Five Fine Funks on Friday
Coming back from holidays is traditonally a bit more rough than I had realised. Apparently post-holiday blues is a common phenomenon, but this is the first time I’ve really experienced it before. I’ve been really fucking down this week for some reason – probably the hot weather outside and the realisation that I can only take another day and a half of holiday for the rest of the year. That’s fucking annoying, that is. I have no damn idea where it’s all gone, honestly. I’ve taken stray days here and there to go to London to speak to Sony, to interview Jason Lytle and a week or so for Toad Session recording and Homegame. Add that to our two weeks in Italy and that’s pretty much my lot for the year. That means the entire last half of the year without a single long weekend, a day off or anything at all. How fucking depressing. Jesus.
In, um, other news… er, I am preparing the release PR for another half dozen or so Toad Records releases at the moment, and then Mrs. Toad is away for two weeks, during which I intend to finish up and post the Found Toad Session. So much to do, as usual, and I think two weeks is going to be the longest we’ve been apart since I moved up here four years ago. I’m not sure I even remember how to properly indulge in coke and whores any more, and the idea of going out and picking up flaky young hussies while I have the chance… well, it doesn’t sound terribly appealing I have to confess. So it’s gin and tonics with a jar of pickles and tin of anchovies whilst sitting at the computer in my underpants as usual, I suppose. Maybe I’ll go wild this time, and indulge in some pickled onions.
So, in a dismal funk this Friday, please to stop in and try and cheer me up by saying something fun or entertaining or bizarre or something like that. Don’t sit out there and lurk like the sulky bastard I have turned into this week, consider it your public service duty to come out of hiding and chip in this week. You know you’ve got it in you. You can start with Nigaz.
1. Where was your last holiday?
2. What is your next one?
3. Name something which really cheered you up recently.
4. Favourite accidentally naughty name. You know, like therapistfinder.com
5. Your worst ever excuse for feeling a bit sulky.
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Tom Waits – Town With No Cheer
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Oh, alright, I’ll pack it in.
Eels – Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues
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MJ Hibbett & the Validators – Being Happy Doesn’t Make You Stupid
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The Divine Comedy – The Happy Goth
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1. New York Feb 09
2. Melbourne Nov/Dec 09
3. Twilight Sad last night (the whole night in fact, out with a pal, good crack, met some other pals, good crack, got home not to drunk, good crack)
4. Mr Cunt
5. Last year, when my youngest brother chose to ask the middle brother, over me, to be god-parent of his son (it’s all about me you know)
oh first!!!!
1. Last ‘proper’ holiday was San Francisco about 2 years ago or a few days away in Bruges last year.
2. No plans to go abroad unfortunately but have a week off at the end of August. Getting a cottage either up north or in the borders and just chilling.
3.There Wil Be Fireworks album
4.Peter Cockhead.
5. It’s expected of me.
underpants and pickled onions….oh what a turn on!!!
also i’ve just checked….i’ve got 25 days of leave left!!!!
Started the year with 35 days…..
1. Arisaig last year. I think. I’m not very good at holidays.
2. Going to Ireland in August. I’m aware that going home for a few days isn’t really a holiday. I’m not very good at holidays.
3. Dinner with friends.
4. The Italian version of the PowerGen website. http://www.powergenitalia.com
5. I don’t think there’s ever a good excuse to be sulky. At least usually not with me. Mostly it’s just tiredness. Which, to be fair, is a terrible excuse. Maybe I should go on holiday.
1. Venice, last October. Ridiculously lovely.
2. Aberdyfi in August, which, in its own way, is also lovely. We’re are the tipping point of the girls saying ‘we like it there and we don’t want to go anywhere else’ and us saying ‘they don’t want to go anywhere else’ even though actually they’d be fine with the idea.
3. Yahoo Messenger. No, really.
4. I once, when I was a lawyer acted for a terminally ill man who was called Mr Death.
5. Another imaginary friend from around and about once summed up the problem of trying to explain to your partner just what the problem was when ‘that’ was the problem – could you just say ‘Well honey, I fell in love with someone else but they didn’t love me back’.
1. Actually, we were in Italy for a week around the same time you were (the other end though). Lovely place… We were supposed to be trekking in the mountains, but O twisted her ankle on the first morning, so we ended up on the beach instead.
2. Next week, cycling/camping in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
3. Finding and fixing a bug in my code just before knocking off yesterday. Rode home on cloud nine. Sad but true. (Yes, I’m a geek)
4. Cockburn Street, Edinburgh
5. So many… probably something incredibly petty involving me realising that I’ve screwed up through sheer idiocy. (Get over it)
I have six weeks holiday coming up in a fortnight. Nearly seven, actually. And another one in October.
1. Turkey – a week doing f all in the sun except drink and eat and watch the world go by, followed by an almighty huff that i had to come home.
2. Going to North Wales with my sister and neice to camp on the coast.
3. The decision to help a friend with a little project that means i can get a bit creative again – it has been a while. Mentioning no names…
4. Found a campsite in Penisar Mynydd in Wales. Email penisarmynydd.com – my mum thought it was a nudist campsite
5. I can sulk for Scotland – and the reasons are always bad. I sulked at the amount of hours i am doing in the pub this week – even though i asked for hours in the pub… I am very fickle.
1. I’m a student, I’m on holiday right now. For a given value of holiday, as I am in fact working. Last time I went away was for Christmas/New Years the year before last.
2. That would be two weeks in about mid September.
3. Finding mp3s of Blur’s Glastonbury set. Even though it wasn’t the full thing. Michael Jackson dying is second place.
4. Nigaz, actually. I didn’t twig until I had to google it for work. When google came back with “Did you mean niggers?” I nearly bit my tongue in half trying not to burst out laughing.
5. Every time I plug my computer in it trips the earth leak switch and I have a micro-sulk while stamping off to reset it. I really should have gotten used to it by now.
I don’t know how to stop doing bold once i start…
1) Homegame – closest we’ve come in nearly 2 years to a proper holiday.
2) I’d love to say this year’s Edinburgh Fringe but, with only 4 days annual leave left – that I need to keep for time off during the Christmas period – it’s not happening this year. Sorry TWoTH
3) Our Celebrity Chimp visit, session, interview, day of madness, hours of laughing at Andy Chimp & Nick Fisk, & then, recently, listening back to the interview & laughing so hard I nearly choked on the apple juice I was drinking.
4) I can’t think of one, but something reminded me of a time a number of years ago a GF & I were walking from Swansea to the Gower to stay for the weekend. The landscape changes a hell of a lot in the short-ish distance between the two & at one point you encounter nothing but rapeseed fields for miles & miles. We eventually came across this tiny farm in the middle of all this rape & at the foot of their main gate was a sign that read: BAG OF SHITE £2 – That made us laugh for hours
5)
1. I went to Madrid in February, it was nice.
2. I used to work in a Lesbian coffee shop in Galway so I’m going back there to visit my lovely lesbian pals, we’ll probably listen to world music and talk about coffee beans.
3. Tenants lager beer.
4. Mrs. Ballsac
5. I go in mad moods and sulk quite a fucking lot. Sorry.
1. Mikkeli, Finland for a crazy all night relay. Relaxing it wasn’t.
2. It doesn’t exist until my thesis is bound. Sticks and carrots and all that.
3. The comments on the swine flu article in the Guardian this morning. I will post it below in a separate post so you can skip it, it’s pretty long.
4. The village I live in at home is called Harden. Say it in the local accent (Yorkshire) and there you have it.
5. Probably something to do with lycra. Or everyone and his cat seeing Blu but not me. But I am also sulky too often to tell, the reasons are usually pathetic.
Shonagh, <b> to begin, </b> to end…
The comment that cheered me up today was:
“03 Jul 09, 10:40am (about 1 hour ago)
The Autumn Swine Flu Wave……haha, A plague bomb that is going to be dropped on the planet as part of the Global Eugenics Scheme. Obaama is telling people The Vaccines need to be given in 3 doses.
http://www.advancedhealthplan.com/flushots.html
http://www.rense.com/general45/tentimes.htm
Flu Vaccines linked heavily to Alzheimer’s, So now 17yrs olds a getting it & people thinks its normal. The retarded, Flouride Filled, Mecury Nuked, LEAD heavy moronic public who live in TV land think this is not onl normal but don’t realise this manufactured disease is all part of the Eugenics plan.
http://www.swineflu-information.com/commentary/is-swine-flu-a-manufactured-virus
http://www.prisonplanet.com/medical-director-swine-flu-was-cultured-in-a-laboratory.html
Henry Kissenger, Zbinew Brzinsky, David Rockefeller & his Family, Baron Rotchshild (the most powerful family on the planet), Prince Charles are all (DOCUMENTED FACT) huge fans of eugenics, have all made comments & at least 4 books have been written by the above regarding the real NWO & Obamas Change.
George Orwells big brother mentions how the poeple will be swayed by slogans, no one has defined change, if only they knew that the Eugenics Operation was the biggest plan.
People YOU MUST TAKE THE RED PILL & wake the hell up.
Swine Flu virus in August will kill loads, its an enginered disease that is only the begining.”
Are these people actually real? Better than most BBC3 comedy that one.
1. Rio, Brazil.
2. I’m dirt poor–My kitchen, I guess. Perhaps the living room if I’m feeling particularly spry.
3. Witnessing a fireman blowing bubbles in the backseat of the truch. I kid you not–my imagination isn’t that fertile.
4. Kittentits
5. Discovering the empty milk jug at 3 AM after pouring myself a bowl of cereal.
1. Italy, last week.
2. Probably France at Christmas to see the folks.
3. My Crambe Cordifolia flowered. It is taller than me.
4. I know DC wasn’t doing it entirely accidentally, but this still made me laugh: “We eventually came across this tiny farm in the middle of all this rape”
Sounds like an exciting day for you DC, and what nicer than to happen across a tiny farm at the end of a busy day’s raping.
5. Erm, not having any more holiday left and actually being expected to do my job like I’m paid to do instead of lounging around in the sunshine like I have been for the last two weeks. Whining fairy – pull yourself together and get on with it, man!
The fireman blowing bubbles is hilarious.
Becky, where in the hell was that comment, some medical message board from a deranged American backwoods Libertarian fundamentalist?
Anyone? Anyone?
Okay, I’ll take it.
It’s nice to see the fire service doing their bit to console Michael Jackson’s monkey.
BOOM-tish!
Thangyouverymudge.
Sorry Becky, I am being dense. The Graun. They do seem to attract a disproportionately large number of Freepers, bless ‘em.
Bravo bart, bravo.
I’m here all week. Try the veal.
Etc, etc.
1. Other than friends n family trips, Berlin and Poland last year
2. Dorset in September for End of the Road. We’ll be down for at least a week, so I’m sure that counts
3. A colleague announcing he was bringing wine and cake into work at 4pm, I’m not sure about the combination (although I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt), but it’s the fact that I shall be legitimately drinking at work, in work, on works time. Ooh – in less than 2 hours now, yippee!
4. Either Penistone or Scunthorpe
5. “I’m a bit hungry”
3. I am also very happy that I will be seeing the pixies twice in October. Tickets booked today. This has probably cheered me up more than anything actually.
1. Amsterdam
2. Not made plans yet. Tend to be pretty spontaneous.
3. Finding £20 in a jacket I hadn’t worn since last year.
4. http://www.molestationnursery.com is a great one.
5. The last few times I’ve prepared food I’ve dropped it on the floor. It happens to everyone once in a while, but three or four times in a week is pretty irritating. I guess I’m sulking about that.
3. I am also pleased that our exam board moderator chap has been and gone today and is happy with us. And that I no longer have to play tennis tonight but can go to the pub instead. And because of the Mitchell and Webb sketch about Homeopathic A&E last night.
something is missing today….not quite so what….i can just sense it!
1. Ibiza, last week. I swam with the fishes. And then I ate them.
2. Probably a long weekend in August for the usual Edinburgh Fringe malarkey.
3. Last night’s 5k jog, and receiving an unexpected packet of Dorset Naga chillis from a work colleague this morning. All good.
4. I actively collect these, with a proviso that they have to be at least loosely involved in information science. A recent favourite is Ray Jackendoff, Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.
5. Running out of spray deodorant this morning and having to use the hand luggage-friendly roll-on stuff.
1. Eigg and Ardnamurchan, couple of weeks ago. Eigg totally rocks. The islanders have all gone feral since the buyout, and it’s like a little autonomous state where the rules of the real world do not apply.
2. Few days up north then Leeds in September (for Magnolia Electric Co, not because we have a burning desire to holiday in Leeds).
3. Lots of things, recently. Making a daisy chain with my niece; a weird backwards double rainbow over the sea; sitting on a foghorn in gale force winds; honey mangoes being in season; being given half a crate of newly-caught langoustine for free. But I think the top one was seeing my first ever pine marten. It looked straight at me and it was a DUDE.
4. Twins at my school called Peter and Alan Ness. You’d think their parents could have thought it through a bit, really.
5. The shop only having ice pops yesterday when I was hankering for a tropical fruit Solero.
4. I’d forgotten this one but I used to work for a bloke called Mr Haw who’d called his son Nicholas.
sorry i’ve tried….but i just don’t get why Peter and Alan Ness would be funny?
martin #1:
Reminds me of holidaying with vegetarian friends in Snowdonia: they were astounded that we could get equally excited about little bouncing lambies during the day and braised lamb shanks in the evening.
I saw no contradiction…
Mr. P Ness.
oh….ha ha and Alan Ness?
hold on, just managed to work it out myself
And his brother, Mr. A. Ness.
Potty humour, but it still tickles me even now.
A. Ness
1. Costa Rica
2. When I win the fkin lottery
3. Watching YouTube clips of my hero, reggae don David Rodigan (until last week, the world’s second whitest black man) – http://bit.ly/4jWwr
4. Lee Dong-Gook (South Korean international signed by Boro last season)
5. The woeful state of “fresh” produce at the market on my block.
Peter and Alan Ness are going to be with me for the rest of my life. That’s brilliant. I shall go out tonight with a permanent giggle half an inch below the surface. You rock, Coriander, that was hilarious, mostly because it’s true.
Hello Scientist, Phoebe and NineBall, incidentally. Welcome to the fives and thank you for saying hello. Don’t worry about the other lot, no manners at all, any of ‘em.
Munich and then London for xmas 08 – yes it was lovely and I’m spoilt rotten, but that was the last one planned due to the economy.
I’m having a staycation this year! Pitchfork festival in three weeks, 4 miles from home, and then Riotfest in October, less than a mile away…. music, yummmm
Anticipating seeing Jonny Depp in Public Enemies in an hour or so. God, I love me some Johnny <3
This is for real, I swear. I knew a guy who worked in the ER mental ward and there was a recurring patient who's name was Oral Love. Yes, he used that to his advantage.
My BFF goes on vacation every summer and has practically no internet contact with me for three weeks. I pout for at least the first week of it, nevermind that the lucky bastard gets to take three weeks off (unheard of here, in case you didn't know) and he does check in at least a couple of times during it. It's one of the only times I feel abandoned, pitiful!
well fuck all! what happened to my comment?
and I still don’t get the Ness brothers thing, must be a language/accent oddity – there, I’m sulking, happy?!?
Just fished it out of the spam queue, Tart, sorry.
Alan Ness. Peter Ness.
A. Ness. P. Ness.
Anus. Penis.
Geddit?
1. a double header to Berlin and Poland
2. Eond of the Road festival, it’s going to be great (again)
3 been offered 5 weeks work just as my last work contract came to an end
4 I used to work in a garage and one of our customers was called Mr Twatt (pronounced twot for some inexplicabe reason.
5 who me sulk? well ok only when no ones listening TO MEEEEE!!!
It’s going to be fucking shit because the cunts didnae put Meursault on the bill.
1. North coast over midsummer, Scotland has the best beaches in the world (saw a surprisingly good ‘acoustic rock’ covers act in thurso and all. I expected it to be horrible).
2. Bergen, next week. Gonna sail up some fjords.
3. Beach BBQ last night. Dug the sunshine.
4. Internally and childishly, the planet ‘uranus’ always brings a smile to my face.
5. Murray leaving the tennis? The shitty weather? I’m grumpy as I type.
Nor did they ever thank me or acknowledge the big Young Republic interview I wrote a year and a half ago. Nor did they respond to a single email over the course of a year, having been quite friendly when they only had YR on their label and I was one of the only people in the UK who had ever heard of them.
We all get lots of emails; we are all busy. Being busy is not an excuse for being that ungracious.
Oh, fuck, how could I forget?
When I worked for the then Welsh Office I had the pleasure of working with one John Merrick (who just so happened to be the brother, Bryn, of ex-bassist from The Damned).
It’s not a naughty name but, when he was made redundant in the mid-90s by the Tories (oldest go first policy), on his last day I hung a large sign over his desk that read:
I Am Not Statistic. I Am A Human Being!
No one got it.
1. Las Vegas. I won a hangover.
2. Italy in November. headed to Rome and Florence if anyone has some good suggestions.
3. Have a guy in my complex with about 8 cars that he moves around daily. After one morning move a woman parked in the spot he cleared as he ran around the corner to get another car. I the middle of the fit dude was throwing the woman just flipped him off and walked away. Still has me smiling.
4. Richard Banger
5. excuses are for girls
1. New York City
2. Kansas City to see the NY Giants play in October, Italy in November and then Tennessee in December.
3. A new white purse
4. ?
5. The weather
1. I went to Greece last year, to see my then girlfriend. It was disasterous.
2. I’m going to France next week to see my parents and to sit around complaining about the heat. Looking forward to it.
I’m too scared to investigate how many days holiday I have left.
3. A ‘friend’s attempt to ‘cheer me up’ the other night by tricking me into drinking a shot mainly made up of chilli sauce. Surprisingly after we’d all run off to the toilet to erm… ‘recover’ and once our faces had stopped burning, I was cheered up. Larks.
4. I’m not sure anything beats therapistfinder.com. Although last week I had a customer at work with a large matronly bosom whose name was Mrs Brabender. I sniggered a bit. I’m immature though.
5. My excuses are all excellent.
1. Tennessee for Bonnaroo a few weeks ago
2. Well, I’ll be traveling to Edinburgh in September, but since it’s for school it can’t really be considered a holiday, I think
3. I just read the very nice review that Under the Radar magazine gave Broken Records’ new album this month
4. Mike Cox. An actual person – I don’t know what he does, but for some reason his name is plastered all over cars in Michigan
5. Every excuse I have is completely legitimate at the time
1. Too long ago for me to remember.
2. Too expensive for me contemplate.
3. Seeing the two stone-cold strong female leads performing in the play Mary Stuart last night.
4. This street intersection in New York City:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/70127529@N00/2113407093
5. Other people (heh heh).
Ah thanks for fishing me out, darlin xoxo
and for clearing up that Ness mess… oi!
Yeah! Dianna’s coming to Edinburgh! Lets meet and get drunk… hmmm, de ja vu…
How was Public Enemies, Tart. It is on my to do list for sure. So is Johnny, but the film will have to do for the time being…
I’m a bit late to the party here, but…
1. UK, Paris, Tokyo. I’ve been home for a month and still experiencing post-holiday blues.
2. School holidays here at the moment, so now, followed by another lot in September. Would really love to go back to Japan though. And the UK. And France. And Greece would be nice. And Italy. And I didn’t make it to Ireland either.
3. Currently stoked by Hawthorn being absolutely thrashed by the Bulldogs. Love my Aussie Rules. Also thrilled when my boys (Collingwood) beat my most hated team (Essendon) last night. I doubt any of you lot have the faintest idea of what I’m talking about, but these are all wonderful things!
4. Not a naughty name, but I do know a kid called Polly Esther Cotton. I also have issues with lazy parents who call their kids Robert Roberts or Donald McDonald or Richard Richardson. No imagination.
5. Usually really dire things like not being able to open a jar or it being so windy outside that the clothesline keeps moving about when I’m hanging out the washing, and a wet sheet hits me in the face. Or when my dog jumps on me and gets mud on my jeans. Or when I post a box of gear home from England and I’m told that it will take three weeks and it’s now been five and where the hell is my bloody stuff, Royal Mail???
I’m a very well adjusted person.
This is my first time commenting so I’m gonna make it good. I once worked with a guy called Michael Hunt. And, yes, he called himself “Mike”.
Aussie rules used, once upon a time, to be a saturday morning channel 4 thing round these parts and I really enjoyed it. I imagine it’s a regular on god knows what now, sky sports 7 or espn worldsportswedon’treallycareabout or somesuch.
There’s some good stuff in the restaurant review in the guardian today about appropriate names, including the fact that durex’s head of PR in France is a Mme Hardon
1. Cornwall, last July
2. Switzerland, very soon
3. It’s been a long time…though the Peter and Alan Ness thing was funny
4. I still think it’s funny that there’s a place called Phuket
5. Five minutes ago, the blender wasn’t working so I couldn’t make a smoothie. Bit ridiculous really…
Shongah, Public Enemies was good if a little slow. But really, who cares about the plot when Mr. Depp is on the big screen? It was fun to see my city recreated for the 1930s and to know I’ve walked down that alley/street where Dillinger was killed. And Diana Krall guests as the torch singer in the club where Dillinger and his lover first dance – a nice touch
Oh, and Lou, you gotta explain the mike hunt thing to me… gawd I must be the densest person on teh internetz! And where’s the rest if your answers? xoxo
Mike Hunt.
My Cunt.
Fucking hell Tart, get with the programme.
LOL ok, I am officially an Old Woman!
I keep telling you this, Tart, and you never listen. Actually, I have this bizarre impression of you as some mental, salacious, middle-aged Marxist harridan holed up in an old mansion somewhere – sort of like a sexually depraved Mrs. Havisham. This is entirely contradicted by the picture of your boobs which you showed to the whole internets, but it’s the impression I have nevertheless.
Oh, Tart.
Sorry Tart, I was starting slow because I’m new to this. Also, my answers to the other questions aren’t nearly as interesting.
I can’t answer the first two as I’m on permanent vacation.
As for being cheered up, it’s nice to know there’s at least four people in the world without filthy minds – Mike, his parents and Tart.
The mental image of Mr Toad in his underpants also makes me smile. I wonder what he wears?
Give me five minutes and I’ll find something to be sulky about.
I had to google harridan(shocking and undeserved!)
Oh well, Lou. At least he didn’t yell RULES!!! at you like he does me. Give him time, luv… give him time.
As for what he wears, I’ve got it on good authority that it’s these
(you have no idea how many bulging tighty whiteys I had to scroll through to get those!… sigh)
“it’s nice to know there’s at least four people in the world without filthy minds – Mike, his parents and Tart.”
That’s three, surely?
is that a joke Adam?
i’ve just googled harridan also….ouch ha ha
1. Wilmington, NC, last summer.
2. Ireland, this week.
3. Having my first paid, printed review in a local newspaper.
4. “Okay, Lindsay, are you forgetting that I was a professional twice over – an analyst and a therapist? The world’s first analrapist.” – Tobias Fünke (Arrested Development)
5. Going to Ireland, simply because I usually end up stuck in an isolated house with my in-laws for the duration of the visit. I’ve learned not to complain about it to Americans, though, cos they think Ireland is all dramatic seaside cliffs and quaint townfolk. I blame the film industry. :p