December 2008
New Year...
Drunk.
Not another New Year's Eve
In the underground
Just before midnight
A hundred feet on the steps
Shiver in the dark
And dance toward the neon
“News is what somebody, somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.”
– Lord Northcliffe
Current reading Flat Earth News, Nick Davies’s book on churnalism (I know I’m a bit slow off the mark). This quote sums up its central message perfectly.
“I can detect when a thing is Kafkaesque or Chekhovian but with respect to...”
– - Harold Pinter
Because I do care that he’s gone.
Julie Walters...
…just told me to test my smoke alarm. Christmas adverts are getting strange.
London needs a venue like The Moth →
“1950s
Dick Stolley, who started his decades-long Time Inc. career at Life in...”
– from A Short History Of Perks At Time Inc.
Once again I realise that I’m living in the wrong era.
WatchLittle Boots covers Last Christmas
Plane crash man shares his thoughts in the... →
“Holy fucking shit – I was just in a plane crash!”
Oh please…
Invaders Must Die - The Prodigy
In Prodigy World...
“It’s got a good chorus.”
– Leonard Cohen on why Hallelujah is so popular.
“I want my own adjective. I want people to describe films as Wrightian. I want...”
A: I can't sleep.
B: What?! I was sleeping. You just woke me up.
A: But I can't sleep.
B: So I can't either?
A: I need your help. I haven't slept for...I dunno...three days.
B: OK. Well. Go to the doctors or take a pill or I drink some booze.
A: I have. I'm drunk.
B: I'm sorry but I need to sleep.
A: Sleep. Don't talk to me about sleep.
B: No. Don't talk to me about sleep, let me get on with it.
A: Don't rub your sleep in my face. I can't do it. I can't bloody sleep.
B: What do you expect me to do?
A: What can I do to get to sleep?
B: Count sheep.
A: Oh yes, very good. Very original.
B: I'm going to put down the phone.
A: Don't go.
B: Why?
A: Don't go, I'm bored. It's boring, all this, not sleeping.
B: Can't you write?
A: No. I don't have any ideas.
B: Write about someone who can't sleep.
A: And then what...?
B: They could phone their friend and bother them about not sleeping.
A: Don't take the piss.
I have this habit of promising myself that I’ll go to sleep early on a Sunday night then suddenly finding that it’s past midnight and I’m still up staring at the computer screen. It’s as if there are two versions of me - the noctural one and the morning one. The nocturnal one hates the morning one and doesn’t really care if he has to struggle to get up or feels over...
Rewriting Russian history: in praise of Stalin's... →
He may be edged out by Chairman Mao in the all-time top ten list of genocidal despots (a list show fronted by Jimmy Carr coming to Channel 4 this Christmas) but according to new school books in Russian schools, Stalin was an efficient leader whose violence was justified.
Modern History of Russia: 1945 - 2006 by Alexander Fillipov is a government approved textbook which states that there were...
“What is the most disloyal dog breed?”
– My favourite question from the Slate.com The Explainer’s list of unanswered questions.
Rolling Stone: The Legend Of Master Legend →
The latest Rolling Stone features this story about a real life superhero. It’s written in a completely straight style but features a deeply odd 42-year old who dresses up in spandex to fight crime. I can’t help but feel that he’ll end up getting really hurt soon (there’s an anecdote in the full length print article about him getting shot while intervening in a mugging)....
“If you ever call my band a bunch of juvenile Nazi lovers again I will have you...”
– - Rob Gretton
I fully endorse this strategy, though to be fair, the likelihood of the Patio Set being called juvenile or Nazis is pretty low.
Still, here’s my capsule review of their sparsely (but enthusiastically) attended gig at Last Days Of Decadence last night: bloody brilliant.
My...
You know you're a geek when...
…you’re annoyed by Rolling Stone claiming Guile was a character in Mortal Combat.
Was Jean Claude Van Damme’s excellent film work for nothing?
Crystal Stilts - Crystal Stilts
While Glasvegas...
My job…
…is making me ache. Physically and mentally.
Womanizer (Britney Spears cover) - Lily Allen
...
“When he died, there were all these nonsensical stories coming out about Heath...”
– Terry Gilliam goes slightly over the top in his tribute to Heath Ledger in The Observer
Sometimes when this place gets kind of empty...
“The Apartment was great…I remember Marilyn Monroe was at the screening....”
– Shirley MacLaine
Julia Allison as Santa Claus →
We must purge the world of this wackiness.
“The deal was secured when he drew a penis in some fake snow. I knew then that we...”
– A member of The Patio Set (who I now manage - if managing means getting them drunk and promising world domination) on why they chose me.
The SinKing - Crystal Stilts
With vocals mixed...
The troubadour is dead
The list of unacceptable words and phrases beloved of music reviews is vast but the worst of all is “troubadour”. If you have a beard, an acoustic guitar and a penchant for playing songs about heartbreak, some hack is just itching to brand you a troubadour. Unless your lugging a lute and tramping about like a traveling minstrel, you’re not.
With hindsight
There’s no money in writing
she said
filling in her application
You’d be better off
in banking
she said
pulling on the suit
her dad bought her
for graduation.