Do you think having a bad chest cold would be enough to justify a glass of brandy just now for medicinal purposes?
(I’m pretty sure my liver’s irredeemably knacked already))
Well, last nights Xmas party.. (Is this the right thread or should it be the other one? anyway..)
It had changed location/date several times, but settled on a greek restaurant in’t stockbroker belt. We’d been told it was Chris Tarrant’s favourite place and he often is there. Oh. Right. Good.
So anyway, yep. he is. Now, why should he happen to be there on a given night? He’s not doing a standup/cabaret, so he either owns or joint owns the place, or he has some sort of ‘I’m a celebrity, feed me for nothing’ deal which pulls the punters in. Dafter things happen.
So, anyway, We’re doing the usual eating/drinking/dancing/loving (actually, not that last one, went into bedsitland my only home for a bit there) and look up to see CT doing the Conga around the place with many others to “agadoo”. Which is what you’d make up if you going to make up something plausible. Add to that, some time later we click that CT’s guest tonight is Paul McKenna, and we see him later dancing badly to “Don’t you wish your g/f was raough like me” which is almost (but not quite) the weirdest party night out involving celebrities I’ve been to.
McKenna probably hypnotised them into doing the conga.
These kinds of things just remind me of going to see the caged “celebrities” in the zoo.
Yesterday was PBW’s birthday. I did not know that. Freaking Saggitarii, I should have known. Also, he’s younger than I thought. Jesus.
‘Kinell! HMV can be expensive when things aren’t on sale.
£60 for the Doctor Who box set. But, at least I have it in my hot little hand. And it was the last one.
And got a bunch of other CDs, too. Gilbert and Sullivan (Pirates and Pinnafore complete), John Tavener, Lloyd Cole—Donovan and Dylan because I know it’s music my mum will actually like, as opposed to just putting up with.
Excellent.
I should rip some of this to my work ‘puter first.
Oh, and take the price tags off, even off mine own stuff, so my mum doesn’t shout at me for spending too much money. Even though everything that wasn’t Dr. Who was massively on sale.
£5 for Bringing It All Back Home! Best Dylan album evah! (If you are not PBW and therefore stupid and irrational on the subject.)
Can I borrow the G&S at some point?
Of course you can. I’ll bring it on Friday, in fact.
super super xposty (sorry very busy today)
Maybe it was simply bad choice of words on yr part but if you are simply “glum”...
Yes, bad choice of words on my part (i.e. supermegaunderstatement) and *no* intent to offend anyone. My only point being that for most of my teen and adult life people have commented on or asked why I am depressed (or complained about it), meanwhile sometimes it seems like everyone else and their dog are “on” something.
Now back to discussions of Dr. Who boxed sets...
Yes, my lovely “Original issue CBS vinyl, perfect condition”... (xpost the Bob album)
Oh, are they knocking out the SACD versions for a fiver now?
Kate, mums will always shout at their kids for perceived overspend—especially mine with her fancy ‘only schmucks pay retail’ ways. It goes: “Ican’tbelieveyoupaidsomuchforthat IsawitforabuckatCostCo.”
Ailsa, brandy, honey and fresh ginger in a glass topped up with boiling water is STEP ONE to shifting a cold. STEP TWO involves a trip to an Indian food outlet: think Jalfrezi or Dupiaza—somehow chili, garlic and onions help too. I trust you will find this agreeable, or at least more so than sinking a bottle of Actifed.
It’s a Sony music 2003 version.
(I had an older CD version, no idea what happened to it. My parents had a beat-up vinyl one.)
x-post
What I don’t understand is...
Lloyd Cole—Rattlesnakes (plus 4 bonus tracks)—£5
Lloyd Cole—Rattlesnakes Boxed Version—£10
Like, what kind of mug do you think I am?
I completist mug, one of them has a box!
Suzy, I had the remains of a lamb dopiaza for my lunch, having had the largest takeaway in the world delivered on Monday in an attempt to feel better.
A quick trip to the drinks cupboard shows that I appear to have finished off the brandy. Bah. I have some honey rum left instead, so am now drinking that. Oh noes, I am a terrible alky!
Are you drinking by yourself?!?!? YOU WILL GO TO ALKYHELL!!!
How can this be a best of Donovan if it has no “I Like My Shirt”?
Chiz!
I like the sound of Alkyhell
A lot of xposts:
My theory on raisins is that they have been dried up for the express purpose of soaking up liquid and that if that liquid is booze then so much the better.
I started to like raisins about the same time I started to like olives. I think it might be a tastes maturing thing. Or it might be the alkyhell.
Aaaah, it’s too bad I can’t wind up my mum by telling her that Donovan was a better lyricist than Dylan. I used to get great amusement by winding up my sisX0r’s mum by telling her that. She was such a Dylan freak that she had this massive fuckoff terrifying Lionel-Ritchie-In-Hello-Video style clay bust of Bob Dylan in the spare room. It used to terrify me because with its massive larger than lifesize mole. Anyway, I used to tell her that “First there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is” was heights of lyrical abstraction that Dylan could never hope to scale.
But then she gave us her copy of the box of A Gift From A Flower To A Garden. And my sisX0r and I sat up all night taking speed and eating M&Ms and we covered the cover of the box with M&Ms the same colour as the picture until we had a giant Chocolate Donovan. Hence the song of the same name.
Aaaah, happy times.
I had an odd dream once that as there were too many people called Mark in the band we had going, I volunteered to change my name to Donovan Leech. That way it would be less confusing.
I used that as a nom de poetry (or whatever you’d call that) for a while.
Lloyd Cole—Rattlesnakes (plus 4 bonus tracks)—£5.
That was the first cd I ever bought, back in 1986 and it cost me £13 back then.
I plan to celebrate Christmas by pouring brandy on my muesli.
brandy on my muesli! I never thought of that. I shall have it for breakfast tomorrow. Since my mum already thinks I’m going to alkyhell, I shall have fun going.
Man I had forgotten just how GROOOOOOOOOOOVY Donovan is. Why let hippie parents have all the fun?
Aaaahhh! Mellow Yellow! This is the first song I ever learned to play on the guitar—my dad taught me when I was about 4! He held the fingering and I strummed.
He’s got the most hilarious accent this side of a Jesus and Mary Chain song—i.e. pretending to be west coast Dylanamericana when he’s really from Glasgow.
Nick used to get compared to Donovan all the time.
I still hate raisins but have never met an olive I wouldn’t eat by the kilo.
Ailsa it is now time for CURRY UPGRADE. Go for Thai red.
On Monday I had OMG proper Mexican carne asada burrito after which my entire family cussed me out for going to “the ghetto” to get it. Minneapolis has a LARGE Mexican population (who have all moved Norte over the past decade) and the bigot wing of my family assumes they’re all undocumented unless they are practically brandishing papers. FFS. I’m kind of sick of this attitude my immediate family have developed where nobody in America does an honest day’s work except for them.
I am going back to said “ghetto” (actually a heavily gentrified former Sears building) at least once every few days until I come home.
Curry only really works on a headcold with bad sinuses. Doesn’t really work on chest colds or the dreaded chestycoughcold. (Not a Russian assasin, even though it may sound like one.)
Nick sounds nothing like Donovan. Donovan way cooler.
I thought Nick, along with Neil Tennant, was always getting compared to Al Stewart. Donovan’s not the first name which springs to my mind.
HMV’s market position, as far as I can tell, is that it always have everything but you have to pay through the nose for it. Which means that it must love Christmas, where walking down the street seems like a tough proposition.
Kate, has anyone ever recommended Hugh-Laurie-in-medical-drama House to you?
TISSP tried to make me watch House. Not as good as CSI.
(Though TISSP was getting off on just how formulaic it was.)
“Jennifer... Juniper! Lilacs in her hair...”
This is just the... *wettest* music ever.
He’s like Twee on heavy LSD.
I’m waiting for the goo goo barrabajackal.
Got another 10 songs before I get there. Haven’t heard it in *years*, honestly. I’m having such joy rediscovering these songs.
Kate’s going to buy a hurdy gurdy.
Hurdy Gurdies do look pretty darn cool...
drone...drone...drone...
Anything with drone strings is always going to be a hit with me.
I’m not saying here that Nick sounds like Donovan, only that he has been compared to him (although he’s been told he sounds like Bowie, Gainsbourg, Al Stewart and a dozen other people so all this is ear-of-beholder). N. glimpsed him in a Paris hotel a couple of years ago but was too shy to approach.
Hurdy Gurdy Man is still the best song ever written in the flower power era... sheesh. I mean, it’s Led Zeppelin as the backing band, innit?
Those freaking snare rolls, that fuzz guitar like a gnat... aaaahhhh...
I ought to ask my neighbour here in the office if he has a hurdy gurdy. He specialises in the Jew’s harp and will no doubt be playing it to accompany our work carols in the atrium tomorrow. However, he likes all kinds of old instruments and folk music and is also a member of a local Morris dancing group.
I’m no ‘listen while you work’ person, but I do have the guitar line from “Citadel” buzzing in my memory, all day so far.
So, I guess it’s “Satanic Maj” on the way home tonight.
Oh god, don’t say that because then I’ll have to listen to it, too. And I have NOOO idea where my copy of Satanic Majesty is. Probably in storage at my mum’s house, on vinyl of course.
This is always the problem with Donovan best ofs, I get as far as Hurdy Gurdy Man and then can get no further, coz I just carolanne on it.
TISSP tried to make me watch House. Not as good as CSI.
You loved it!
(Though TISSP was getting off on just how formulaic it was.)
Makes for good drinking game material.
This is as good a chance as any to advertise my forthcoming HOUSE PARTY, which will of course be a HOUSE-themed house party. Word.
You loved it!
I was drunk! I was so full of tequila I loved Muse videos!
So long as it’s not on the 13th January. Don’t force me to choose between crushes.
N. glimpsed him in a Paris hotel a couple of years ago but was too shy to approach.
I saw Billy Mackenzie in a bar in Dundee and was exactly the same. And probably would be if I saw N in a similar situation.
No, my BIRTHDAY PARTY is on the 13th xpost
Some days I’d be happy saying that barabajagal is my fave song ever.
No, no, no, noooo... how can I choose between TISSP! and PBW?
Man, I had the nastiest tasting cough mixture in the world, and it still hasn’t stopped me coughing. Bah.
Mix it with Gin.
Well, I know what I’ll be attending.
(what have you agreed to on the 13th?)
I’m at work!
x-post there’s a Gooblar gig on the 13th. I think. He’s not here to confirm or deny.
I’m really torn. I mean, if it were anything else, I’d obviously go to your birthday. But my only chance on earth to stare at PBW completely unhindered and unembarrassed coz like you’re supposed to stare at people who are onstage, it’s OK and not creepy or anything... no wait, now that sounds creepy.
how can I choose between TISSP! and PBW?
You already did :)
OH OH OH but what are you people doing on the 9TH OF JANUARY?
— tissp! (tissp2...) (webmail), December 1st, 2006 12:44 PM. (tissp!) (link)
by which i mean the 13TH, of course
— tissp! (tissp2...) (webmail), December 1st, 2006 12:46 PM. (tissp!) (link)
I have no idea! That’s, like, next year!
— masonic boom (kateotheremai...) (webmail), December 1st, 2006 12:46 PM. (kate) (link)
I know! Normally I wouldn’t have a clue myself but it’s my BIRTHDAY PARTY!
— tissp! (tissp2...) (webmail), December 1st, 2006 12:47 PM. (tissp!) (link)
AAAAAHHHH!!! OK, I am going to your birthday party, then.
— masonic boom (kateotheremai...) (webmail), December 1st, 2006 12:48 PM. (kate) (link)
You can stare at me for HOURS though as I twist and contort through many stages of drunkeness
xpost
Ah, I knew I’d mentioned this
When did I post that? Was I drunk?
No, no, noooooo... We’ve already had this out, that I will have just had an operation on mine hand and won’t be up to travelling.
Can’t you change your birthday?
When did I post that? Was I drunk?
Probably. You are, after all, a big ol’ alkyhellic.
December 1st, 2006 12:46 PM
If you’re drunk at that time your Mum might have a point...
12:46PM is a perfectly acceptable time to be drunk.
Stupid Capricorns and their horny goaty ways.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
My mum has discovered my blog and started leaving me comments.
Quit it! It could be worse, I suppose. PBW’s mum has a MySpace and leaves him bizarre comments there. That’s much more embarrassing.
It’s okay if you want to go to the g00blar gig, Kate! I’d change the date but I’ve already mentioned it to a few people.
I was chatting to James last night, he’s just done his first legal party and was astounded by how easy it was to get a single event licence for it an happy not to have lost money on a party for the first time ever. As long as you keep the numbers under 499 including staff and keep to a certain number of licences a year (for the location and licensee), you can have the party without threat of your sound system being impounded and legal sell beer to cover your costs.
You would change the date of your birthday for Kate?! (xpost)
Now I feel stupid and creepy and think it’s probably a better idea if I don’t go to it. Blargh.
Now I just know that there’s probably a mouthful waiting for me when I get home. But I will say to my mum the same thing I’ve said to my friends. “If you don’t want to find out what I ”really“ think, then don’t read my diary.”
It’s not my real birthday on the 13th anyway (xpost)
He makes me feel like the protagonist of Death in Venice and now I’m just hacking my guts up, waiting to die of cholera or plague or whatever.
Ahahahahaha Kate von Aschenbach! You forgot consumption.
Also diaries are all about how you feel in THAT moment and may not be relevant by even the next moment?
B-Dods, it pains me that I met B. Mackenzie about six weeks before he died, at an aftershow for the Cure. A certain moppy-haired singer (who was friendly with me becase I’d had to interview him a few times hence context) passed out the champagne and introductions. BM was chipper, matey and smiley and in no way seemed on the brink of suicide :-(.
Speaking of drunk, I am. Right now. Yay for cheap Soviet champagne. Except this was the real M&C froggy stuff.
It was cholera, not consumption.
I just feel bad, coz, like, the first post was entitled, jokingly “Thing My Mother And I Argue About”—you know, like a joking riff off the Mil Millington column in the Guardian. Which my mum wouldn’t know. :-(
I was just looking down the list of Victorian-stylee ailments.
My mom be driving me crazy. No big FITE but a lot of passive-aggressive shit about The Liberals, welfare recipients and immigrants combined with how could she POSSIBLY be conservative because she is pro-choice and after universal health care.
By her a copy of Adam Smith for Xmas.
I bought her a finger-wagger of a book along those lines last year (Nickled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich) so must choose another option because she hasn’t cracked the spine of it. Maybe the Obama biog (ha ha). I for one would be happy to have the first faculty-brat prez.
Wow. Lloyd Cole lyrics seemed a lot less winceworthy when I was 20.
My mum knew about my former, now-defunct blog, but told me she specifically wasn’t going to read it because she didn’t think that would be fair. I don’t think she knows the address of the current one.
Now it’s the 21st, I feel like I can start feeling seasonal. Christmas music in the car! “Baby Jesus, born to rock!”
I quite like “double pneumonia in a single room” (the lyric, obv.)
I “quite liked” LCole at the time. Now, I daren’t ‘go there’
you don’t want to cause a Commotion.
Here’s me not starting a thread called “M25, Classic or Dud”
My soundtrack for the trip home last night:
Rolling Stones “Their Satanic Maj”
Blur “Chemical World” single from the boxset (37 mins)
Libertines “What became of the Likely Lads” with the live tracks and a frankly rubbish version of “Don’t look back into the sun” recorded by Mick Jones.
Beth Orton : “Comfort of Strangers”
three hours to get home! AAAGRRRGH!
Please start M25: Classic or Dud so I can talk about London Orbital, which is the best book ever.
My mother swears up and down it is not her posting on my blog. That it is some other minister mom. Actually, she might have a point, as she is a mum, not a mom.
the Streatham ice rink is great, but that’s for another thread.
Yes, please start M25 Classic or Dud so I can talk about this appalling pub in Roquetas de Mar which I had to venture into to watch the Community Shield match (sorry Kate for tenuous mention of sport you don’t like, but I need justification for going into a horrible Englishers pub in Spain) last summer, which made sangria with Buckfast in it.
(appalling pub was called The M25, btw, if that’s not clear)
Rule of Three invoked:
(I also mean the pub was horrible, not the Englishers, if that’s not clear either)
kaet, I think someone’s spoofing yr mom/mum, after your posts yesterday re the drinki.
It wasn’t about drinking at all. If it were some nasty thing like the usual anonymous crap, I would believe that. But they were being very nice and saying quite sensible things about the Enneagrams. So I’m inclined to think it’s genuine enough. Just not *my* mum.
ah.
does the word ‘enneagram’ have another meaning other than a nine sided star polygon then? *scratches head*
It’s a psychological personality typing system involving well, a nine-pointed star.
A bohemian like you?
Bah, I ain’t paying no ten bucks for no psych exam.
No, no, you can find free ones on the interweb. I suspect you are a type 5, also, Ed. I’m trying to find the one with the cute cartoons.
Free one here, but it’s not very good on the explanations:
Morning all. Felt ill last night—puked up stomach acid at 5 in the morning. Still feel icky and have no idea why. Also watched the Charlie Brown Christmas Special last night for the first time, which made me super-happy and very christmassy, until I threw up (I don’t think throwing up and CB are connected).
What type do you reckon I am, before I take it?
A life changing plan is forming in my head at the moment. What do you guys think about:
Extending the mortgage on my house to pay for tuition and accommodation at grad school whilst renting it out. As yet I don’t know where to go or what to study but it could open up my one and only chance to go and live in NYC for a couple of years. Also, the monopoly money dollar is making tuition costs in the states look a lot smaller.
x-posts short sample test on the cartoon site:
JB, there is a gastric flu going around. My mum thought she had food poisoning, but it was gastric flu.
Ed, it sounds like a sensible plan in the most part. But I don’t think that you should go to grad school unless you know exactly what it is that you want to study, as it is expensive and generally doesn’t open your prospects that much wider unless it is in a specific skill.
Going to live in NYC on the monopoly dollar would probably be a very interesting experience, and one I would reccomend. Especially if you keep capital in this country in the form of property.
The basics of the plan are very good, the specifics can be sketched in later when you figure out what you want to study.