Diary of an up and coming sociopath

3 years ago:
Josh and I met Douglas Coupland, the first time. By way of festivals, we went to V for a day with Relly and Graham. One of my favourite blogging experiences, the Muse album “review” I did that turned into an abuse-fest was still in full swing, and I was spending the summer intermittantly gamestesting at AP. Hey Ya was approaching release and sounded like a fresh new single ready to bring Outkast to the forefront with heavy rotation on XFM. Little did we know. We’d been at Morrell Avenue about a year, with another year to go. Claire and Debbie were moving out, Nikki, Tom and David were staying, and Ian was moving in.

2 years ago:
I was not at Reading, or indeed, any festivals that year. Josh, Nikki and I were discovering that Coventry has a carnival, and I am only now realising that it’s probably related in some fashion to the Notting Hill Carnival. I find it kind of funny that as a result of going to festivals for like 8 years I manage to totally ignore any other events of cultural significance around the end of August. The day or so after, we went to the Town and Country Show and discovered Alpacas, which are suddenly in the news quite a lot again this month, perhaps because of events like the town and country. This point was slightly before we had a house nailed down in London. I was living out of boxes at home, David and Tom had gone back home for good, and Nikki was back at home with her Mum. Josh was probably at his Aunt’s by this point, and Ian was living on George’s floor. It all came together in the end though.

1 year ago:
I was at Reading. I saw the Arcade Fire live, and the Pixies, and Eddie Temple-Morris doing a DJ set. I think I covered the more memorable stuff in the entry, to be honest. Festivals have this tendancy to blur into a hazy few days of watching bands and being filthy, but it’s always great fun. Ian, Josh, Al and I had lived here a year, and Nikki had just moved in full time, having finished Uni. I’d been doing my new job a couple of weeks and the company were preparing to ship us off to Tenerife, a reality I was still accepting.

Today:
We went shopping for one of the final times before we move out of our current house after two years. Ian’s got his own place secured, Al’s found somewhere to move in with Sam, and Josh is going to stay with Nikki and me in a place in Ealing Broadway while we begin the arduous task of saving up to try and buy somewhere. Seb moved down to Ealing a few weeks ago, and we spent the evening at his and Cappsy’s place debating whether Lost is actually any good or not (it clearly is), reading the Mr. Bean diary, and going over ye olde “What the hell’s wrong with the matrix sequels?!” debate. Nikki and I went to the V festival the other week and had a great time as ever. I’m listening to Frontline, the song Captain played at V which I liked the most. I’ll go see them next time they tour. At Seb’s, we watched Reading coverage on TV and it’s made me regret not going, even if the lineup wasn’t exactly great (though we also couldn’t get tickets.) This year I’m going to try and buy the 2007 presale tickets so that I’m definitely in a position to go next year, because I reckon I can afford it, for a change. It’s the best way to ensure we can go if we want.

Notably, it’s now less than a week until the glorious anniversary of my birth, the 24th, in fact, if we think of it in terms of your human years.

So, I’m acutely aware that there’s a lot to sort though.

On Friday, Nikki and I went back home, in preparation for the drive to Stafford. After having dinner at Mum’s and watching some of the X-Factor (best moment - some teenager with a voice like a strangled cat blubbering that rejection from this leaves her dreams in tatters and makes it seem like her whole life has been wasted. Yes. Yes it has you moron. My god there’s a rant here but I’m going to hold off on it just for now…)

After this, I went up to Josh’s and played Dead Rising and Saint’s Row, then watched some late-night Sky Digital, as you’ll invariably end up doing in that situation. This time we ended up watching Miami Ink, a drama-style documentary about a tattoo parlor. The most amusing part of this was when some plastified generic slut came into the shop and starting banging on about how she wanted a tattoo to remind her of inner peace whenever she looked at it, and almost before we’d predicted it (almost…) she was choosing to have the Kanji for “Inner Peace” on her lower back, where obviously she’ll be looking at it all the time. First they corrected her outdated kanji that she got off the internet, then got to work. She cried like a 6 year old for the duration of the inking, which was so ridiculously tiny compared to what other people had that it’s a wonder she felt it at all. It was utterly hilarious. In fact the whole episode is given a synopsis here.

The next morning, I picked Nikki up and we drove down to Stafford without any traffic problems whatsoever, and ended up in the queue even before the doors opened. It turned out to be a pretty good year. Not the best or anything (well, Radiohead were) but for a change we got to see a pretty decent amount of bands and rarely were we left bored and stuck for something to do. We started with the Dead 60s, who were alright but didn’t make much of an impression. Then we moved on to Biffy Clyro (on the second stage) who I’m not overly obsessed with but who put on a great performance whenever I see them. They also have an astonishing amount of hair.

After that we made ourselves very fucking scarce to avoid catching any of Kula Shaker, and headed straight for The Divine Comedy on the main stage. I’m surprised by how many Divine Comedy songs I know but I guess they’ve been around quite a while now, not that you’d believe that from how Neil Hannon managed to forget a verse in one of the songs. He did bravely fight his own coughing and spluttering to sing to the end of Something for the Weekend after accidently choking himself, though, and while it wasn’t perfect I know I appreciated the attempt. The Magic Numbers played afterwards, and as the first band I was really looking forward to seeing, they didn’t disappoint. The sun even came out a little, which was promising, since for most of the morning it hadn’t been raining, but it had been pretty grey.

Following their set, we legged it up to the V***n M*bile (sponsorship removed) Union tent to cement our Indie cred and see the Young Knives, though the place was utterly rammed to the point where after queueing to get in, we changed our minds once inside and sat nearby and listened that way instead. Wasn’t that keen, to be honest, though we hung around for Captain who were the following act and I was incredibly impressed by how tight they are as a band, given that they haven’t had any especially huge hits. Probably my favourite set of the day, besides Radiohead. After Captain we took some time out to go hunting for some clothes for me, because I needed some new fleece jackets, and I managed to find two appropriately-priced ones to replace my two tatty and faded ones that I’ve had for like 10 years. We also found the Spider-Man finger puppet that goes with the Hulk one we bought at the Wireless festival a few weeks ago!

Having successfully avoided Bloc Party, we were then “treated” to Keane’s horrible whinging for a good hour or so. Christ. Thanks to Gavin at work I did know the songs though, and somehow that makes them seem quicker, so at least it didn’t drag on too much. I also amused myself by remembering how Nikki and I decided the line “Crystal Ball, save us all” in their single sounds more like “Chris De Burgh, save us all.” Even if he could, he wouldn’t. Bastard.

Once Keane were over we faced the first real choice of the evening - whether to go see Editors or hang around for all of Beck. I’ve seen Beck several times and he’s usually crap, but he started first so we stayed for the first half hour or so. Luckily, not only was he great, with some really excellent puppets of him and his band on stage, he also played basically all the songs I could’ve wanted to see (except Where It’s At, which I assume we just missed) - he finally played Loser, which I’ve not seen before, and he played Devil’s Haircut AND Hell Yes AND Girl, all of which I enjoyed very much. Nonetheless, we decided to leave before things got too dodgy and went to see Editors. They weren’t actually that good. I really like their album, but when they’re playing live you might as well just have the CD in. There wasn’t really any variation or character added to the songs. There is such a thing as being too faithful, apparantly. During their set we went and bought Tea from the Shaken Udder (which I may have mentioned before…) because they gave you a huge cup of it (like, McDonalds Large sized cup, filled with tea for the same price they’ll flog you those crappy tiny things anywhere else) and they used real milk.

While I’m quite interested in seeing Kasabian live, they couldn’t compare to Radiohead, who let’s face it, were 100% of the reason we bought tickets in the first place. They played all sorts of stuff that was brilliant, including Airbag, My Iron Lung, Nude, Idioteque…actually, here’s the setlist:

Airbag / 2+2=5 / The National Anthem / My Iron Lung / Morning Bell / Fake Plastic Trees / The Bends / Videotape / Nude / The Gloaming / Paranoid Android / All I Need / Pyramid Song / Lucky / Just / Idioteque / Street Spirit /// You And Whose Army? / Karma Police /// Everything In Its Right Place / Creep 

Following the ‘head’s set, we left and attempted to find the car, which, due to some sloppy work on our part, took a bit longer than it should’ve, though we eventually used a systematic approach and discovered about 30 minutes later than we should’ve that we just hadn’t walked far enough up the field. Then I managed to squeeze us into a queue that was actually moving, to prevent a repeat of the last time we were at V where we were stranded immobile for like 3 hours…

Made it back in pleasingly adequate time, hit the sack, then drove back to Ealing the next morning and looked at some houses, one of which we put an offer in for which was today accepted, so if nothing else thank god that whole looking for a house horror-show is over. It’s just north of Ealing Broadway, which should mercifully cut my commute down by about 10-15 minutes or so. In the evening we took the tube up to Shepherds Bush to go see A Scanner Darkly at the VUE. The cinema there is oddly unstaffed - we bought our tickets from automated machines, though they were checked on the way in. The film is excellent, a definite candidate for DVD purchase, and a remarkably faithful adaptation of the book. Freck’s suicide attempt was brilliantly done in the film which was most pleasing, because it’s a hilarious chapter of the book. It’s got to be said that ASD is a very challenging film because it doesn’t have a Minority Report style plot-exposition phonecall at the end, though anyone with half a brain should figure it out (Oops. Unintentionally relevant turn of phrase.) Keanu Reeves ever acted out some *emotion* during the film. It was remarkable.

I was all ready to go back to work on Tuesday, but I awoke early in the morning delirious and vomitting, so I decided to take the day off. Looking back, I remember at about 6am being convinced that I had to get up else I’d miss my flight to work, which should’ve been a clear indication to me that something was amiss, however it took me actually chucking up to decide to leave it a day. In the afternoon when I was feeling better, Sam, Josh, Lorna and I went to the Burger King in Ealing Broadway to try one of their new Coke Ice thingies, the exact name for which I forget. It was pretty disappointing, to be honest. I can freeze ice at home.

Latest Pinky and the Brain quote to be amusing me: “Your words are like pipe bombs in my throbbing cerebellum.” Though it’s a new one every day.

Following yet another dodgy tube journey (I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever get to work on time this week) I took the Central Line home and against the odds managed to end up on the same bus home as Seb. It’s surprising how small the tube network can make London seem. Especially when it’s buggered and everyone has to cram together to get maximum space out of it. Ugh. This evening, Seb and his housemate (and fellow NTS writer) Cappsy came over to generally socialise and sample some of that Internet that they’re currently unable to get from home, and we watched a Pinky and the Brain episode that I like so much I’ve seen it twice and I’ve still not even got past the first disc in the set yet.

I’m mid-way through writing a review of the DVD set for NTS but sometimes I wonder if it some of what I write wouldn’t be better blogged here instead. It’s a thin line between letting the work stand independantly and creating a cult of personailty around yourself, as Warren Ellis will no doubt be aware. One thing that most people probably won’t be aware of is that in my formative teenage years, my biggest influences were MTV’s Daria, the Gen-X weirdo too apathetic to care about anything, and Brain, the megalomaniacal genius with a Napoleon complex, and I suspect that answers quite a few questions for some of you. Whether that sort of observation belongs in a review though, I suspect not. Which is why it’s turning up here.

Speaking of megalomania, my own plans to conquer the world kind of got screwed up recently when sealand burnt down. I had intended to use it as a staging ground for my crack team of international psychopaths composed mainly of people I can trust to die for the cause, but the chances of that are looking pretty slim because they’ve even gone so far as to put a “Paypal Donate!” button on their website, which even Lebanon has managed to avoid so far. Just.

It’s encouraging to find that Pinky and the Brain is, if anything, funnier than I remember it, because I’m getting jokes now that 7 years ago would’ve gone straight over my head. When I discovered the DVD set was out, I had to go and buy it very quickly, lest I start second guessing my impulse to get it, then I spent a few days concerned I’d just needlessly wasted money. Turned out great, though.

Anticipating the slightly packed weekend, on Friday we went to Tescos and were delighted to find our plans to buy a rotissery chicken to go with some chip shop chips totally bollocksed because the didn’t have any left. Luckily, we then discovered that Andy’s Fish and Chips, the nearest one to where we live, sells them itself, so all plans were back on, even if it did cost us twice as much.

On Saturday, Nikki went down to Brighton (ish) to see Paul and Relly and their kid. I flew solo helping Seb move his stuff down from Oxford to London. It took two trips, at least one of which perhaps skirted the boundaries of lawful behaviour, but we got everything down, and despite the traffic we made pretty good time in doing so as well. I came back and had dinner, and watched some of the aforementioned pinky and the brain, picked Nikki up from the station and finally managed to complete the latest GP to 3 star level on Mario Kart DS. Almost done with that particular project…

Today I went back home quick, though I’ll be back next week as a stopover on my way to the V Festival, which once again managed a stupid dance with SMS. I saw once again, because if you look elsewhere on this blog you’ll find that I’ve never actually managed to have a single smooth delivery from them. This time they totally ignored my redelivery request and 2 days after I was expecting them to be deliverted in London, they told me the tickets were still in the Birmingham depot. I did get them eventually, though I wonder why I ever do anything on their stupid site when I always end up going to their customer service people anyway…

Are you pondering what I’m pondering?

That is to say, watching my Pinky and the Brain DVDs when I get home from work.

That’s what I thought.

I know I’m not always around as much as I once was but please remember that I haven’t forgotten you and that I have written a review of JPod on NTS as penance for an increasingly relaxed attitude towards posting. I say “written,” I mean, I started it weeks ago but I decided that it was getting embarrasing and finished it off just now. It’s one of those reviews where, for some reason, I have my pretentious hat on so it might sound sort of like it’s written by a twat, but then I always think that when I write like that they actually seem like the ones in the paper, which from an “I want to be a writer one day” sense is kind of a good thing even if the thought makes me feel slightly violated.

On Saturday we went to Fruitstock. And so did everyone else. Last year we hit up fruitstock, Innocent’s corporate love-in turned festival at Regent’s Park. We went last year and had a pretty nice day so we were quite looking forward to going again. However, it seems that as a result of me blogging about it back then (undoubtedly, this is the only factor) there were a lot more people ready to go this year. So many, in fact, that when I say you literally couldn’t take three steps without having to stop or change direction to avoid walking into someone, I do mean literally. It was utterly ridiculous.

We managed to walk to one side and back, bought some ice cream (discovered, as a result, that Green and Black’s Chocolate Orange Ice Cream is tastier and more addictive than Coke on Lauren Laverne. And I do mean it that way around.) We met up with Eri(ka) and had a quick poke around the Farmers market, where I bought some pre-mashed potato shipped over from Ireland under 24 hours ago, as my recent building obsession with finding decent mashed potato begins to reach critical mash.

I’ll give you a moment to recover from that one.

We also bought more Eglu eggs. It seems relatively ethical, but then it also costs a quid for 4, so you can kind of understand why battery farming is winning the day. After we were done I walked back to Camden and Nikki and Eri went to spend their Pizza Express vouchers, procured as a result of the last time they went for food. On the way back I bought a can of Vimto in Camden, then on the way back realised I had to go to the supermarket, went to Covent Garden to do so, bought a can of coke as well because I was still thirsty, and then read the newspaper on the surprisingly pleasant (mostly empty) tube home.

With my food, I watched Charlie Brooker’s screen wipe and Armando Iannucci’s Time Trumpet, both of which have reaffirmed my faith in British TV as an industry, if only because betwen them they were both so horribly scathing towards just about everything, which is exactly the kind of bitterness I like on screen. Just go and download them yourselves, otherwise you may never experience the simple joy of sharing in the hate of that which is crap.

At work on Wednesday, we were lucky enough to have the Yahoo! Answers bus for a few hours. We were on the way back from an extended lunch break meal and since it was on the way, went in for a quick look. It’s designed to promote the new Yahoo property, Yahoo Answers, which as I understand it is this thing where rather than using a search engine, you go and post your question in a forum and then some idiot gives you a completely incorrect response.

The bus itself is a surprisingly odd affair. When we went in we were asked the following questions. Why not play along? Answers at the bottom!

1. Which of the following textures do you enjoy most? (At this point, imagine placing your hand tentatively into an open-topped cylinder and finding A) Fur or B) Metal.)

2. Which smell do you like most? (At this point, imagine having a fishbowl full of scented cotton wool showed in your face. Do you prefer the A) Cinnamon or B) Amber.)

3. Which toy do you like most? A) Plasticine, or B) Lego?

4. Which subject did you like most at school, A) Music (As represented by a casio keyboard and a stereo) or B) Science (as represented by a junior chemistry set)

 If you chose mostly “A” you are right brained and therefore emotional, artistic, creative, and probably female (if you are a man, you are also therefore a bit gay).

If you chose mostly “B” then you are a left-brained cold, logical, emotionless potential serial killer and probably male. If you’re female then you’re probably not very likely to get a boyfriend and should accept the lonely days ahead.

If you chose the same amount of B and A answers then you’re presumably just a freak and should report yourself to the government for voluntary euthanasia because all you’re doing is fucking up tests like this, and we can probably do without you. You fucking fence-sitter.

Some of that was not strictly as the Bus explained, but more my take on it.

Upstairs, the bus had the seats ripped out and in its place, it had these inflatable chairs and a stack of “brainy” books next to it, like the dictionary and an encyclopaedia. There was also a set of Madlibs cards. On the stairwell there was a bubble machine, and they were playing party music, and had some laptops set up so people could use Yahoo Answers. If you can imagine a double decker bus that’s been gutted and had all that crap shoved inside, and been painted purple and green, you’re just about there psychologically. All you’re missing is the bus drive sat in the front seat, chewing on a sandwich and wearing an “I wish I was dead” expression.

I am led to believe the bus will be in various locations around the country, so don’t hesitate to take a look for yourself, and find out whether you’re gay or a serial killer!