Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Took a few days off work (Monday and Friday just gone) to try and get rid of some of my massive amounts of holiday, which I’m supposed to try and use up soon. I was saving it for Q4, but the recent move from Travel to Shopping (which officially begins tomorrow…) means that technically, I should’ve used it *before* Q4. Ah well. I’m down to 5 days left for the year so I should just about be able to get rid of them.

On Saturday Sam, Josh, Al, Ian and I went up to the good old Excel Centre and to the London MCM Expo. It was utterly packed this time, more so than any previous one. Utterly, utterly rammed, though not as bad as teh worst Memorabilias, it has to be said. The highlight of the day was surely the poorly-staffed Hot Fuzz Q and A with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, a report of which Josh has done for NTS. Even if the microphones were shite and the guy curating was being a bit of a dick, it was still excellent. Afterwards we got some Hot Fuzz promotional postcards signed by the men themselves. Elsewhere, I almost found myself buying more Genshiken-related figures, but just about managed some restraint. We played on Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, a game so excellent I have since procured a copy. I bought myself some old issues of X-Men as my interest in the late 80s/early 90s Claremont swansong grows, including a brilliant issue where Rogue fights Ms. Marvel, in preperation for the next issue of Ms. Marvel which is going to have the rematch in. I know, I know, I’m a comic geek.

Later that evening, with Pegg-lust fresh in my mind, Nikki and I watched Shaun of the Dead, and spent some time trying to identify the locations with quite a large amount of success, though not least because we found a website that helped.

On Sunday evening we went to a music quiz at the Spinning Wheel near Northfields station, It was pretty good fun, not least because a music quiz means no chance of a sports round. We split into two teams, Nikki, Josh and Sam on one (”Musicwang”), and Me, Al and Ian on the other (”Fried Gold”). Ian was purely there for moral support, having no knowledge of music whatsoever, though he did buy us a drink. In the end, we came a close third to Musicwang’s second, and really we were doing much better than that because it was technically a 2-person team. The group that won was marking their own paper and also managed a clear 20 points ahead of us lot, so forgive me for being suspicious. It’s hard to say whether we’d go again because finishing late on a Sunday makes it quite inconvenient, what with work, though on the other hand it could be made to work. We’ll have to see. Good fun, anyway.

Today we went up to Rachel, Seb and Cappsy’s in loose celebration of that most American of pagan festivals, Halloween, and watched the utterly fantastic Ghostwatch, which I remember screwing me up quite badly when I was much younger. Our enjoyment was in fact helped by this excellent Ghostwatch guide from Phil, also on NTS. After fucking everyone’s minds up good and proper, we unwound with The Simpsons original Halloween special, which you’ll recall has The Raven in it, a short which single handedly introduced me to Edgar Allen Poe and literally led to my eventual purchase of his complete works. It still has its charm after all these years.

Today my batch of tickets arrived for the Two Faces of Mitchell and Webb. I’ve put them alongside my Tenacious D tickets and my Pippettes tickets. Seems almost bizarre that three things I’m going to in December should have send the tickets already, but then I’m no complaining. In fact, I’m doubly not complaining because I’m usually spending a good week or so fighting with SMS to try and get the buggering tickets off the courier and into my hand, so the fact all these have turned up with me more or less absent is a work of pure joy in itself.

If I get around to buying myself a Captain ticket, December’s going to be remarkably busy. Kind of makes me wish November wasn’t looking a bit dull, really, with only Memorabilia to look forward to, and even that’s right at the end.

Earlier today I bought SuperSunnySpeedGraphic which is a compilation of Ben Folds’ EP and internet-only tracks, though for fans like me it’s got alternate mixes of said tracks, and all that nerdish shite. It’s the first time I’ve actually paid for anything Ben Folds, surprisingly, given that he’s written some of my favourite songs and what is probably one of my top 5 albums. Cost me a tenner and it’s brilliant, though as an album it doesn’t remotely hang together and as a compilation it’s missing a lot. I understand why thelondonpaper gave it 2 stars, but on the other hand that rating should only be considered against the rest of his output because there’s some great stuff on this that pisses on the material that most bands release, not least of which is the cover of Dr. Dre’s Bitches Ain’t Shit (Or, as the packaging puts it, B****** Ain’t S***). There’s a rumour around about a UK tour in January next year that probably means I’ll be spending £30 on some tickets very soon. He’s up there with the Pixies as an act that I’ll try to see on every tour, regardless of frequency or cost.

Speaking of the Pixies, today’s Unversity Challenge contained a question that started “In 1986, the band formed by Charles Thompson IV…” got about that far before I was screaming “PIXIES!” at the TV. We all did pretty well with knowing the answers today, because realising that, well, it was only the first round. Not so smart after all.

Hmm. Never intended to leave a blogging gap this big but there are various reasons for that, I suppose. Not least is that it’s been alternately too quiet to bother mentioning, and then too not quiet for me to actually blog it. The multiple time constraints of self-obsession can’t always be accommodated. Still, I’m here now.

The biggest big thing, that I never mentioned at the time, was meeting Alan Moore. That was on the evening of the 12th - Seb, Rachel, Josh, Cappsy and I went to the London Institute of Edutainment (as I believe it’s called) and saw Moore himself being interviewed alongside his collaborator and partner, Melinda Gebbie, and interviewed by Stewart Lee at that. Lee did a great job of holding things together despite at least one amusing part where he clearly openly and strenuously disagreed with Moore’s opinion but didn’t want to offend him. The talk was about Lost Girls, which is going to be unavailable in the UK until 2008, so it was kind of strange in that regard. I have got it on import pre-order but I strongly suspect it’ll never arrive, between importation issues, copyright laws and limited print-runs. It was a great talk, anyway, with a Q&A session afterwards (though, almost disappointingly, no-one asked anything that might’ve been upsetting.) Moore is, despite his media-portrayed image of being an insane and bitter reclusive genius, surprisingly down-to-earth and convivial.

Given what we knew of the guy beforehand, Seb and I weren’t really expecting a signing afterwards, though we all took our stuff because hope springs eternal, and as I put it previously, the only thing stupider than carrying around your Alan Moore books all day for no reason would be not having any if a signing happens. To our barely disguisable glee there was indeed a signing afterwards, and if you’ll excuse the heavy use of quotations, Seb put it best when saying that it’s not often you get to meet someone who’s the best living, if not the best ever in their chosen field, and this was our change to do just that. I got both my LoEG’s signed and gibbered out some of my trademark barely-intelligible “oh-god-I’m-talking-to-one-of-my-idols” conversation that Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright once received. I get starstruck by the oddest people. After that we went to the Burger Shack on Charing Cross road (formerly named Smollensky’s) and then back home.

Later that week we went over to Seb’s and met his friend Ed, and I gave Cappsy another DVD full of The Goods, until his ‘net connection comes back. Having a ‘net connection and a TV that can act as a PC display makes watching downloaded things even cushier than it was back in the dark ages. While Lost and Galactica are still the top shows, it’s worth noting that Heroes is fucking brilliant and improves with every episode. On the other hand, I recently used a Windows Media Playlist and my PC to make a 24-hour Mitchell and Webb channel. I was thinking of expanding my output, in fact, to a full week of programming and making it subscription-based, so Nikki and Josh have to pay a fiver a month to watch it. I’m selling advertising spots in prime time if you’d like to inquire.

On Monday I was too ill to go to work (dizziness and sore throat) after becoming increasingly headached and worse across the day on Sunday. I spent the next 3 days at work in a quite substantial daze, going to bed like 3 hours earlier than normal and sleeping right through, and thankfully I’d already booked Friday off. After one day of feeling almost entirely back to normal, I now on Saturday find myself in the throes of a far more traditional cold. No idea if it’s related to the previous illness or not but it’s fucking annoying. My throat is killing me once again and I’m sneezing and all that shit. I’m supposed to be going back home tomorrow for the day but given how I feel, I’m kind of concerned about what my ability to drive will be like. I’ve got the Friday off again this week, but it’s pretty clear to me that for the second week in a row, I’ve chosen the day off at the wong end of it. Typical.

Today will undoubtedly be remembered for me being woken up at 6:15am by the radio-alarm to hear the news that North Korea has carried out a nuclear weapons test. And it was even too early for Lauren Laverne to be on yet. God himself could’ve have stopped me from going back to sleep after that one.

I kept meaning to do a bit more of an update, but y’know, Monday because Tuesday became Saturday (more or less), and here we are.

Still, I’ll have forgotten it all in a week if I don’t write something down…

On Monday Nikki and I went to see Lovers Electric, the featuring members formerly of one-time Easyworld support band, Atlas. They’re quite a lot better than back then, and we liked them even at the time. They were one of, if not the best supports we ever saw, such that I even bought the single they did, and then they disappeared for ages. LE are much heavier, and better for it I’ve had a couple of tracks of theirs downloaded, so (one of which is on a mix for the car) so we already knew a couple of the songs, and they played some new ones, and at the end Nikki bought an album because bands that good deserve it. The gig, if you’re really that interested, was at the Water Rats, where I haven’t been in utterly years, and which still isn’t that good. Decent sound, but far too cramped.

On Tuesday, not that anyone’s likely to be bothered, but Nikki and I had officially been going out for 6 years. That’s practically a quarter of my total lifespan. She bought me a book about London and a zine for some Tube Reading when I finish my Boris Johnson book, and I bought her a Jamie Oliver cookbook, which clearly demonstrates how much I care, to pay actual money for something with that wanker attached to it, with his over-inflated tongue and sense of public duty.

Wednesday was uneventful, until the afternoon when I had probably the worst time getting back home that I’ve had in over a year, and this time no bombs were involved. When I got to TCR the platform was packed full and the next broadway train was over 10 minutes away.With my fox-like cunning I determined that I could make better use of my time by travelling a few stops eat and catching the train west from somewhere that the platform was less overrun. As the westbound train pulled away from me at Chancery Lane, having let no-one off the packed train and no-one on to the packed platform, I began to question just how cunning a move that was. I eventually gave up and walked to Holborn intending to get the Picadilly line, already over 30 minutes later than expected, and discovered that it was closed due to congestion. I found my way to Covent Garden eventually and managed to get a train/bus back home, eventually getting in at around half 7, over a full hour behind schedule. Public transport can be very frustrating.

On Thursday after work I went up to Seb and Cappsy’s with Lost (for Cappsy, who is as big a fan as I) and we also went and got chips just up the road. They were great, but as someone who doesn’t eat a lot of stuff anyway, the generous proportions made it seem ridiculous that I bought a pack in the first place. They were damn nice, though.

Today Sam, Al and Seb came over and we played some xbox and watched an episode of Pete & Pete, which for an old children’s TV show, holds up surprisingly well. I’ve got designs on Seb’s DVD set of series 1, anyway, after we watched some series 2 episodes, but I suppose I could just download them…

Finally bought some new footwear this weekend. The trainers I’ve been wearing for about 13 months now, I bought for Tenerife on the basis that they were very cheap and I could easily destroy them on the beach without fear of wasting money. I never expected them to last this long, but footwear falls into the category of “non-essential purchase” for me, which is to say, I use them until they’re fucked, and then a bit more just to make sure they’re totally fucked.

This is them last September. This is them a couple of months ago when I realised they were fucked, as splits started appearing in the side and the decorative colours on the soles started flapping off. I finally admitted they were totally fucked when the rains started the other week, and when I went out one lunchtime I discovered my feet were soaking wet from water seeping in, and then I kept slipping because there was no tread left on the soles.

Their replacements are boots not unlike those in the first picture. I haven’t been totally dissatisfied with a return to trainers, so maybe if I get the inclination I might get myself a third pair of shoes for the first time in about a decade, and have both trainers and boots, and some good shoes, as opposed to only 2 of the 3. I think I’m a bit more of a boots than trainers person. Jackboots, that is. Perhaps I’ll go wild and get myself some obscenely expensive trainers while I’ve got the income for it, before I get too old for that sort of thing. I know what you’re probably thinking, though, but I’m just not the Converse type.