Kei te pēhea koe?

Between 2004 and 2006 we lived in New Zealand. When I say 'we' i mean N and me, not Southampton football club and me.

There will shortly follow some curios and oddments that i have distilled down from the hard drive to share here.

Did I ever tell you the tale about the ill fitting safety helmets?

Me, paragliding in Queenstown, NZ. (I'm wearing the blue gloves)

The view opposite our house when i walked back from monday's night shift

And to finish..

The cleaner.

Damn, son.. Damsons

What were the skies like in North Wales when you were growing up?

Press Play.

This tune reminds me of a camping trip we went on while I was at uni in Leicester. It was me, Steve (el Presidente), Tam, Hugo and, i think, Chris.

We went to Portmerion and pretended to run away from giant balloons.

We went camping.

On the first night we were in a proper campsite and upset some hikers because we were talking at night.

The second night we were in some farmer's field, right out in a far corner so as not to upset anyone. We had some booze and sat out under the stars listening to the KLF chillout album. If you haven't heard it you should. It's got lots of little bits and pieces that fade in and out of the background. There's the sound of a train going past and just as it was playing on the tape there happened to be a train going along the far side of the valley we were camped in. All lit up (it being night time). 

And the freaky bit of the story; Tam and I went off to find the farmer's loo and came across the static caravan field. We could see this woman come out of her caravan, but could only see her feet due to a fence being in the way. It seemed like she was trying to settle a baby to sleep. But the baby, if that was what it was, WAS MAKING THE SOUND OF A PIG.

fin

Some interesting things

An interesting musical event within the borders of Herefordshire?

Could be. It involves one of the main men from Portishead so a trip to check it out tomorrow might be in order. 

Here's the link..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/oct/16/portishead-adrian-utley-stroll-trees



And in other news, it looks like things might be coming to life again over with E and his eels cohorts. First their facebook page posts a picture saying simply "hi". Now their website comes up with the following...

http://www.eelstheband.com


Good musical signs from the internet superhighway runestones.

Do you know Jake Bugg?

When we went to see 'one man two guvnors' at the theatre there was a skiffle band that played between the acts. 

This chap reminds me of that 50s kind of thing. Good tunes. I would've bought the cd on monday but its in a plastic case (grr). Maybe one to download.

My musical recommendation to you...

Shower dilemmas. Give me a week, i'll see what i can do.

Drinking some cider, cooking some dinner. Yorkshires with Chicken? Shit yeah.

I might come and see you lads in the week. I might fetch you up a rabbit.

One last Lively Lady tale..

I once had a few drinks with Michael Elphick in here. He was the patron of the charity i was working for and was doing a play in Chichester, so called by before a matinee to say hello. He enjoyed a pint, bought all the rounds and told us tales of when he was filming Withnail and I.

[Name drop CLANG sound effect].

London

A great 24 hour trip to London in the company of the big man and the best man.

A jaunt to Rough Trade East.

A classic life experience- a cut throat shave, ear flaming and arm massage somewhere between Holborn and Russell Square.

A clean and tidy hotel near to Bayswater.

A dietary intake mostly consisting of burgers.

A Radiohead gig at the O2, which actually exceeded my expectations. A good 7.5/10.

A relaxed and hangover-free breakfast at the hotel.

Then one last mooch past muji and a foray to Fopp then back to Paddington to head back to yokel town.

One last surprise that London threw up..

Seeing members of Suede waiting for the Heathrow express at Paddington.

Great trip. Same time next year?

Autumn in the 'ford.

The Lively Lady, Bracklesham

Press 'play' and read on..

If I ever write my memoirs, one of the chapters will be about Bracklesham Bay.

But I've not yet bought my memoir desk, and not yet written out a memoir writing plan chart and then procrastinated about writing for approx 10yrs. So the blog will have to do.

One of the paragraphs in the Bracklesham chapter will be about the Lively Lady.

An unassuming joint. Think British Legion. Think Phoenix Nights. Think that bar in Dead Man's Shoes when Paddy Considine calls the drug dealer a see you next tuesday.

I spent 18 months or so in Bracklesham, Sussex. A forgotten windswept kind of place. I was doing voluntary work; personal care type of stuff for lads with muscular distrophy (but you know how much i don't like talking about the work i do for charidee, mate)

These lads were about the same age as me (early 20s). And aside from the washing cooking dressing etc, when you were working you used to go along with them to the local 'lively' pub. They enjoyed a healthy thirst, and a healthy (ish) interest in fruit machines. Obviously when you were on shift you didn't drink, but on the other days of the week you'd still be going out with the guys, just with the difference being that you'd get merrily ripped alongside them. And man could they drink. Good grief.

So the Lively Lady. Run at the time by Greg and Rachel. They used to book in 'acts' for saturday nights. You know the thing, vic reeves in the club style performers. At the end of the night, and if you and he were drunk enough, you could get Greg up to do his 'turn'. Greg was a die hard Elvis freak and had even gone to the trouble of perfecting a bit of a quiff. He used to cue the backing cd and then belt out a pretty much note perfect rendition of Elvis' American Trilogy. 

And that's really all there is to the memory. The Lively Lady was one of those places which you could kind of enjoy in a slightly ironic way, at times you'd probably  look down on it a bit, but if you were drunk enough and you were still there for one of Greg and Rachel's lock-ins then you'd be in for a treat.

And lets face it. Bracklesham Bay was down a dead end road that ended on a pebbly beach. There was no way the police would be checking in to see if there was any after hours boozing going on.

Oh, and i met N in Bracklesham too. But that's a whole other chapter.

Something out of nothing

[Did you ever used to watch Sex and the City?The main character was supposed to be a newspaper columnist or an author, and during each episode she'd be typing up observations about her friend's personal lives. Several phrases would get repeated over and over, such as "meanwhile across town Samantha was etc etc". And there would always have to be some sort of 'journey' or lesson that a character would have and that would somehow appear to improve them in some way (but by the start of the next episode they'd be back to being self centred again).Anyway, one of the stock in trade lines would sometimes be about a trend or social situation and how it might be changing and her observation would fit into the formula "is____ the new ____?" (e.g. is monogamy the new polygamy? or something equally foolish)]

What do you do with your free time? I generally try to get out of the house at least once a day. This is partly due to the motivating influence of N, but i see that it makes sense. I sometimes feel guilty if i don't do anything, if i don't go out then at least i'll try to sort things out around the house. This is an okay way to be i suppose. But when it is getting a bit on the stressy side at work, and you only have the one day off between shifts, having that guilt about not doing anything can mean you follow the pattern;

stress:guilty:stress.

So the other day i thought........let's roll with the guilt and just do nothing but sit at home and read.

It was good.

Not to do it all the time, no, but good just for one day. I will now try to build in a 'doing nothing' day into my schedule.

Is 'doing nothing' the new 'doing something'?

Exciting.

The mean, unforgiving streets of HR1

This month's Believer magazine. With cover-mounted audio cassette.... That's just all kinds of fap.

Gentleman's hosiery

Good to see that White Stuff have the neck to refer to this as their 'paul' sock. Ahem.