Diary of an up and coming sociopath

I sacrificed an entire evening’s free time to attend that pixies gig, but if there’s one band that’s guaranteed to be worth it, it’s them. You can tell this was a gret gig because I actually had beer-hair by the end of it, which I’ve been otherwise free of for some time now. I’ll do a bigger entry on it later because while my mind is still fresh, my body is going “argh god no get into bed for the love of christ” and I’m starting to see its point really.

Even now it’s taking enormous restraint not to articulate how much you’ve missed out if you’ve never seen the Pixies live.

Restraint I just about have… until tomorrow.

Christ, what a weekend. Well, extended weekend. Broken up into convenient day-related chunks, it all went a lot like this:

Thursday

We left around midday. That is, me, Nikki and Al. The car was packed with all of our camping gear and the journey was relatively swift. Getting to Reading proved incredibly easy, especially due to the new proximity to the M4, where in previous years it’s meant an lengthy battle to get from the M40 to the M4. Unfortunately we were faced with a traffic queue which lasted as long as the rest of the journey once we got into Reading. I managed to cut off about an hour from it just by going up a sliproad off the A33, over a roundabout and then back down onto the A33, which put us about half a mile in front of where we were. After that we were at least moving instead of totally stationary. On the way down towards Richfield Avenue Al was pointing out how many girls there were wearing miniskirts and wellies (a la Kate Moss) and we saw a Goth guy wearing a T-Shirt that read “Total Fucking Darkness” being dropped off by his dad about 2 minutes away from the entrance, who handed him a carrier bag of food and his nicely tied-up sleeping bag to carry, before helping him get his rucksack on, checking he was okay and sending him off with a pat on the shoulder. Total Fucking Darkness indeed.

We parked up and headed off for the campsite. Trying to find out where Dan and Co. were camped left us wandering around a longer-than-necessary route and then before we reached them a short rainstorm soaked us completely. The heat soon dried us off and we had the tent pitched just in time for the next one, which was a full blown half hour thunderstorm of biblical proportions that really set the environmental parameters for the first day or two. From that point on the campsite was deep in mud, though I was able to navigate it pretty well even without wellies. We had a wander around, exchanged our tickets for wristbands and had jacket potatoes for dinner, then later went up to the petrol station and bought some reading material for the in-tent downtime, preparing for the eventuality that it might be a theme for the weekend. We bumped into graham on the way back, who was stewarding for Oxfam, but didn’t get to see him again because the mobile network was screwed all weekend and we couldn’t get in contact. When we got back I deployed my new sleeping bag, literally bought on wednesday for this occasion, and we ceated makeshift pillows as best was possible. Earlier before the mobiles went to shit we found out from a text that Si was in Brown Road 10, which is the same place we were, but it still took the best part of a weekend to meet up properly. He was actually camped about 5 feet away from where we discovered a severed sheeps head staring up at us from the ground on one walk back to find a quicker route back to the car. The night was incredibly cold, and I woke up several times throughout, though I wasn’t so affected by the heat as some had been, it was more about the unfamiliarity of trying to get to sleep on the fucking ground again after 3 solid years of indoor-comfort.

Friday

Woke up at around 9. Managed to stay in bed until around 11, and was glad to see that the tent hadn’t leaked horribly or anything. In fact, there didn’t seem to be much rain at all. Some rather foreboding clouds in the distance, but it was actually quite warm. Overcast, but warm. It didn’t take long to get into the arena and we started by having a lookat Bedouin Soundclash in the Dance tent, then thought better of it and went to see Do Me Bad Things. They were quite bad, really, the single (What’s Hideous) is alright, but the rest of their songs don’t sound remotely like that and they don’t even seem to pull that together very well live. Luckily, Goldie Lookin’ Chain were next. As Britain’s Most Ironic Rap Fan, I was glad to be seeing Britain’s most Ironic Rap Group, and they were fucking hilarious. I don’t believe anyone as chavvy as they present themselves could be as self-aware. They are collectively nothing less than Welsh Eminems. They did a few new songs, though to be fair I’ve only ever heard “Gun’s don’t kill people” before so it was mostly new to me, but I found them all really funny. I’d go and see them again at a festival, because they’re the kind of act that works as a novelty. After them we wandered off to have a look at Blood Brothers over on the NME stage, but they were really awful, so we went to the Comedy Stage and I watched Dead Leaves while Nikki read for a bit.

Once Dead Leaves was done, we saw some of the Dropkick Murphys who are a bit Flogging Molly-esque in their upbeat traditional celtic/gaelic folk meets rock way. It’s fair to say it’s not remotely my kind of music and I was pretty glad when they were done, especially because Graham Coxon was next. I’ve owned a Coxon T-Shirt since his second album came out due to EMI’s gratuity, but I’ve never actually seen him live. I’ve missed the opportunity once or twice, but this time I was actually available for it. Which was good, because I enjoyed it. Could’ve done with knowing a few more of the songs, but that’s my own fault really. I only knew a couple and being the undiscerning radio-listener that I am I enjoyed Freakin’ Out most. We stayed around after that for some of Elbow’s set, but I find them so terminally dull I’ve actually repressed the memory of why I even came to hold that opinion, and we cleared off after a few songs. Fightstar were next in the NME tent, so we headed up to join the road-crash mentality of it all. We met up with Al outside, who recommended the Shaken Udder milkshakes. Fightstar are just hideously unremarkable so once the novelty of seeing that dude from Busted getting booed had worn off we went back and watched the Coral on the main stage, then back to see The Cooper Temple Clause in the NME tent.

We’ve seen TCTC live once or twice and despite sounding pretty good on CD they’ve never done anything but leave us with feedback and distortion to listen to. Once again, this was the case, and clearly a lot of people were similarly underwhelmed because the crowd were deserting an already remarkably empty tent, even though no-one was starting elsewhere to suggest that they might be. We stayed longer than about half of the people there, but we eventually buggered off and had some food, and caught the second half of QOTSA who were far better. Nikki watched the Killers, but not wanting to miss Charlotte Hatherley on the Carling Stage I buggered off without getting to hear the only Killers song I really like (Mr. Brightside) and without Nikki, who wanted to hear whatever song they have that’s got the “I got soul” line in. As sod’s law would have it those were the only two songs played after I left, but oh well. Charlotte Hatherley was utterly awesome and played a bunch of songs off Grey Will Fade, as well as a cover of Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America” which was quite easily the non-Pixies highlight of the day. I had to leave early though, because the Pixies were there to provide the actual highlights of the day. She did announce that there’d be a special guest later on and I became paranoid at one point that, marriage and honeymoon be damned, it might be Lauren Laverne (since I didn’t see Hatherley play Bastardo and she’s in the video for it) but it turned out to be Graham Coxon, who I’m not so bothered about missing for the Pixies.

The Pixies that were fucking awesome as ever, as well. They played a surprisingly heavy on songs from their latter two albums which was quite cool, since I’d not heard a lot of those songs live. There was some amusing banter, including a dedication of “Broken Face” by Kim to a girl who broke her neck earlier in the day which left Frank Black slightly bemused (from memory: Kim: “We should dedicate this next song to that girl who broke her neck, right?” Frank: “er…I don’t know what to say. Hope to god she’s alright. I gave her my e-mail address.”) They played all the big favourites and the only one I really wanted them to include that they didin’t was Winterlong. Nikki’s bought me a soundboard recording of this for my Birthday, which is great, because I love versions of In Heaven with Kim on vocals, almost as much as I love having bootlegs of gigs I was at.

The sleeping came much easier tonight. I’d had some tea, which to my surprise DIDN’T contain UHT milk, and tasted really good, so that helped, and I put some socks on to prevent my main source of temperature-related problems, which was waking up, stretching my legs out and finding that the end of my sleeping bag was cold. Once in bed, I was out like a light for the next 10 hours or so.

Saturday

The weather was looking much warmer today. Friday had been warm but often overcast, and with some showers. To use the technical jargon. On Saturday the sun was actually out, but in many ways it was too late for suncream because friday’s deceptive weather had already burnt my face. I did keep applying the sunblock today anyway, but it was increasingly futile. We went to the record fair next door and had a browse, and picked p some free glow-in-the-dark “Make Zombies History” Land of the Dead wristbands. Finally, a cause I can get behind. I spent the whole of All American Rejects set waiting in line for the toilets, which of 6 in a cabin, 3 were working. And when I say “working” I mean “not overflowing with shit and vomit” like the others. Then I had to queue to leave because the AAR set finished and everyone decided it was so good they needed to use the toilets. Nikki, and I, wondered if I’d ever make it out. We stayed around the main stage for Biffy Clyro who I’ve never seen them live. I did have tickets for a gig in Oxford but then had a cold on the day so Tom went instead. They were pretty good, and the hair is just like, wild. I had us watch a bit of Roots Manuva because I was in the mood for a bit of hip hop and frankly, no-one else on the bill even comes close to it. As with Fightstar, the car-crash novelty value sent us to see Juliette and the Licks. I’d say stick to acting, but she sucks at that as well from what I’ve seen.

We then went to the Bacardi B-Bar to listen to Eddie Temple-Morris do a DJ set since I spent a lot of time dirivng down the M40 on a sunday night listening to his show, such that I even knew who people in the dance tent were this year. It was a pretty cool set, and the B-Bar had the added bonus of actual seating outside, though unfortunately without any shade. We watched the Charlatans - I can’t believe they’re still playing North Country Boy after this long - and then went to see Hot Hot Heat. I much prefer their new stuff to the old, though they did finish with “Bandages” which just reminded us of how Relly pointed out that it sounds like “panda jizz” in the chorus. Then it was the Arcade Fire, who I’ve been waiting to see live for what seems like half the year now. Nikki was watching from the side of the tent, so I went into the crowd to get to the front, and as you may have read they were fucking amazing. The entire thing was the closest thing I’ve had to a religious experience right from the word go. It was almost as powerful an experience as seeing the Pixies for the first time, in fact. I’m specifically talking about Wake Up, Power Out, and No Cars Go, but it was all great, and makes me all the more bitter that I can’t see them live again immediately. While I psychologically recovered from my inner-awakening we stayed about for the Babyshambles who played like utter shite and I’ll be frankly glad when Doherty’s corpse turns up in a ditch because everything I’ve seen about the man suggests he’s an arsehole of the highest order with zero redeeming qualities, his pathetic behaviour dominates the scene and I’d like nothing more than to try reading the music news without having to see what the latest hard drugs he’s been shoving up his heroin-filled rectum are. And his music’s not even that good. Not bad, but when the artist is so repulsive on every level it’s easy to hate the art. Just…don’t get me started. Though I suspect it’s too late for that.

The antidote to the Babyshambles unpleasantess arrived in the form of Foo. Fighters, that is. Dave Grohl’s gone a bit prog with some freeform interludes in the middle of songs but I enjoyed that, and it was an utterly hits laden set, and when he gives a short speech in the middle about how much he loves Reading it’s utterly impossible not to feel glad to be there watching them. Anyone who’d skip the Foos at Reading is missing out big time, and I suspect the Tears found this out the hard way because their NME stage slot opposite was (reportedly) impressively empty for such an act. I’ve seen Grohl & Friends about 4 times now and they just keep improving. At one point Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl swapped places and Taylor did lead vocals on a song while Dave drummed. It was all just great, it had crowd interaction, hits, rarities and improvisation. Everything you could want out of a live set and more.

Sunday

We packed up our stuff on Sunday morning and took it all to the car, and finally met up with Si on the way back who actually had camped about 50 metres from where we were. We exchanged Reading horror stories and opinions on the bands we’d seen, and then Nikki and I went off to get some food. The prevailing opinion from a lot of the people I’ve spoken to was that Sunday was an incredibly pointless day, and we found ourselves lacking anyone to see for the first hour or two ourselves, so we went and got some lunch at the Carvery next door. It was only a fiver! Fucking score. We then went and checked out the bootleg tees and I got myself a Doolitte album cover t-shirt, which is exactly what I’ve been after for like a year. The last one, as well.

We got back to the arena and watched the Manga film X, Hugh Lennon - a hypnotist mentioned in the Danny Wallace book “Yes Man” and then a little of Funeral for a Friend, before decamping to the NME stage and watching Sons and Daughters, Hal, Maximo Park and The Duke Spirit. I’m not a huge fan of the more recent british rock movements (more like bowel movements, am I rite?) that have sprung up so I wasn’t so big on maximo park, bit I really enjoyed Hal. The Duke Spirit cleared us out pretty fast though, and I would go so far as to say I consider them to be “terrible.” How you say, their music is bad like nail in foot? Si was watching elsewhere and I later discovered he watched exactly the same set of bands as us that morning and was also only moved when the Duke Spirit came out.

We had a final wander around the shops (I discovered Ben & Jerry’s “Completely Mintal” Ice Cream. WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED EARLIER?) We returned to the NME stage for British Sea Power, then went to see Marilyn Manson. I preferred his set last time we saw him at Reading, but he’s still putting on an incredibly watchable show. His set’s packed with covers, though, and it’s good that his theatrics are good because the singing sounds incredibly painful compared to how it used to. There are rumours that this is going to be his last UK appearance before retirement into other forms of art, and if true it’s probably not a move too soon. I did wonder at the time just what exactly, as a purveyor of “shock” his point was anymore. In a world with an increasingly visible black metal scene where scandanavian artists are literally killing and eating their bandmates, I’m not so sure Marilyn Manson’s particular brand of evil goth makeup is all that scary or challenging anymore. Good music, but he seems to have lost his relevance a bit. I reckon he’d do pretty well moving into films and stuff compared to where his music’s got left to go.

After all the aforementioned scary goth theatrics, we went and saw the Futureheads. Just for something to do, really, because I don’t like them much. We watched a bit and they were inoffensive, but they were one of many bands at Reading I was going to see if hearing the material live made it grow on me more than it did from the radio. After seeing them we went and got a Terry’s chocolate orange milkshake from the place Al recommended (the Shaken Udder) which might sound like an odd flavour, but when you understand it was achieved by sticking milk and a chocolate orange bar into a blender you can probably understand how it was quite drinkable. Actually sharing a milkshake with Nikki (one cup, two straws) made me feel like we were in 50s America. Then we went and watched Iron Maiden who made it feel like 70s America. I can’t fathom how a band like Iron Maiden keeps going, nor how people are supposed to know the songs they play. Who here actually owns an iron maiden album!? 30 years of heavy metal and I struggle to name 3 songs by them. Impressive technical ability but musically you must know by now that I’m way too cool to actually like it, even ironically.

With Iron Maiden viewed for posterity, we snuck out just before the end so that we could avoid the rush. We got back here and managed a shower each before bed. I slept for about 9 hours solid, and having rested I get to go to work tomorrow. Yay. At least I can buy the comics I missed last week. I look forward to Reading next year, should the bands warrant it. I wondered if I was maybe getting a bit past going to festivals but it’s been as great as ever. It usually works out as my year’s holiday, though I’ve got the tenerife deal soon. Though that’s technically work…

We eventualyl sent Tom off with a smile and a wave on Sunday morning. He made it to spain fine and is now enjoying it as much as he enjoys anything, I guess. He gets to be bored and discontent in a new environment, anyway, which is all any of us ever want.

Which is probably why I’m glad to be going to Reading tomorrow. The weather’s looking a mite dodgy but who honestly gives a shit? I think the fact I’m getting a bunch of time off work might be affecting my perception here. I much enjoy the new job to the old, but work is still work, and time off is still great. It’s not that I love being unwashed and filthy, but it’s been 3 years since I last camped at a festival and the whole experience is taking on a rose-tinted nostalgic hue. Who knows, maybe I’ll re-evaluate after this.

There’s probably going to be an extensive post detailing everything with painstaking attention, but I just thought I owed it to myself to actually do an update of some kind before disappearing for 4-5 days. I can’t remember being out contact with the blog for that long before, in fact. I may find some time to get online in some form (since if Tom can manage it using a mobile phone in spain, I’m sure I can do it from a few miles up the road)

I’m still working through Lolita. The book, I mean, you bunch of comedians. It’s turned from a literary curiosity into a damn good read during the course of the week. I actually find the narrative pretty funny a lot of the time (it’s supposed to be funny, I think) Tom told me he only knew the film and even sight unseen I was thinking “It won’t be as good as the book.” I was thinking of reading some essays about lolita to see what people have analysed out of the deeper layers of it, but I’ve been on the internet long enough that I know putting the word “lolita” into a search engine is probably not the smartest idea. Even now, the amount of times I’ve written…that word makes me wonder what sort of traffic I’m going to attract.

Ah well. Guess I’ll sign off until Monday. We may come back sunday night, but I don’t really fancy the chances for any blogging afterwards. Should still be contactable by text, if you just can’t live without my witticisms. Unfortunately I’m not about to give the number out over the internet, so you’d better hope you’ve got the right number.

A couple of busy weeks coupled with some slow weeks for comics has left me playing catchup a little. 2 weeks after reading a comic it’s already well on its way into fading memory so a few of these might start getting vague, but I feel obliged to do them for completeness’ sake.

New Thunderbolts #11 - I’m currently failing to see how this fits in the ongoing story especially well. As a House of M tie-in, it’s trying its best but it doesn’t seem to have even a peripheral connection to the main plot of HoM, and its connection to the main plot of Thunderbolts seems a bit laboured. It was a brave choice, to try and make the HoM issue read seamlessly but there’s so much information flying about here I’m failing to be engaged by it on a plot level. I’ve only manged to read it once, and I usually read through things a few times before consigning them to the comic box for archiving. Art is as good as ever, but this month the plot and script have left me dead cold. New Thunderbolts is comissioned through issue #24, but i’m feeling that Nicieza’s writing on this has been ncreasingly patchy, and no matter how much I love the characters and concept I don’t see it surviving much beyond #24. A shame, but Thunderbolts has been quite badly treated by Marvel in the past and I don’t see any likelihood of that changing in the future. But then, when it’s getting them work like this, you can kind of see their point. D+.

Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #1 - This is such a great comic. Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate Kitty Pryd go on a date, and stuff affecting continuity actually happens. Much like Peter, I’m both surprised and glad of this plot development, even if it does mean MJ is getting well and truly chucked as a result. Rationally, I know it can’t last, but this is great territory for the Ultimate titles to break into away from the 616 universe. Thematically, it also makes a lot of sense because Peter’s problems with MJ are entirely about how she’s just going to get herself hurt. Kitty, on the other hand, can’t get hurt because of her powers. The Art isn’t from Bagley which is incredibly strange for an Ultimate spider-man title. Not unprecendented, but strange. Entirely welcome though, because Mark Brooks’ art is a welcome change. It’s slightly manga-influenced, but retains a lot of american flavour, and I’ve been quite interested in seeing some of his work ever since I saw some samples of it. If Bagley ever left, I can think of no-one better to keep drawing Ultimate Spider-Man. A+

X-Men #174: Bizarre Love Triangle, Part 4 - An incredibly disappointing end to a storyline that looked like it was about to explode. Turns out that it’s little more than a trailer for future storylines, complete with shadowy benefactor epilogue. It was quie cool to see Mystique and Nightcrawler interact given how they’re related, and having the rest of the X-Men actually around was an all-too-rare acknowledgement of the other books. The big problem I’ve got with this is that the reader doesn’t find out the truth about what’s been going on, even thought Rogue does. I’m not a fan of ambiguous endings. Or, at least, I’m not a fan of ambiguous endings when the driving force of the story is a whodunnit-style mystery. The colouring I’ve bene complaining about a lot actually seems to have improved a little this issue, but it’s hardly a saving grace. C for the issue, C+ for the storyline as a whole. Iit’s had some good material but the quality has been uneven. Milligan’s better than Austen, but only because he’s actually writing competently. I expected something a little more bizarre and quirky, really, rather than the relatively tame material we’ve had so far.

House of M #5 - Again, brilliant stuff. Choosing not to “awaken” Captain America was a wonderful moment though it’s ambiguous as to whether she does or not. The good ambiguous, this time. Spider-Man’s realisation was played quite well as he comes to terms with how badly he’s been screwed over this time, and of all the stories his might have some truly lasting repurcussions. The revelation of Xavier’s death didn’t really get me all that worked up, because it’s happened before, and I know the MU isn’t stuck as the HoM universe, so he can’t be their “only” hope. If the rumours about the X-Men 3 movie plot are true then it’ll be interesting to see whether they do actually keep Xavier dead. I don’t count on it, personally. It’s a bit strange to see the wheels of the story are only just about turning 5 issues in, but I can’t complain too much about character-writing this great. A+ again.

Incredible Hulk #85 - 3rd and final (?) HoM tie-in and I just can’t bring myself to care. Definitely something that should’ve been a House of M miniseries. I wish i’d been buying the Hulk/Abomination miniseries instead of this. PAD’s not doing his best Hulk work ever and i think I’m done with it, actually. I’ll give the next issue a flick through on the shelf, but once this story is complete (if it isn’t already) I might just quit for now. think I saw mention of a big Hulk story to come next year so maybe post-HoM there’ll be a good change. Right now it’s skating on pretty thin ice. A pity PAD’s return to Hulk has stalled for me like this, but it can’t have done a huge amount for PAD himself because he’s leaving soon, to be replaced by Daniel Way. C-.

Yesterday Tom arrived from Edinburgh. He’s on his way to Spain where he’s going to live for the next few months, and since he lives up the other end of the country we roped him into staying here for a day or two before he goes. The plane flies from London, after all. Trust me, I’m a travel category developer.

In practise, this has meant sitting around watching anime and debating the futility of existance/politics and all that stuff what we used tot alk about when we were students together in Oxford. Much has changed since that fateful time, though when we’re all together it’s as if no time has passed at all. A depressing reality. Tom showed us a proxy he wrote that runs on his PC in Edinburgh and strips out unnecessary text from his IRC conversations in what is a stroke of utter genius, because it means he can save money on his GPRS connection while abroad because it’s taking care of stuff and only sending the essential data through his phone. This probably doesn’t mean a great deal to a lot of you but anyone who’s a proper compter geek will recognise the brilliance. Only a scotsman could come up with such a way of saving money.

This morning we went to Tescos and Tom bought himself some essentials for the time away, like socks, and then in the evening we went to the Toby Carvery up the road in Windsor. I bought Tom his last meal in the UK, partially in celebration of how I somehow have actualy not maxed out my overdraft this month. By the time Reading rolls around I’ll be paid again at my new rate and things will hopefully be even better next month. Between paying off debts and buying a new PC, it’s a useful time to be spending less. Not that you’d notice, because I bought another Alias TPB the other day. I’ve been waiting for Volumes 1 and 2 to be re-released for well over a year now, and suddenly they both spring up within 2 weeks of each other. Can’t complain.

Last night the Tech Team at work celebrated the end of Q2 2005 by shooting some pool. At the end of each quarter, the higher ups give us budget for a social event and this time, it was decided that we should do something other than a meal for a change. We almost ended up going bowling, but luckily someone suggested we hire a pool club and thankfully that was the prevailing choice.

I’d walked past the particular pool club many a time, and I’ve no doubt people reading this have. The entrance is located in the subway besides TCR Tube station/The Astoria. It’s the one where the air is percolated with the stench of stale urine. It’s quite a dingy club in many ways. Actually, the smeel of the place reminded me of my childhood in Tachbrook social clubs and whatnot. Luckily, Pool’s not a game that requires a sophisticated environment and so it turned out pretty well. I stayed until half 10 and had 7 games in total, I think. I won 2 singles games, against Vince and Steven, but they also beat me in return. I played a doubles with Maarten, against Mike and Phong, the doubles team who eventually came first in the doubles tournament. We only lost that by one ball. A personal victory, if not a sporting one. Afterwards, Vince and I played Garry (new boss) and Ben (old boss) and received a righteous thrashing, though it was clearly an act of respectful deference on my part. Finally, at the end of the night, Steven and I played Gavin and Mike (lost that) and then Mike and I played Steven and Gavin (won that).

As you can see, I’m not the most accomplished player. I only remembered about halfway through the night how to hit the balls properly, when I discovered ou had to follow through on the cue strokes for best results and it all came flooding back. Unfortunately, I don’t get to play pool very often even though I quite enjoy it (even when I lose) so I was thinking that I’d buy a pool table when my mid-life crisis hits. I’ll add it to the overall life plan.

I finally got in at about half 11, having found the opportunity on that journey to start reading Lolita. I was kind of right about not being disturbed, but it’s fair to say it’s deeply uncomfortable. Compelling, but uncomfortable. It’s a far denser book that I’ve read for some time so it’s a nice change in style to read something a bit less contemporary. Maybe Nabokov was the Palahniuk of his time. i was doing quite well in reading books on the tube until today when, distracted by my new Alias TPB, I almost missed my stop on the way home. It’s a deeply difficult thing to do, retaining dignity while running for the tube doors. I’ve never actually gotten stuck in them, but it’s hard to pretend that you were intending to carry all your stuff around in a bundle instead of having it packed back into your bag. At least I didn’t fall over.

I finished Eleanor Rigby yesterday. It was a most pleasing read. The back of it has a quote from some guy claiming that Coupland’s last four novels have redefined fiction or something, but that includes “Miss Wyoming” which is one of my least favourite Coupland books, so I’m not sure how much I agree with that opinion. The last three books have been damn good though. Eleanor Rigby especially is a departure in a lot of ways, for Coupland, because the narrative style is quite obviously different from his previous books, the attitudes of the protaganist being more obvious and yet less forced than his previous works.

He’s still into his non-linear method of story telling and this book takes place in at least three different time periods. It gets a bit meta towards the end when the protaganist starts going on about how people just view narrators in books as looking like generic everymen or some kind of extension of themselves, and because Coupland’s doing that to try and emphasise that in this case, it’s important that the protaganist i s fat it starts to get a bit heavy-handed. Coupland has spoken about how he deliberately omits the small details occasionally so that people will fill them in from their own life and memories and thus connect with the work better, but when stripped of that technique he seems a little lost as to how to proceed.

That’s a minor niggle though. The narrative tangents and substories of extreme profundity and irreverence are still present, which makes it worth reading. I’m not sure I’d say it’s my favourite Coupland book, but it’s in the better half. This may be the first time he’s done an all-female-protaganist book, and being make i have some difficulties connecting well to female characters, not huge difficulty, just not as much ease as with male ones I guess.

Looking back at when I finished Hey! Nostradamus 2 years ago, I see that one of my criticisms was that the narrative seemed inspecific to each character. He’s got over that one quite well. Coupland has had a new novel out in august/september 2001, 2003, 3004 and he’s about to have jPod in 2006. He’s really churning them out, and a great thing about only having just read this one is that the wait until the next is much shorter than it should’ve been.

Having finished this book, I went in search of a new one. I couldn’t find anything I wanted to buy, except maybe a copy of the Dragon and the George, the novel upon which childhood-favourite movie the Flight of Dragons was based. But me, read fantasy? I’m not sure even the FoD connection can keep me interested. Though, I may yet have to give it a shot. I finally settled upon borrowing Lolita off Nikki, since I’ve never read it and I feel there isn’t enough Russian literature in my diet. I wonder if it’s an odd book to read on the tube. I know it’s Literature (capital L) but everyone knows what it’s about and it’s linked by the very lexicon to one of societies most unacceptable themes. Frankly after reading Haunted I’m not so sure I’ll be remotely disturbed by any of the content, but I can see how the reactionary tube-riding public might judge me. Because everyone on the tube is a detestable moron. I’ll let you know if it’s any good or not, anyway, and if I get any strange looks.

Jsh and I spent the better part of the last two hours trying to restore functionality to this PC after the graphics card died and then, in a fit of resetting when I was testing the replacement, I managed to corrupt a necessary startup file. We eventually fixed it using a really excellent compilation DVD Al found that’s bootable and stacked with utilities and operating systems the likes of which are obscene. It’s like the Jesus of all startup disks.

So, Ian will no doubt be pleased to learn that the geforce he loaned me around 2 years ago has crapped out. It’s not like I even abused it, it just stoped working. I should’ve realised something was up after all the tearing and texture corruption, but I assumed that was a symptom of the game rather than the hardware. Ah well. I’m currently running on Nikki’s old GeFOrce 2 and in the mean time, my determination to get a new PC has increased.

This weekend we went back home for a couple of days. It seemed like a good time to do it, given how long it’ll be before the next opportunity arises. I was asked by 4 seperate people to fix 5 different TVs but in the rush to fit all my business in I only managed to do 3, and one of those was unfixable. Not a bad rate though. I sorted out some stuff with Dad about the program I’m doing for his company, and possibly a website too, and then had dinner at Nan’s. Everyone seemed to take great delight in the fact that I’m going to Tenerife, though some for different reasons than others.

On the way back home, Nikki and I picked up my Generation X comics from the post office, and I read a bunch of them over the course of the weekend. Given the overall quality of comics at the time, they’re damn good. I had intended to do some examining of this week’s comics tonight but the knackered PC scuppered that. I’ll have to do them tomorrow now, which concerns me deeply because I don’t like doing them too close together. Yet somehow, I’ll find a way…

It’s been a damn quick week. These days I actually do stuff at work that, while not necessarily interesting per se, is certainly mentally stimulating. It helps the hours fly by. And the days. And then probably the weeks. Weekends, unfortunately, become subject to the same compression. I’m actually booked solid for the next few weekends - at home tomorrow and sunday, Tom’s coming down next weekend, the one after is Reading and the one after that is my Birthday (though the day itself is a Friday) Then, actually, the weekend after /that/ is this work Tenerife deal, assuming my passport arrives in time. After all that leisure I’m going to need some time off. I’ve got loads of holiday to take before the end of the year, so I’d better start cramming it in there.

Actually, the approach of my birthday makes me wonder what to ask for. I forget whether I’ve mentioned, but I’ve recently come to the conclusion that it’s time to build myself a new PC, so a birthday would be a good time to take advantage of that. Having a salary makes birthdays seem far less about the acquisition of material goods, though, and more about the acquisition of an extra year on the corpse.

Though speaking of material goods, I’m really overspending this month. I had planned to go into FP yesterday, buy my comics and get the hell out without wasting more money, but they discounted a bunch of Marvel Pocketbooks, which are Digest-sized full color reprints of silver-age comics. I bought two for £7 and got 18 issues worth of reading material - Giant Size X-Men #1, and Uncanny X-Men #94-118 - It’s about 95 stuff I’ve never read and which I’d otherwise have trouble getting to read properly (since I don’t care for the “Essential” line of black and white reprints) so it was an unmissable purchase really. I’m less bothered about the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four ones, but the Hulk book reprinting the original Hulk 6-issue series is tempting me deeply. I’ll think about it next week.

Despite my many problems with SMS, mine and Nikki’s Reading tickets were delivered to me at work today. I feel much better now they’re in my hand because frankly, I wouldn’t trust SMS to deliver something 2 doors down the street without significant delays. There’s a very helpful customer service woman who has answered my every question and done her best to sort out the deliveries, but given how i’ve needed to converse with her twice having only had two deliveries from them, it’s not exactly a glowing selling point. As of now, I’m sworn off See Tickets, Wayahead, gigsandtours.com and any of their affiliates for every gig where alternate vendors can be found from now on, until they stop using SMS to deliver the tickets. I shouldn’t have to work so hard to get something I’ve already paid for. I get the feeling most of my postage charges are going into See’s back pocket while they hire SMS for a tuppence per package. Yuu only have to look at their reviews page to see what sort of business they’re running.

I am discovering late in the day that San Andreas is a great game.

I am also discovering late in the day that Brian Wood’s Couriers graphic novels are fucking awesome stuff.

I’m finding it hard, while playing San Andreas, not to think “They shoud modify this engine into a Couriers game!”

Such is the melting pot of pop culture.

non-sequitar: I’ve decided that enough’s enough. It’s time to start saving to upgrade my PC. Upgrade in a “I’ve had this brrom 10 years and it’s only had 4 new brushes and 5 new handles” way, that is. Sometime soon I hope to have a machine about six times better than my current one. Naturally, I’ll be building it myself, because I’m the only person I can trust in that regard. I built this PC with my nothing but my bare hands and a screwdriver on christmas day 1999 and it’s been the most consistently stable machines I’ve ever had the pleasure of using. It’s starting to show its age a bit though, so I think it may be time to take this old hound out into the back garden with the shotgun and give it the send-off it deserves, then get myself a new bitch. And a new PC. HAHA, you see what I did there did you not? See how I skillfully manipulate your pathetic expectations!?