Unfair hangover..

Two cans of Stella, four pints of Guiness and 3 snakebite and black. How exactly is it fair that I've felt like shit all day today. Maybe it's old age. This blows.

In other news, it's time to look for a new band. Yay!

Book Intros

"With my pretentious quote,
I do clearly state,
that I am a twat."
The Story of Poo, Dave Bobbins, 1972

Why on earth does every book feel the need to have quotes at the start from other books? And some do it every chapter! If I wanted to read them, I wouldn't have bought the book I've bought, I'd have bought the one the quotes are from..

It's not like at the start of an Oasis song, they give a quick blast of a verse from a Verve track, is it? So why do the book people feel the need to do it?

Enough already!

The Post Office

OK, how hard can it be? All you need to do is provide some kind of reasonable customer service, you know, maybe arrange your company in a way that suits your customers, not just your employees...

OK, the back-story.. I've been waiting for some vouchers to get delivered that I'd received as a present. I'm going to use them to buy a Playstation Portable, as I might be doing some travelling soon and it'd help kill a few plane journeys.. So anyway, the company sending the vouchers let me know that they were dispatched and will be delivered on Tuesday.

So Tuesday, I head home from work early, thinking that I'll grab the vouchers then head into town to get a PSP, giving me something to spend the evening playing with. I get home, and rather than a letter, there's one of those annoying red cards that may as well say "Well, you weren't here when we came to deliver your letter, so we've decided to inconvenience you as much possible by forcing you to go to the middle of nowhere to pick it up". Admittedly, it's fair enough cos it was sent special delivery, and they need to be signed for.

Fortunately, where I live the main Post Office is a short walk away, rather than in the middle of nowhere, so I decide to pop around and grab my letter. Since I've left work early, it's 4:30. Plenty of time because the Post-Office doesn't shut until 5:15 and Dixons until 5:30.

So I get to the Post-Office's pickup point, and the shutters are closed. No worries, I'll ring the bell. Then I see The Sign. The Sign. The Fucking Sign.

"Effective January 6th, our new opening hours will be 7am - 2pm"

What? So I can't get my letter today? OK, no worries, I'll head round to the Post Office counter bit so they can get it for me - makes sense, they've done something really cool and extended their hours so that from 7am-9am you can get packages and letters from the serving hatch, and from 2pm-5:15pm you can get them from the front office. Makes sense. Nicely done, Mr Post Office man.

So I head round to the front, and get in the queue. There's 5 people in front of me, and 3 people serving, so obviously it takes close to 15 minutes to get served, but as we all know that's part and parcel of the Post Office Experience. I'm checking my watch, as it'll be 20 minutes to Dixons by car, longer the more we get into rush hour.

I get to the counter eventually, and hand over my card.

"Oh, sorry sir", the counter jockey says. "There seems to be some confusion. You collect these at the hatch at the side of the building. This always happens. We need better signs."
"I know", I reply. "But that's shut, so I need to collect it here."
"Oh no, you can't do that", he minces. "You can only collect from the side hatch and they've started shutting at 2 in the afternoon now."
"What? Surely you can go and get it?"
"No sir, we can't. Next?"
"Hang on. You're always going into the back to get things, why can't you just go and get my letter?"
"We just can't sir. The office is open at 7am if you'd like to come early tomorrow. Next?"

So I sloped off. And here's my problem.

When I get something delivered by Special Delivery, it's for one of two reasons - it's a high value item, or the day it gets delivered matters. If, like most people in this country, I am at work during the day, or at school, and they deliver it during the day, I NEED TO BE ABLE TO GET THE POST-OFFICE TO PICK IT UP THAT DAY YOU FUCKING NUMBSKULLS! It's not that complicated!

It got delivered at 8am, I was at work. I got back at 4:30pm, very early for me. And I can't get my letter the same day? How the hell does this improve customer service? How does this make it easier for anyone? Parents needing to get kids to school and then go to work can't go early, as they'll need to be packing their kids off and getting to work. Or in my case, I just got up at stupid o'clock to go. Of course, there's no parking there so I had to stop on double yellows.

Oh, lunchtime? Couldn't I have gone then? Of course I'm happy to go then, with EVERYONE ELSE WHO HAS A JOB and stand the the queue for a minimum 45 minutes! Jesus fucking Christ, it's not that hard to provide decent customer service!

Special Delivery? Special my fat arse.



And don't get me started on those cunts at Dixons.

Things that annoyed me this weekend

Studio Line Hot Straight

OK, I was in a relatively bad mood, hungover, in a hotel in Putney having been woken up far too early. However, this annoyed me a lot! And is still doing so!

Don't get me wrong, Beyonce is well worth it, but isn't there something wrong about someone with fake hair advertising products for how great your hair will look when you use them? Of course your hair looks good - whenever it's not, you just get some new stuff stuck on - and that's only if you're not wearing a wig that day! It's even worse than those cosmetic adverts where they do the before - after face shots, before when the woman's just got back from a 10 mile run through pigshit, and after when she's been in a spa all day and been treated to a grand's worth of makeup.. At least then it's the same face, as opposed to just strapping on a different wig and saying "Ooh! Look how nice!".

Bah.

In other hair advert news, the Tresemme one where they advertise their freeze hold hairspray? You look like a fucking sheepdog, petal. Yes, it may be cheap. Yes, it may have started in salons. But no, it does not look trendy. No, you do not look good. You look like you've styled your hair by dropping a toaster in the bath. You were quite nice before that bloke started on you. Sort it out.

Mo' Gigz

Quiet week all round, really.. Only one gig so far, being Rebus at the Buffalo Bar in Islington.. They were good, but it's fair to say that in my opinion the other three bands were quite possibly the worst shower of shite I've seen on a stage for years. Fucking dreadful.

The first band, who were, I believe August Star Of Heaven clearly saw themselves as some kind of amazing post-rock instrumental visionaries. I saw them as a load of power chord plodding wank. Just cos you've got some tit showing a screensaver behind you does not, I repeat not, make you "prog". Also, the fact that you've got a Line 6 Delay Modeller for Christmas does not mean that you are now The Edge or Dave Gilmour. You're still just a twat battering two chords for hours!

Next up were The Sailplanes. I was concerned from the minute they hit tge stage with their Fender Mustangs and Jazzmasters that we were in for a bit of a treat from some Dinosaur Jr type jam rubbish. And how we were! It's rare these days to see two shit bands in succession, but they achieved it. Hopeless noodling and some of the most disasterous singing I've heard in quite some time led to a display that was as inept as it was lifeless.

As I say, then Rebus were on, and turned in a really good set, although I was hopelessly demoralised by then.

And finally, Nosferatu D2. What wonders awaited us here? I was hoping for maybe some quality black metal, based on the name. Ah - I can see the drummer's getting his double kick pedal set up, that's a good sign! OK, now where are they. Ah. They are a drummer and a singer / guitarist. And my word, they've raised the bar on the level of shitness. OK, the guitar playing wasn't too bad, but the double kick drum? Absolutely definition of "superflous". Utter nonsense.

As ever with these things, it was a good night cos there was a few of us there, but my word - there were some bad bands on!

Medical Investigation - Worst TV Show Ever?

NBC.com > Medical Investigation

1 hour. Not a long time, really. Enough time to cook a sheperds pie, play the first half and half time of a football match. But not enough time to be concerned about losing. Unless you've spent an hour watching Medical Investigation on Channel 5, which is truly, truly wank.

I decided to watch it cos the fella with the grey hair was quite good in The Shield as a lawyer or something. And The Shield is good.

This isn't.

The premise would seem to be that the people in it are to Doctors what CSI are to cops, i.e. "you Mr Plods are too fucking thick to figure this out, so we'll come in and do it for you. Get me a donut, fat boy."

It started off not too badly, save for some dogshit acting that would be frowned upon in Neighbours. A load of kids in the same town are all coming down with the same illness, and some have died. Oh no! Whinging tart tries to convince her boss that they've got to go there. He agrees to, dropping all the other sick people cases they've got going on.

So they head up to this town, find these sick kids, then start looking for (investigating, I guess) reasons why they might all be ill. Maybe it's the evil local chemical company that supplies most of the town's jobs.

Predictable shit #1: They investigate the chemical company, their car gets smashed up by the locals. Shock and fucking horror.

So then they find out that one of the sick kids got sick while living in a different town. They find this out while on one location. 3 scenes later, they finally get around to saying something about it to the rest of the team! Not like it was important or anything, you fucking mong-bags!

So they do some further digging, this is around 30 minutes in. Wow. All the kids were born by IVF treatment at the same clinic due to their fathers' firing blanks. But that can't explain why they're all suffering from this mystery illness, can it?

OF COURSE IT FUCKING CAN! The IVF doctor got her husband to shoot his load into the test tubes rather than the real jaffa-dads! Jesus, it's not that fucking complicated you retarded wank-jobs!

That was at 30 minutes in. 30 minutes later they figure it out. 30 fucking minutes. Of my life. Wasted.

Even better though, they find this out and there's lots of "oh, the nasty IVF doctor" type comments. Then the investigators go "the spunk-donor must have had some kind of genetic disease. That's the cause.".

And then they fucked off back to their own town.

Without actually curing any of the kids.

They literally just came to the spunk-contamination conclusion then made no effort to actually diagnose the illness - they just got back in their car and left. Case closed.

Well, not really, cos all the kids are going to die you twats.

I will never waste an hour of my life on that shit ever again.

Rebus @ Unknown Pleasures, Clapham Junction

Just awesome. Following a heavy night at the After Dark on the Friday I was kind of struggling to get into things, needing about 3 false starts (once where I actually managed to leave the house and go get some lunch with a friend), but eventually made it to Clapham Junction. And thank fuck I did. What a night! The gig venue was a place called Project Orange, a little bar-cafe thing on Clapham Junction High Street, with a basement built for sweaty gigs.. The whole thing felt a lot like a Club Velocity night..

Anyway, up first were Dead! Dead! Dead! from Southampton, who just blew me away. Don't really know how to describe them, but they were great fun to listen to, and seemed like a rockier, slightly proggier offspring of SixNationState and Pavement, which could never be a bad thing. Well worth the entrance fee alone. Then on came Rebus, and I'd hazard it was their best gig yet. With people lying on the spiral staircase fire escape so they could see through the gaps in the stairs, the audience reaction was just amazing. Dancing all around the tiny venue, clapping along at points, cheering, shouting, just brilliant. Definitely the best set I've seen from anyone this year, with Pete & The Pirates at PopToys and SixNationState at Club Velocity also being up there.. Then Les Incompetents. Essentially an even more ragged Libertines, but with a few random vocalists. It always felt like it was going to fall apart, but was really good fun! Not sure I'd risk seeing them again, as the main singer seemed like he'd wind me up before too long, but I'm glad I was there!

Brilliant night all round.

It's now Tuesday and I still feel a bit hungover from the weekend.

Love you long time..

Well, it's been a while since I've put anything on here, but due to being a moaning old bastard I'm going to get started again so I have a place to vent..

But before then, quick review of gigs I've been at since the last post:

The Wake: December 31st, The Grapes, Formby: My old haunt from the town I grew up in. Great to be back at the Grapes and also to get the chance to see The Wake, who feature Jamie Whittaker, who I used to work with at the pub. They did a covers set that was really good fun. Also weirdly enough, they'd played with some bands that I've played with before - small world indeed.

Screwball Cabaret, January 11th, Plug 'n' Play, Reading: Un-fucking-believably great gig. Amazing dub / reggae set from SixNationState as opposed to their usual indie/ska and a great one from Kaldera. Pete & The Pirates played a weird glockenspiel led set. Very bizarre, but worth it all the same. A brilliant event!

PopToys, January 14th, 21 South Street, Reading: The monthly night from the promoters of the gigs at the 3B's that I've played at a few times with other bands.. On the bill: Muf - a great set, they looked really comfortable on the big stage. The Big Sleep - fabulous Mogwai-esque instrumental histrionics, great fun, well worth catching. Pete & The Pirates - incredible set with stunning songs, great instrumental parts and a barrel load of energy. Any more gigs like that and they'll be heading towards being one of my favourite bands in the area!

Rebus w/ The Infadels, January 18th, The Fez Club, Reading: Loads of bands on tonight - The Colours, The Skies, The Sand Creek Massacre.. Sadly I was running late so missed most of them, but made it in time for Rebus, who threw in a storming set on the awkward stage. First of many Rebus gigs this year, I think, and it'll be all the better a year for it! The Infadels were good too, although I did get a bit bored of them and buggered off home halways through..

Three Litre, Pete & The Pirates, Coley Park, Off The Radar, January 19th, The After Dark, Reading: Ooh, another After Dark gig! Started off with Pete & The Pirates who were good, but not a patch on their set at PopToys a week before.. Off The Rader were interesting enough and seemed to be enjoying themselves but I struggled to get into them. Three Litre - absolutely outstanding stuff! One of my favourite ever bands in the area, reconvened for a rare gig, and we laughed, cried and danced like loons. Fabulous. Coley Park, sadly I'm migrated to the back bar by then..

Rebus, January 20th, The Islington Bar Academy: Rebus playing a Tiscali showcase alongside a few other hotly tipped bands, and surprise guest, upcoming R&B star Sway. Another fab night, with 3 great bands and a great performance from Sway. Rebus really took to the stage well, and definitely one of their best performances to date!

Ecoute, January 25th, The Purple Turtle, Reading: My last gig with my band, Ecoute.. I play guitar dontcha know. Scary stuff for it to be the last gig, but more on that in some other post.

Club Velocity, January 27th, Plug 'n' Play, Reading: Another incredibly strong lineup with the Heartwear Process, SixNationState, Libor Spacey and Ben Marwood. I used to be in a band, Chocolate Hostage, with Ben, and it was great, punky as hell. Ben's now a singer-songwriter of the acoustic style-y and is fantastic. A great set! Didn't see much of Libor Spacey due to being at the bar, but they sounded great. SixNationState were just plain fantastic, throwing in so much energy that a few people (Dave!) had to go for a lie down. I love the Heartwear Process, but sadly they just couldn't follow SNS - few bands can! Another great Velocity night!

Muf, February 1st, The Purple Turtle, Reading: Went along to see Muf playing one of their last gigs due to other band commitments. And they were good! I do like Muf, having recently seen them at PopToys at South Street, and the Turtle's layout doesn't really help anyone, but they did well. The band on after them, Monic, put in a decent display of Rocks-era Primal Scream, but the less said about the first band of the night, the better.