Friday is Gagging for a Fucking Kebab
Yes, I know it’s early for you, but it’s late for me and a massive greasy great kebab is calling to me like the siren song of a thousand virgins who just might be persuadable that hours spent in one’s bedroom listening to sincere young men complain about how unfulfilling their tediously middle class life is constitutes some sort of social protest.
I remember living in Cambridge and having a kebab at the sterling Gardenia. Crikey that was good stuff. In Manchester Abduls was always the place, although admittedly that was something like fifteen years ago, and things have probably changed since then. In general though, this Friday Five is going to be more cheese related than kebab related. Although I am admittedly a massive music snob, there were times before the global internetosphere made all my fashion choices for me, and so I thought it might be time to celebrate those times. Were you a stupid sappy cunt once? Yes, me too.
Since pretty much everyone reading this was a bit of a pillock at some point in their past I think that the idea of commenting for the first time should probably pale into insignificance. Generally speaking this site can be more than a little cliquey, but on Fridays absolutely everyone, from Kim Jong Il to Kim Basinger is encouraged to chip in have their say. What, after all, is the point of a website if people don’t come along and tell me what a tit I am on the comments page.
So to encourage you, I have come up with the silliest moments in my life, set them to music, and asked you to do the same. Enjoy, Toadlings.
1. Cheesiest song you’ve ever bawled your eyes out to because of some lost lover.
2. You’re at a disco, the songs are shit, the crowd is shit, and suddenly some contemptibly populist nonsense comes on the stereo and you find yourself boogying away like a muppet anyway. What’s the song?
3. Yes it’s shit, but which song gets you fist-pumping like Song 2 by Blur?
4. I’m alone, I’m miserable, but I’M GONNA BE OKAY dammit!
5. Let’s get pished!
Bruce Hornsby & the Range – The Road not Taken (I was a very sensitive child. Stop laughing – very sensitive.)
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Erasure – Sometimes (I know, I know, I know, but it’s just so… catchy, I guess. Oh, the shame.)
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Bon Jovi – You Give Love a Bad Name
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Willard Grant Conspiracy – Fare Thee Well
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I think that the music choices pretty much make my five obvious enough, although I am
not sure I wasn’t a bit too current with the last two, so I’ll redo them, sober.
4. Erm, I wince to say this but maybe One by U2.
5. The Pogues – If I Should Fall From Grace With God. Look, I did have some taste when I was young, alright. Fuck off, it’s Friday.
1) Babe by Take That – i think i was about 11, I didn’t have the record but i used to sing it to myself. in my bedroom. in the dark. alone.
2)California Love by 2pac.
3)what is fist pumping? is there a website? I’ll go anything by Hannah Montana for that one then.
4) Blood on the Tracks. in its entirety. on repeat.
5) Anything by the Replacements.
1. Don’t know, but I shed a tear when Bumbleebee almost died in the first Transformers movie.
2. Kasabian – LSF (maybe not populist nonsense but will make me dance every time!!!)
3. Bon Jovi – Bad Medicine
4. Counting Crows – Round Here.
5. Rebellion (Lies) – Arcade Fire
1. That one by Dido about sandy shoes. I am suitably ashamed.
2. “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” by Cansei de ser Sexy.
3. “Abra Cadaver” by The Hives
4. “Please, please, please let me get what I want” by The Smiths
5. The Ratatat remix of “Party and Bullshit” by some famous gangsta rappa.
1. When It’s Over by Loverboy. Sniff.
2. Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant. A man’s got to get in touch with his feminine side from time to time.
3. You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’ by Judas Priest. Fucking love that song. I can’t hear it without biting my lower lip, sneering, and bobbing my head.
4. Chicago by Sufjan Stevens. The song single-handedly pulled me out of a black depression once.
5. The Blue Nun/Stand Together by the Beastie Boys. Check Your Head remains one of the best records of the 1990s IMHO.
1. Doors Of Your Heart By The Beat. Oh wait, that wasn’t me, that was John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank.
2. Firestarter by The Prodigy
3. Probably Song 2 by Blur, actually. Or Lost Weekend by Lloyd Cole as evidenced by last Saturday’s Electric Circus shenanigans.
4. Popular by Nada Surf
5. Debaser by The Pixies
I’ve always wondered, is the H in IMHO humble or honest?
Humble, I think.
1. Sugar Girl – The Cure (sorry Lucy)
2. A Little Respect – the Wheatus cover, not even the original
3. Swallowed – Bush (Yeh, I know… I know…)
4. Bless His Ever Loving Heart – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (is it about God/Faith? Is it about a faltering relationship? Who cares, a fucking great song) — or, That Feel – Tom Waits (NEVER fails to stoke the optimism)
5. Caribou – Pixies (fantastic pre-, actual, & post-drinking belt it out sing-a-long song)
1. corney I know, but upon leaving a summer romance my eyes welled up upon hearing REM’s Everbody Hurts. I was 13 and I thought I was deep as fuck.
2. Come On Eileen certainly gets my hips a shaking
3. I have vague memories of dancing like a twat at my wedding to none other than Bon Jovi, apparently there’s video footage. I pray it never surfaces
4. Cartwheels by the Reindeer Section, that song makes everything better
5. Super Furry Animals – something for the weekend.
While I’m on, good to hear all the shout outs (I hate that phrase but it sounds better than mentions) on 6Music last night.
Yahy it’s lunch time………
O yes, Peenko. Cartwheels is a fucking ace song. It was always on mixtapes when I did them back in the ’90s. Good call.
1. I had a heartbreak mixtape (literally a tape) when I was 14/15. Most memorable was I’d Do Anything for Love – Meatloaf. Ooo and God Only Knows always gets me too.
2. Not Nineteen Forever – The Courteeners (especially got me going fucking mental on the night before my 20th this March)
3. Dunno, maybe Somebody Told Me – The Killers. I’m alwys fist pumpin’, tbh.
4. Holding My Own – The Darkness. The nice thing about The Darkness was that they knew they were so cheesey.
5. I Love College – Asher Roth. “So fill up my cup, let’s get fucked up” “Time isn’t wasted when your getting wasted”. This song just sums up my life really (haha!)
1 – “The Highwayman” as performed By Albert Lee and Hogan’s Heroes. It’s not about a lost lover but I find it quite moving. The cycle of death and rebirth is exquisitely written. Ponce.
2 – I don’t go to discos no more. They are pants. However, I guess my last memory of a song forcing me to dance is “hey ya” or whatever it is by Outkast or whoever it is. Good tuneage.
3 – Fist pumping is most definitely “Dare” by Stan Bush on the Transformers animated movie soundtrack.
4 – If I am alone and miserable I always bust out Cyndi Lauper for “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “Good Enough”. Guaranteed to make you start wearing makeup again….um….I mean get up and do masculine things like weights and football.
5 – “Best of my Love” by the Emotions from the Boogie Nights soundtrack. In fact, the Boogie Nights soundtrack as a whole.
1. Ha! I wouldn’t waste my tears.
2. Oh pretty much any boppy number from the 70′s. Not the Nutbush though. That’s taking things too far.
3. Oh you know. Anything by Andre Reiu. What a showman.
4. Frightened Rabbit
5. For some reason Bon Jovi features prominently in the lounge room drinking sessions of me and my friends. Oh, and Queen.
Scaramouche scaramouche will you do the fandango?
Oh, and Queen.
Hmmm. I don’t know why Queen is there twice.
Maybe it’s time to have another drink.
In my mind, humble. But then again it was also honest.
Hirsute
Hegemonous
Hobbit?
1. This has defo happened to me but I can’t remember the song(s). Maybe something like “All By Myself” – there is something very sad about the piano chords in that. Maybe “God Only Knows” which was my wedding first dance – not easy to dance to but the sentiment is tear-inducing, but I suppose it’s not cheesy enough.
2. The list is long but starts with “Young Hearts Run Free”, includes some Jackson 5 and some Barry White and ends with some Outkast and probably some Timberlake and Beyoncé maybe.
3. Song 2 isn’t pish, but if it was, my equivalent would be Living On a Prayer probably. The modulation in that is so good – how did JBJ sing so high and so powerfully? It’s incredible.
4. Magnet’s cover of “Lay Lady Lay” maybe or something of Benson’s Lapalco (oddly maybe given that it’s quite upbeat).
5. Don’t think I have a get drunk song. Maybe some Springsteen would be good for this. It depends on who you’re getting pissed with probs.
PS This is an embarrassing thread.
PPS I thought it was “honest” but I’ve always wondered why you’d say that cos you’re opinion is obviously honest, so maybe humble is better.
It’s definitely not hirsute.
But volunteering one’s opinion on a subject is not really a humble act. That’s what has always confused me – why one would say, effectively, “I believe that my opinion on this matter is important and clever enough to tell you what it is, but I’m going to pretend that I’m doing it in a shy and retiring manner.”
1. Michael Bolton – How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?
Oh god, it makes me feel sick to confess that dirty little secret.
2. The Chemical Brothers – Hey Boy, Hey Girl. Actually, probably most things by The Chemical Brothers would make me dance about like a muppet.
3. The Cult – She Sells Sanctuary. Yeah!
4. Tom Waits – Martha. Sniff.
5. Can I choose an album? Jello Biafra/Mojo Nixon – Prairie Home Invasion
If not, The Breeders Cannonball is a rather obvious but magnificent drinking-while-jumping- around-the-bedroom-getting-ready tune.
Handy
Happening.
ps. the doner kebabs from pierino’s on bernard street are something magical.
Team Turnip is wrong. Not in his baldy case, of course, but in mine. In My Hirsute Opinion is definitely the most fitting translation at the moment.
Until the wife gets back and makes me shave my beard off of course.
Hair raising
No. Harebrained.
In my harebrained opinion…
Euan, I like the sound of donor kebabs better. Liver, kidney and corneas in mine please, with plenty of chilli sauce.
It’s probably what the fuckers are made of now anyway.
Hamfisted?
handmade?
who cares though when they taste so good?!
No, wait, that doesn’t work.
Horrible?
Herbal. ‘In My Herbal Opinion’. I like that – it sounds at once slightly stoned and also somewhat fragrant.
Hillbilly
There’s a hot dog stand on the main party street in my town run by some Morrocan that sells kebabs, schwarmas, falafels, and some of the greatest hot dogs ever constructed. Huge sausage (hurr hurr), chilis, onion rings, hummus, and about thirty seven different sauces and chutneys. After a few drinks its almost enough to make me wish I weren’t vegetarian.
When did Euan get a green ring like Matthew’s?
And did this guy have something to do with it?
When did Euan get a green ring like Matthew’s?
Probably after they had one of those donor kebabs.
Because he is a contributing writer. It’s for the new site design. You’ll get one too, never fear.
Dylan, that is, not AnotherDave. Nothing personal Dave, but you know how it is.
Fucking Brits and your rampant elitist douche-baggery, oppressing the hardworking Empire to support your lives of luxury and sexual license, denying us the simple dignity of a green ring around our user icons. I hope you die in the bath, you colonising scum.
Oh no, I don’t want one!
I like how the little red car floats majestically in the infinite white space, unrestrained and free!
Erm, that is to say… Is that a butterfly?
Hæmorrhoidal. Yes, my hæmorrhoidal opinion.
Tough. It wouldn’t work on the new site – you’ll see. Unless you want a whole new avatar just for Toad.
Hubristic. My Hubristic Opinion. That would work so much better if hubristic was a less clumsy word.
Hamster’s
Hudibrastic.
Hedonistic.
Heuristic.
Hegemonic.
How do you get a logo that hasn’t been randomly generated?
Habitual?
Jon Bon Jovi rocking the friday fives…
1. Hard to think, Joni Mitchell’s “Last Time I Saw Richard” has got me misted up on occasion though (what is it about piano chords?)
2. I don’t boogie; though I did recently discover that re-released French-Japanese pop from the 70s (Yamasuki) can get my feet moving…
3. Total Eclipse of the Heart (a la this rendition)
4. Good call Mickey: Blood on the Tracks all the way.
5. The Doors were pretty standard drinking accompaniment way back in high school.
Hurray, de-lurking!
1. Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day. Yes, I really liked godawful pop-punk when I was in high school. Too preppy to be an emo kid, though.
2. Gasolina by Daddy Yankee. ¡Dáme más gasolina!
3. All These Things That I’ve Done by the Killers. I don’t think there’s anything more cathartic than screaming “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” along with a massive crowd.
4. Little Girl Blue by Janis Joplin (originally Nina Simone)
5. Take Me Out or Ulysses by Franz Ferdinand.
Half-witted.
1. Jeff Buckley – Last Goodbye (not cheesy really but shed a tear at the time)
2. Build me up buttercup. I need to be properly wrecked.
3. Black Betty. I once saw thirty woman at a wedding trying to line dance to that.
4. Land Locked Blues – Brighteyes.
5. Pretty much anything says that to me. I might have a problem…
Said on the Facebook page I might post… so I thought I may as well…
1. No idea… like Chuck Norris, my tears cure cancer so I don’t like to waste them… alright probably Neko Case – Lion’s Jaws
2. Usually Since You’ve Been Gone – Kelly Clarkson…
3. Power Out – Arcade Fire … not really fist-pumping but I swear you can do the Macarena to any Arcade Fire song…
4. All My Friends – LCD Soundsystem
5. Chains of Love – The Dirtbombs
1. Ben : MJ (R.I.P. Baby)
2. You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) : Sylvester
3. Common People : Blur (But, done by Shatner & Jackson. Solid-arsed Anti-tourism!)
4. Know Your Rights : Clash
5. Elvis Fucking Christ : The Cramps (R.I.P. Lux)
1. Nor particularly cheesy, but Apart by The Cure off their Wish album could probably do it. Or Lover, you Should Have Come Over by Jeff Buckley
2. Tragedy by Steps
3. White Wedding by Billy Idol
4. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out or How Soon Is Now? (by The Smiths, obviously)
5. Welcome to the jungle by Guns ‘n’ Roses. I don’t drink, but , y’know…
Good work Ed. For the rest of you, far too much credible music being posted here! The purpose is to make a tit of yourself with courage – come on people!
2. Alphabeat. Yup, Alphabeat.
Hysterical? Or did we have that one?
I love you “Another Dave” just for calling these colonialists out! You go, baby!! xoxo
Thank you Tart, I just felt it had to be said.
Harmonious.
1. ugh… not only revealing my extreme old age, but also my shady past… Beth by KISS… groan all you like, darlings, I join you, hahah … either that or Billy Bragg, “The Milkman of Human Kindness”
2. Katrina and the Waves, “Walking on Sunshine”
3. Journey, “Don’t Stop Believing” which as one YouTube commenter said, “I want this song inside meeeee” LOL
4. only ONE song does this and I’m NOT ashamed to say it, damnnit! Mariah Carey, “Shake It Off” so there.
5. Queen, “Fat Bottomed Girls”
’nuff said
sorry, Matthew, I put a link in mine, you might have to fish it outta the spammer xoxo
heady
Homunculus
Alright, Nick Cave, Toms Waits & Pixies might tick the cool box, but The Cure’s ‘Sugar Girl’. A Little Respect AND Wheatus, & Swallowed by Bush? They’re not on the top of an 10ft shelf of cds for nothing you know.
I want Don’t Stop Believing by Journey to be the answer to a question about my life!
then everyone in your life must then dress & dance like they do in the video
1. The Drugs Don’t Work by The Verve
2. Summer of ’69 by Bryan Adams. Every time. Usually I’m already boogying by that point in the evening but I get indecently excited when it comes on
3. You Only Live Once by The Strokes. I’m cheating here, I don’t actually think it’s shit but it’s what comes to mind first in response to ‘fist pumping’
4. Frightened Rabbit, second album.
5. Any Way You Want It by Journey
PS. If you’re ever in Oxford, Hassan’s van is the place for a donner kebab
I always thought the Cure was/is cool :O
same with Green Day
And I’m finding it extremely funny that you’re letting Agnes be the only one man enough among us here to not have sobbed to some stupid cheesy song!
I also thought a Kebab was actually a kabob and not a sandwich until now, so thanks for the pic! xoxo
What says cheese more than Meatloaf?
H for hippy-ish
Tart! I put it to you that every real man has sobbed to a cheesy song at some point or another. Any claiming otherwise are either lying or emotionally bereft.
Hunky
Tart – Dylan pussied out of that one as well. Come one Dylan and Agnes – everybody hurts… sometimes!
DC – In my Homunculus Opinion? That sounds downright filthy. Not sure exactly why, but it does.
I couldn’t think of one at the time, but it’s possible that a really really really really bad song called ‘Sukiyaki’ by a really really really really bad 90′s boy band called 4PM MAY HAVE made me cry when I was about 14 and a passionate two week long relationship ended when his best friend told my best friend that he didn’t want to go out with me any more. Sob.
“It’s all because of you….I’m feeling sad and blue…you went away, now my life is just a rainy day…”
WAAAAAHHHH!
For. Fucking. Shame.
Sorry you asked?
No. I named Bruce Hornsby, and we’ve had Michael Bolton and all sorts of other shit. So whilst your answer is disappointing and makes me judge you, it’s small beer by the shame standards of this thread
I’m afraid the mentioning of Michael Bolton did make me judge.
I’ve never been that low.
It’s a gift, Toad. A simple gift.
you know I had a kebab for the first time in fucking ages last night. No idea if it was subliminal becuase I’d read this earlier in the day…
Mr. Ram’s on Moulsham Street in Chelmsford always did epic doner kebabs. Little drop of chilli sauce on there, oh yes.
There’s one half way up Leith Walk that does a pretty tidy chicken doner.
You ever thought that a chicken doner is actually quite a healthy meal? Grilled meat, heaps of salad, small-ish portion of carbs in proportion to everything else. I’m buying that!
I turned vegetarian before kee-babs (in their pitta-bread finery) were popular with the British drinking classes – so, I missed out on the whole ‘draw’ of their cow’s vagina in salad dressing appeal.
I was, of course, too young to be in pubs &, therefore, to be queued in some inebriated state waiting eagerly to sink my face into the shaved curls of spit-grilled puke fuel. But had I been old enough I am sure I aould have indulged in said ritual, also.
About 4 years ago, while old enough & in an inebriated queuing state, my friends were all ordering kee-babs &, during another drunken 5 minutes being told I don’t know what I’m missing, I decided to try some of this delicacy.
Now, I became a vegetarian at 14 because from a very early age I realised I didn’t like the taste of fish or meat. At 14 I was tall enough to reach the cooker & make my own food so I chose to opt out of the flesh. That said, & having tried all manner of sea & soil based carcasses in my pre-vegetarian past to try & find something that may enjoy chewing, I was always up for trying stuff I’d not eaten before for the very same reason: I might, indeed, like it &, therefore, as my firneds helpfully accused, realsie what I’d been missing out on.
I tried a few mouthfuls of your 3am stomach lining, with & without the healthy option of salad + green chillies, & I have to say it was fucking disgusting. How on Christ’s tit can you eat such nasty?
Okay, I fully realise vast quantities of uncontrollably consumed alcohol play a huge part in the decision making leading up to the purchase, not to mention the deadeding of your taste buds, but fucking very much the hell.
You dirty, dirty bastards.
Yup, that’s my excuse too.
I wouldn’t feed my cats it.
The Cure are cool, sort of, Tart. But Sugar Girl – have thee not heard it? The synth (it sounds like advert music for a stop-motion bank), the lyrics (the lyrics in their entirety: I wish that I could find it funny you laughing like that, but instead I change into a rage & run without a face; I wish that I could find it funny when you never come back, but I don’t suppose I’ll ever know how to keep you, goodbye sugar girl. Goodbye sugar girl”). It’s not good. But it does evoke a nostalgia for a time & place, I grant it that.
1. REM – Everbody Hurts
2. Lady GaGa – Just Dance
3. Metalica – Enter Sandman
4. Billy Bragg – Tank Park Salute
5. East 17 – House of Love
fuck ya’s
1. ‘Rosanna’ Toto – given new life by the Yacht Rock episode “Fuckin’ shit I wish I knew the girl this song was written about!”
2. Um, not really a dancer, so I’d probably flip out to ‘It’s Not Unusual’ complete with the Carlton Banks moves…
3. ‘Jump’ Van Halen
4. ‘Hold On, Hold On’ Neko Case or ‘Most of the Time’ Bob Dylan or Whole Wide World’ Wreckless Eric – x3 = cheating?
5. ‘Lawyers, Guns and Money’ Warren Zevon
1) Oh Carol- by Smokie. it was in a land far away
2) Rock da House- and its not pretty
3) C’mon C’mon – Von Bondies every time
4) Submission – Sex Pistol
5) Sally Mac Lennane
A very late entry but I was big chilled……oh Orbital were good though. oh and never mention the Smokie thing to anyone ever…in fact eat the computer