Mallowy goodness

Back in Glasgow last night for The Mighty Boosh at the Clyde Auditorium. Parked the car in a street filled with young girls in tutus with glow sticks. We had been wandering what the crowd would be like at a Mighty Boosh gig and were rather surprised to find the street filled with under agers in tutus, jabbering excitedly whilst buying glow sticks from various vendors set up at different points over the street. We entered the large red tunnel red tunnel, which crosses the Clydeside Expressway, amongst loitering policemen, in throngs of younger folk who looked slightly inebriated. I had not expected such a young mental looking crowd but it wasn't until we got to the lights at the end of the tunnel that we seen the signs for Clubland 2008 in the main SECC building. This accounted for the glow sticks at least, not sure about the tutus. After a brief run around inside the Armidillo trying to find our way we eventually took our seats. Vince and Howard both swept on to the stage singing about sailors from the future with the help of The Boosh Band who hid behind the main stage back drop for a good fraction of the whole night. The comedy was great and at it's best when Vince and Howard were out on the front section of the stage, infront of the closed curtain, squabbling and trading both thoughts and insults. The internal monologues of Howard's mind were particulary hilairious. Plus the inclusion of the infamous Hitcher. The strange green creation of Noel Fielding with green skin, a big nose and thumb, dressed in black with a top hat and voiced with a gnarly cockney accent. A brilliant show if your into the Boosh.
Woke up late this morning after having a wee glass of wine once we arrived home last night. Wine accompanied by a bit of Editors and Roxy Music. Today, here has not seemed to have broke yet as a thick white mist has hung over the streets of EK all morning and afternoon. I can barely see the opposite end of the street from the window. I'm half expecting a long line of mysterious shapes to emerge slowly from the mist and drag me away into the fog to a sorry, icy fate.
Evening now. Had to go and so the shopping there. Curse those money hungry supermarkets! Coaxing us in with their 2 for 1s only to get us to spend the saved money on other things. Other things such as Tunnocks Teacakes. Just had one with my tea. The first in years. Full of chocolatey mallowy goodness. Brilliant.

I like to move it, move it

Travelled into the rain soaked streets of Glasgow to see Roisin Murphy at the ABC in Sauchiehall Street. Decided to drive as the weather was so poor and could not find a parking space anywhere in the Sauchiehall vacinity. Eventually got parked on the other end of Blythswood Square, the Square that used to be notorious for it's ladies of the night. Trailing through the sheets of rain the show proved to be well worth the effort though. What a star Roisin is! It was the first time I'd seen her live after having listened to her and Moloko for so many years. Together with Murphy's weird but strong voice the music of Moloko appealed to me for it's brilliant, sometimes haunting, tunes that swing between pop, rock and dance beats. With the latest album 'Overpowered' Murphy has well and truly hit her mark as a solo performer, and was a job she does live too. Belting out her hits with her trademark whacky dress sense and fantastic band who helped the songs glide voraciously quickly over two hours. Excellent stuff.
Tonight Ka and myself sat and watched 'In Bruges'. A tale of two hitmen sent out to Brussels to escape the London authorities after a mission goes wrong thanks to the new start of the duo, Colin Farrell. Brendon Gleeson suffers as his mentor and Ralph Fiennes puts in a great performance as the angry, highly strung, crazy eyed boss who ends up joining them in Bruges. A great character piece with some brilliant moments. Missed it in the cinema so it was good to finally see it. Definately one to see if you haven't done already and contrary to what Farrell says I think Bruges looked quite nice! The city square especially reminded me of Prague with it's cobbled paving, old town houses and it's bell tower.
Tomorrow night it's off to the Armadillo, or the Clyde Auditorium as it is properly known, to go and see how Vince and Howard are doing. Before that I'm tiling with Dad. My Mum and Dad have decided to regenerate their whole kitchen space and have combined two rooms to do so and I, whilst feeling generous with my time, volunteered to help out with the tiling duties. Not that I've ever put up kitchen tiles in my life so this should be interesting...
Ka, meanwhile, will be going out with her Mum, sister and niece to watching a bunch of rabbiting African animals
with American, Hollywood star, accents singing, dancing and generally goofing around. Again, maybe with the odd long forgotten hit suddenly made popular again but this time for kids half the age of the original audience.
Talking of Africa, Harry Hillwalker is just back from a trip to South Africa and sent me some collections of the shots he took over there. Some great pictures and fabulous scenery. Whilst driving through the rain tonight it kind of made me feel more than a little envious.

Special delivery

Today I came home, tired and worn out to find a package from America waiting on me. It was my copy of David Byrne and Brian Eno's "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today". Fantastic. Purchased and downloaded from the official website around two months ago, the hard copy, the good old fashioned CD, can now be purchased in the shops. Nice package and good music.
Congratulations should go to Martin and Claire who now have a little baby in the house. Olivia Danni Dunn is now home.
Richard Serra is the topic on tonight's Imagine, the BBC's art documentary series presented by Alan Yentob. Serra is a true giant in Art and Sculpture so this should be a good one! Off to watch it now...

Kind you'd like to meet

Congratulations to Craig and Gillian for their engagement and the success of their engagement party on friday night. We all had a great time in the Rolls Royce club. A few drinks, a few dances and a few songs. Everyone was there to wish Craig and Gillian well. At first it seemed like a reunion night for Ka's work colleagues, past and present, but I soon relaxed as they're all a cool bunch. Maybe I relaxed a little too much as, for some reason, after a couple of beers, I plucked up the courage to get up on the dancefloor and perform 'Oh Pretty Woman' through the karaoke machine. Unfortunately, mike in hand, I felt the need to try and get the dancefloor shy relatives up and asked for all those accompanied by 'pretty women' to get up on the dancefloor with their own 'pretty women'. None of the relatives moved. Failing this I then shouted, 'get off your arse and dance!' at Craig and Gillian's relatives. Needless to say they did not look very appreciative of my comments, some of the older guys growling from behind their pint glasses. I'm not even sure if Gillian and Craig appreciated me shouting at their aunties and uncles in such a fashion. I suspect not. I think I just got a little too carried away. The girls at the ELU, including Chris, Margot, Amanda, Roslyn, Cheryl and the rest, helped me out though and filled the dancefloor the best they could. I'm not sure what possessed me to get up and sing karaoke as I was not even drunk and usually hate the bloody things. Looking back I suspect it was the fact that it was the same few people on the dancefloor all the time and stupidly thought I could do something about it. What a time to suddenly gain a rockstar ego! Feeling slightly embarrassed afterwards I ran for the safety of our tables and hid for the rest of the night. I did receive some compliments with regards to my singing talents, however. Maybe I should try X Factor next year?
When last orders were shouted and everyone started filing out we piled into Chris' car. With Margot, Bev, Ka, Amanda, myself and Chris driving we set off to the forever excellent Centre Point. When I say forever excellent I am of course being sarcastic - but it was a last resort. However, once inside we ended up having quite a good time, dancing to classic tunes of the nineties. Rhythm is a Dancer, Everybody's Free, Key the Secret, mixed in with some Prodigy and such like. Some really good tunes so a complete surprise to go into Centre Point and enjoy yourself. Almost weird.
Ka and myself met the great Martin Darcy with whom I used to work behind the bar with in the Auldhouse Arms many moons ago. Leaving Ka in the taxi queue I ran down to the nearest grease shop and ordered a portion for us to share. A comment was made over my shoulder whilst I stood waiting, leaning on the warm metal counter to which I looked round. I knew I was in trouble. His name escaped me completely and he had to gently remind me with the help of some swear words and the odd barrage of abuse. He was not best pleased but he got over it when he met Ka outside at the bus stop and started accusing her of insanity for agreeing to marry such a person as myself. He was having a laugh, of course, and let us escape to a taxi.

Black and white

Weather. Always a good conversation piece for folk when your struggling for subjects to talk about. On my way to work today it very much felt like winter was most definately here. The sky was clear with only the occasional strip of cloud hiding the luminous pale blue hanging overhead. These are the kind of winter mornings I like though. Freezing, but light and clear with the sunlight streaming through the tree tops over the edge of Calderglen. The sunlight in stark contrast with the cold temperatures. It is not as cold as it will get though. Today it has been around 5 degrees celcius but tomorrow the weather report is saying it will be more in the region of 2 degrees celcius but with less cloud. It is strange how I feel more at home in the winter weather than in the sweltering heat of a good summer. Perhaps I was an eskimo in a former life... or a penguin. According to religions, such as Hinduism or Buddhism, a human is supposed to be a higher form of life than the animal which would mean I must have been a good penguin in the former life. Maybe I caught lots of fish and shared them out to all my penguin pals. Not everything's black and white though.
The BBC Trust have finally got round to giving their final decision on the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross nonsense stating there was no justification for the errors that were made in the production of the programme concerned. Really? No way! Who pays these people? Oh, yeah, that's right. US. It's been over three weeks for them to state the obvious. As the 'innocent' female concerned said on the news tonight - we are all so bored of this story. Why is it still in the news then? As I said when it first blew up in the gutter press three days after it actually happened - get over it. There are more important things to concern ourselves over. Getting Ross back on the telly! I've got to go out tonight now because there's no Jonathan Ross on!
Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe had a great ten minute piece on it, on Tuesday night, in his usual entertaining, sarcastic, indomitable way. The guy is a genius. Another guy with a similar humour is the brilliant Jack Dee whom I just happened to catch getting interviewed on This Morning yesterday. Not that I usually watch this Morning or anything... I was just finishing my breakfast tea with a bacon buttie. He was talking about his new series of Lead Balloon, his drama comedy series on BBC Two. Regretfully, I've not caught any of this series yet but it looks pretty good. May have to check it out.
The new car is flaimin' filthy. How come dirt on a car shows up more on black paintwork? You'd think it would be the opposite wouldn't you? I always thought it would be a nightmare owning a white car. JP says it's the salt on the road. Salt on the road? Haven't even seen any salt spreaders on the roads yet, firing it's load of grit at your windscreen. Soon we'll be scraping the ice off the windows and getting high on de-icers again. Could the snow be on it's way?

Lost Ian

Well, we've lost Lost Ian. Rather unexpected twist to the redundancy horrors with the loss of our very own Lost Ian. The main crossword keeper. The fellow sci-fi buff with whom I talk Lost, Doctor Who, Spooks and generally anything a bit cultish in the TV department. Lost Ian, along with another colleague, Gordon Brown, (no, not the much maligned Prime Minister!) will be leaving S&UN at the beginning of the month. It's a right pi**er, to be frank and a devastating blow to us crossword crusaders who get together at tea breaks and lunches at the round table, talking our general nonsense whilst trying to suss out the answers to the devious Daily Mail's crosswords, codewords and connections. Lost Ian has been a good pal in there and I'll miss him as well as his DVDs! He must lend me a DVD every month. I'm going have to go and join a video shop now! Sorry a DVD rental shop. Actually, I'm a member of the Calderwood Square one already, but the women behind the desk scare me a little and they all look very alike with their milk bottle glasses. They probably have those glasses from watching too many DVDs. Anyway, the mood was sombre yesterday. You didn't know whether to be glad you still had your own job or depressed for those that lost theirs. Then we got news of Trinity Mirror putting a nationwide freeze on wages. Things can only get better...maybe.

Whatever happens

A rather pensive, grave day in the office today as we all know that we find out our fates with S&UN tomorrow. Nobody opted to volunteer for the redundancies so now it's up to the management. We are having individual meetings throughout the day now that the busiest part of the week is over. Speculation has been a bit rife but at the end of the day we can't do anything now. At dinner tonight in the small kitchen/canteen I was wondering if it would be the last Tuesday night with a microwaved dinner in the S&UN production centre listening to crazy talk, my colleagues' life problems and stresses and the desperate scrambling with the final clues for the Daily Mail crossword. Andrea was stressing about a Hitler look-a-like who has been employed by Hamilton Asda as a security guard who seemingly follows her around the aisles. Gareth was moaning about opening his front door this morning only to find an old fellow pissing in his tenement close. Creamy Chicken John was devouring one of his homemade chilli con carnes while Lost Ian was wondering what the connection was between Charles darwin and Queen Victoria. The joys of break time. One thing's for sure, tomorrow will be no joy, whatever happens.