Gak. Too much beer. Once more I stagger into work feeling fuzzy-headed and furry-tongued after a night of beer and song. It’s so fucking hard to concentrate on anything when you really just want to curl up on the floor under your desk and catch up on another six hours of sleep.

Tonight, however, instead of sleep, there will be podcasting and then a trip to the Withered Hand, Ish Marquez and Stanley Brinks gig at about eleven. And tomorrow we all get up nice and early and spend the whole day putting together Meursault albums. This involves screen printing front and back, folding the poster with the lyrics on it, applying a Toad stamp and an orange felt tip to the inlay card, and putting a barcode sticker on the back. Oddly, it is also going to involve watching Wales and Australia play at egg-chasing on the telly. It’s also going to take ages, but should be worth it in the end.

I forgot to mention a couple of gigs earlier in the week (like there weren’t enough already) but Sunday could end up panning out very nicely if you all do as you are told and follow my advice, which is this: potter along to the National Museum of Scotland for three o’clock, when The Pictish Trail will be playing a free set, then go to the pub for a couple of hours (there’s dozens within easy walking distance) and potter along to the Jazz Bar to see Candythief between about nine and half eleven. Candythief have a new album available and if it’s anything like their previous EP I will be absolutely delighted. So there you go – that’s your Sunday planned out for you.

As for Friday, however, there is still some serious business afoot: Five Friday Favourites, as pinched from GUT. It’s been very local on the site this week, so this would be a fine chance for all you lurkers to show the local gangs that you’re not afraid of them and get stuck in on your own account. Go for it – what’s the worst that can happen – public humiliation? Pish posh.

1. Favourite sweetie (in the candy sense, because of Candythief – nothing saucy please).
2. Best work-dodging tip for the terminally hung over.
3. Longest spell spent successfully on the wagon.
4. Soap of choice.
5. Coolest old TV program to search for on YouTube.

The Pictish Trail – I Don’t Know Where to Begin
Candythief – Junk
The Jam – All Mod Cons
The Zincs – The Moguls’ Wives
The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Hush Little Baby

Song, by Toad is not the messiah. He is a very naughty boy.

Oh the shame of it all, my dear readers. I have been told off by the hopping mad and eminently justified Mrs. Toad for ‘treating this house like a hotel’ and not doing enough cleaning. Head duly hung in contrition – that poor girl puts up with an awful lot for the very dubious privilege of my companionship, she really does.

The first one comes about from too many gigs and far too much carousing. I had a conversation with two girls at The Aliens’ gig on Thursday who I asked questions I apparently have already asked them and they have already answered. Nothing crucial, mind, just the usual small talk questions you ask someone the first time you meet them, but I just have no recollection of this conversation whatsoever. Maybe I should try actually listening to people when they talk to me. Maybe I should try getting less shit-faced at other people’s parties too.

The cleaning thing is just a laziness problem. I hate cleaning. I keep the house pretty tidy, but I can’t stand the scrubbing the bath part of cleaning and can put these things off forever. And yes it is my turn. And yes I am procrastinating yet again and writing blog posts instead of just getting on with it. It’s just so dismally, depressingly, awfully FUCKING BORING! Please can we get a cleaning lady, darling, pleeeease?

Wasn’t that a thought-provoking and worthwhile post then, eh? Well for crying out loud don’t you whinge at me, people. It’s a huge internets, and there must be something out there interesting for you to read instead of this.

Actually, let’s get intellectual after all – how about some insightful movie criticism? Well, I know Helen Mirren got Oscars this year for some film there is no way I can be arsed seeing. And I know she’s a bit old. What I didn’t know was this: what absolutely fabulous boobs she used to have. Goodness gracious, what perfect orbs of squishy delight those two little puppies are – who’d a thought it? I know she had a reputation for sartorially minimalist art house snooze-fests in her reckless youth, but I’d never been keen enough to see her sans-vetements to actually bother sitting through anything quite so drearily worthy. As I said, there’s a whole internets out there…

The Futureheads – Worry About it Later
The Jam – Mr Clean
Scissor Sisters – Tits on the Radio
Tom Waits – A Good Man is Hard to Find
Tom Waits – I Don’t Wanna Grow Up