How Not To Be Dead

In a random browsing session trying to increase the morbidity stakes, I stumbled across the fantastic site that is Deathslang.

The whole euphemism thing is a major flame thing for me, wrapping up an unpalatable subject in sugar coating doesn't make it any more acceptable. There may be a degree of quaintness about referring to a pregnant woman as "being in a delicate condition" or "being in the family way" but it is the greeting-card sentiment that accompanies descriptions of death and dying that tend to make me flip.

If you want to see what I mean, meander over to the Carlton Cards website and see if you can easily find a bereavement card. Oh, no you need to access the "occasions" section - since when has dying been an occasion. The same is true in the shops, although you won't even find a "bereavement" section, it's "With Sympathy" - just as businessspeak is all wank with the deliberate use of obtuse phrases designed to ensure that the actual meaning of the phrase can mean whatever it is you want it to as opposed to having a definitive meaning; the card industry language is designed to ensure that whatever you do, you don't actually say anything in plainspeak. Sending a "With Sympathy" card is actually saying "Sorry He's Dead" - why apologise, you've not personally killed someone?

So this is the reason that deathslang is so cool - as the phrases used are actually worse than saying "x has died" or else they are bitingly witty and are the antidote to the standard euphemistic comfort zone.

Personal favourties are the internet-inspired terms for death:

"Transferred to WWW.HasBecome.Com/post"

"Clicked the bucket"
""

Although a few cooking related ones are neat:

"Cooking for the Kennedy's"
"Donating the Liver Pate"

I'd like to see Clinton's stock these......

London by London - always good for a laugh

The latest briefing had this within it - oh blimey how easy it is to make me smile at times:

ROOFS AND COWS
'After the Great Fire in 1666 it was made illegal to have thatched rooves in London, so how comes the Globe on the Southbank has got a thatched roof? Also, can I still graze cows on common land like Wandsworth Common? If so, where can I buy a cow from? How much are they and how pissed of will people be with me grazing it on various sites across London?'
- Roger Persang
...
You should be able to get most of a cow from Smithfield's, but I
doubt it would do much grazing.
- Mooo
...
Alas Wandsworth Common is not common land but is owned by the council. I've heard tell that cows can be bought in a strange muddy place called "The Country" or swapped for a bag of magic beans.
- auawsha

LBL - what a find!

Sunday Bloody Sunday Drivers

For various reasons, this weekend hasn't been the best I can remember and as a result I was looking forward to attending the West Ham v Boro match, primarily as a way to let off steam and yell loud things at people who don't care (as opposed to be being yelled at by people who don't care). There was the slight encumbrance of having my mum as associate meaning that obscenities would have to be kept to those that she would have no chance of understanding (but unfortunately the stewards might) or else muttered quietly defeating the whole purpose of venting fury.

Usually this merry trip is accomplished via bus as I have enough of driving during the week and the route to WHU is easy for me via bus whereas the route by road is hell. But the gods were not smiling on me and I was informed that it would have to be car, and me driving. Bugger. Another reason why I chose not to drive to footie recently is that I hadn't mentioned to Ma & Pa the incident a few months ago when a van clumped the side of the car and I was too shocked to chase after and get details. Having mum as a passenger meant that I had to outline what happened just when I had started to feel OK about it. Joy oh joy.

But what the hell had they put in the air today - I was cut up, nearly reversed into on the roundabout, had a parking space swiped just as I was about to reverse into it which made me temporarily forget that I had Justified & Ancient in the car and proceeded to vehemently swear and shout at the bloke - only to be faced with a raised eyebrow of disapproval and of course the need to then have to reverse parallel park into the space from Hades. Helpfully J&A decided to get out and stand on the edge of the blind spot whilst I parked - meaning that she was perfectly able to lip read me muttering "move out of the way you stupid woman" . I'm sure she realised I'm stressed.

Match was fine - we won, I'm no longer a football jonah but the joy of driving back was just as thrilling going home - people blocking roads whilst trying to do a u-turn, milliseconds from my wing, again leaving me to mutter various phrases that may have been new to my passenger - I did pride myself on self control when a car mistook my failure to move up to the bumper of the car in front as an incitement to turn and almost hit me. That the phrase "fucking moron from gitville" got altered to "flipping" was a plus. The distinct minus was when a Chelsea Tractor decided that waiting to turn left wasn't his cup of tea and that he'd swerve on the wrong side of the road as I was turning right and wriggle on through and I uttered the rarely used term of "Jesus Christ on a bike, what a bastard". "Surely in a car would be more correct" was the frosty response.

That's it - I don't care how inconvenient it is to justified & Ancient, I'm going by bus next match and may well considered alcohol & fags as an optional extra to the whole "football" experience since I've managed to breech the non-swearing rule fairly well.

Repairing Worn Out Surfaces

If only I was a road. At the sign of seriously cracking up, attention would be lavished upon me, signs erected to keep people away from me until I was better and despite me being an integral item of daily life, there would be understanding that you can't repair a road whilst still driving on it - any more than you can change the engine of a plane whilst it is in flight.

Tough fucking luck then that I'm not a means of travel but just a mere wage slave. Today was another one of those "way-hay it's the pinball machine of emotions" type things where I seemed to lurch from moments of total clarity about what I need to do to (longer) moments of thinking "what's my name". I can't switch off thinking about how we're meant to do everything when there isn't enough time to do it all in and yet apparently the end of the world is scheduled to occur should a tick-in-the-box not be completed. At the same time an important bit of work needs full focus & attention but the full horror is only slowly dawning on those that originally thought it was a small piece of work that actually, it's fucking massive oh and hey, quite important at a higher level. There is no warm glow at being able to say "told you so" when the reality is that now highers are panicking, there is some sort of assumption that we can just magic up an extra day in the week to fit all this in. The fact that I've been working a regular 8-day working week in terms of hours over contractual hours is not comforting. And basically, I'm worn out.

Groundhog day rolls around again - I'm fed up of always fucking up because I can't handle my emotions.

I want to be a motorway!

Life's a gig(gle) - Part 2

Still mentally buoyed up by the joyous experience that had been MBA on Thursday, I wasn't that keen to go to Friday's planned music event - which was Joan Armatrading at the Royal Albert Hall in case I'd find such a contrast a bit of a let down. The fact that work was turning into a new circle of limbo on Friday meant that in the end I was only too glad to down pc and trek up to town.

I'm really glad I went. Yes, it was a bit of a contrast: Elbow Room Islington v Royal Albert Hall; lots of lively frotting around v enthusiastic clapping whilst seated but it was still a good thing. JA has a fantastic voice, fills the stage with presence and comes across as genuinely enjoying performing. The crowd singalongs for All the Way from America and Love & Affection ( a song which is now 30 years old....) were pretty awesome and the emotional blubbing to Willow was very carthartic. The crowd was a bizarre mix of late middle age marrieds, packs of young women, lots of same sex couples and odds & ends (that'll be me then).

The RAH is a stunning place but bugger me is it difficult to find your bearings when there are so many exits, as a result I found myself trotting off in totally the wrong direction and remembering that the tube stations were the other way just as I ended up at Kensington Church Street (long walk). The upside of this was another chance to use the bus network to avoid the cost of cabbing it and actually being able to finish by journey by train as I had intended.

I had just finished the mobile music players equivalent of foreplay - ie delicately untangling the headphone wires which inexplicably decide to try to mate with either itself or any other slender item within radius (this time it was the house key ring and the odd earring wire) and looked up to see the passenger opposite doing the same with the added bonus of having lost an earplug cuff which the resulting pat-down failed to find. A wry smile of emphathy was exchanged and then a lively discussion about music commenced.

He'd been to see The Engineers at the Scala on Thursday and was thrilled that I had a) heard of them and b) could name a track (Forgiveness) and was evangelically ranting about how good they are (they are, really) until Stratford at which time the musical points changed allowing me to rave about Misty's (he'd smiled vacantly at Joan Armatrading so I'd thought not to progress that one) - I think I may have a convert. Don't be too surprised if an Engineers track features on Srokasounds soon - as recommended by the bloke on the train.

And then there was that bit of late night semi bevvied philosophy about what makes places different. His statement was regarding the difference between people in Bristol (where he'd gone to Uni) and London "it's all about trees - in Bristol they think, ah, that's been there years, better not disrupt it - London, it's all how many poxy saplings shall we order to replace the 30 year old tree we've bulldozed; it's all about how people treat trees"

And you know what, he may have a point. Be nice to trees.

Life's a gig(gle) - part 1

It should have been 3 gigs in 3 days, but work and the dawning awareness that I'd be zombie due to lack of sleep meant that The Coral @ UEA bit the dust. They had rearranged some tour dates but unfortunately not Norwich - I never realised that east anglia had such a high level of respect from The Coral. Hope it was a good gig and that people enjoyed that extra body space caused by me not being there.

Thursday being John Peel day meant that everywhere seemed alive with music, hopefully those sessions badged as being JP specific were actually that and not just a clever, cynical wheeze by some knuckledragging promoter into thinking "aha, I have a sub standard stable of artists playing Thursday, I'll stick a John Peel flyer on it".

This certainly wasn't the case for Gig1 - the set put on by The Elbow Room, Islingon as the "headliner" was none other than Misty's Big Adventure (that's just the 3 times I've seen them then, poor compared to some I know). The support bands worked well, with The Bishops being particularly slick and The Rumble Strips well worth a listen.

Misty's were just mindblowing. To avoid entering the realms of hyperbolic descriptions, I'll maybe sling in awesome. Or the dogs, or whatever the is the right phrase to use to describe a set that made me feel that the world was OK and my own bit of personal universe couldn't be better. Started to recognise some of the faces from the Camden gig and chatted to a couple who freely admited to being Misty groupies (including having seen them at Bestival) and who summed it up as "they make me feel like I'm 14 again". I'd go along with that.

It was fascinating to see the reaction of the "misty virgins" as one referred to herself, when the band kicked off and more importantly when Erotic Volvo launched himself at the crowd. Most people were just gleefully happy and there was uncontrolled lunatic bopping happening throughout (and yes, I do mean more than just us). Even the geezers & cue-elfs playing pool decided that it would be worth having a watch and had a break from making breaks.

The cover of Rebellious Jukebox (as discussed post gig at purple turtle) was a good thing, both as a standalone track but also as a non mawkish link to John Peel. Be interesting to see MES covering Two Brains perhaps...

Grandmaster Gareth had said that he'd wanted the night to be a shambles and he was happy how it went. Shambles in this case obviously meaning "spot on performance with plenty of energy given and received between and crowd".

The fun of the evening didn't finish there - due to Misty's not being on until well after 11 and playing a full set + the required recovery time from all that frotting around - I now have to admit a grudingly admiration for the late night bus network out of London. It was quite calming to realise that staring at a lit but locked Liverpool Street station meant the fun of the night bus network and that it wouldn't cost the fortune cabbing it would have. Way to go Mayor Ken.

And Gig2 - Some weird co-incidences happened that Friday....

Weird Things In Blue

One of the things I revel in doing is wandering around Spitalfields and Brick Lane on a Sunday - mainly because I think it's least touristy than Petticoat Lane and far more interesting, plus once I've worked out exactly how close they are, it's a happy wander between the two. Equipped with my camera and without the standard incumbent "oh god, not more weird photos" accompanying me - I was able to snap what I wanted with abandon. Then I came across this happening:

Yep, a series of random letters (well I couldn't make out a word easily) and a set of blue, hand puppet looking things (my life seems to be haunted by weird stuffed toys at the moment). There was a very serious looking photographer trying to get the damn things to look OK and then one fell over.... Maybe it was some kind of slow exposure animation in a Morph-esque fashion. Either way, it was pretty intriguing. Would love to know what it was for.

Any ideas?

What Made Me Laugh Today

Was the following extract from the weekly London-By-London email:

Q: "RE: CONKERS 'Autumn's nearly here, where's the best place to get conkers in london then?"(Spaniel)

A: "Trees are a good place to look. Or the ground underneath trees. Although I prefer hanging around outside school gates and making small children turn out their pockets. Sometimes I just turn them upside down and shake them a bit till the conkers fall out.

You have to be careful though. I ended up covered in sherbert yesterday" (Curry Mile)

Well it made me laugh.

LBL is the highlight of my week, the ongoing rants about Oystercards, the best places in London that are weird, the mini-flame wars when an off-topic is posted which resulted in one of the best non-swear swear-words coming to light ("cock-off", closely followed by "ball-hang") plus just where you can park for "free" if you are a scooter due to arcane laws and the latest concept to really appeal to me - "take away roulette". This being where you decide upon a number, stick to it and that is your take-away dinner. Knowing my luck it would be the meat+meat special but worth a thought if you are with a large group of exceptionally indecisive people.

hmmmm, when is the next trip to Brighton?

Blissful Brighton

Swiftly glossing over the fact that I had been sufficiently ill-organised to take advantage of a free gig by Clearlake being put on as part of the Brighton Festival and was in fact waving OH off at Heathrow just as the band would have been going on stage this evening, I have had a fantastic long weekend in Brighton with a work colleague and their friends.

I now have a fairly good mental map of the late night bars in Brighton - why am I incapable of ever managing to get to bed before 2-3am when alcohol is involved (although to be fair, one late night/early morning was due to forming an informal search party for an errant member of our merry band of reprobates); know where some of the best Thai restuarants lurk and also just how long some people take to get ready!

And of course there was the rather neat music shop (Essential Sounds - most old cds about a £5) where the till bloke had it just right - instead of just doing the "thank you, here's your card" gubbins, he had it far more spot on as the dismissal after he'd married up case and cd was the rather cool "Go man".

But the whole time wasn't totally spent getting pissed and acting like a music crazed teenager (Hmmm, maybe it was) - I did get the opportunity to look at weird stuff in the Laines and was most gratified to find one of the best bits of flyposting I'd seen for a while.

However I did do a very passable impression of a teenager by taking part in the obligatory trip along the pier. Oh what fun to get drenched by the water splash thing - and yipee it was the V2005 look all over again as wearing light jeans and sitting on a wet seat is not a good look (and thanks so much to the person with the camera who captured my posterior for posterity). I flatly refused to go on "The Turbo" - my breakfast had threated to have an encore after I went on the rollercoaster and stupidly did agree to go on the naffest Ghost Train in the world.

Obviously it wasn't billed as such but the greatest fear I had was that the flaming thing was going to groan (haha) to a halt and I was going to have to get out and push it. If there is a benchmark for what a good ghost train should have (athmosphere, dangly bats, groans, zombies, speed), Brighton Pier wouldn't even make the first notch. I don't think going on this at night would have added to the "experience" - brilliant daylight certainly didn't. If they had still had a freak show it would have probably been the local ugly baby photo contest. But that is all part of the naffness of seaside attractions. yay!

Brighton - must do it more often, but less pissed.