18 holes of drunken oblivion

Come and play Pub Golf! On 3rd March, I've organised an 18 pub extravaganza through the centre of London. Golf attire will be obligatory, and anyone who would be turned away from the club will be turned away from the crawl (well, probably not). Click on the dude below and see more of the details, though expect them to change continually between now and then. Make a note in your diary!!!

Real life

So spending all wekeend excited about Australia, and all week making arrangements with work, for visas, to sell things, now life is settling back to normal. March seems like a long way off now, and that initial excitement has died down a bit. I still find myself smiling for no reason from time to time though, and I don't think that's going to go away. I've set a leaving date - I'll fly on 20th March, arriving some time on 22nd. While I'm saving money, I'm trying to put the extra time I've got into learning songs for a forthcoming gig in January, and into finding out more about the country I'm about to visit. Any suggestions for things to do on the East Coast of Australia?

Announcing it properly rather than halfway through a post

I'm going to Australia for a year!

I've been thinking about this a lot with all the mortgage stuff and so on, and I think when the idea came I felt it was exactly the right thing for me. I've never travelled properly before, I've never taken a year out of education or work, and I think I'm now at an age where I'll be able to really appreciate it. Hopefully I've also got the experience that I'll be able to find reasonably good work, so I've got the money to enjoy myself over there.

However, my personal finances are currently in a state that might make it difficult.

At the risk of completely whoring my blog - I'm selling a load of stuff. Let me know if you fancy buying anything that's there, or indeed, pretty much anything I own, within reason.

Leaving drinks, fights, going home for the weekend

On Friday, Laurence left work, and we all went for a few drinks to wish him well. The Dogstar was a highly suitable venue, and everyone had an excellent time as far as I can tell. A few people had a long moan about how work was going, and I think there might be some surprise results in a few months when the employee survey comes back. Apparently there was a bit of a fight after I left - I always miss these things at work dos, and they seem to happen so often...

I also went home for the weekend, as there was something I had to tell my parents. I've decided to leave Abel & Cole and go to Australia for a year. I arrived home at about 11am, and told my parents and they were incredibly supportive and really delighted for me. (While we're on the subject, I'm selling lots of stuff in order to help fund the trip - if you fancy pretty much anything I own at the right price, please let me know). We spent a very nice afternoon lounging around the house, and then went to the Sailing Club's laying up supper, which was an excellent meal in good company. My parents won the Dart prize and my brother won the Dart Handicap prize, which they were both very pleased with (though I think they all felt Ben should have won the Dart 18 2nd place as well...), and we popped home for a quick whisky and bed.

Flaming Lips - pass me a thesaurus

I've run out of superlatives this week. Go and read someone else's review of The Flaming Lips at the Hammersmith Apollo. And if there's a single bad word to say, then they weren't watching the band I was watching.

Horses for Courses

I saw this on The Onion today. As I walked into work I saw the death of Desert Orchid announced on the front of one of the red-top tabloids. I thought to myself, I'd probably mourn that loss more than that of anyone who's ever been on Reality TV.

Jaco Live!

Last night my Shadows and Light DVD arrived, with a couple of books, and I settled down to watch it, happy that I'd finally be able to watch my favourite musician as well as listen. I was utterly delighted to see that there was a Jaco solo on the DVD! Happy though I was, it's kind of sad to think I'm never going to get any closer to seeing him live for real.

On reflection, though, I should probably have bought this. Must pay more attention.

Next stop Tooting Carmen

Claudia, my parents and I saw two recordings of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue last night. It all started when John Naismith, the producer, came on to tell us about it. He said they needed to check the levels of the microphones recording the audience. He said 'So, it's very simple. I say 'hello everyone' and you say 'Don't patronise us with pointless audience participation exercises'. Hello everyone!'. And the audience replied in perfect synchronisation.

Rob Brydon's version of Spank Me to the tune of Fly Me To The Moon was a definite highlight, and his definition of 'Control' as a list of people he didn't like was pretty good too. Humph had a little difficulty with a couple of the lines, but was his usual dry self. In notes and clarifications he told us 'Last week's assertion that Tooting Carmen is the next stop from Tooting Broadway on the District line was, of course wrong. They're both on the Northern Line'. Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden managed to turn the repetition of the word 'Monkeys' into the funniest thing ever, and Tim Brooke-Taylor managed to get a couple of references to the Goodies in there for good measure.

The current series of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue is playing on Radio 4 at 6.30pm on a Monday evening. The last Monday in November and the first in December will be the shows we saw. There are repeats on a Sunday afternoon too.

Ravenous Guinea Pigs

I had a dream last week some time. In my dreams my house is always the same house. Sometimes it's a flat, sometimes it's a terraced town house, sometimes it's a colossal country mansion. Somehow they're all the same, or they share some rooms, or something. Occasionally the house will be a combination of the above, and sometimes it'll become a ship or a hotel or a boarding school or any number of other places. It's still my house.

That aside, there was a large area of the house (a terraced 3 storey townhouse on this occasion) that I had boarded off, and I knew that several months ago I had abandoned three hamsters in the area.

Pulling back the boards and venturing into the area I had boarded off I found three guinea pigs, mouths dripping with blood and a look of intense hatred in their eyes. Not quite like the below, think more blood, some of which had dried around the mouth, and more teeth on show. I ran.

Rage Against the Babies on Spikes

I was listening to Eddie Izzard this morning. He said:

[In Britain] there was a spirit of ex-empire, this thing of "things can't be done," whereas in America, I thought there was a spirit of "can be done!" The pioneer thing.

"Go do it! What do you want to do?"

"I want to put babies on spikes."

"Go then! Go! It's the American Dream!"

"Hi! I'm Crazy Eddie! I put babies on spikes. Do you want a rack of babies? We've got babies on racks! Mmm, they taste of chicken!"

Then I remembered that Rage Against the Machine thing in Know Your Enemy, where Zack De La Rocha shouts "All of which are American dreams!" repeatedly after the music has stopped. I was wondering if he ever considered putting the two together.

Yes I know my enemies
They're the teachers who taught me to fight me
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, putting babies on spikes, brutality, the elite
All of which are American dreams!

My Point of View on Herbie

Herbert "Mwandishi" Hancock, the man I and, I'm sure, many others consider the greatest living musician, played his socks off at the Camden Roundhouse last night. Kicking off at the keyboard with Watermelon Man, with a searing funk intro and a solo on one of those keyboard/guitar hybrids, the opening number left little room to crescendo, but like the consumate professional and the incredible performer he is, Herbie managed it. His guitarist was astounding too, playing a solo piece for a while where he sampled and built up his own backing, and through the wonder of modern technology, harmonised with his own singing. The drummer played some unparalleled solos, switching from straight time to offbeats to triple time and never losing an ounce of the rhythm. The bassist didn't solo, but he sang a haunting version of 'I Just Called To Say I Love You', and another couple of numbers, with a really powerful, soulful voice and some excellent vocal harmonies with the guitarist.

Cantaloupe Island was an obvious highlight, with more breathtaking keyboard solos from Hancock. When they finished a two hour set, the crowd cried out for more. We only got one encore, but no one would complain about twenty minutes of Chameleon - with the bassist pulling his inimitable jazz face, the guitarist playing lines that would put Hendrix to shame without breaking a sweat, and Herbie just being Herbie. The three of the played a kind of jazz Chicken, daring the others to go closer and closer to their limits, and pulling away just in time, for them and the crowd. I swear I'll never see a gig like it again.

If The Flaming Lips on Tuesday is anything as good as that, I may not make it to work on Wednesday.

A litte more conversation, a little less action baby

On Friday night I met someone on the tube by the name of Marie-Louise. She was an attractive, interesting woman and was, for reasons known unto herself alone, absorbed by my conversation. We chatted about the couple opposite and whether they'd met tonight, or years ago, and about the book the lady opposite was reading. And about our respective evenings (thanks again Lorien, excellent party), and she said 'It's my stop next. And I kept chatting til she got off. As she stood, I thought about it finally.... I asked "I guess it's a little late to ask for your number?". I was right.

The name's Bush, George Bush

I'm watching The World Is Not Enough. Pierce Brosnan is an excellent Bond, but I can't help being annoyed when he says 'Nucular'. It only makes in worse when the lovely Denise Richards, of the United States, says Nuclear, with no Dubya-esque inflection, immediately afterwards. Stop showing us up, you Irish twunt!

I've just got back from GJs, where Harry Hill has been entertaining us. Douglas Adams once said how frustrated he found himself when watching a standup say 'You know the black box recorder that always survives an air-crash? Well, why don't they make the whole plane out of what they make the recorder out of?'. He thought, no, the plane would never fly, titanium is too heavy. And he was watching a room full of people laughing at someone because they knew less than that person. Harry Hill said something about how the digital age would progress further when the people writing binary learned the other numbers.

I really like the joke about there being 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't. Because you need to know something to find it funny. You didn't need to know anything to find Harry Hill funny. But like the first comic of the evening said, no one likes someone who indulges in pedanticness. (It's pedantry, you dumb fuck!).

This blog will swear less tomorrow.

Bullet for My Chemical Romance

Why are people buying this shit? How is this going to give you anything you haven't already got from a decade of manufactured pop-punk from California? Does it sound better cause they're dressed a bit like The Libertines?

At least Blink 182 were funny sometimes. Honestly, the youth of today, I despair.

New tunes online

The CD Jim gave me on Friday is now uploaded and available on this site, on this page. take a look and let me know what you think. And also tell me if there are any dodgy links in there, I put them up in a bit of a hurry.

Alex's birthday

Well, visiting Michael in Acton turned out to be a different affair altogether. I arrived to a very well presented meal, which was being put together for a Colombian lady, Alex. Eight of us had dinner, and chatted, mostly about gout, and partially about rugby. We managed to avoid accidents with the red hot oil in the middle of the table too. After dinner, Michael and I played a few tunes, the Colombian chap (whose name has already slipped my mind) played a few Latin guitar tunes, and I joined in here and there on bass, and there was lots of dancing. A few other folks from the Antioch community dropped by too.

There's something nice about the sense of community there. It's one of the things I miss most about Newman House, and about Christianity generally. There was real love for Alex and for each other in that room, and that's something it can be difficult to find, especially in a big city. It was a perfect end to a lovely weekend.

And then...

I decided photos of Tooting were probably a better idea, as it's closer. Also I'm about to move house, I hope, and so I wanted a few things to remember this end of Tooting by. The photos will be here when I put them up (the link will be broken until then), and Tooting is actually quite a nice place as it turns out.

Then I went to Ikea (not because of that, Emma) and bought a few things. It's a dangerous place. I thought I'd spend £20 if that, and then the bill came to £33...

England are currently losing miserably to the All Blacks (it just finished, 41-20 in their favour) but some promising new blood on England's side. Now I'm off to jam with Michael, who is back in London for the weekend. And no mention of fireworks!

I count, kind of

Today was a good day.

I went to the climate change march - I know I have friends who don't believe in that crap, but to my mind, we've proven that carbon dioxide has a higher insulating effect than nitrogen, and we know we're releasing a lot of it that wasn't there to start with, and we know that the world is warming up. We also know sea levels are rising, polar ice caps are melting, and there are parts of Kenya where it hasn't rained for three years. I don't really see where the gaps in the logic are.

Anyway, that aside, I went to Grosvenor Square to see speeches, and lots of people said the equivalent of many of our political parties promising a better Britain (anyone voting for parties promising a worse Britain?) safer streets, more hospitals (again, good marketing, but I don't hear anyone promising to the contrary) or a marketing agency promising the right messages to our customers at the right time (damn - the last agency promised the right message at the wrong time, and we nearly hired them!). I mean, we do want a better world for our children, so thanks for recommending it guys. I left shortly afterwards when they started singing about George Bush being a cowboy, as I felt the gathering was becoming too high-brow.

On the way to Trafalgar Square, where we were being counted and the number sent back to that nice Blair chap, I bumped into Laurence and Ruth. They headed to the US Embassy, I said I'd call them later. I did, and caught up with them and with Hannah and her boyfriend. We chatted a bit, and Laurence and Ruth left. Hannah and boyfriend disappeared later too, but left me with numbers for Sam and Theresa. I found Sam, and we texted Theresa and caught up with her, Ysanne and Theresa's flatmate's friend. Then Sam left, and I joined the others to meet Theresa's flatmate on the Strand. Then I left and bumped into Erin and Ruscoe, who were off to the theatre. On the tube home I happened upon Tracey and her son Kade, and we chatted too. At the start of the day I didn't think I'd meet anyone, so it was all a rather pleasant surprise.

Then this evening, I've listened to a CD Jim gave me, which I'll put on my site on Monday evening. I'm pretty pleased with it. Some of the tracks still need work, but they sound ok (Jim's done incredible work with the material he had!), and they're mostly good fun.

Tomorrow, I'm going to wander round Central London with a camera and see what I can find. The results will end up on a photo page - I haven't added one for several months, so it's about time! Any thoughts for good parts of London to photo, anyone?