. I could get some garden furniture and we could play poker on a balmy summer evening. That’d be bazzin’!

Creative Fings

Back in June I had lots of things on the go. It felt like I’d taken on too much, but since then I’ve maybe taken a step too far the other way. I loved doing the radio show, but with uncertain future funding then that sadly may come to an end. I could look at doing it elsewhere but I’m not going to kid myself that I offered anything that anyone would particularly want. The show I did often seemed a bit ‘odd’ when compared to a lot of the other things on Preston FM, and I don’t think there is a market for a man with a West Lancastrian accent slagging off Jools Holland. Still, if they do get a permanent licence and I get a chance of doing another show then I’ll bite their hands off. It’s like a childhood dream come true and I really, really enjoyed it.
Do I still enjoy the Indietron nights? I’m not sure. However much I like Fraser and the Ferret (that sounds like a dodgy film), over the last 6 months or so it has often felt like a chore rather than something fun to do. I don’t think this is necessarily to do with the numbers, as even though there are times when the pub seems rather empty, it does get really busy at other times. Maybe it’s because with friends scattered all over the country (and for other reasons) there has been a lot less people there who I want to spend the night with. Anyway, I’m doing one on February the 1st, and I’ll see then if I really want to keep at it. It takes a lot of my time creating a setlist I like, time that maybe I could better spend on something I find fun. 100% fun! We’ll see.
With the future of the Indietron night and related radio show up in the air, does this mean the end of all Indietron branded activities? Well I hope not as I want to get the website up and running again. Frustrated at the lack of activity on it at the start of 2007, and concentrating more on doing the actual DJ nights, I let the website grind to a halt. Which was a vaguely retarded thing to do as my own review of the last Herman Dune album got a mental number of hits in the first few days and I was starting to get – largely shit – merchandise sent to me. Freebies!
But, I’m gonna start doing reviews again, will finally revamp the look of the thing (some of it is still the 5 second placeholder graphics I used on initial design) and hope to attract reviewers and forum users to make it look loved once again. I can’t let Rubidoo steal my ‘look’ unchallenged. Heh.
There are other things I have in the pipeline, some of it linked to Indietron, some not - I can’t think of a way to get my new soapmaking hobby linked to a music website/club night/radio show. But it is fun and I hope to be sending some lucky people soapy packages in the post within the next month (it takes longer to set than I thought).
As well as writing more reviews, I want to scribble more in here as well. Both as an exercise to wake my mind up, but also to record what I get up to. I often find that I can go back to this blog to reuse the stupider things for the radio show, website, etc.
I’ll obviously do other creative things as well, though I’m not going to pretend that I’ll finally get round to learning how to play an instrument. I’ve been trying for 18 years and am still hopelessly shit at any and all of them.

Work and Cash

The garden is going to cost quite a bit. I could do it on the cheap by doing most of the work myself but this has two major drawbacks. The first one is that anything I do in the garden is likely to be done really badly (conversely, everything in the house surprisingly looks rather spiffing). The major drawback though to a Glenn designed garden is of course that I’m an utterly lazy cuntrag. That’s why it got into such a mess in the first place.
I’d also like to go on holiday somewhere nice this year, plus I need to start saving up for a new car. I’d like a nice one next, it may be my last chance to get something sporty and impractical (I’d feel like I was having a midlife crisis if I bought one in my forties).
So, yeah, I need some cash to splash. This could be achieved if I tempered my spending habits, but I’ve been working 11 years now and it shows no sign of abating. I have a ludicrous amount of things, some of it unused, but will that stop me buying more new stuff? No, of course it won’t. But I’m going to try and rein that in a bit, stop wasting money on food/booze/bills.
I would say that I’d knock the gambling on the head for a bit but I’ve been recently considering getting back into online poker. It didn’t actually cost me any money, in fact I made quite a bit. I may also dabble a bit on the horsies again. I won’t go mad with it, it’ll all be done to a budget.
So, I may need some extra cash to pay for these things, which I intend to get by looking for a new job. I can’t stand my current job for many reasons (moral ones, petty office politics, the complete lack of any intellectual stimulus), so there will be very little loss in getting a better paid job elsewhere. I’m not going to rush into anything, but there must be something out there which would get me more cash and that would give me some sort of job satisfaction. Fuck, I’d settle for settle for something that stops my brain rotting.

The Use Of Computers

I don’t think I’m alone in my peer group in that computer usage can be the biggest timewaster of spare time. I spent way too long in 2007 reading websites that I have either no interest in, or which leave me in a faintly bad mood. I’m not going to do that any more. I’m hopefully going to use the computer less, and with the time saved from trawling bollocks websites, I’m going to revamp the Indietron website (as mentioned above), and concentrate on surfing things which are fun or useful, not time-wasting and saddening. Lol, I keep umming and aahing about going back on nexus. I can’t shake the feeling though that it would be a bad idea overall. We’ll see.
However, I am planning on playing a lot more computer games. I love wasting time dossing about on the Wii, PS3 or PC. Yeah, it’s not the most productive use of time but it is fun, clears my head of bollocks and can be quite sociable. For instance, I also can’t shake the desire to find out if World of Warcraft might be fun. Oh dear. Warning!
In conclusion: Less time surfing websites that are infuriating, more time on Indietron and playing games.

Social Glenn

I’ve given up booze for January. I think I’ll do it easily, unless I forget and just wander into t’Ferret and order a pint. It’s partly a health experiment and also to see how much money I can save, but I’d quite like to cut down on binge drinking. When I do get drunk, I drink way too much. It ends up ruining the next day (not through hangovers but because I don’t sleep very well).
I’d also like to do some other social things: I want to visit more friends, make food for people round chez Crofters, take walks in the lakes more often, try to get fit, etc etc…
There are some friends who I’ve been promising to visit for ages, so I’m going to do that ASAP. I’m not going to squander my holidays this year (yeah right) so hopefully will have some spare for trips around the place.


Christ, that was a lot of bollocks to write. How self-indulgent. Anyway, let’s see how I do.

Rekkids Of The Year 2007

As I sat at work trying to work out my record of the year list, the thought of “this hasn’t been a good year for music” slowly started to slip from my mind, to be replaced by the thought of “this hasn’t been a great year for music”. When I started to compile the list below I thought I’d struggle to make a top 10. It turned out to be really easy and I had a list of 31 records that I liked. But “liked” is as far as I could go with most of them; back in 2005 I loved most of the top 10 and it was a great year for music in my opinion, yet this year I think that most of the top 10 is good but very little of it is great. For example, I think any of my top 4 from 2005 would have beaten the number 1 this year.
Saying that, I think the number 1 is really good, and the fact that it has survived so many obstacles to make number 1 kind of proves this.
Anyway, on with the show…

The 2007 Record Of The Year List

Honourable mentions…

I liked some records in 2007 that didn’t make the top 20. I obviously didn’t like them that much.
They are the latest from Animal Collective, The Manic Street Preachers, Interpol, Malajube, Super Furry Animals, Holy Fuck, Rufus Wainwright, David Ford, The Go! Team and Deerhoof.

One thing that has muddled up this list is that there are some records which only came out in the UK (officially) in 2007, but that I’m fairly sure I first heard in 2006. The Thermals, Andrew Bird, Deerhoof? When did I first hear these guys? I need a new award. Here it is…

The Inaugural (And Hopefully Last) “What Year Did You Come Out Oh Record That I Liked?” Award

Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha.
It feels like I’ve been listening to this for years but I still really like it.

Numbers 20 to 10 (and a six word synopsis)

20. Klaxons – Myths Of The Near Future

Not rave. But fun. Review here..

19. Miracle Fortress – Five Roses

Staring out of the window again.

18. The Thermals – The Body, The Blood, the Mind

What year did this come out?

17. Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position

Pixie. Liam and Dan’s dance moves.

16. !!! – Myth Takes

Groovy. Head nodding. Chk-Chk-Chk.

15. Liars – s/t

Liars have tunes, still bash skull.

14. The Apples In Stereo – New Magnetic Wonder

Joie de vivre. Big summer lollipop.

13. Battles - Mirrored

Relentless like pi. Bumph bumph bumph.

12. Mando Diao – Ode To Ochrasy
Swedish better than Libertines band.

11. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver

Still have fun in your thirties?

The Top 10…

10. The Shins – Wincing The Night Away

This summer was rubbish weather-wise. But I remember one sunny day (in July I think), when due to roadworks I was forced to drive home via the motorway. I had this album on in the stereo and I realised how strong it was. And whenever I listen to it I think of the one sunny day of 2007. And that’s probably a good enough reason to put it in the top ten. Plus, I think it’s good…which helps.

9. Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha

Already the winner of the inaugural “What Year Did You Come Out Oh Record That I Liked” award, it seemed wrong to leave it out of the top 10 nevertheless.

8. The National – Boxer

The relatively low placing of this album is actually my biggest disappointment of the year. For, regardless of how much I do actually like it, it’s just not Alligator. The songs are good, the lyrics are great but it just lacks that final something. Shouting, probably. It misses those moments when Matt Beringer explodes and screams his lungs out of his face. Still, it makes the top ten.

7. Mumm-Ra – These Things Move In Threes

This is the sort of record that would be littered throughout my top ten in the mid-nineties. As such, in 2007 it is some sort anomaly, a jangly guitar pop album with upbeat songs and choruses. But I can’t help myself and I’ve really enjoyed its upbeat over-polished guitar jingle-jangle. Sometimes it is all about the choonz.

6. Digitalism – Idealism

Doing the Indietron nights has kind of messed with my musical taste. I’ve always liked a bit of what I’ll call “indie dance” for want of a far better term. I’ve always enjoyed a bit of electronica and got quite into bands like Underworld back in the day. But, since I’ve been DJing and looking for upbeat tunes that people may want to hear whilst they’re boozing and laughing with mates, I’ve started to listen to – and like – more and more of it. There have been a few albums (such as Simian Mobile Disco) where I’ve thought a couple of tracks were “bazzin” but the rest were filler. And I doubt there will be a dancey album that will ever make me think “every track on here is ace!”, but there are a few (of which this is one) that contain more than enough “bazzin” tracks to make the top ten.
A really good soundtrack to a really good night out.

5. Dan Deacon – Spiderman Of The Rings

As 2007 has worn on I’ve become increasingly bored of the Indietron nights. There have been fewer of my friends there and the enjoyment of playing good records to people who might not have heard them is kind of wearing off. I could sit at home with friends and chat about Radiohead b-sides. It’d certainly be cheaper.
Anyway, in the last few months the most enjoyable part of the night is when I’ve put Dan Deacon on. There will always be one guy stood at the bar getting well into it, but mostly I’ll see the screwed up faces of people thinking “what is this shit?”. They’ll glance up at me and then try to drink their pint faster than usual.
But, I like Spiderman Of The Rings. A lot. It can occasionally give you a headache, especially early on when it’s relentless, but it’s fun, odd and intriguing. And it has those bits where it goes from a relatively slow BFM to super fast ba-da-da-da-da. I’m always a sucker for that.

4. Shy Child – Noise Won’t Stop

‘Drop The Phone’ by Shy Child is in my top three of songs I’ve ever played at Indietron nights. It’s an almost perfect electro-pop song. Although never quite matched on the album, there are still many other rather good songs, tunes that make me like them even though they are played by a guy using a keytar. Who’d have ever thought I’d love an album made by a guy playing a keyboard as a guitar. Menkel.

3. Radiohead – In Rainbows

Why aren’t you at number 1? Why aren’t you the greatest record ever made? This was always going to struggle against my unrealistic expectations, but if I struggle hard enough I can look at it objectively. It’s good (and sounds better when at full bit-rate) and with ‘Nude’ (a song that I’ve had in a different incarnation for years and even had on a minidisk compilation of Radiohead b-sides) has the one song this year that makes me want to weep into a keyboard, whilst chewing on the keys.
There are other really good songs on here though, ‘All I Need’ and ‘Reckoner’ especially.

2. Herman Dune - Giant

A review.

1. The Good, The Bad & The Queen – s/t

You know something isn’t quite right when your number 1 record of the year is the same record as chosen by Uncut magazine. You know something isn’t quite right when your number 1 record of the year came out way back in January. You know something isn’t quite right when your number 1 record of the year is essentially the umpteenth side project of a musician approaching middle age, who has decided to rope in some other middle-aged people to play in his band.
But all these factors which made me think “hmm, my favourite record of the year is hardly cool” still don’t alter the fact that this is the one album in 2007 that I have enjoyed the most.
Downbeat and melancholic, I gave it a slightly lower mark than it deserves in my review here.





Any other business. Yes, what else have I liked this year.

Film Of The Year

The Bourne Ultimatum – Frankly fucking exciting, it made me say “fuck yeah!” out loud in the cinema like a mental.

Live Music Experience Of The Year

Oneida at ATP Nightmare Before Christmas. Relentless, loud and exhilarating. It almost gave me a boner. Narrowly beat A Silver Mt. Zion at the April ATP who made me want to cry at 4pm on a Sunday whilst surrounded by grabbing machines and a child’s castle.

TV Programme Of the Year

I’d love to say it was the This Life special on the 2nd of January but it wasn’t. Without a doubt my favourite show of the year was Life On Mars, which rather pathetically made me cry my eyes out at the end.

Why Can't I Sing Anymore?

When I was younger I thought I had a good voice. In fact, I did have a good voice. But, a mixture of shyness and this block I have on demonstrating something I think I’m good at (in case people think I’m shit) meant that I never let anyone hear me. It was only people hearing me when I thought nobody was there who’d confirm that my voice was good.
Anyway, I always sing in the car and have noticed that over the last 5 years that my voice has deteriorated considerably. And, thanks to the weekend purchase of Singstar, I now have confirmation about how bad it has gone. Jesus, I sounded awful and was unable to hit notes that should have been easy. I dunno, it made me sad for a bit as it was something I used to be good at, but some factor or two (drink, aging, knackered sinuses?) has ruined that.
Never mind, I’ll find something else I’m good at. Maybe I have a natural talent for lacrosse. I certainly have a natural talent for being lachrymose.
Oh dear. Sorry.

I think I mentioned that I wasn’t going to write personal things in here. But, I guess I am alluding to events in a vague way and to ignore things going on in my life is slightly disingenuous and means I only update this if I think I have something funny or stupid to write about. I know blogs are old hat now but I quite like writing and it passes a bit of time when I’m meant to be doing other things. I’m sure you know what I mean.
So, yeah, the ban is lifted. It’s not like I’m going to write anything that might upset someone or something that they wouldn’t like anyone to know. Pouring out grievances on the interweb is a terrible thing to do. For all concerned. Plus, I don’t think I really have any grievances left.
But I was reading some of my old blog the other day and enjoyed the reminders of things I’d done.
Sooo…

At the start of this year I was genuinely quite happy. And things got better as I fixed a friendship that had been broken for too long, had a great experience doing the Preston FM thing and everything seemed to be moving in the right direction.
I was single but genuinely happy being. I kind of assumed that I wouldn’t get involved in a serious relationship with anyone again, but that was okay with me. It is what I’d settled for.
Lol, then at the start of May, John got a new lodger. Who I got to know. And started to like. And who I thought kind of liked me, but I’m not brave enough or riddled with ego enough to believe that anyone would like me. Especially when they’re obviously out of my league. Anyway, what followed was a retarded few weeks in which Hannah and I skirted round each other, trying to make it obvious that we liked each other, but not making any sort of move. It really was like some sort of mawkish American film, in which two people sit around talking bollocks for hours, sit on swings in the park at 5am and try to find each other an ideal partner in the Guardian singles adverts until the girl eventually cracks and makes a move, rather than waiting for the stupid boy to get over his shyness and neuroses. You know, just like that film.
So, yeah, I’m even happier. 2007 has been grand so far, a few external annoyances but I think these will drift away with time.

Sociopath

How have I gone through the almost 33 years of my life without someone punching me in the face?
For a laugh, workmen seem to be digging up the entirety of Preston at the moment and I’m caught up in two instances of roadworks on the way to and from work every day. Last night I was sat in a traffic queue, minding my own business and shuffling through my I-Poo. I was about 200 yards away from where the road went down to one lane but we weren’t moving very fast. Then, some guy came zooming up the – soon to be closed – outside lane, even though he’d been warned for the last 600 yards that he was going to have to pull in. But he wanted to get a bit further up the queue. He probably thought he was really important.
I don’t know why he chose to pull in right in front of me, I wasn’t moving anywhere. I guess it was because I’d left a 2 or 3 metre gap between me and the car in front, whereas everyone else seemed bumper to bumper.
Anyway, I fucking hate people who do this. They are cunts. I instantly made to block this manoeuvre but he placed his car at an angle and made it be known that he was coming in whether I liked it or not. Now, there’s no real proof of blame here for insurance purposes so I backed away so to avoid damage to my car. Still, he looked back in his rear-view mirror and I gave him a gesture suggesting he was a wanker. He mouthed back some obscenity.
This was when the switch flicked in my head. It hasn’t triggered so much in recent years, but I know it’s still there.
So – and this is the bit where I laugh at myself for doing this – I wound my car window down and threw a virtually empty bottle of ribena at the car in front. It bounced off the top of his back window. He looked back, probably wondering why someone was throwing blackcurrant drinks at his car. He didn’t mouth any obscenity.
My brain started to worry that it may now have gotten me into a bout of fisticuffs. Still, it didn’t stop my eyes from glaring and my mouth from saying a stream of abuse.
He didn’t get out of his car.
I calmed down and felt vaguely stupid.

If you’ve been driving for a while then you’re bound to get wound up about people sometimes. Generally I’m a lot better at dealing with things than I was. Still, the incident yesterday triggered memories of other times when I’ve nearly lost my brawling virginity due to driving.
The last one I remember was a couple of years ago near Mighty Muldoons when a car went in the turning right lane at some lights even though he intended to go straight on. I – in the correct lane – went straight on, and the guy swerved a bit to avoid me when he continued his blatantly incorrect journey. At the next set of lights he got out (with a man who seemed to be his dad) and they came over screaming abuse about “what the fucking hell did I think I was doing?” I pointed out that they’d been in the wrong lane, and the older man looked back up the street to see I was right. They got back in the car, leaving me with adrenaline flowing through my veins. And a semi.
The best one was years ago when a guy overtook me on a dangerous part of a road and just before some traffic lights. As he did so he clipped my wing mirror and I again gave him some abuse and wanker gestures. He got out of his car at the lights and challenged me to get out of my own car. I did. He tried to be threatening with me, yet he was about 55 and the weediest man I’d ever seen. Plus, he was wearing slippers. It was comical. Part of my brain became worried that I’d never live down the humiliation if this old man beat me up (I was about 21 at the time), but I still laughed at him. His wife got out of the car and told him to get back inside. I called him a cunt (aren’t I so brave).

It’s not just driving when my mouth has caused trouble. I still sometimes say bad things to people (usually dressed up with some cuntish self-righteousness) but I’m nowhere near as bad as I used to be. I haven’t insulted a thuggish man’s girlfriend in a takeaway in ages (she was being horrible to the staff), I haven’t encouraged a friend to thrown a flour bomb at some bigger kids for yonks (I’m not 12 anymore) and I haven’t lobbed a bottle of Southern Comfort in the direction of a group of lads for over a decade (I don’t touch anything whisky-like anymore, it makes me a bit of a twat).
So, yeah, I’m getting better. Just don’t be a twat on the roads now, yeah?

The Neighbourhood

You know you're having an exciting Sunday morning when your chief concern is whether it is going to rain again on your newly washed clothes. I think I may have been mumbling obscenities to the clouds in the back garden.
I wonder if I'm a bad neighbour. At 4am last Friday/Saturday morning, I became obsessed in wanting to play Holland 1945. So I did. A neighbour came out and stared at Liam and Hannah having a crafty cigarette.
I've just been playing music loudly again, and considering there is a new baby in the house, then maybe they've decided I'm a twat. I'm not the quietest, and talking to the clouds isn't going to make them think "Glenn next door seems really awesome".
A couple of months ago the man neighbour came round. As I answered the door he seemed really on edge and he asked me if I'd put a note through his door about their dog. I said I hadn't and he showed me this mental note which read something like

"If you don't shut that dog up then I'll kill it. The neighbours"

The dog is still there. It isn't dead and I think he has an idea who sent it. But, it can't have been easy going round people's houses and asking if they wanted to kill his dog.
He must have considered it might have been me though. He obviously believes I'm an animal killer. he should have seen me picking snails off my drive on Friday night rather than run them over. Then again, that might have made him think I was a bit strange.
Speaking of the neighbours, the other day the very same man was remonstrating with the kid who lives diagonally opposite. I don't know what it was about and considered playing the peacemaker (the successful stopping of fisticuffs in a pizza restaurant has gone to my head - it will inevitably all end up a bit "Stand By Me"), but I walked on by. The kid in question has recently turned teenager, and has gone from being a small helpful child who just wanted to play sport, to some sort of feral moping teenager, forever scowling at everyone through his zit-lined countenance.
So yeah, police arrived and everything. Nobody was carted away and an uneasy truce has fallen across Crofters Green again.

1pm (ish). What do I do now? Do I do the washing up that needs to be done? Tiday the living room? Clean the bathroom? Find some bands to play at the Indietron bash? Or should I sit on the sofa and watch any old rubbish on the TV?