Mrs. Toad and I might be gallivanting about the Italian countryside, but we are still thinking of you, our loyal Toadlings. We may be relaxing by the pool, but we understand that life might not be quite so easy for those of you at home. Actually, fuck it, life is never this easy for us either. This is like some bizarre anomaly for us – time, peace, reading books… it’s all so fucking restful I’ve almost forgotten to swear at the locals.

The place we’re staying is just plain ridiculous. We are living in what amounts to the tiniest of little comedy garden sheds imaginable, but the outside space is some great big gigantic plaza. It’s just ridiculous.

Fortunately, there is something to lower the tone. Nature is basically a great big urinal, as we all know, and I have been doing my best to maintain a time-honoured male principle of ‘no place being too sacred or picturesque for having a sly piss’. So when the bladder beckons, so does the wall, and there I go to water the olive groves of Puglia. It feels like a public service, really it does.

Thanks again to Euan and the lads for keeping things going while we’re away. The connection here is so damn slow I really haven’t been able to read it all, but Mrs. Toad periodically checks up on things on her Blackberry (the woman’s insane) and lets me know how things are going. This news I generally treat with an indifferent grunt, before returning to the pondering of precisely which sort of cheese I most fancy for lunch, but I appreciate her efforts.

Toadcast #74 – The Poolcast

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01. The Shaky Hands – Summer’s Life (03.26)
02. Lemonjelly – Spacewalk (12.45)
03. Grandaddy – Ghost of 1672 (19.44)
04. Billie Holiday – Good Morning Heartache (24.36)
05. Animal Magic Tricks (with Neil from Meursault & Pete from The Leg) (34.42)
06. Edith Piaf – C’etait Une Histoire D’amour (38.11)
07. The Flaming Lips – Can’t Get You Out of My Head (48.12)
08. Wilco – Jolly Banker (52.17)
09. The Laurel Collective – No Pirates Left (63.04)
10. Yoshimi! – Philosophy For Fangirls (69.12)

Oh dear god almighty I have a hangover.  Fucking bastard music people.  Last night there was gigging and drinking and wandering the streets of a most balmy and pleasant Edinburgh with an assortment of miscreants and other ne’er-do-wells.  We saw Honeytrap and Meursault play at Sneaky Pete’s – I was recording this podcast, hence late for X-Lion Tamer, sorry to both Ed and Tony – and it was fucking amazing.

And after that there was drinking.  Fuck me there was lots of drinking.  And then I came home and went into the local all night shop and purchased a couple of steaks for late-night snacking purposes, and was harassed by a bunch of young lads when I came out.  Not harassed in a bad way, but I think I was asked to buy them some fags or something like that.  Anyhow, the conversation… erm, well I’m not really sure how the conversation went, because I was fucking hammered, but at some point the van came up, which was parked just along the road.  So, ah, for some slightly bizarre reason I ended up with five high school lads and me sat in the van with the stereo up fucking loud – so loud apparently that you could hear it all the way down the street.  Or, at least, so Mrs. Toad tells me.  Because at some point she came home from wherever it was she was out drinking and hopped in as well.

So, after a little van-based rocking out, they came back into the house for a bit and Mrs. Toad played them Motorhead and The Sex Pistols and The Wedding Present so fucking loud the windows shook.  Funnily enough, these nice, polite lads kept insisting throughout that we should just let them know when we were bored and we would like them to go.  Such nice, polite boys!  I think one of them even did the dishes.  I didn’t want to have to try and explain what a couple of total fucking bozos they were dealing with, but erm, yeah, that was our Friday night.  Weird, huh?  I think we went to bed at about five, eventually.  And now to record a couple of Toad Sessions, at least one with a very, very hung over band.

Toadcast #71 – The Tough Lovecast

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01. Belle & Sebastian – Take Your Carriage Clock & Shove It (03.46)
02. Adam Balbo – Debating a Time Metaphor (07.16)
03. The Sequins – The Usual Delights (14.05)
04. Situationists – A Cold Front (16.31)
05. Blur – Out of Time (23.02)
06. New Ruins – Symptoms (32.37)
07. The Laurel Collective – Hindenburg Mile High Club (41.26)
08. The Lovely Eggs – Tyrannosaurus Rex for Christmas (45.07)
09. The Empty Set – A Challenge to Copernicus (49.34)
10. Honeytrap – Mussolini’s Son (55.29)