slip slidin’ away

Posted on January 11, 2010 
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Lots of snow. Snow snow snow. Everywhere. Snow.

Manchester ground to a halt last Tuesday and is still not back up to speed. The trams have been appearing at even more random times than usual. The buses aren’t bad when they arrive, apart from an increased level of blue language from the driver’s cabin. Cars on the road are mostly there for comedy effect.

Walking is downright masochism. What looks like nice, crunchy, step-into-and-chuckle snow turns out to be lumps of rock solid ice which will break your foot, if stomped on.

This is a bit of a bugger, as part of my cunning new year plan to make about one third of myself disappear in a puff of calories was to walk more. I’ve even been contemplating walking home some nights. Given that walking to the bus stop currently has me swearing like a trooper with piles, my sanity may be permanently damaged by a 2 hour walk.

It’s almost like there IS a higher power and it WANTS me to be a porker.

updates

Posted on December 21, 2009 
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howdy

It’s been pointed out to me that nobody could add comments to blog posts here. I’ve had a look at what’s going on and put a new elastic band round the engine so it should be fine now.

Let me know if it isn’t

Learning The Craft

Posted on December 18, 2009 
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“Can I do the Eric Morecambe thing with the paper bags?”
“I don’t know what that is but absolutely not”
“but …”
“NO”

Fiona had decided to use her love of Making Stuff into a method of funding more Stuff to turn into other Stuff by selling her wares at a Craft fair. I had been drafted in as dogsbody and security. Mostly I ended up getting in the way. I attempted to size up the opposition

“Their stuff’s not very ‘crafty’ – and that one’s rubbish”
“Shhh”
“well, it is”

Craft is probably The Next Big Thing. That nice Kirstie “Location x 3″ Allsop was on the other night making stockings and blowing her own baubles, which sounds like an entertaining evening.

Fiona, it turns out, is a dab hand at the sales chit-chat, largely because she was among her own people. There were discussion which i think related to buttons and crochet and ribbons but beyond that it all got too technical. I skulked and hoped no-one asked me anything tricky

I can confirm that the mulled wine stall was most excellent.

Don’t stand so close to me (cos you’re a twat)

Posted on December 3, 2009 
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As mentioned on the fabulous Non-Working Monkey blog, there is a Facebook page you must join in the name of all that is good. Come and feast your eyes on pictures of Sting looking like a twat

Recently saw the aforementioned on The Culture Show re-discovering his folk roots, or returning to his true musical love, or paying respect to the music of his forefathers or whatever reason he’s giving for pretending to like folk music, by playing an acoustic guitar and singing in a bar with some proper folkies (Kathryn Tickell for one). Things is, when they zoomed in on his moody mug, he appeared to be using in-ear monitors, the fancy-pants headphones you wear on stage to hear yourself over the noise of big amps and drum kits and fifty thousand adoring fans screaming your name. Not something that has any place in an empty bar when playing with other, unamplified musicians.

Unless of course you’re an egotistical rock star completely out of touch with reality.

And a twat.

Ewa Woo Wa Awa’

Posted on November 19, 2009 
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Sad to hear that Edward Woodward has died. I used to LOVE “The Equalizer” as a kid but his place in my heart comes from his performance as Neil Howie in “The Wicker Man”, one of my all time favourite films. I could write reams about how and why it’s a great film, but Woodward is the key to it. His performance as the outsider trying to worm his way into an island community he can’t begin to understand is still stunning today.

I’ve been listening to the soundtrack (which i also recommend) and was slightly disturbed to hear the following:-

“How a maid can milk a bull
and every stroke a bucketful”

good lord.

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