Have you noticed a new type of marketing for a certain type of music. Probably not – because it’s known in the biz as “stealth marketing”. They’ve discovered that people in their late twenties upwards don’t like the teenybop marketing they suffered all the way through their childhood with Radio 1, Cheggers plays pop and No Limits. So that take a different tack. They get the target artist to guest on a few “cool” albums. They get a few serious interviews in The Guardian, Salon or the observer. They go on radio2. They get them to turn up on the right tv programmes late at night when you feel that not many other people are watching…in all the idea is to give you the impression that you’ve discovered something cool, and underground. Well the Guardian wouldn’t print an article about someone if their music wasn’t special would they ?
Then the final act – a tv ad campaign with a picture of the album cover and a low, serious voiceover that says “The new, crtically acclaimed sound of [insert pretentious bullshit band name] is now available to buy in the shops with their brilliant debut album [insert poncy album title].”
And people go out any buy it.
Listen folks, just because Terry Wogan and Jimmy Young aren’t on radio 2 anymore doesn’t mean it’s no longer the old farts station. Did you buy an album by that wobbly headed twat David Gray ? What about the Dandy Warhols or White Stripes ? HAH! You’ve been buggered by the marketing men. Your punishment is to have to listen to the bland mediocre crap you just forked out for.

The night before last, Ian, Kate and I sat in the Rosemary branch talking about this and that. Kate was relating anecdotes about the time she spent in Argentina and we listened attentively. Now this is going to sound so utterly stupid that you might start questionning my mental health – I know I did – but one story really amazed me…as it should, being total bollocks. She told us about how she stayed in this remote village where it was traditional to castrate sheep…with their teeth. Apparently she even had photos to prove it. Now look, I know it sounds stupid but you’re reading this, forwarned. We were in a pub, after consuming quite a few pints, and this story was in the middle of some legit stuff…
Anyway – I didn’t sus that it was bollocks until late yesterday when I had a moment of clarity. That morning I even asked her if she’d brought the pictures in…oh god what a wanker…

Yesterday I went over to Eltham to sort out my mum and dad’s ADSL, only to find my dad with bandaged hand after seriously burning it. He’d put some plates under the grill to “warm” them, forgotten about them, and then picked them up. Skin falling off everywhere. After a while my mum managed to bludgeon him into calling NHS direct, who after the obligatory hour-long wait to call back told him to go to hospital. What a great service that is….
Before they left they had time to tell me about the next piece of spectacularly shitty luck to be given out to a couple of my favourite relations – a malignant tumor. These particular relations are possibly the most selfless, caring, funny, lovely people on the face of the earth. They’ve spent their life just being good people and helping other people out. What is their reward ? Two dead children, chronic illness, chronic financial difficulties and insults from the mad part of the family. Now they’re both in the same hospital being treated for different problems…one of which has just been discovered to be pretty bloody serious. Isn’t it bloody fair ?
As I’ve said before if there is a god, he’s a bastard. Perhaps this is some sort of biblical test of faith ? Have they passed I wonder ? Sorry, but you just didn’t pray enough – take the down escalator. What a nasty egomaniac shitbag. He’s like the school-bully on a universal scale.
Even people who live good lives still can’t escape his shitty sense of humour. You grow, and develop, and learn, and become wiser. All the time your body is decaying, slowly but surely taking you closer to death. All the things you learn slowly vanish as your brain cells disappear. If you survive all of the common health obsticles such as heart-disease and cancer then you can enjoy old age and all of the pant-shitting, senile, confused, dignity that goes with it. Thanks god.

Here’s a story as amusing as it is probably apocryphal, that also nicely illustrates the dangers of tattoos.

This guy, heavily into the gay scene, decides to get a tat. He opts for some type of oriental pictograph and carefully researches what symbol would adequately describe him. Being a hedonist he asks the tattooist for the symbol for “pleasure”. The tattooist obliges and once the blood and scabs clear up he proudly displays it while wandering around soho.
We have discovered, from someone who knows, that the symbol actually means “pleasuring the clitoris”. Let’s hope he’s not into oriental men because his pulling power will suddenly tail-off…

Now if he’d mistakenly bought a t-shirt with that design on, he’d feel a bit of a fool and would probably give it away. But this is a tatoo. When he’s being helped out of the bed by the nurse so she can clean up his shit when he’s 83, that symbol will still be there.
Would you ever make a fashion decision for an item of clothing that you had to wear for the rest of your life ? What if you were asked in the 80s ? You’d still be wearing those Farrahs, that Gabbicci jumper and that waffle tie today….how much of a prat would you feel ?

And as for Chinese or Japanese symbols…what sort of lame cheese-brain opts for that ? OK – if you’re chinese or Japanese then ok – you know what you’re doing. But the sort of nob-ends that go for this are usually westerners with absolutely no clue, to whom the idea of tattooing “love”, “hate”, “mum”, “pleasure” or “ACAB” would be abhorrent….if it was written in English. But in Japanese or Chinese it looks exotic dunnit. Yes well guess what – to the Chinese and Japanese, it just looks like words, and you look like a right tit. You’ve made a decision about a longer proportion of your life than you’ve lived for already…and none of this “I want to die young” bullshit either. What sort of person wants to live to 80 ? Ask someone who’s 79.

Today we are due for some thunderstorms to end the period of intense heat and humidity that Britain has been sweating under for the past week. Everything looks beautiful in this weather, but personally I can’t enjoy it because even the lightest physical movement, such as shifting a buttock, or raising a glass to my lips results in a waterfall of sweat down my spine. How lovely it looks in a light coloured t-shirt. So I wear black t-shirts. That works well until the end of the day when instead of sweat patches I’m left with an attractive salt diagram of my underlying gut.
So instead of going out and “enjoying the weather” I spent the weekend lying still at home.

In fact so strong was my reluctance to move further than the front room that I even ended up blowing out a party. Tony was over from France for a long weekend and I’d promised him a party on saturday night – but when it came down to it we ended up just sittiong around the flat, very still. Getting mashed in front of the telly.

Tony pointed out how different our attitudes had become over the last ten years with respect to parties. Ten years ago, he and a few mates were so desperate to go to a party that they drove from Bristol to Portsmouth – only to find the party consisted of a few early-teens, their parents and a few aunts and uncles sitting around the front room watching telly.
Compare that to this saturday where we knew of a party full of people we like and things we like to do, that’s in the same town…and we didn’t go….because it’s quite hot and it’s a long way to Streatham. How crap is that ?

So sorry for a crap weekend Tone.

1571
“Hello, this is a message from BT. In response to cutomer feedback, you may now record your own outgoing message with BT call-minder for only a pound a month.”

For a pound a month BT can lick my balls.

What’s all this ? Justice ? That’s not very British is it ? Whatever happened to “it’s the rich wot gets the pleasure, and the poor wot gets the blame” ? That’s what made Britain great.

Suddenly a bunch of upright,respectable businessmen have been prosecuted for corporate manslaughter and could face imprisonment! Good lord, just because their cynical profiteering led to mass murder really shouldn’t mean they get punished – business is business after all. In the good old days we’d just give them a hefty back-hander and send them on to another directorship.

You see I have no problem with these people who hold high-power, responsible jobs getting obscene salaries….providing they are prepared to take responsibility. In other words, if as a director of a company you do well, for example by making the service you provide better whilst increasing profits without killing anyone, then a masive bonus could be worth it. However if you make a right bollocks-up of the whole rigmarole: decrease profits, kill hundreds of your customers, that sort of thing, then you should be prepared to take responsibility and be punished accordingly. In fact this is the only justifyable reason for a death penalty in my opinion.
So let’s start a campaign to bring back capital punishment for corporate manslaughter. Can you imagine the beauty of Gerald Corbett’s purple nose exploding as he burns to death in the electric chair ?

Quote of the day comes from Charlie Brooker in this week’s Guardian:
“Morning has broken ? Good I hate morning. You wake, soaked in your own filth, your face raw from last night’s tears, shards of shattered shot-glass peppering the bedspread, and you ask yourself what difference it would make if instead of going to work you spent the day banging your head against the kitchen table and howling till your skull bursts open and the pain flops out. Or is that just me ?”

Well, there are all kinds of things that I could write about – that we’ve been married six years, that we’ve hit our overdraft limit on July 5th, that Michele hit 32, that Margot (landlady of the Rosey) has installed her parrot, Clive, in the pub, that George Bush still doesn’t get it, that we spent much of the weeky tidying for what turned out to be a ten minute visit from the landlady…..

but you know I can’t be bothered…instead I’m just going to hide away in the flat, shout at the telly, write pointless programs, drink red wine and generally appreciate Michele and Humphrey (my beattiful birds 🙂

Connex have lost their franchise! Yahoo!
I know it probably won’t make any difference to the traveling public; the next bunch of incompetent, money grabbing, hopeless, pin-striped wankers won’t be any better. But how nice to know that the directors and the shareholders will be really unhappy. With any luck many of them will end up without a job and living in penury. Hoorah!

Why not send your cheery comments to connex – let then know how happy you are that they’ve gone.

One of the problems with e-mail, blogs and even snail mail is that the longer you leave a response, the more daunting the prospect becomes….so you end up not doing anything ? So what does kick one into action exactly ? Well sadly in this case it’s not because I have something fascinating or incisive to say, but just because I know it will get even worse if I don’t write something.

Anyway, yesterday we were due to be going to a wedding..sort of thing…they’re already married but they got married in India so this was for all of the people who missed it. The celebration is in a place called “Chesham, Bucks”. The word Bucks scares me as it seems like a continent away, but once I noticed it was on the Tube map it didn’t seem so far.

Lesson 1: Just because it’s on the tube map doesn’t mean it isn’t a fucking long way away

We got the maps, directions, train-times and everything ready to go but, fortunately, I developed a major gut-rot and was in no fit state to go on saturday morning. Why would I say “fortunately” ? Surely I’m not that opposed to long journeys ? Read on…
Michele sent an apologetic e-mail to Simon and Laekha explaining the situation….

Later that day they called us to see how I was. “Hows the party going ?” Michele asked. “err…you know it’s tomorrow don’t you” Laekha responded.

Today we did go to Chesham, and it took 3 hours. If I hadn’t had the belly-ache yesterday, we would have done the same tedious journey only to discover bugger all…and then we’d have to do it again the next day. Michele would have, quite justifiably, castrated me under these circumstances because it was I that firmly corrected her when she suggested that the party was sunday not saturday. I truly am a total twat.

Lesson 2: Martin is frequently as wrong as King Wrong

Anyway…Chesham is in Zone D. Yes D. There is a D. It goes 1,2,3,4,5,6,A,B,C,D. The girl at lewisham station (new ticket office – still only one bastard window open) also didn’t know about it either. It turns out that you can’t buy a Zone D Travelcard from a NR(BR) station, only from an Underground station. “But how do I get there ?” I asked. “Well, buy a 6-zone card from here and LT will upgrade it for you [ for the cost of the difference ]” the ticket office helpfully advised.

Lesson 3: Nothing told to you by a connex employee can be considered to be a fact, no matter how confidently they tell you

We got to Charing Cross and I optimistically handed over our 6-zone cards and asked for an upgrade.
“I can’t do that sir, these aren’t LT cards, they’re from BR” the ticket office guy told me. I protested that it even had an LT logo on it but he wouldn’t shift . At that point I came close to breaking down, despairing at how shit and unfair our wonderful 21st century integrated transport system was…”Oh god…” I shouted”…”why…why is it so difficult ? All I wanted was to get from Lewisham to Chesham and I can’t fucking do it ? Jesus why…”
“OK OK I’ll do it for you” the guy interrupted and went ahead and did it…Nice of him, and I should have been grateful I suppose but all I could manage in the way of thanks was “but I really shouldn’t have to be brought this close to tears to get this sorted…”. The guy agreed. Props to the man with common sense..

The icing on the cake was to pick up a copy of a glossy rag called “Upfront: The connex lifestyle magazine” from the train. Lucky because I really need some advice on my lifestyle from connex. It is beyond parody.

Lesson 4: No matter how much of bunch of cunts you think connex are, they are always capable of surprising you by being even worse

So we went there, drank, ate and chatted and then came back. Despite the efforts of Connex and LT we enjoyed ourselves…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Back home now, Humphrey is eeking, I’m still mulling over Orwell’s MI5 list and tomorrow is monday.

The sun is setting. Michele is playing with Humphrey, who has been eating sunflower seeds out of our hands for a couple of days now. This probably doesn’t sound like much but it’s actually a major breakthrough. He wouldn’t let us get near his cage when we first got him, and now we can stick our fingers through the cage and he’ll eat nuts from them. Such a pretty little bird.

During the last week I’ve spent the majority of my time on the lower half of the emotional cycle. Right near the dingy, oily, gear mechanism. This is probably related to thinking too hard about life directions, my overdraft and that sort of thing. But whatever caused it, I’ve been thinking. Not sure what about. The dreams don’t make it any clearer either; last night was another one about being shot, only my wound wasn’t serious…but someone close to me (I think it was Frances, my sister) had a very serious bullet hole and I didn’t manage to get her to hospital or anything. She ended up going on her own, which made me feel very sad. Dream experts can fuck right off with their Freudian bullshit.

[ michele taps me on the should to show me Humphrey keenly picking a seed off her finger ]

This afternoon was booked off work so that I could go down to Brick Lane and help fix a Linux box at easynet’s base. They had such bullshit security. We both needed to bring photo ID (Pete brought his passport) in return for which we were given some dodgy RFID cards with code numbers printed on them. These would allow us to pass beyond the glass wall that separated us from the lifts. We had to move over to a couple of glass cylinders, move the card near the keypad so that the green light came on, and then had to type the number displayed on the card into the keypad. The glass cylinder responded by sliding one side across inviting one of us to step in. Once inside the cylinder, the door closed leaving you trapped in a glass tube. For some reason the name “Augustus Gloop” came to mind but there was no chocolate anywhere near as far as I could tell. After wating a few seconds (while the bat-laser-scan-o-tron scanned us for weapons, drugs, and copies of NMAP I expect) the other side of the cylinder openned allowing the prisoner out on to the SECURE side of the glass wall. All very impressive as long as you didn’t notice the very ordinary looking door to the left of the glass podules that the security guards used when they wanted to get through the glass wall.
The lift was SECURE too. You had to do the card/PIN routine in there before you could select a floor. Of course a cynical person would ask what the point of the code number was if it’s printed on the fucking card, but Pete and I were too impressed to question it….although Pete did suggest that the lift PIN pad was there just to give the security guards a laugh as they watched us obediently go through the ritual.
As Dave H says, it impresses the easily impressed.

Well, we fixed the server, installed some Anti-Virus software and fucked off to the nearby pub. A good afternoon’s work. Being Brick Lane meant I also managed to buy a couple of very agreeable samosas on the way down to Shoreditch station too. Lovely.