31/12/2009

As the pirates say...

at midnight on December 31st....

Happy New Yaaaaar!

22/11/2009

I'm so bored...

... with all this talk about football, and handball, and whether or not matches should have video referees.

Yes.

I am suffering from Thierry Ennui.

01/10/2009

If you believe...

... they put a clown on the moon (clown on the moon).
Well,not exactly the moon, but them pesky Ruskies have put a clown in space. Any clown-phobics out there? He's up there, looking down at you!

Nah, don't panic, he can't reach you with his squirty flower; if he pressed the squeezy bulb the reaction would send him flying off in the vague direction of Uranus (did you see what I did there?).

Speaking of which, in order to avoid offending the sensibilities of the Moral Majority, from 2010, Uranus is to be renamed...
Urectum.
That joke used by kind permission. Thanks, Luke. And now back to our regular broadcast.

The Russians didn't send him up there as some kind of Commmedia dell'arte skit - no, Mr Baggysleeves paid Brer Oligarch thirty million US red-noses (thats 22,000,000 battered boaters sterling) for the privilege.

Dat's an offal lotta buckets full of silver confetti being chucked at an audience, brothers and sister. Are we on a wavelength here?

You bet we are. I'm off to paint my face white with a teardrop trickling from the corner of my eye. That teardrop isn't make-up by the way. That's me crying 'cause I chose the wrong career.

Now where's that square-wheeled car of mine? (*parp*)

01/09/2009

It's a small world...

... and getting smaller every day.

Either that, or I've put some weight on.

29/08/2009

One of the problems...

with being so vain;
every time I go to cross the road, and it says "Look right", I stop and think "Yes, I do, don't I?"

16/08/2009

A conundrum.

Why are they called "energy-saving" light bulbs...

when my eyes have to work twice as hard to read anything under them?

12/08/2009

Super, smashing, lovely.

News reaches Pickle Towers of an English actor obtaining a part in a US superhero adaptation movie - and NOT playing the baddie!

Yep, it seems that the part of Odin the Allfather has gone to Brian Blessed, possibly the only actor who would have to turn down his natural speaking voice in order not to drown out the God of Thunder.

All of which makes me think; if I was casting The Mighty Avengers purely from our spectred isles, who would be in the running.

AntMan : Ray Winstone. Best line of dialogue "Oi mush! Watch where yer puttin' yer xxxxin' feet!"

The Winsome Wasp : Jeanette Krankie - no special effects needed to shrink her down to size.

The Might Thor : Lenny Henry. Controversial casting there, I know, but imagine what depths could be bought to the role by someone who could deliver King James Bible English in a Dudley/Jamaican mum accent?

The Incredible Hulk - That grumpy faced bloke with the Walrus moustache who does the adverts saying "Had an accident at work? Not your fault?". Face it - he's big, and you wouldn't like him when he got angry. Mind you, you probably don't like him when he isn't.

Iron Man - Stephen Moore. Qualifications - already experienced in playing metal men, and his Marvin catchphrase "I've got a terible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side" could easily be adapted for Tony "Shrapnel Nuts" Stark.

Captain America - John Barrowman. Face it, he's every-bloody-where else.

04/08/2009

Can you tell I'm in a cynical mood?

A problem shared...

... is a problem squared.

02/08/2009

The ultimate in pointless, frustrating activities.

Try this:

Lift your right foot about six inches of the ground.
Draw clockwise circles in the air with your big toe.
While still drawing those circles, write number 6 in the air with your right hand forefinger.

Yep - your foot is now drawing anti-clockwise circles, isn't it?

Just one more try and I'm giving up forever...

25/07/2009

An optimist...

An optimist is just a pessimist who isn't in full possession of the facts.

23/07/2009

What goes around...

... comes back in the nicest way. Esteemed quill-flourisher and HTML specialist Bernard O'Leary was kind (and clever) enough to turn my rudimentary Excel macro-driven Plottomator into a tasty little piece of HTML (eyes right, people). Then he pressed the button, got himself a prompt and wrote a short story based on it which has made runner up in the Guardian short fiction competition. Check out guardian.co.uk/books on August 1st. Check out the Plottomator any time. It can't make you a prize-winning author, but it might just give you the seeds of an idea.

14/07/2009

Don't have a cow, man

Lots of lip-flapping on the news this morning about the plight of the British veal farmer, and how our veal is less cruel than Continental veal (well it would be, wouldn't it?)

But tune in to me here, brothers and sisters; do you know where milk comes from? And Oxo cubes?

Take one cow, take one of those machines they use to crush cars that don't have road tax. Put the cow in the machine and press the "Go" button. Stand back and be amazed as milk pours out. And what's left? Now we are on a wavelength, brothers and sisters; an Oxo cube.

Don't believe me? Try this. Pour a pint of milk into a bowl. Drop in an Oxo cube. Stand well back.


PLUS

EQUALS

08/07/2009

Nice Enough To eat

I remember reading somewhere that if you own two hundred LPs, you already own a hundred LPs that you will never again listen to in their entirety. Now how much does that sentence date me?

Let's start the forensics: "LPs". Who knows what "LPs" are nowadays (and I'll excuse all readers of Record Collector Magazine and Mojo)? OK, let's talk about "albums" then. When I was... oh Lor' - I almost wrote "When I was a boy" there. Forgive me. Once upon a time, an artist released a collection of tracks in a single unit - probably ran to about 20 minutes a side*, maybe three quarters of an hour's entertainment once you had put the first side on, used the sleeve to (*ahem*) "skin up" on, found something to assuage the sudden hunger that seemed to onset just as the needle hit the runout groove, turned the LP over, giggled as the needle missed the vinyl and you grooved to 3 minutes of sapphire-on-rubber white noise, finally found the edge of side two, and let for face melt during the second half of the band's latest opus. There's a reason why Sergeant Pepper's second side is more wonky than side one. They knew you would be off your mash by the time you got to hear it. They knew it, and so they played to it.

Nowadays - maybe even for about the past fifteen years - no-one, but no-blimming-one, has ever bought a CD, stuck it on, and played it from one end to the other. They are all an hour long at least, you can't roll a funny fag on the jewel case, and they are full of filler. We stick 'em on our iPlod, rip 'em to our PCs and we don't even notice if Monkey Media never shuffles half the tracks onto our speakers. What a waste. A waste of time, a waste of plastic, and a waste of artistes' talents. Make music as expensive as it was in the Sixties, when an album cost the equivalent of about thirtyfive of your modern quids. Limit the bands to thirtyfive minutes, and then we'll see some Rock'n'Roll Darwinism. A quid a minute, that'd sort out the music scene.

That being said...
Just picked up Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal, An Island Anthology 1967-1972 in Harrow Library's Summer Sale. £1.50. This stuff just takes me back to the days when a guy in a greatcoat would sell you a "quid deal" which turned out to be half an Oxo cube wrapped in tin foil.

Maaaaan, Oxo cube crumbled into the contents of a Park Drive - now that was some trip.

And if any of that makes any sense to you, welcome to your fifties. I shall return to the subject of no-longer-listened-to LPs before too very long.

As soon as this beefstock buzz wears off...

* I actually own a Buddy Holly LP which barely makes ten minutes a side.

04/07/2009

Mike's mix #2

Here's another 80 minutes worth of music for your mind...

1 Sandy Wynn - A Touch of Venus 2:37
2 Spirit - Fresh Garbage 3:13
3 The Forum - The River Is Wide 2:48
4 Marshall Crenshaw - Whenever You're On My Mind 3:17
5 Teddy Bears - To Know Him Is to Love Him 2:24
6 Mylene Farmer - Mylene s'en fout 4:32
7 The Supremes - Reflections 2:51
8 Fun Lovin' Criminals - We Have All The Time In The World 3:41
9 Taj Mahal - A Lot of Love 3:56
10 The Beach Boys - Please Let Me Wonder 2:46
11 J.J.Barnes - Our Love Is In the Pocket 2:45
12 Doris Troy - I'll Do Anything (He Wants Me to Do) 2:39
13 Laurie Johnson - The Avengers 2:20
14 Freda Payne - Band of Gold 2:54
15 Righteous Brothers - You've Lost That Loving Feeling 3:34
16 Harry Nilsson - It's Been So Long 2:08
17 The Cardigans - Lovefool 3:13
18 Harry J Allstars - Liquidator 2:48
19 Ronnie Lane And Slim Chance - The Poacher 3:42
20 Robert John - If You Don't Want My Love 2:21
21 Super Furry Animals - Juxtaposed With U 3:08
22 Famous Blues Band - Nine By Nine 3:11
23 Fleetwood Mac - Green Manalishi 4:25
24 Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy 5:08
25 Maxine Brown - It's Torture 2:34

Shopping in Waitrose today

... and keeping my eyes peeled for bargains, who did I spot filling their trolleys but ex-PM "Sunny" Jim Callaghan, Dick Van Dyke ("Diagnosis Murder" Dick, not "Meeery Puppins" Dick) and, responding enthusiastically to the offer to sample some wine, Leslie Phillips from about the time of "Carry On Constable".

"Blimey," I said to Elvis, who works on the deli counter, "you get all sorts in here don't you?"

He just replied "Uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, oh yeah."

I think next week I'll shop in Morrison's.

02/07/2009

Feeling hot, hot, hot.

This clement weather has got me thinking, brothers and sisters; the closer you get to the source of the heat, the hotter you get, right?

So, when you climb to the top of a mountain, you are nearer the sun, n'est ce pas (and I trust you'll excuse the French? So, where do you go if you want to get up to some ski-ing? Are you tuning into me, brothers and sisters? Tell me this then; if it gets hotter the closer you get to the source of the heat, how come that the tops of mountains are full of light dustings, heavy falls, glaciers, and Abominable Snowmen?
I think we are on a wavelength here. Obviously, the source of the heat is not the sun, but the centre of the Earth. Am I right, or am I the Singing Detective?

In fact, I would not be at all surprised if we were actually nett exporters of hot. There's probably a whole bunch of people living on the Sun at this very moment (Sunnies? Solarians?) saying to each other "Oh, it's a really Earthy day, must remember to put on my Factor 40 Terrablock, don't want to get Earthburn," etc.

There's just no pleasing some people. Especially Solarians.

27/06/2009

Both hands working again (well, just about enough to use a keyboard)...

... and now it seems my ears have improved. After singing along to The Beatles' "She Loves You" for, oh, 46 years or thereabouts, it now transpires that the line I have been belting out as "In spite of her 'to-do' - apologise to her" was, I now realise, actually written by L & M as "Pride can hurt you too..."

So it seems that the drugs I am taking for the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome are sharpening my hearing too.

Pardon?

16/06/2009

Parts of this blog..

Parts of this blog have been edited and shown out of sequence in an attempt to make you think that something dramatic happened. Filmed with lash inserts. Post-production enhancements may lead you to believe this blog is effective. 83% agree (based on a survey of 27 people). This posting being shown at near-subliminal speed to satisfy the relevant Standards Authorities without actually letting you know what is going on.

15/06/2009

Proof that “ITV Comedy” is an oxymoron

Proof that the phrase “ITV Comedy” is an oxymoron: “May Contain Nuts”.

Reasons.
1) The title – it means nothing. It has no connection with the plot or characters. Now if it was a sitcom set in an underpants factory, or 18th century Bedlam then, OK, “May Contain Nuts” might be appropriate. But socially-aspiring, latte-drinking, Tarquin-offspringed, 50p tax-rated, gated-community dwellers? Where’s the link?
2) The setting – socially-aspiring, blah blah blah (see above). Does the word zeitgeist mean nothing?
3) The ‘jokes’ – don’t get me started (and, coincidentally, it seems that that was the scriptwriters’ motto). The main ‘comedy’ revolves around a forty-odd year old woman of diminutive stature (not a bit of Political Correctness there, she is just short) masquerading as her eleven-year-old daughter in order to take the entrance exam for a highly selective school. Let me tell you, she makes the least convincing eleven-year-old since Jeanette Krankie stuck a catapult in her back pocket and decided to go the Jimmy Clitheroe route.
4) (And I can still taste a tiny bit of bile riding in the back of my throat as I recall this) The scene where the forty-odd year old woman is trying on pre-teen slut gear (imagine Lesley “Birds of a Feather” Joseph dressed up like a Bratz doll) and her husband (and remember now, this woman is masquerading as their pre-teenage daughter) confesses to be a little ‘turned on’.

I have seen ITV sitcoms shuffle from semi-prime-time into the twilight viewing hours between the showing of the first and second episodes before now. This one, mercifully, is only a two-parter. Nonetheless, I am not sure that they can't find something to fill the schedule where the second part is supposed to be - a double bill of "Mind Your Language" and "On the Buses" might do the trick.

It's a marvel

Time.

Of course time is relative. That's why it is called a grandfather clock.

14/06/2009

9% of people claim they have seen a UFO

OK, so that's what the banner on the YouGov front page suggests.

But how many have been abducted? Let me tell you something...

I woke up the other morning to discover bloodstains on my pillow - I had experienced a spontaneous nocturnal nosebleed. That is something which has never happened to me before.

When do you get nosebleeds? That's right - when you go through some kind of decompression - like going up in an aeroplane - or perhaps something that reaches an even greater altitude. Are you tuning in to me yet, brothers and sisters?

Another odd thing; the whole room was entirely as it had been when I had gone to sleep the previous night. Now let me ask you this; if you were an alien, maybe a "grey", or something more like a futuristic hologram, or just that wobbly faced man from the end credits on the early Star Trek TV shows, and you were abducting someone, would you (a) make a right old mess of the place, opening drawers, swapping the socks around so all the pairs were odd, doing an alien-Banksy style graffito on the wall above the bedhead, etc., or (b) leave everything EXACTLY where it was, so there was absolutely no proof that you had been there.

I think we are on a wavelength here.


You got it, brothers and sisters; I had been abducted by aliens, and possibly (possibly? NO - probably!) been probed. And they didn't even have the decency to buy me dinner first. Sometimes you just can't win.

03/02/2009

Mix Disk #1

If I could, I'd give burn a mix CD fir everyone and give it away free with every copy of this blog. Failing that, here's a virtual playlist. This'll fit nicely on an 80 minute CD (as long as you burn without any gaps).

Mike's Mix - Volume 1
Maxine Brown - It's Torture
Evie Sands - I Can't Let Go
Prince - I Wish You Heaven
Johnny Kidd and the Pirates - Shakin' All Over
The Wailers - Trenchtown Rock
Pallmall - Is She All You want
Booker T and the MGs - Time is Tight (fast version)
Terry Callier - Look At Me Now
Crazy World of Arthur Brown - I Put A Spell On You
The Bystanders - Pattern People
Robert Johnson - They're Red Hot
Dino Valente - Time
John Fahey - Dance of the Inhabitants of the Palace of King Philip XIV of Spain
Timi Yuro - It'll Never Be Over For Me
Ben Fold Five - Kate
The Monkees - I'm A Believer
Laura Nyro - Eli's Comin'
Mood Mosaic - A Touch of Velvet, A Sting of Brass
Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)
Jackie de Shannon - Don't Turn Your Back On Me
Al Green - To Sir With Love
Shelby Lynne - Gotta Get back
Otis Redding - Try A Little Tenderness
The Carpenters - Goodbye To Love
John Carpenter - Assault on Precinct Thirteen

Pinches of salt not provided...

This blog contains mild violence and fantasy spider references, and may allude to imaginary events as if they were actually real. Are you tuning in to me, brothers and sisters?