Tonight, recovering from yet another hellish bout of Portakabin Fever, I have only one thing to say - and even this is stretching my current intellectual capacities to the limit -
Wibble.
Thank you, and good night.
Some questions to keep you occupied while I’m away.
1. Norah Jones – fresh, exciting new talent or bland middle-of-the-road tosh?
2.
Big Brother 3 – with no external stimulus provided for the housemates whatsoever (no tasks, nothing to read, absolutely nothing to do all day except eat, drink, shit, flirt and bitch), are the programme makers now inflicting an unacceptable level of mental cruelty?
3. What’s Vietnam like? Anything we should know before we set off on August 9th?
4. England – Brazil on Friday morning. In a rare show of interest, I shall actually be watching this one. What score do you predict?
5. We’ve stopped going to the cinema. This is, obviously, a disgrace. What film should we go and see next week? I promise to act on the most compelling suggestion received.
6. I have stopped reading books. This is, once again, an utter disgrace. What book should I read next? It needs to be relatively accessible, in order to coax me back into the habit. Again, I promise to act on the most compelling suggestion received.
7. Buni and I will be in London on Wednesday July 10, to see Madonna in
Up For Grabs. Assuming we stay overnight, what is there to do on a Wednesday night after the show? This should involve drinking and hopefully dancing.
8. Is there a hot blog out there which should be on my sidebar? No, not your own – someone else’s.
9. Mozilla – is it worth installing? Don’t blind me with science - just give me the bare facts.
10.
Take a look at my Wish List. Is there anything on there which you would unhesitatingly recommend?
See y’all on Friday night. Be good.
Hairdresser flies out to restore the Beckham style.
Matters came to a head at the weekend when a torrential downpour during the match against Denmark left Beckham's distinctive mohican hairstyle looking rather shaggy and unkept, much to the embarrassment of his style conscious wife Victoria. England won the match 3-0 to qualify for the quarter-finals.
According to reports, Victoria, who is seven months' pregnant and was watching the match on television at home, got straight on the phone to Aidan Phelan, Beckham's personal hairdresser, to instruct him to fly to Japan in the aid of the England cause and the famous Beckham barnet.
I do love it when reality matches parody.
The Oomphlessness continues. As I am currently unable to think in coherent paragraphs, here are some largely disconnected sentences instead.
1. Saw Pulp playing live in Sherwood Forest on Saturday night, in a clearing, surrounded on all side by tall pine trees; on stage, the giant video backdrop displayed more trees, as the band played their opening number:
Trees. Do you see a theme beginning to develop here? Despite cocking up the first verse of
Common People and having to start the song again, they were great, with
Babies getting the biggest reception of the evening. Most obscure selection:
Little Girl (With Blue Eyes), a long forgotten single from the mid-eighties. Most welcome surprise:
Joyriders. Most glaring omissions:
Disco 2000 and
Do You Remember The First Time. Could have done with a few more uptempo tunes, especially towards the end of the main set, but that’s only a minor quibble.
2. First it was going to be China – then Peru – then possibly Cuba – but now we’re going to Vietnam instead, with
Explore Worldwide. Roll on August!
3. If you didn’t watch
Six Feet Under on Channel 4 last Monday, then you missed out, big time. The second episode screens tonight; do not, under any circumstances, miss it. Black, black comedy which, despite the morbidity of its subject matter, is ultimately rather life-affirming.
4. That Layo and Bushwacka! single (
Love Story), with its unlikely Devo and Nina Simone samples, is a real cracker of a choon. I loved their debut album (
Low Life, 1999), and am now eagerly awaiting their follow-up, due out on July 1. Decent single-artist dance albums have been thin on the ground this year, although the FC Kahuna album (
Machine Says Yes) continues to grow on me steadily.
5. On Naked Blog,
Peter questions our continuing need for specifically gay venues. I then proceed to ramble on at length in his comment box, in an attempt to offer some sort of justification for their existence. Plus you get to find out about Nottingham’s gay ghetto, the affectionately titled
Fairy Towers.
6.
Tinka and
Buni are taking an extended break from blogging; meanwhile, I have been sniffing round some of the newer boys on the block:
Charlie,
Darren and
Luca. Hello boys!
7. Once again, that wind-lashed Portakabin in the middle of a car park in the industrial North East is luring me back into its clutches; as a result, I won’t be able to blog from tomorrow evening until Friday evening. Hey-ho.
