oohisay

"Is love a fancy, a feeling or a ...."

2007-06-18T12:13:00.000Z

....Mike.

I am in love.

Going back up North has been pretty good for me I must say.

Apart from having several fights with rougth people and breaking my knuckle on Saturday in one *ouch* my life at the moment I have to say is pretty sweet.

I have been in a whirlwind romance for about three months and I am getting married...scarilly!

...and working at the Beeb and have an amazing group of friends.

But I have been neglecting my blog and can't believe I haven't posted for well over a year...

...expect regular observations on what really "grinds my gears" with a Northern slant. Oh yes, there will be none of your braised lamb with jus gastro-pub talk here. Get ready for the equivalent of a bag of chips with plenty of salt and vinegar...and a spam fritter if you're lucky.

2007-01-18T14:25:00.000Z

I am getting so sick of Prime Minister's Questions and ploitics in general. Aside from the amusing "boo-yah-ing" and the mandatory sight of Boris lounging or picking his nose, it is both incredibly boring and slightly soul destroying.
No matter what questions the opposition throw at the PM, you can guarantee that they will be answered by one of slimey Tony's stock answers. Either the broken record of "Well it's better now than it was when we took over" or the convenient "I can't comment because there is an inquiry."
I know that by the mid-90s the Tories had fucked-up a few things, but surely after 10 years in power the Labour party should have learnt how to take the needle off the broken record and put a new one on the gramaphone...
...and another thing - the amount of planted questions at every PMQs is just getting beyond a joke. It is a complete waste of the public's time and not how the only time that MPs have the opportunity to call the PM to account should be spent.
Keeping on politics, did anybody see "The trial of Tony Blair" on the tele-box the other night?
It was all very funny and thought provoking, but I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for TB by the end of it. As a staunch member of the Conservative Party this isn't good!
The real victim of the satire was David Cameron I felt, who came across like a complete wanker.
I only wish that like the other TB, there was an injection that could just make the Prime Minister obselete in this country...a sentiment I am sure the rest of his party would echo with knobs on.

Here's Htdj......

2006-12-11T15:09:00.000Z

....She's back!!!!!

Hello. It has been a long time but maybe when you readers have read this post you will understand why.

Has anyone ever seen the Elizabeth Taylor classic "Cleopatra". There is a line in it when Marc Anthony dies that just sums up what has happened to me.
The Messenger says: "Antony is dead."
Octavius replies: [Quietly, stunned] "Is that how one says it? As simply as that? Antony is dead. Lord Antony is dead! The soup is hot, the soup is cold, Antony is living, Antony is dead."

Sometimes when something bad happens in life, we don't react in the way that we thought we would and sometimes the magnitude of what happens is so enormous that we cannot believe that mere words can create that amount of carnage.

In July, I found out that the person I thought was my Dad for the last 24 years isn't and that basically my whole life had been a lie.

Two weeks later I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disorder, so dear reader life has been a bitch, hence me not blogging.

But normal service will be resumed this week with a makeover for the site and many posts when I find something remotely interesting to say.

I expect to get a reaction akin to hanging a poster of Martin Bashir on Jacko's bedroom wall to this post, as people never know what to say in shitty situations such as this, but I thought I may as well tell the truth about why I haven't blogged.

For now all that remains to be said is keep away from Itsu and don't speak to any over-friendly Russians.

I am in Iraq

2006-09-30T20:55:00.000Z

...well, that is not strictly true...but Bridge Street in Warrington can look pretty bad on a Saturday night believe me, so it isn't too much of an exaggeration.

But on a serious note, I have had a bit of a shocker in the last couple of weeks and will be amusing you all with how crap my life is in a week or so.

So until then, read Infinite Muppet's blog. It is very good.

Books...

2006-08-28T22:18:00.000Z

...got tagged, so here it is:

1. Book(s) that changed your life: I would have to say "Scoop" by Evelyn Waugh. 'Cos it is very funny but touching and is based in a world that I can relate to, as I have been part of it.

2. Book(s) you have read more tham once: Loads. "Trainspotting", Dicken's works...too many to mention.

3. Book I would take on a desert island: "Treasure Island"...there are some usefull tips in it.

4. Book which made you laugh: "Dress your Family in cordorouy and denim" by David Sedaris.

5. Book which made you cry: That chapter in "Little Women" when Beth dies, has me every time.

6. Book(s) you wish you had written: “Chav! A Users Guide to Britain's new Ruling Class”

7. Book(s) which you wish had never been written: The Atkin's diet ones or Doctor Gillian McKeith's self help shit. Dr Atkins died of a heart attack...cos he clogged his arteries with his crazy diet and Gillian McKeith may be slim but her face looks like one of the shits that she has so much fun poking about it.

8. Book which you are currently reading: "Get Happy" book about Judy Garland. See sidebar...

9. Book you are meaning to read: Deborah Curtis' book about the late great Ian Curtis.

"...a fantastic, universal sense that whatever we were doing was right: that we were winning..." Hunter S. Thompson

2006-08-28T20:08:00.002Z

I have just returned from the Leeds festival feeling euphoric but just drained after a weekend of pure rock and roll excess. This year was my first year back at Leeds after a couple of years at Reading and it was good to be home.

So many things happened during the weekend that I am going to give an A-Z rundown of the shenanigans...Plus for those of you who have never been to a festival this will give you an idea of what kinda stuff goes on there...

ARCTIC MONKEYS: Unlike the rest of the population, or so it seems, I was not a Monkeys fan. When I heard their first single I thought they were just another libertines rip-off band. I bought the album 'cos of peer pressure and thought there were about 6 good songs on it, but after seeing them live I have totally changed my mind. God those kids are musically tight. Every note, beat and chord was perfect and the crowd just went wild. I think people sometimes just forget how young the band are as well. This was really obvious when Alex Turner was trying to interact with the crowd and you could see that he hadn't really perfected his front-man stage presence. The sweetest rock and roll moment since Frances Bean Cobain was born happened when the camera man panned to the wings to record Alex Turner's Dad filming his son on a hand-held camcorder. Most parents are bursting with pride when their kids play a Sunday League footie match, so imagine how Mr and Mrs Turner et al must be feeling as they watch 120,000 muso's going wild and singing along to your offspring lyrics. Unbelievable.
BOLLOCKS: Every year there is a chant that reverberrates around the camp site until about six in the morning. One person shouts something out and then the game is to shout it out louder and louder, so that practically the whole campsite ends up doing it. A couple of years ago it was "Timmy!!" and last year it was a Futurehead's style "Oh oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh oh". This year the old stalwart "Bollocks" was aired again.
CHAVS: The thing about Leeds festival as opposed to Reading is that there are so many more chavs. The place is full of them. It is like a gypo's day out or that the resident's of North Wales towns like Rhyl or Prestatyn have been let out on day release for a Yorkshire jolly. They travel in packs round the site, mostly hanging around in the dance tent but occasionally making a forray onto the main field when a popular band like the Kasiers or the Streets play on the main stage. This year it was mostly sunny, so they all did that thing where they take their head out of their Ben Sherman stripey t-shirts and put the whole front of the shirt behind their necks, so that their skinny, mal-nutritioned, diet of chip butties pigeon chests are on show. At one point I found myself in the middle of a big gaggle of them as I got disorientated by the amount of fake Burberry check.
DRESDON DOLLS: One of my favourite bands... I just love their mad vaudeville brand of piano punk. They also bag the award for best cover of the weekend as well. The singer said: "While we are visiting England we want to embrace the culture by singing a traditional folk song." Then they started singing "Everyday I love you less and less" Dresdon Dolls does Kaiser Chiefs, surreal but in the words of Bill and Ted "most excellent".
EMOS: I am not sure what these are, but my friends kept telling me that there were millions of them there. They seem to look like goths and think that smiling or laughing is a crime akin to rape. So it was with interest that I watched so-called Emo bands "Fall Out Boy", "Panic at the Disco" and "My Chemical Romance". I actually really liked them...perhaps I am an emo...But how can a band named after a minor charachter from The Simpsons be wrong?!
FIRES: Why do complete wankers think that it is good sport to make fires in the arena area. Last year someone lost an eye from somebody hitting them with a lighted aroesol can. Now they are having only half as much fun.
GUEST PASSES: Because I am a journo type I am lucky enough to recieve free guest passes for all the festivals every year. This means that I get to rub shoulders with the z-listers and band members and not have to wait for beer with the great un-washed. But the best thing about going v.i.p is the posh loos. You get to shit in a carpeted bog, with a proper ceramic rim and a wooden toilet seat. There are mirrors and sinks and soap and wait for it toilet roll!!!! It is worth it just for that.
HEADCASES: There are always so many nutters around, but there were even more this year due to the presence of "Slayer". One guy was walking around wearing only a pair of pink Kaiser Chief thongs with the word "Chiefette" wriiten on the arse. He was either VERY cold, or God played a cruel joke on him.
I'M OFF THE TELLY: Backstage was like a scene straight out of Chinawhites as a gaggle of slappers tried to get their mitts on any soap star in attendance. Emmerdale's own Cain Dingle was there with what looked like half of Essex swarming around him like flies around shit.
JACK BLACK: This may be unpopular, but *whisper it* I HATE Jack Black and the fat fucker's crappy, unfunny joke band Tenacious D. I hate the fact that indie music lovers feel that they have to like this turd and laugh and sing along to all their songs when the organisers play their videos on the big screen for the 500th time that weekend. This are the same twats who wear t-shirts saying "Vote Pedro" and have the song off Anchorman as their mobile phone ringtones. Yes, we have all seen it and we all thought it was funny. Get over it. Soon.
KIDS: Blog regulars will know that I am not the biggest fan of kids and parents who take kids to festivals are just spoiling everybodys fun. Glastonbury I can understand, but Leeds is a dirty rock festival where people go to listen to heavy music and go wild. So dont have a go at people jumping up and down when a band comes on because they may accidentally stand on little Susie's foot. That is what happens at festivals. Take them bowling instead.
LOOSE BOWELLS: The sight of a fairly attractive bird pulling down her kecks and just shitting in the arena will stay with me forever. The dirty bitch didnt even wipe. Also when Belle and Sebastien were on, we were stood right near the front when a big empty circle appeared next to us, with just a cup of piss in the middle of it. I didnt see what happened to it, but I just hoipe that the yellowy liquid which landed on my head later on was beer...
MIDNIGHT: Is usually the time when morons start to cause riots and push the chemical toilets over and set fire to them. This year the festival organisers have put loads of activities on after midnight so that their tiny brains can be distracted from causing trouble.
NEON: Everbody got raved up, glowsticks, whistles and smiley faces t-shirts for the amazing Klaxons show. It was mental and everyone went wild. I got kicked in the face and almost got my lip ring pulled out about 50 times. I have sustained less injuries at Marilyn Manson and Slipknot gigs. All together now: "Naughty, naughty...very naughty".
OVER-PRICED FOOD: You can get some amazing bargains at festivals, like cheap vintage clothing and CDs, but the food is a proper rip-off. I payed Â£3.50 for a tray of chips and cheese. It is a joke. Next year I shall be bringing my own pot-noodles.
PEACHES GELDOF LOOKALIKES: Festival go-ers seem to be getting younger and younger every year, but I have never seen so many Peaches Geldof lookalikes in my life. They all look like they had done a Supermarket Sweep style trolley dash in Oxfam and wore everything they had found at the same time in a bid to look as quirky as possible. Everywhere I went I could hear their annoying private school educated voices, where they "like pause at the wrong place...in sentences and their voices go up at the end of a word." Why can't they just "Summer" the South of France like all the other toffs, instead of slumming it with the common people? Don't they realise that Jarvis Cocker was being ironic?
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE: Weren't there but Josh Homme's other band, which he plays the drums in, "Eagles of Death Metal" were. They are not death metal at all, or eagles and are definately worth a look.
READING: Leeds festival's older sister. I know that Reading has been around for a lot longer and it is closer to London, but it really boils my piss when the TV highlights show doesn't bother to show any clips of Leeds at all. Most of the headlining bands were actually Northern for God's sake.
SEXY INDIE BLOKES: Festivals are always such great eye-candy for me. It is like being stuck in a Vivienne Westwood boutique stocked full of clothes for chubby people, with an unlimited credit Mastercard. Unfortunately it seems like Chantelle and Preston syndrome that I wrote about here has grown to epic proportions. Due to those 2 dick weeds and new famous wannabes Pete and Nicki, every orange-faced Selfridge's perfume counter worker covets the new must have accessory: An indie boyfriend. So now I am having to fight tooth and nail for a small peice of the action. Of course all the Johnny Borrell types are no longer interested in a Clerks watching, Converse wearing, rockabilly chick like me. TV'S own Alan Carr made an excellent joke about Selfridges' girls in his stand-up show at the comedy tent. He said: "All these Selfridges girls who say that their tans are natural...yeah right love. Not unless your Dad fucked a Wotsit."
TOWERS OF PEOPLE: This years new craze was people standing on top of one another and making huge cheerleading style towers. It was very amusing and much better than the piss-poor videos the organisers were showing between bands.
UMBRELLAS: The weekend ALMOST went without any rain until The Streets came on on Sunday afternoon and the heavens opened. I got piss soaking wet through and you could literally wring out my clothes.
VEGGIES: Why are these events full of tofu eating, Liberal Democrat voting, dreadlocked hippies? I noticed no fewer than 6 vegetarian food vans this year. Piss off and take your shittake mushrooms with you.
WET CAT: Once it gets to Sunday, people really start to stink like wet cat. During Muse the air was thick with grease, farts, mud and BO. Mingled together it smells remarkably like wet cat, so is not very nice.
XXX: I sat down on Saturday and stood up with a used condom stuck to my jeans. Next year I am investing in a fold-up chair.
YORKSHIRE: This year it was all about the t'other side of the Pennines, as the line-up was full of Yorkshire bands. The Kaiser Chiefs victorious home-coming, Sheffields' Arctic Monkeys and the Long Blondes. All together now: "Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire".
ZANY T-SHIRTS: There were many of excellent t-shirts on display throughout the weekend. My personl fav. was a T worn by a 6'7" guy saying on the back: "Sorry if you can't see".

So there you have it my from Abba to Zappa description of my weekend...roll on next year!

Five Things...

2006-08-23T18:19:00.000Z

I got tagged by A.C.T So here is my response...

Five Things in my Freezer:

1. Ice
2. 2 chicken breast
3. Ben and Jerry's
4. frozen veg
5. Aunt Bessie's yorkshire puds

Five Things in my Closet

1. A vintage fur cape (yes, it's real but also adorable)
2. 26 pairs of boots (My other one hundred pairs of shoes are in crates as they dont fit!)
3. 4 ball dresses that I look at wistfully cos I will prob never get to wear most of them again :(
4. Rugby and footy shirts (Warrington, Newcastle and England respectively)
5. About 70 belts and 20 skinny ties.

Five Things in my Car

Not yet bought one...but when I do I wont be fillinf with loads of shit like cuddly toys and nodding dogs, thank you.

Five Things in my Purse

1. Passport
2. Press Pass
3. PCC Code of conduct
4. Tory Party membership card
5. A condom

And the Lucky Five .........

1. Butterfly Jones at Caterpillar to Butterfly
2. LD Bug at LDBug
3. Goofy Ass Chick at Goofy Ass Chick
4. The Wanted Man at Are you Up to the Test?
5. Christian Oshi at Oshi Blog

"But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity...

2006-08-21T15:04:00.000Z

...Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me...HOMEWARD BOUND.

Yes, I am moving home.

Well, to Manchester at least 'cos I am not sure I could cope with Warrington.

See...the thing is that I really love London, but a shortage of money makes London the shittest place to be in the whole world. I haven't been able to get a steady job in journalism and all the agencies will not give me a "normal" job because I have shit all experience apart fom following z-list celebrities around the capital and making ridicolous stories sound slightly credible.

So I am moving to Manchester, to do er..the same.

I have always had a real love for Manchester and ever since I saw how amazing the whole City looked on the "Passion of the Christ" I have been thinking about moving back a lot.

It is just something about the place that I cannot describe...poetry and music and a certain edgy attitude seem to exude from the walls. God that sounds pretentious, but it is true.

Plus all the media companies are moving many of thier staff to Manchester - such as the Beeb and many of the nationals.

I keep feeling like I need to convince myself or almost make excuses for moving back up North. I suppose I have rather snobbily, always equated being succesfull with getting my ass down South, as far away from my roots as possible. So moving back up here is almost like failure. Like I am a failure who couldn't cut it in London.

I am really gonna miss my best friends and just the feeling of euphoria that I had from being in the thick of things in the big smoke. But it is only a 2 hour train journey away and I will be down all the time.

But when "Ev'ry day's an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines.
And each town looks the same to me,
the movies and the factories,
And ev'ry stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be,
Homeward bound."

VIVA LA FOOKIN' MANCHESTER!!!!!!

A bag of sweets a dirty smile...looks like HtDJ is a peadophile...

2006-07-21T22:02:00.000Z

The other day in the gym I was in the locker room and I saw a little girl eating a bag of crisp. I really love kids...I mean I wouldn't like to eat a full one...but when I see them I like to have a laugh and a joke with them. So I said: "It's not fair, you are eating crisp, I want one!" The little girl laughed and carried on eating, but her fat bitch of a Mother looked at me like I was some kind of Gary Glitter sympathiser, tutted and dragged her child away from me.

What is the world coming to?!

It seems that nowadays if you even look at a child in the street, people rush over like a member of "Nonce Sense" to usher a child away.

Now I know that peados are using an area of the internet the size of Ireland and that internet paedophiles can make computer keyboards that emit noxious fumes in order to subdue children...but surely people are not so panicked that an innocent comment about a crisp in a health club changing room can be construed as grooming????

Now parents are not even allowed to film their own children's Christmas plays or football matches, for fear of being arrested by the MILIT-PEDE.

Don't they know that peados have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you or me....

"I never get to sit on the sofa...I always have to sit on the wickety chair" - Rik, The Young Ones

2006-07-21T21:55:00.000Z

I don't like going home.

I always feel like the odd one out.

The stench of a bunch of wankers anyone?

2006-07-21T21:44:00.000Z

Is anyone else sick and tired of celebrities with barely any talent thinking they can turn their hand to anything?
Paris Hilton has got to be the worst culprit of this...I mean all the girl really does is travel around the world getting pissed and shagged and spending Daddy's money.
It isn't just that I am slightly jealous, as this would be my ideal job...but also the thick bitch has also released a shit single with a semi-pornographic video and also a perfume.

Why would anybody buy a perfume which had been "created" by a star?

I suppose it is for the same reasons as people get a star's haircut or seek out an outfit that somebody wore at a premiere...to become more like them. But this doesn't work people!!!

I remember in the mid-90s and everybody decided to get a "Rachel from Friend's haircut", which essentially was just a kind of mushroomy inverted mullet. It looked stupid on anyone else but her.

Would people actually want to smell like some of the celebrities who market these perfumes?

Luckilly, unlike many people, I have never been close enough to Paris Hilton to smell her...but I can imagine she aint fresh...

Shit adverts

2006-07-12T18:49:00.000Z

Has anyone else seen those adverts on TV for toilet roll with added balm? What's all that about. Are adults not able to wipe their own arses without a bit of wetness on the bog roll? Jesus. They might as well use baby wipes.

Gladiators: Where are they now?

2006-07-12T18:19:00.000Z

Seen as how I am only working 3 days a week at the Ooh Aah Daily Star, my life has become an endless whirl of Challenge TV on cable.
In the morning I get to step up to "the Ochee" with Jim Bowen in Bullseye and then challenge myself to beat a load of students with Holness in Blockbuster.
But my absoloute favourite has got to be Gladiators.

I don't know about other readers, but when I was a kid me and all my mates thought the gladiator's were gods.You can guarantee that every Saturday night come 6:00, I would be sat on my sofa ready to sing along to the Queen songs and wave an imaginary foam hand.

I never got to go and watch the programme, which I believe was filmed in Birmingham NEC, but I had a mate who did. I did however get to meet my two favourite Gladiators: Lightning and Cobra, when they turned the Christmas lights on in my home town of Warrington. I remember being so excited.

You may recall it is also the programme which really shot everyone's favourite Swedish shagger (after Sven of course); Ulrika Johnson to real TV fame. It also gave us the catch phrases: "Ah Wuga" and "Contenders are you ready? Gladiator's are you ready? 3, 2, 1...beep."

The show finished after it had done an international series I seem to recall. Some dyke-ish looking ginger Northerner called Eunice became the world champion...God love her.

But I wonder what happened to the other Gladiators? Nightshade, Scorpio, Falcon, Zodiac, Lightning, Panther, Jet, Cobra, Hunter, Warrior, Wolf, Trojan, Saracen, Shadow...

2006-06-26T14:19:00.000Z

Did anyone else see David Cameron on 'Tonight with Jonathan Ross' on Friday night? Please tell me somebody did, cos otherwise I was having a very bad trip indeed...and if so, what the fuck is that about?!

Mating Season

2006-06-21T17:27:00.000Z

Hangthedj (for it is she...) is back. Apologies for lack of blogging action but two things have happened which have stopped me posting. The World Cup and Big Brother...between kick-offs and evictions there just never seems to be enough time in the day.
The post title makes it look like I have been getting some man action, but dissapointingly it refers to a conversation I had with a friend about the warm weather.
He pointed out to me that the sun makes people dress in nicer (or more revealing) clothing and that this results in people feeling more amorous than usual. In fact he referred to himself as "no better than a stag" and after a walk around Carnaby Street where he ignored me for about 2 hours, perving on random passers by, I say: "He's not wrong".
It seems like everybody feels this way and wants to "do it like the pigeons" as Drop Dead Fred once said.
All the magazines are full of top 100 sexiest lists, which I always scoff at and disagree with 99% of the people who make the list. So in a fit of girly giggling and Channel 4 style listing mania, I present to you all my alternative fit list.

MEN!
Rob Lowe - If I was ever famous enough to do "Desert Island Discs", he would be my luxury item.
Jarvis Cocker - A teenage crush which never went away.
Boris Johnson - Catholic, Tory, Anglo-Saxon haircut. Nuff said.
Robert Webb - If only Peep Show's Jez was real and then I could go out with him and set Galatea up with Mark.
Kaka - Worth watching the World Cup for.
Jimmy Carr - Dead-panningly gorgeous.
Nigel Harman - Little Den's murder on Eastenders ranked up there with the killing of Bambi's mother. Sob!

Jody Latham - Yes, he plays a total chav as Lip in Shameless, but he is my guilty pleasure.

BIRDS!

Natalie Portman - Sooo pretty damn her and wipes the floor with Punch and Judy chinned contemporary Knightley.
Dita Von Teese - Fabulous.
Kirsty Gallacher - Good, wholesome football blokes totty.
Rosamund Pike - The term "English Rose" was surely invented for her.

Disagree with any of these? Well come on then you wrong 'uns, lets be 'aving ya....

WOMEN: BLAME MEN!!

2006-05-31T12:21:00.000Z

I was sitting watching "Celebrity X-Factor on Monday night (yeah - for my job...honest...) and I was disgusted by Sharon Osbourne's treatment of Rebecca Loos.
I have never been a fan of Loos and in fact, think she represents everything that is wrong with our country...I mean, becoming famous for shagging a footballer...WTF?! But Sharon Osbourne was totally classless when she slaughtered Loos on live TV like that.
For those highbrow readers of this blog who have much better things to do than watch celebrity filled tat (ie. everyone except Galatea)and so don't know anything about what happened, heres the lowdown:
"Celebrity X-Factor" is basically a load of wannabes humiliating themselves on screen for charity. None of them are very good (except Chris Moyles), but nobody cares cos they are gonna make loads of cash for good causes.
Rebecca Loos is in a band with love-rat and obvious Father of Prince Harry, James Hewitt. They sang Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" to a chorus of do-gooder's boos in the crowd.
They were truly shit, I admit, so when it came to the judge's comments I knew someone would have a go...but I could never have imagined it was gonna be so cringe-worthy.
Obviously fresh from gorging herself on free champagne and sushi at the Beckham's tacky party the other day, Sharon obviously thought she'd have a punt at being inducted into the 'Order of the Brown Nose' by having a pop at Rebecca on behalf of Posh.
"Next time you come on stage, maybe you could wear some knickers" Sharon cackled.

WHY DO WOMEN ALWAYS DO THIS?

Why only blame the woman involved in an affair and let the man get away scot-free?

I am not a huge fan of Rebecca Loos and I don't think that sleeping with a married man is great "moral" behaviour, but really Beckham was actually the one that was married and betrayed both his wife and children.
I worked at the News of the Screws when they broke this story and know the journalist who wrote it fairly well. Believe me, "Saint" Beckham did his fair share of the running and sent some very filthy texts.
COME ON LADIES...STICK TOGETHER FOR ONCE!!!!
Lordy, I came over all Germaine sodding Greer for a minute there.
On a lighter note, Paul Daniels and Debbie McGhee were also on the programme.
A 'Sun' journalist once told me that the paper have a video in their safe in Wapping of the couple having sex with a small dog.
This has got to be one of the funniest and most grotesque press rumours around. Ever.

Cable, sweet Cable

2006-05-24T11:35:00.000Z

"Ve ave vays of making you talk..."

Priceless.

I have been staying with my parents while I wait to move into my new flat and have become obsessed with cable tv. So obsessed in fact that in the last week I have hardly slept. Sad I know...but take last night for instance...I watched:

'Allo 'Allo...

Absolute Power...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

...is there any greater felicity in the world than this? Somebody better take the remote away. Now.

"Can we take a ride? Get out of this place? While we still have time...

2006-05-24T10:31:00.000Z

Akr has tagged me, to do this work survey thingy. You list 10 things that annoy you about your workplace/colleagues and then link to three people you wish to tag. I know this blog has been a bit tag-tastic of late, but this is the last for a while I promise...I tag Galatea, Stalin's Gran and Tideliar...

1) The amount of Cockney wide-boys in their identi-kit pinstripe suits and fat knotted ties.
2) The fact that words such as "mimsy" and "knotched" are used in general conversation...but I also secretly love this!
3) The coke machine is located in the smoking room. So even spending the two minutes it takes to get a coke in there leaves you smelling like you have spent the afternoon in Wetherspoons.
4) Having to drag myself in on a Saturday morning, red-eyed and still pissed.
5) Sharing the office with the Racing Post. Which means constantly having to listen to sweaty, heavy-browed old men screaming "Come on ma son" everytime there is a race.
6) The features editor is a Hull fan. Nuff said.
7) There is nowhere to eat in Canary Wharf that doesnt make me feel like a complete ponce. Espescially sushi...raw fish?!? Rather have a meat and potato pie anyday of the week.
8) The manic smile and nodding-dog like quality of my deputy news editor when he is faced with my shit ideas in conference every Tuesday.
9) The fact that we have shit-all money to spend in the dubious practice of cheque-book journalism on which we so heavilly rely. Anyone who is out for as much cash as possible (ie. everybody we want to do a chat with) is smart enough to realise that the News of the World is where the pot of gold really lies.
10) The knowledge that even though I moan like hell, there is actually no other job in the world I would rather do. Except Playboy bunny...but that is never gonna happen.

Tag: I am it...

2006-05-23T15:03:00.000Z

I HAVE BEEN: Tagged... by a.c.t. and I tag Marrow, Goofy Ass Chick and akr

I AM: A total gobshite.
I WANT: To celebrate England winning the World Cup this Summer.
I HATE: Chavs.
I MISS: Spam fritters...they don't do them down South.
I FEAR: Mediocrity.
I HEAR: Voices in my head..*mwah hah haha*
I WONDER: How to meet an eligible chap, who isn't only after sex in London.
I REGRET: Nothing. Lifes too short.
I AM NOT: Very reliable.
I DANCE: Like Bez.
I SING: To the annoyance of my mates, incessantly.It's like I am in a musical.
I SEE: "dead People"..not really, but what a conversation opener that would be.
I CRY: When my rugby team win.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: A bitch. Just sometimes.
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: A peace sign, baby.
I WRITE: Everyday for a living. Yeah my latest expose on orgies in surburbia aint gonna win the Pullitzer Prize, but, it is still writing..Kinda.
I CONFUSE: Myself. Daily.
I NEED: A bikini wax.
I SHOULD: Take life more seriously.
I START: Too many drunken political arguments.
I FINISH: Every tube of Pringles I open. Damn those things are as moreish as crack. Not that I would know of course.

Hang the DJ is unmasked...

2006-05-22T13:33:00.000Z

...well, kinda...but I couldn't help doing News of the World stylee blacked-out eyes for it. Yes, you moaners in the last post havewon outand here isa pic of the offending braids.

...and yes Marrow, beforeyou say it I am nowhere near as beautiful as you...

I hate hippys...but...

2006-05-15T11:12:00.000Z

...I kind of look like one at the moment.

As a teen I used to have my hair braided with extensions very frequently. The last time I had it done was when I was 2o and was travelling around Australasia. I foolishly decided to re-do it t'other day cos I was bored.

Now...I think it looks wicked, but my best friend told me this morning that I resemble a member of Korn. I guess he means Jonathan Davis, which upets me greatly. But hey ho, I shall take them out in a couple of weeks.

I am also stretching my ears, hence the picture of the Medieval torture device-like flesh tunnel at the top of the post. I don't want ridicolous sized holes that I can stick a fist through, just medium sized ones that I can buy cool plugs for.

It does bloody hurt though and come to think of it, I am displaying all the "desperate to make myself a teen again" behavioural patterns of a middle age man.
All I need now is the sports car...

Retro rant

2006-05-15T10:39:00.000Z

Apologies for the absence...I was having a break in St Ives, Cornwall. Aside from my arrival coinciding with the news that there is some kind of aids epidemic breaking out there, it was very nice.
I visited all the watering holes of Newquay and a charming club called "Tall Trees", which reminds me of the Warrington mecca "Mr Smiths". I heard some classic old school dance tunes like La Bouche's "Another night, another dream" tune and that Whigfield song "Sexy Eyes" - which were accompanied by some truly fantastic chavvy dance moves. I even spotted glow sticks. I felt like I had dropped an acid and was back in 1989.
Yes indeed, it was a week of nostalgia. I also watched the classic David Bowie film "The Labyrinth".
I used to love this film as a kid and still know every word to the little speech that Jennifer Connelly had to say to David Bowie to escape the Labyrinth and get back her little brother. But I have never noticed before how many excellent life lessons there are hidden within the Jim Henson muppetry-stuffed rhetoric.
For example, it shows that becoming an adult means facing your fears head on and dealing with the consequences of your actions.
The best bit is the worm part, when he gives Sarah the directions to the castle. She is about to go one way when he calls her back and says: "Don't go that way...never go that way." she thanks him and goes the other way. As she leaves he says: "Ooh if she would have carried on going that way she would have gone straight to the castle." Which was of course where she wanted to go. But it doesn't matter because even though she takes the long way around, she still eventually gets to where she wanted to be.
What a great lesson for life, ay?!
Just call me Hangthedj Freud from now on. Of course it helps when watching the film that David Bowie is truly fit in it as Jareth, the goblin king and is advertising a huge package in the trouser department...but he is wearing tights.

Local Elections

2006-05-04T09:46:00.000Z

So the day has finally arrived and I was up nice and early to register my vote. The biggest shocker is that I didn't actually vote Conservative. The reason being that despite being a member of the party after reading all the Hackney candidate's manifestos I was most impressed by an independent candidate who is a local woman, who represents local people and seemed to make a lot of sense. I don't see this as a betrayal to the party, I am just using my vote in the way that I think it would benefit the community most.
What really pisses me off about the Local Elections and in fact any kind of democratic voting system is the way in which people just blatantly forego their right to vote and therefore make a difference.
For example a mate of mine said that he "can't be arsed" to ever vote in elections, cos he isn't interested in politics.
This really does make me want to scream.
But unfortunately it does seem to be the way a lot of potential voters feel, hence the widespread voter apathy which seems to get worse in every election.
Also you can guarantee that the same bastards that don't bother voting are the ones that will be moaning like the total cunts they are about the powers that be for the rest of the year.
Twats.

Knowing me, knowing you

2006-05-03T15:01:00.000Z

I am currently Alan Partridge...that is to say I have been living in a hotel on and off for the last two weeks now. This is because the two Page 3 girls who are moving in with me are pissing about with the paper-work for our spanking new flat in Greenwich.
It is a two bedroom flat and they are sharing a bedroom and indeed a bed....no boys you have not just fallen asleep and are dreaming about stepping into some cheap channel 5 porno...they are indeed going to be, two page 3 girls, er, sharing a bed.
A few of my mates who haven't turned into boring bastards now that they are attached, have been abroad, so I have been such a billy no mates that I have taken to going down to the hotel sports bar most nights and having a drink with randoms while watching Italian football on Eurosport.
I have met a few interesting charachters though and in a Cheers-esque fashion, it is nice to go to a place "where everybody knows your name" - even if it is the Albanian £1.50 an hour bar man, Hector.

Aussie music in "quite good" shocker

2006-05-02T19:17:00.000Z

For many years now we Brits have asociated music from down under with the ass-shaking of the Minogue sisters or *shudder* those pesky Men at Work...but not anymore.
In the last couple of months I have seen some wicked Australian bands live and have been really impressed.
In March, I saw the Go! Team supported by a wicked punk trio called The Grates.

They have a really amazing stage presence and a sound which reminds me of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but at the same time you want to dance to it. There is something of the cult 80s band 9 Below 0 about them as well...odd I know considering they had a male front man...

And then there is the joy that is Wolfmother. I went to see them for the first time last Wednesday and was lucky enough to drink with the band afterwards, who were thoroughly nice chaps. I am looking forward to seeing Reading rocking out to them this summer.

Then there is the amazing punk band Die!Die!Die! who are technically from NZ...but to this tabloid hack's mind, if it aint blighty it's all the same...Not only is the drummer amazing (and I desperate to bed him..), but their music is pretty sweet too.
All these bands are on myspace...so check them out!

Australia the new Manchester...?

The Big Ask Live

2006-05-02T13:31:00.000Z

I went to see the Big Ask last night, which was some Friends of the Earth thing going on about climate change.
Now until very recently I had a very Jeremy Clarkson attitude to environmental issues, but now that big Dave Cameron has gone green, I decided to see what it's all about.
So I rocked up and was prepared to listen.
But the problem was that nothing was really said about the issue at hand.
It was full of teenagers, who I heard in the queue saying: "What's it all about again...is it the whales? Thom Yorke loves the whales doesn't he." I reckon about 99% of people there were just there to see Radiohead, because they couldn't get tickets to V this summer.
Plus I got really pissed off because they had two tiers of V.I.P tickets. Usually at these events, I get V.I.P press tickets, which means I get a few free drinks, room to write things down and to rub shoulders with fellow hacks and z-listers....but there was none of that last night.
Oh no...I found myself squashed onto a balcony where not only could I not see anything, I also could not write anything down, therefore somewhat hampering my job.
Then, there was a commotion and we were all pushed against the wall while they ushered a star through to the V.I.P section upstairs where they were serving canapes and champagne, no doubt bought out of the Â£55 ticket price tag. The star in question...none other than David Cameron. Who later schmoozed with Peaches Geldof and some bint of a make-over show. As Littlejohn might say: "you couldn't make it up."

A vain attempt to get the image of two Jags rattling his secretary outta my head...

2006-04-26T09:41:00.000Z

...means that I have stolen this little survey thingy off Butterfly Jones' blog and filled it in:

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? Oh dear God.
2. How much cash do you have on you? £30.
3. What's a word that rhymes with TEST? Chest - I find it difficult to think of anything else with these babies on my front.
4. Planet? Uranus - tehe
5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list? My Page 3 model housemate.
6. What is your favorite ring on your phone? I have a ridiculous phone so the only one that it has which is half decent is seagulls. My old phone which got robbed had some crackers on. Namely Peter Kay saying: "I'll teel you that for free, put your money away" and "Bigmouth strikes again".
7. What shirt are you wearing? The same top as yesterday...I didn't go home. Purple with sequins on the neckline..
8. What do you label yourself? Endearing Gobshite.
9. Name the brand of shoes you've recently worn: Converse
10. Bright or Dark Room? In between.
11. What were you doing at midnight last night? Was on my way to a house party with a load of randoms I met on the DLR.
12. What did your last text message you received on your cell say? "You fucking idiot, why are you going to a house party with a load of randoms that you have met on a train. You are pushing your luck. You are gonna get killed one of these days."
13. Where is your nearest 7-11? Presently, I ma staying with a mate so across the street I guess. In my new place it is in the complex.
14. What's a saying that you say a lot? Jesus tonight.
15.Who told you they loved you last? I can't remember...sob!
16. Last furry thing you touched? my fur coat. It's fake you left wing twats...
17. How Many Drugs Have You Done In The Past Three Days? None remarkably. Unless you count a phenomenal amount of Pro-Plus this morning.
18. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed? None. I had a big film developing drive a couple of weeks ago.
19. Favorite age you have been so far? 22. I went wild.
20. Your worst enemy? "It's no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy"...etc, etc. Whatever happened to Lit?!
21. What is your current desktop picture? A black and white shot of Mozza, in a striped shirt circa 1987, looking over the Manchester sky-line.
22. What was the last thing you said to someone? "Yes Mr News Editor, I do have the same clothes on as last night, no nobody touched my mimsy and I didn't get notched."
23. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly, which would you choose? Thee cash of course! What kind of bender would pick the other option?
24. Do you like someone? Many people...most of them famous, much fitter than me and therefore entirely un-attainable.
25. The last song you listened to? Blur - Tracey Jacks.

Truly disgusting. But it does make sense...

2006-04-21T10:00:00.000Z

Pic stolen from Lowlyjourno's blog.

The boy George...

2006-04-21T09:33:00.000Z

...not this one

But this one...

Not just a blatant excuse to display Gorgeous George on this blog again, but a bragging post about how Osbourne totally roasted Charles Clarke on last night's Question Time.
Obviously not in the sexual sense...although it might have shocked Vince Cable (who also appeared) into saying something even remotely interesting.
But trult last night was a triumph for the Conservative party...I haven't seen such a receptive audience for a very long time.
I thought their appearance was a great metaphor for both parties...gorgeous, young, charismatic George Osbourne versus crusty, old, past it Charles Clarke.
LABOUR, the party with nothing more to say, stuck in the past and the CONSERVATIVES, moving forward with change and reform for a brighter future.

An offer...

2006-04-20T20:07:00.000Z

...anyone wanna see Kaiser Chiefs with me tomorrow? I have one spare (free)ticket..email me.

A night in front of the box

2006-04-17T11:44:00.000Z

Firstly, apoligies for the lack of pictures on the blog. I am posting from work at the moment and these pesky Macs will not let me do anything.
Anyways...back to the post....
It has been ages since I spent a whole day and night in front of the TV. But on Easter Sunday, with my family all 350 miles away and my housemates hating my guts, I had nothing better to do.
So I sat in bed all day, scoffing food and watching telly.
I started off with Eastenders, which due to having a job where they work me like a bitch (ie. I am not a Sub), I have not seen for ages.
It was pretty shit really as there is a stupid storyline with that very geeky child Ben, Ian Beale and the Mitchell brothers...yawn. But there was however a moment of comedic genius which made me sit up in bed and wet myself (not literally of course).
It came when Big Mo said about her boyfriend Bert: "My old man told me to never trust Northerners. They eat tripe you know - the dirty swines."
Brilliant.
Here are ten general observations on Eastenders:
1. Whenever anyone goes missing, why do they bother to look anywhere else aside from the allotments...? People always turn up there.
2. Why haven't Ian's kids died of scurvy? All they eat is chippy chips.
3. Why does everyone have everyone elses mobile number. Even the most unlikely people, like Phil Mitchell and Pauline.
4. I know lots of "City Bankers". They work like bitches. Bradley Branning is supposed to be a banker...he is never at work.
5. Surely the amount of hours Tracie in the Vic works is a breach of her human rights?
6. Why does nobody own a washing machine in this day and age?
7. Aside from Bradley, most of the Square's inhabitants work on market stalls or in retail...these are not the most well payed jobs. How do they afford all their meals in the Caff, Chippy and Vic and to go out and get pissed at the Scarlet Bar every night?
8. Despite Dot's constant bible quoting, has anyone ever seen her go to church?
9. How is it that if a person "comes out" in Albert Square, another gay person automatically appears in this tiny East London place? The matchmaking potential is amazing.
10. Why hasn't the bench in memory of Arthur Fowler been vandalised yet or graffited yet? It is East London for fucks sake...get Banksy on the case!!
************************************************************************
Other things of note on last night's TV...
The cheesy movie Heartbreakers...Ray Liotta and Jason Lee in the same film...woof! Be still my beating heart I love these two. Esp Jason Lee. I have wanted to marry him ever since I saw him in Mallrats when I was younger.

Movvie Lounge on Channel 5...I have never seen this before, but it is presented by the yummy Giles Coren and is really rather funny. It has this great teenage boy reveiwer on it dubbed "Sleazy Kid", who analyses how good films are by how much mimsy you see...and indeed what better criteria, I ask? Last night's show also had twatish art critic Brian Sewell reveiwing 50 Cent's "Get Rich or die Tryin'" His response being: "This is a man who gets shot not once, twice but thrice. A ll I can say is shoot him some more."
Priceless.

Manchester Passion

2006-04-15T09:14:00.000Z

I watched the BBC's "Manchester Passion" with great interest last night both as a Northerner and *whisper it* a Christian.
Manchester is practically my home town and it looked really fantastic on the telly box. I remember how disgusting Manchester used to be, but now they have re-clad the Arndale Centre, added a load of sculptures and got a Selfridges and it looks wicked. It was such a good tourist advertisement as it shows people who have never been to Manchester and think it is really grim, that there is more to it than the council estates of 'Shameless' and the terraced houses of 'Coronation Street'.
The whole thing actually made me feel quite home-sick and emotional, as the camera took in the Manchester skyline.
I was about to shed a tear until I heard the opening bars of Robbie William's "Angels" - surely the most over-rated, over-played song ever?
Plus, since when has Stoke on Trent been in Manchester, as this is where the ex-"fat dancer from Take That" hails from.
It also made me remember how many cool Manchester bands there are (aside from the Smiths, obv.)
Hearing Joy Division's "Love will tear us apart", always makes me emotional as it is such a beautifull song.
But what really made me miss home was when the camera accidently panned into Albert Square, where Keith "Fat Les" Allen was trying to force 15,000 Mancs to sit down on the floor during the chorus of James' "Sit Down" like they used to do at festivals.
It was fucking brilliant.
They were all just looking at him like he was mad.
You could see the Chav in the front row thinking
"You think I'm gonna ruin me brand new 3 stripe trackie by parking me arse on this floor where I had a slash last night on me way back from Weatherspoons...you must be joking."
It is this excellent, down to earth gobshiteness that makes me proud to be a Northerner.
To illustrate my point further I turn to the biggest Northern Monkey of all...Mr Liam Gallagher.
A pal recently told me he'd read a quote that Liam had said about whining twat Chris Martin that went a little something like this:
"Look at him with his gawky bird, dressing like a fookin student. Why's he always writing stuff on his hands, the scruffy bastard. Aint he got a pen and paper?"
Priceless.
But truly, it was a brave attempt by the Beeb and ending the show with "Jesus" singing the Roses' "I am the Ressurection" from the top of the Manchester town hall accapella was inspired. It gave me goose-bumps and usually only Johnny Depp can do this.
Well done Auntie. Scrap "My Family" (it really is shite without Nick) and spend more of our licence money on more innovative stuff like this.

Damn you Jane Austen

2006-04-14T13:16:00.000Z

Recently, thanks to my disastrous attempts at finding a life partner I have found it impossible to think of my life in any other terms than being in one of the classic novels.
For example, the other day when explaining myself to a pal who was demanding to know why I had screwed my housemate around with rent, I replied: "But I am like Mr Skimpole...I am but a child when it comes to matters like that."
It is really annoying and makes me sound like some kind of archetypal student from a Ben Elton sketch.
I keep finding myself wondering how Elinor would react with being pissed about by men and finding that I am letting the side down and erring on the behaviour of Marianne.
I even told a chap that I am casually having sex with that he is just like Edward Ferrars, and is "capable of making a woman feel sincerely attached to him."
Aahhhh! I will be standing in a feild in the pouring rain reciting Shakespeare's Sonnnet 116 if I am not carefull. I need a trip Oop North me thinks to knock this Hoxton-ish bullshit outta me.

I left the South, I travelled North

2006-04-05T10:29:00.000Z

I went to the Midlands not long ago. I have lived Oop North and indeed am a Northerner. I have also lived down Sarf for a couple of years now, so I like to think of my-self as succesfully bridging that North-South divide. But never before have I experienced the Midlands.

God, it's a bloody weird place. I was waiting for somebody in a huge shopping centre called "Merry Hill" in Dudley.

A young girl came and sat next to me on the bench and started chatting to me. She was your typical chav and she started to ask me what I did for a living. I usually don't tell strangers that I am a tabloid hack as it illicits a "You scumbag" response or even worse, an "I want to be famous" response.

On this occasion she wanted to be famous. As an MC in fact. After seeing the Victoria Aitken rapping on "Young, Posh and Loaded", I didn't think that I could ever hear worse. I was wrong. The girl pulled a peice of paper out of her pocket and started to demonstrate her rapping prowess and as I believe Run DMC once said "It goes a little something like this":

"Sometimes I wake up and I don't give a fuck,
Why am I so down on my luck,
It takes time to realise,
I need to open my eyes..."

You get me?!

She then proceeded to tell me about how she had just got out of the Youth Offenders and how if the MC-ing didn't work out, how she wanted to be a Holiday Rep...you couldn't make it up.

But seriously. Chavs fascinate me. The way that chavs are called something differant in almost every town of the UK but are universally recognised as the same thing.

For example it is NEDS (Non Educated Delinquents) in Glasgow, Charvers in Newcastle, Scallies in Liverpool...etc. In fact I am so fascinated by it that I am going to write a Bill Bryson style book about it. But instead of travelling around Ireland I am gonna travel around the provincial towns of the UK, taking photos of chavs and talking about what defines them as such...It shall be called "United Chav-dom"...

I am listening to Alanis again folks...

2006-04-05T10:15:00.000Z

...and that can only mean one thing. Damn you pesky men!

Last week I finally got a taste of my own medicine, but it turned out to be a pretty bitter pill to swallow.

For the last few months I have been using men a bit...in that in true "Sex and the City" stylee, I have been fucking like a man. To those of you unfamiliar with the reference, I have basically been becoming people's girlfriends, showing initial interest until I bed them and then not answering thier texts and phone calls afterwards.

Shameful behaviour I know.

But last week I met someone I really liked. He liked me. We clicked. For one week my life was like a Craig David song. I met him on Monday, took him for a drink on Tuesday, we were making love by Wednesday and on Thursday and Friday...anyway, you get the picture.

He asked me to stop dating others. I obliged and blew off a couple of hot guys. I thought everything was going great and then I get a text on the Monday telling me he has got back with his ex.

Gutted.

What is even worse though is that then I met someone else who is lovely but I just cant stop thinking about the other guy.

Then at the weekend I gets another text saying that "He wants me"...do I take him back or stick with the nice guy that I don't really fancy...?

Fucking hell. I am Carrie.

Mad as a box of frogs

2006-04-05T09:59:00.000Z

Apologies for lack of posting. I have been having a slight breakdown.

Have you ever felt like your head was going to explode...? Well thats how I felt. I have been living my life at 200mph for the last year and I knew that one day it was all gonna come crashing down around me and last week it did.

I haven't been a very good pal in the last few months to my flat mates and have been pissing about with rent payments and generally being a nightmare to live with. I have paid all the money I owed now, but the friendships are broken and who knows whether they will ever recover?

The long and short of it is that I am moving out of my flat and taking a step back from full-time journalism. I still wanna do a couple of shifts a week but after working on Fleet Street full-time for two years I feel burnt out.

Theres gonna be a lot of changes in the next few weeks but hopefully it will put me on the road to being a bit happier.

Oh and by the way if there are any shifts going at any of the places that hacks who read this site know of...drop me an email!

Gorgeous George Osbourne (MP)

2006-03-23T22:38:00.000Z

Just finished watching the Conservative party's response to the budget. So funny. The Shadow Chancellor looked like he was reading from an auto-cue. Even though I am a card carrying Tory, I had to laugh!

George Osbourne is really fit though. I once had to "front him up" (knock on his door and confront him for non-hacks!) about taking drugs. I got the call on a Sunday, when I had, rather unfortunately been smoking snoochie boochies most of the day myself. The result being that I rocked up to his Barnes home, pupils bigger than saucers and said "Hey man, just wondering whether you have like, ever done drugs and shit...?" To which he took one look at me, laughed and slammed the door.

Gotta go...ultimate pin-up Boris Johnson is bumbling as a Question Time pannelist...yay!

BUGGER....

2006-03-22T22:46:00.000Z

Please, please, please let me get what I want...

2006-03-22T13:23:00.000Z

....Lord knows it will be the first time...Or so the song goes.
I never set myself up for a fall where Newcastle United are concerned. Too many years of sleepless nights before FA Cup finals and nail-biting scenarios...Even when said team were 12 points clear and still couldn't win the Premier League. No. I am now much more realistic about these things.
Apart from tonight that is. This FA Cup means everything to me this year. Mostly because it is the legendary Shearer's last chance to win any silverware...and by Jove the Geordie Galactico deserves it.
All the signs have been good so far. Aside from Sunday, the Toon have been on good form since the departure of Souness and Chelsea were beat by Fulham on Sunday as well. On the day of the 1998 FA Cup Final when we faced the filthy Gunners, I woke up to find my goldfish (Alan Shearer) floating on the top of the water, dead. I thought this was a pretty bad omen. Nothing like this has happened so far.
So anybody who isn't a Chelsea fan join with me this evening in championing the under-dogs. All together now..."Oh me lads, you should've seen us gannin'..."

2006-03-22T11:03:00.000Z

Friends come and go but enemies accumulate.
Arthur Bloch

It is funny really. I have always been one of these people with a plan. At 21 I was the youngest reporter with a staff job on Fleet Street, was engaged to be married, had my own flat in London and the future looked pretty sweet.
Fate came and kicked me in the balls and I lost the fiance, lost the job and went through a total crisis.
People who I thought were really good friends didn't really come through for me...I realised who I could rely on and who I couldn't.
This hurt a lot. But I ma glad it happened because it made me realise how much friends come and go throughout your life. Somebody who is the most important person in your life one year, may never call the next...but if you call and want a chat, things are the same and you can have a good laugh with them, like you only spoke to them yesterday.
In my life I have only had probably three constant friends, who I know I can chat to about anything and if things go 'Pete Tong' like they did in the last few months, they will be there to pick me up and get me back in track. These are all in Warrington, but the distance doesn't matter.
The female mate (for the other 2 are males, those who know me will not be surprised to hear!) is just about to have a baby and has asked me to be God-Mother to the child.
This is such an honour that I am just overwhelmed...but I can't help but wonder whether she is "on glue" to choose such a Northern gobshite as a positive role-model to her child.

The Mozfather is back!

2006-03-22T10:23:00.000Z

Heard the whole of Ringleader of the Tormentors a couple of days ago. I thought it was really good. I was quite shocked about the opening track...cos it doesnt sound like the opening to a Morrissey album, with its Arabic style instruments and wailing intro. But that is what is so good about Mozza and why he has managed to stay so fresh. He reinvents himself. Not in the Madonna "whore, nun, cowboy, novelist" kind of way. But he takes all the genius that he brought into the Marr song-writing partnership and constantly transcends the indie barriers.
My favourite tracks are "I'll never be anybody's hero" and "To me you are a work of art". I always love these whimsical offerings, cos they remind me of what I think is two of the best Smith's songs "Last Night I dreamt that somebody Loved me" and "Back to the Old House". I just love the way that Morrissey packs so much emotion into the lyrics.
BUT....
The only bad thing I can find to say about the album is that its all a bit happier than I am used to. In his Observer interview the other day, Mozza said that "he is in a better place right now" which my tabloid mind reads as "I am getting my end away". This depresses me because like most Morrissey fans I have always harboured this secret hope that if he ever met me I could dazzle him with my knowledge of Carry On Films and New York Dolls trivia and marry him...I am just really looking forward to the three dates I am seeing him in May now. So much so that I am finally going to go through with having the Smiths tattoo that I have been wanting to get for such a long time.

What a girl wants

2006-03-20T16:35:00.000Z

I have been really lucky to grow up with an infinite number of choices on how I can live my life, thanks to people like the Pankhurst sisters and other early feminists, I have been to university, landed the job of my dreams and not been forced to marry and have kids at 16.
that's great but I think it is all these choices that have now made me not know what I ma looking for. Relationship-wise that is...
In the last couple of weeks I have been on so many dates that my head is busy with the number of guys. It is great to be back in the saddle, so to speak, but I am starting to feel a little used...
Like Brandy and Monica I usually live by the mantra of "not getting down on the first night", but last week I made an exception. It wasn't because I thought it might go somewhere or anything, just because in the simplest terms...The guy was hot and I was horny.
I saw him again two days later and things seemed to be going alright. We are both playing it pretty cool which is what I thought I wanted. But then he said he couldn't see me this evening and I consulted a male pal about whether he was putting me off.
Then he asked me the terrible question "What is it you want?" and the problem is I don't know.
I like being in a relationship. But after a while the whole romance and excitement thing seems to fizzle out. But on the other hand, I don't really like the idea of being used for sex by people.
I really wouldn't want to be a man cos women are bloody confusing.

Where I have visited...

2006-03-19T11:14:00.000Z

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands
Nicked this from Used Hack and English Ranter's sites. Looks pitifull doesnt it? God, I have to go travelling...

Just what the doctor ordered...

2006-03-15T14:35:00.000Z

Not this Dr...The house-wife's favourite that is "Doctors" on BBC 1. Many of you wont have seen it, because you have normal weekends, but because I work Tues-Sat (stupid Sunday newspaper rules) I get to sit on my arse every Monday watching the BBC and Trisha.
Anyway the show centers on a doctors practice in a fictional town called "Leatherbridge" somewhere in the Midlands. These doctors are always seeing people who do not have an appointment straight away, making house calls in their own time and sitting and sorting out people's emotional problems with a cheerful countenance.
Well I don't know about you but I wanna move to this Leatherbridge. I have lived all over the country and every doctor I have ever seen wouldn't sit their and discuss my dating dilemmas with me.
Half the time you have to wait for 2 weeks to even see a bloody doctor who will then refer you to someone else.
House calls! Hmmm! Your leg would literally have to be hanging off for this to happen and even then you would probably be told that you had another perfectly good one to get to the surgery on!
This "Doctors" always has a bloody moral as well and I hate that. It was alright for "The Waltons", they lived in a ramshackle house in the middle of frigging nowhere, farming for their food...You lot are playing a bunch of docs on 60 grand a shitting year (at least) in Birmingham...

Taste in....erm, men?

2006-03-13T11:48:00.000Z

Some people are gay. Others pretend to be (not just when I coming onto them!). It is annoying.
News reaches me, via the oracle that is PopBitch that gorgeous Placebo frontman Brian Molko is having a baby...with a woman...I always thought he was gay?!?
This "is he gay, isnt he" seems to be something weird that goes on within the Indie scene.
When I was in sixth form college, I went out with a guy who classed himself as "bisexual" but he had never had sex with another man...I think he just said it to look cool...but why is it cool?
When some Premiership footballers stuck mobile phones up each other's arses and rang one another to get each other off the public were outraged. So why is it OK for Molko to gay it up and then switch it off when he wants a sprog...?

All except the People that is...

2006-03-12T14:10:00.000Z

...they have a great splash this week by a great young journalist... ;)

Hold the front page

2006-03-11T07:26:00.000Z

I wish some of our countries national newspapers wouldn't have bothered this week I really do. I know it has been a very slow news week but some of the splashes (front pages) this week have just been so crap it beggars belief.
Yesterday we were treated to the Sun's story about a bloke who had been fined for putting a letter in the bin on a street corner, as it was household waste. Yes, this is a perfect Sun story, where they can poke fun about pen-pushers and proclaim that its bureaucracy and stuffiness "gone mad", but it really was such a crap story. All the other papers covered the "exclusive", but seemed to give it the space it deserved, whereas the Sun went massive on the front page and followed it up with about 150 words...On page 18. Hmmmm.
Then to top it all off today The Daily Mail print a shocking piece of news on their front page. Their screaming headline delivers the shocking revelation that our prime Minister Tony Blair (wait for it) has a mortgage. Yes. The man who earns quite a lot of money, especially when combined with Cherie's earnings, and also has future earning potential of about 20 million quid when he quits being premier and starts doing after dinner speeches, has a shocking 4 million mortgage. How dare he be in debt! Despite the fact that almost everybody in the country is in some kind of debt and TB was elected in 1997 because he was "just like us", he cant really be human?

I hate Sienna Miller

2006-03-10T20:22:00.000Z

Yes I do. Mostly because I am jealous of how thin, attractive and effortlessly fashionable she is, but even more so today as she has been snapped snogging gorgeous fittie Hayden Christensen.
Boo! Must she get her talons on every gorgeous Hollywood male around...? First Jude, then Daniel Craig and now HC.
I mean his two acting faces (angry Annakin and brooding Annakin) were the only thing that got me through Star Wars when my ex-Fiance dragged me to see it.
I shall wear black from this day forward...

Now I am it....

2006-03-10T12:56:00.000Z

...Thought I would join in this tagging thingmy that is going rounds some of the blogs I read. It isn't going to be as funny as Artegall's or indeed as beautiful as Marrow's, but I am a sucker for "belonging" to something, so here goes:

FOUR JOBS I HAVE HAD:
Cleaner
Lounge singer
Sex toy tester
Tabliod newspaper journalist

FOUR MOVIES I CAN WATCH OVER AND OVER:
Labyrinth (hmmm...David Bowie...tights...so wrong yet, so, so right)
Lost Boys (Like Bourgeouis Wife I am a stickler for the two Coreys)
Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (LOve is not love which alters when it alteration finds...etc. I am an old romantic at heart)
Chasing Amy (Love the line: "You look like a guy who would beg for sex...I should know, we can smell our own")

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED:
Warrington
Leeds
London
Er, Warrington again....I have lived in no fewer than 4 houses in Warrington though.

FOUR TV SHOWS I LOVE:
The Apprentice (Reality TV at its best)
Top Gear (I would marry any one of them...)
Peep Show (I want Robert Webb to touch me 'there')
Neighbours (Shamefull I know, but we all have our guilty pleasures. When I am at work and I miss it I am even sad enough to read the Australian plot spoilers so that I know what is going on...)

FOUR PLACES I HAVE BEEN ON HOLIDAY:
Florida
Australia
Turkey
Malaysia

FOUR OF MY FAVOURITE DISHES:
Warbies meat and potato pies, Warrington
Chips and spam fritter, Mike and Marthas chippy, Bridge Street, Warrington
The Gnocchi at Il Bordello, Wapping, London
My own lamb Sunday dinners

FOUR SITES I VISIT DAILY:
Topshop.co.uk
Lotsa blogs
Hotmail
Newspaper websites

FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
In bed
The World Cup
In Bar Italia, Soho
In Topshop spending cash I havent got

FOUR BLOGGERS I AM TAGGING:
Bourgeouis Wife
Infinite Muppets
Butterfly Jones
Galatea

"...and every time I scratch my nails down someone elses back..

2006-03-08T22:27:00.000Z

..I hope you feel it" or so the song goes. Yes folks, Alanis Morisette is back on the CD player which can only mean one thing...I hate men again.
Not in the feminist, kind of bra burning way but in the spurned woman, feeling rejected vein.
I had one of those horrible experiences where some man made me believe that he liked me and then did the old "I dont want a relationship" bollocks. It is really annoying! Why cant people just be straight with other people. If I go on a date with someone or somebody asks me for a drink and I don't like them I always have the courtesy to tell them if it isnt going to happen...all I ask is the same.
As a wider issue though, the bad experiences I have had since I have been operational, dating-wise have really put me off wanting to date at all, but the pressure seems just too much at times.
It is all around..whether its the fact that all your friends are getting married and popping out sprogs, or that they dont have time to spend drinking with you 'cos they are 'luvved-up'with their boyfriends/girlfriends.
Even the movies teach you that if you stay single you will end up a neurotic, over-weight fool who starts a diary with your weight and how many fags you have smoked a la Bridget Jones.
Unless you find your Darcey that is...but he was a grumpy bastard anyway.
No, in a city which is filled with so many choices the best, nay the only option is to not have to choose. In other words, become a slut and sleep with as many people as possible. Perhaps newbie blogger Marrow might step up to fill the breach, as apparently he is really fit...but then their is Artegall's reputedly 'huge' member...as I said a city of infinite choices.

The world is full of crashing bores

2006-03-05T22:39:00.000Z

I went out to the Garage in Highbury and Islington on Saturday night. It is a typical, sticky-floored indie disco and I used to go all the time but havent been for a while.
The place is always full of indie scenesters and there are more pairs of scuffed converse than a Taiwanese factory.
But last night I noticed something really weird. There were all the usual men in skinny ties but almost all the girls in there looked they had took the wrong turning and ended up in the Garage rather than China Whites...
But what was really upsetting was the fact that all the fit indie men were ignoring the stylish women and going for the chavs.
Its like Preston and Chantelle. I mean, I dont like the Ordinary Boys and think they are a poor mans madness. But there is no doubt that Preston is fairly fit and the boy has great threads...so why choose Chantelle???
The girl wouldnt know who Dave Grohl was if she walked into him and she wears orange lipstick and white stillettos for fucks sake!!!!
Yeah, I know that there is so much more to liking someone than how they look and of course like many girls, Alex James from Blur ruined me ever finding anyone who will measure up to him anyway! But it is so dissapointing.
I spent my whole life reading comic books, becoming a music boffin and seeking out quirky clothes, because I suppose I secretly thought that if Morrissey ever met me he would be blown away by my obscure movie knowledge...but it seems that now that having an indie boyfriend on ones arm is en-Vogue there are none left for the rest of us...darn.

Marry me....

2006-03-05T22:19:00.000Z

Jimmy Carr.

I have always had weird crushes but my latest is the velvet suited one. I went to see a filming of the Friday Night Project a long time ago and was struck by how fit he is.

Then watching the top 100 whatever it is on Channel 4 (great Sunday night viewing) he was presenting that. I am not a fly by night blog-hussy like Galatea...but if Robert Webb doesnt come back on TV soon I may have to sideline him....

sick and thong...

2006-03-04T11:28:00.000Z

Good old this blog favourite, Richard Hammond has talked about how un-sexy thongs are on ladies.
THANK GOD! Somebody has needed to let men know how darn uncomfortable these things are. They really are akin to a cheese wire and thats great when you are cutting Wensleydale, but not when its your ass.
The 'ever so dreamy' TopGear star said:
"If ever a more hateful strip of cloth was invented. I would like to see it. Actually, I'd pay money not to have to see it."
Huzzah!
Because lets face it, not even size 6 girls look good in them, so what hope is there for the rest of us?

Life is unfair

2006-02-26T16:43:00.000Z

This is me and my best friends dressed as a Chav at the GLC concert. (As an aside...On this pic I look like I have a very unfortunate jawline which is not the case...I think.)
Anyways, back to the post, I have never had a great deal of luck pulling. Like Butterfly Jones my buddies tell me this is because I come across as quite intimidating and aloof...but I have never been so lucky as the night I dressed like a chav.
I must admit I made a huge effort with the outfit. Going out espescially to buy a denim jacket and trawling Chapel Market for a fake Burberry cap and 'bling' medallion. But I really did look atrocious!
After getting on the train with my mate, I got about 3 people feeling my arse and winking at me suggestively.
I thought people were winding me up but it continued at the gig. I must have got asked out about three times that night. Granted, it was by chavs, but they were not bad looking ones!
My mates have long told me I am too picky with blokes. I agree, I am a bit picky, but I have started to think that maybe I am not 'fit' enough to be picky.
I don't think I am a meff, and as my friend told me once in a vain attempt to make me feel better about myself, "I'd do you, twice", but in a world where man think they can sleep with Scarlett Johansen if they meet her in a West End club, what hope is there for us mere mortals?
It could be that I am punching above my weight, but my esteemed mate (pictured) tells me that there is no such thing as this and its a figment of women's imaginations. Which could go some way to explaining why men always think women who smile at them are 'mad for it' or 'wanted a peice of them'.
So maybe I should just abandon all hope and become a chav...they seem to always be getting nookie, according to the teenage pregnancy statistics...

THE RAGE

2006-02-23T17:41:00.000Z

Just read on another blog that Peep Show is being axed. Sign this petition and save it!!!

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?f3653653&1

Would you want your kid to turn out like this...?

2006-02-23T17:04:00.000Z

Well, I wouldn't and after a conversation with Butterfly Jones yesterday it seems she wouldn't either. But apparently both Nicole Richie and Lindsey Lohan were voted two of the most influential stars in an Elle Teen poll.
It is quite worrying really considering that both of them have allegedly suffered with eating disorders and drug addictions...hardly the things that you want to be encouraging your teens to get into.
But then again when I was younger I wanted to be Courteney Love and there is nothing that she hasn't done. I suppose teenagers will always gravitate towards the coolest person they can think of and often the coolest person is the one who has the most street cred by living a 'hip-hop life'.
It would be very Daily Mail of me to suggest that just because people like Pete Doherty they are smack addicts...oh dear, I think I am getting old.

Tabloid Morals

2006-02-19T18:51:00.000Z

It seems the tabs have decided to go all up-market and not gratuitously describe sexual acts like they once did...All in the name of exposing reprobates and not to titillate of course.
Only a couple of weeks ago the News of the World printed a story about Mark Oaten and his rent-boys and claimed that they took part in "a bizarre sex act too revolting to describe". Of course this prompted a flurry of phone calls and rumours within the media trying to ascertain what act was so revolting that even the Screws couldn't report it.
The journalist who wrote the story told me that it meant that Mr Oaten enjoyed being pooed and weed on...So actually that is quite rank.
Today the People have joined the club by saying that the fat guy out of Footballers Wives knocking one off on a webcam to an undercover reporter "was too graphic for a family newspaper."
FANTASTIC!!
I was gonna tell you a really risque story now, but not only is too revolting to describe but this a family blog don't you know....

The lost weekend...

2006-02-18T22:53:00.000Z

I feel rank. It seems as if I have come down with that dreaded February bug which everybody seems to have at the moment. The one that makes your throat feel like you have enjoyed a whole shisha pipe, except you haven't. Because I feel incredibly sorry for myself and my friends are all out partying I have convinced myself that I have bird flu....Well not really, but it would just be my luck to be universally hated for being the person to infect our fair isle and to die a feverish, painful death to boot.
Due to lack of boozing this evening I got to watch shit TV, chiefly the movie 'Final Destination'. I first saw the film the day before I flew to Florida, which probably wasn't the best move for somebody who was already nervous of doing a long-haul flight.
I didn't realise that the concept behind the film was quite clever until this time around. The idea that fate or some kind of grim-reaper type force will chase after you until you die if you somehow manage to cheat death when it is your time, is almost irresistible. Its pretty refreshing to see a bit of a nasty ending as well, but of course this was mostly for the sequel.
The only fault I could find was a personal one really. I find it hard to imagine the Grim Reaper as a bad dude. I blame this mostly on Terry Pratchett's representation of the character and the Reaper in Bill and Ted. How can someone be menacing when they have played harp on a Wyld Stallion's track!
Anyway I am going into quarantine until my bird flu disappears...Can you catch it from KFC?!

Inevitable Valentines Day rant..

2006-02-18T22:21:00.000Z

I was very tempted to post some kind of anti-Valentines rant on Feb 14th but I didn't. Partly because I thought it was sooo predictable and also because unlike many other singletons it doesn't really bother me.
I mean, until last years big day I had never been single for a Valentines Day. Despite this, they had all been pretty shit. Yeah it was fun and yummy getting huge boxes of chocolates and a dozen red roses, but I mostly remembered being hideously embarrassed about having to cart my love tokens around with me all day. Then there was the humiliation of going home and being prodded by your parents about having a boyfriend and having to listen to your siblings singing "H and Daniel up the tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G...."
There is always such huge pressure on people to be uber-romantic, to gaze longingly into each others eyes and to have the best sex on that particular day...Well that's great but what about the other 364 days of that year. One night of contrived perfection does not a good relationship make.
In fact one of the greatest Valentines Days I ever had was last year, which seems kind of strange since I was dumped by my fiance two days before. But spending the night in the pub getting shit-faced with my mates was just the antidote I needed...Especially when you have the added value of your best mate attempting to arm-wrestle the Lithuanian bar man, who looked like he was a World's Strongest Man contestant...
My recent love track-record has been such that I'd have difficulty pulling in a provincial town's Yates' Wine Lodge. So it was no surprise that I spent this years big day with friends again. At a fantastic dinner party nicknamed "Losers Night" because of the perennially single guests. But it was only after spending the night eating great food and drinking great wine with fabulous people that I realised we are not losers and we have got it right.
I hope to spend every Valentines day like this and seen as how I have made more schoolboy errors than Jonathan King when it comes to men, I cant see that being a problem.
Hooray pour le singleton!

N.B. The views expressed in this post were all correct at time of going to press, but if you happen to be some indie-boy fittie who wants to speed me away on your Vespa, then obviously I will spend all my time doing everything I have slagged off above. I am a woman after all, its my perogative!

Fatal Attraction...

2006-02-07T15:38:00.000Z

Everybody told me when I went on to all the dating websites I have been messing about on that I would meet a few weirdos. I suppose it is to be expected and I fully expect to have to kiss a few frogs before I find my Prince, but the other day I met the biggest weirdo ever.
He sent me an email and seemed ok, so I was chatting to him on MSN for a while, then one night I couldn't be bothered to speak to anyone on messenger, so I set it to away.
The next thing I know, I get an IM window coming up and it is him asking me whether I know how to boot someone off messenger. I said no and the next thing I know my MSN had closed down and I could not get back on. Whats worse is that I cant even get onto my Hotmail account either.
The guy was a computing student, so he has obviously done something to my account. Why do I always have to get the bunny boilers?!

Chavtastic Campaign

2006-02-04T16:01:00.000Z

Stumbled across this story on the net. This is hilarious and a really good plan. Maybe if we did this in every town we could reclaim our country!!

"While Dyfed-Powys Police spend money on new warning signs to plaster around the town centre, a local activist group has produced one of the most talked-about and most pointless local poster campaigns on a shoestring budget.
Newtown's "Anti Chav League" has covered the town centre with handwritten and photocopied posters slamming 'Chav' culture, with slogans such as "Chavs, you are thick" and "You can't spell, you can't write, but do you dress like that out of spite?".
Perhaps the campaigners should have used different slogans, as some of the posters themselves ironically contain incorrect spelling and bad handwriting.

The word 'Chav' is derogatory slang term currently in popular usage throughout the UK. Defined by Wikipedia.org as referring to a "subculture negatively-stereotyped as being uneducated, uncultured and prone to antisocial or immoral behaviour.
Chavs have a fashion sense which includes brand name track suits with white trainers (sometimes with 'bling' jewellery and/or flat fronted, occasionally Burberry caps), a magnetic attraction to congregation points (sometimes known as chavaramas) such as fast food outlets or other shopping areas - or in Newtown's case, outside the town centre Spar or HSBC. Chavs generally have a culture of anti-social or "yobbish" behaviour.
It's believed the word originated from the 19th century Romany words chavi, meaning "delinquent youth", "chavo", meaning child and possibly "charver", meaning
prostitute.

For more information about chav culture, visit the Chavsum web site - a user's guide to Britain's new ruling class. The web site has a full guide to Chav culture, with photos, a discussion forum, and even a Chav baby name generator.
Many of the posters in Newtown, which started to appear in May, have now been defaced or removed. It's not known who's behind them, however it's believed to be a group of teenagers, possibly Chavs in denial."

More rock than Gibraltor...not!

2006-01-28T16:58:00.000Z

THIS IS NOT A ROCK CHICK

BUT THIS IS
As a self-styled rock chick, fashionista I got really angry when I read a celebrity magazine yesterday, which shall remain nameless (HE*T). The said publication had a fashion page which they used to celebrate the new breed of rock-dressalikes and fans that have emerged since Busted pretended to be a punk band.
They had pictures of awful z-list slebs dressed in waistcoats and skinny jeans with layers of beads and labelled them as rock chicks.
HA YOU FOOLS! Is my response.
These people are not rock chicks. As with any musical movement which has a bearing on the kind of clothes people wear, being part of that movement is about more than wearing a pair of scuffed converse. It is a lifestyle. We are not just talking about the alternative music scene here, as my good friend and fellow blogger, Butterfly Jones will attest. The same can be said for the resurgence of the RnB and rap scene into mainstream culture. Every girl was dressing all nasty like Christina Ageulera and thinking she was down with the kids. It just doesn't work like that.
It wasn't just the article which made me mad enough to write a post on the matter, I have been annoyed about the subject for a while and it all stems back to when I was a kid.
My sister and I have had a jealousy complex betwen us since we were kids and we always tried to be as differant to one another as we could. This meant my sister going down the Britney Spears, pop, RnB route and me falling in love with Green Day when I was 10 and becoming what my town labelled a 'mosher'.
This worked well and has to a large extent has carried on, apart from the fact that I no longer white up my face, black up my eyes and look like a complete dickhead!
Until a few months ago that is.
I wen't home to Warrington to see my parents and my sister came downstairs, switched on MTV 2 and began to play air guitar to Bloc Party.
What the fuck?!
Then later in the same night my little brother (who I can forgive because he is 13) said: "I have got this amazing album called American Idiot, by this new band Green Day."
NEW? NEW BAND? If you call 9 albums new. I was so mad. But the most maddening thing is I don't know why I am mad.
When I was younger, about 11-12, I hung around with groups of people who were a couple of years older than me. They used to look down disdainfully on a lot of people my age who were just discovering rock music and call us things like the "new breed". I hated them doing it and promised myself I would never behave like that. But now I am.
Surely new people getting interested in rock/punk/indie music is a good thing isn't it? I mean Green Day never would have been able to have their 2 gigs at Milton Keynes in the summer if American Idiot hadn't have outsold every album they had ever done before about 10 times over, and those gigs were great. I was there.
But I can't help but feel like something has been lost since the days when I saw them supporting Shed Seven in 1994! They seemed to belong to me and my pals then and now millions of screaming teens have got in the way. Oh well, to coin a phrase "I had the time of my life..."

Free...Pete

2006-01-21T17:14:00.000Z

Not the caustic, big-lipped freak Pete Burns from Celeb Big Brother, although I wish they would. Pete the whale that is in the Thames.

London seems to have gone mad because a whale has ended up in the Thames.

Never has the public been so concerned about the fate of somebody who has problems handling a large amount of liquid since George Best...Oh well, guess the papers needed someone to replace him.

Inspirational Morals

2006-01-19T11:11:00.000Z

Glad to see that call-girl Tegan opposes the plans by Fiona McTaggert to legalise residential brothels, in todays Sun.

Moralistic Tegan works in a Manchester whorehouse but does not like the idea of brothels being in her street.

She says: "I wouldn't want my kids living next door to a brothel."

Obviously the fact that Mummy is a whore doesn't affect them then...

The dating game

2006-01-18T12:42:00.000Z

After being single for almost a year and having several doomed encounters/ one night stands, I have decided to take matters into my own hands.

I have put myself on an internet dating site.

I have been thinking about doing it for a couple of months, but found it hard to shake off the associations that internet dating has in my own minds. Several of my friends have done it and one of them was in a relationship with a F*I*N*E, intelligent man the last time I spoke to her. But I still couldn't get rid of that niggling feeling that in the words of Ryan Phillipe in Cruel Intentions: "It's for geeks and pedeophiles."

I think the problem is that I come from a provincial town where it is common to pull 4 or 5 people a night and if you don't pull somebody on a night out, it was because you were the only person there.

I stopped looking for love after the age of 16 because I foolishly thought I had found it, but then being dumped in the capitol of singleville - London - was a real shock to me.

My Mum always tells me, "It must be easy to find someone down there, there are millions of eligible batchelors". But she doesn't realise how hard it is.

Sure, I have had date offers, but I am ridicolously picky. For example, the person has to like similiar music to me, be in the media or have a similiarly aspirational career and to look like a member of Franz Ferdinand or Nirvana!

My housemate keeps telling me looks do not mean everything and that personality is more important in the long term, but I admit I am a fairly shallow person.

Having just registered on the site, I have browsed through some of the blokes on it and I was impressed. Of course some of them are awful Timmy Mallett lookalikees, but the majority are reasonably hot. This thing will not be as bad as I thought...

...hang on, gotta go, deadringer for Kurt Cobain spotted...I'm internet flirting.

What the game is really about

2006-01-16T21:01:00.000Z

Being a great fan of the good game of football, I have despaired of the lack of passion that a lot of the players show.
Players like Wayne Rooney are just over-grown, over-paid and over-egoed schoolboys, who live their lives through a marathon of fast cars, late parties and loose women. They don't seem to care where they play as long as the price and fame are right.

So it almost brought tears to my eyes when I saw Stuart Pearce's reaction when his Man City side beat Man United this weekend. For those of you who did not see it, City beat Man U 3-1 and Pearcey dived into the crowd, lapping it up and was mobbed by adoring City fans.

Psycho was always the kind of player who wore his heart on his sleeve, so it does not surprise me that he has taken that enthusiasm into management.

There are other Premiership managers who have had it too such as Bobby Robson, Claudio Ranieri and Gerard Houllier. The game needs them, they are great charachters who work as the perfect antidote to gimps like Robbie Savage and Alan Smith.

He is a footie legend and I one day hope he manages England.

As Shankley said: "Football is not just a matter of life and death, it is much more than that."

2006-01-05T13:39:00.000Z

My sister's baby died last night.

She had an ectopic pregnancy and was rushed into hospital to have surgery.

I feel really devastated of course, but I also feel slightly guilty that I was so down on her for becoming pregnant.

She is only a child really at 19 and she has had to go through so much in the last few months, with finding out she is pregnant, coming to terms with it and then having it cruelly snatched away from her.

The worst thing is that she has to have one of her fallopian tubes and one of her ovaries removed, so the chances of her having kid later in life will be greater diminished.

I mean, what do you say to somebody who has been through that?

Happy New Year Tfl

2005-12-31T10:51:00.000Z

How generous of Transport for London to give everybody free travel in London...and then go on strike.

Thanks a million.

As if New Year isn't bad enough, being a hideously over-priced let down, now things are going to be even worse.

People are going to be cramming on buses and drink driving all over the capitol. There will be scenes of carnage as punters desperately scrap to squeeze themselves on packed buses.

You can gaurantee the same twats who stormed the Ikea opening in Edmonton will be out in full force causing carnage.

If somebody doesn't get killed this eveening I will eat my party hat.

STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE...

2005-12-30T18:47:00.000Z

I am just recovering from my family Christmas back in my home town. Everything was wonderfull and it was great to see all my peeps who I haven't seen for almost a year.
But condidering that one of my sisters is up the duff and the other has had more boyfriends than hot dinners, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable question reared its ugly head: "Are you courting yet?"

It is annoying enough that my family who haven't seen me for a long time seem to only be interested in whether or not I have a man in my life. But the real bitch is the use of the word yet, whenever they ask me the question.

Never mind the fact that I am reasonably succesfull for my age, have a fab group of friends who keep me quite busy and have several hobbies, obviously I spend all my time looking for a man. We are living in the 21st Century, but of course I still do not feel complete without a man.

"No" I say, feigning a weak smile, "I haven't met anybody I like at the moment." Their faces screw up and they say: "You'll have to get yourself out more."

AAAGGGHHH!!!

I do get out, a lot, but I don't tend to spend my life in endless pursuit of a man.

So there.

2005-12-20T15:24:00.000Z

Everybodys changing, but I still feel the same...

2005-12-16T13:01:00.000Z

...or so the Keane song goes. But it is very true.

On Wednesday night I learnt that my sister is pregnant. She is 19 and is not sure precisely who the Father is. Am I wrong to be upset that my sister is going to be a teenage, single Mother or am I just an awful dissaproving relative reacting in a Daily Mail fashion?

Mt best friend is also pregnant and I will be a God-Mother when the baby is born in June. I grew up with this girl, went to see the Backstreet Boys with her, learnt all the Five dances and taped the charts on a Sunday night. Why are our lives now so differant?

She seems to have grown up a lot quicker than I have. She is engaged, having a baby, getting a mortgage and I am still pissing about in London, living in dodgy areas with mates and binge-drinking week after week.

Two of my mates are also getting married next year. Admittedly they are a lot older than me, but still a part of me feels like I ought to fix-up and look sharp, and start growing up a bit.

Spiked

2005-12-16T12:34:00.000Z

My drink got spiked on Wednesday night. It was the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me.

The worst thing was that it happened at my works Christmas party, which means that somebody there did it, or it was one of the bar staff.

I didn't put my drink down all night I don't think, so the nurses suggestion that it may have been one of the bar staff could be right.

What pisses me off is that I only had three glasses of wine as I was trying to stay sober so as not to make a tit out of myself in front of the Editor.

I literally can't remember getting home and the vomiting got so bad yesterday that I went to hospital. After spending a miserable night being fed with stuff from an IV tube I am feeling a little better today.

I am still feeling groggy though and I keep eye-balling people in the office thinking "Did you do it?".

Its a horrible feeling.

Lonely this Christmas

2005-12-13T18:26:00.000Z

This year is my first Christmas as a single person. Most of the time I am not bothered about being single but as the holiday season approaches I have started to feel the sting.

My ex-boyfriend was a great guy, the kind of bloke that would not buy a drunk a drink but by God was he boring! So it isn't that I miss being single it just seems to be this time of year which is doing it to me. We were together for half a decade and have been apart 10 months and I honestly haven't really missed him a bit. Until now.

I keep thinking about going home and spending time with my family and friends without him. I haven't really been back to Warrington since we split up and it is goping to be very weird. When we were together we spent all of our time in each others company and I haven't had a Christmas as a single-unit since I was 15.

Every Christmas Eve we have a night out in the Town Centre and see in Christmas Day together. We would be dancing the night away and as the clock struck midnight I would kiss him under the flashing lights and wish him a Merry Xmas. This year we will be having the night out but I am sure the strike of midnight will not bring the same outcome!

Its the other things I miss as well. The scoffing mince pies and Christmas cake together, the singing Christmas tunes playing full blast in the car and watching his face as he unwrapped the presents I had saved all year to buy.

But what I miss the most is the feeling of waking up on a cold Winters morning and reaching over the other side of the bed to snuggle in his warm arms. I still catch myself reaching across and knowing that there is nobody there.

This my friends is the true meaning of loneliness.

Rock and...Royal?

2005-12-13T12:15:00.000Z

To defy my critics (see last post), who say that I do not post anything for weeks and then post about 15 comments, I am going to do, er, exactly that. Blog politics aside, I will now proceed to my post.

When Rock and Roll first emeerged in the 1950s it stood for everything that was not stuffy and regimented. Teens grasped at the new revolutionary music like it was some kind of life-line to escape from the monotonous confines of the establishment. Back then there were no teenagers and people were born, became a child, grew into an adult and died.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a time when teenagers were expected to want to be differant, to rebel and to fuck up quite often. So I duly grunged out and listened to Nirvana. Through my obsession with Cobain et al I began to listen to bands who had influenced my heros such as The Vaselines, Sound Garden and metal giants, Black Sabbath. Through Sabbath I was taken to a new world filled with haunting vocals and muddy instruments which made me want to headbang until my neck snapped. Bat biter Ozzy stood for everything that I loved about rock and roll and it made me want to scream "fuck you, we don't have to fit in, we can be who we want to be."

So imagine my shock and utter revulsion when I switched on the TV to be faced with two heavy weight giants giving three cheers to her Majesty the Queen on this year's Royal Variety Performance.

Ozzy I can understand, as he has totally sold out since he let MTV into his house, but Slash?! This is the same man who made Ant and Dec apoligise on Kids TV when he said the word "twat". The guy is a legend.

To be stood cheering and shouting for the most stuffy, regimented person alive, in fact the one person who embodies the idea of the establishment is just not kosher.

Don McLean said that the muisc died on the day that Elvis died. I disagree for me it was the day that two monsters of rock were pussy-whipped by a 79 year old granny wearing a crown.

He's ever so dreamy...

2005-11-30T12:50:00.000Z

I am in love...again. I have been a Peep Show fan since the first series, but since the new series I have become slightly obsessed with Robert Webb who plays Jeremy.
For your pleasure here are some of the best lines:

"I am definately not co-managing a pub called 'Free the Paedos'"
"Ok, we'll compromise. How about the 'Swan and Paedo'"

"Do you have to live quite so relentlessly in the real world?"

"People in the forties didn't get traumatised. They just sat down, had a cup of tea and invented the national health service."

"This is okay, it's just like a porno, except I can't see anything, I haven't got a hard on and I feel like crying."

Be still my beating heart...flutter, flutter.

Mums on buses

2005-11-26T14:28:00.000Z

I hate mums with prams on buses. It really pisses me off.
When I were a lad, oop North, Mums had to put their prams down into a folded position and put them in the baggage rack if they wanted to get on a bus.
I have memories of my Mum struggling with 3 children under 6 and 3 cocky teenagers, while still being able to get us all on the bus, fold down the pram and carry a weeks shopping, this is just what Mums do.
Of course times have changed and nowadays Mother's don't know their born.
It really irritates the arse off me that if a bus is absoloutly packed, Sharon comes barging through with her pram, scattering elderly people left and right like skittles because the lazy cow refuses to put her pram down.
The other day I saw a woman get on a packed 38 bus and demand that people move out of the space reserved for a wheelchair user, but there was nowhere else for them to stand.
I was so angry...rant over.

"Hope I die before I get old"

2005-11-26T13:57:00.000Z

This post is a little related to the one below in that coming from seeing all those old-rockers made me think about getting old.
I have always maintained that no matter how old I get I will still be listening to Green Day and going to festivals every year, no matter how much of a twat I look...but will I really?
I suddenly had a vision of me turning into a twin-set and pearls wearing freak who goes to day spas and asks people to take their shoes off when they come into the house.
So I did something about it. I went to a peircing and tattoo parlour and decided to have my lip peirced.

Then I changed my mind. I am no longer a student and cannot recklessly do things without thinking of the consequences.
It is ok for me to show my quirky side by wearing colourfull beads or leopard skin shoes with a pinstrip suit for work, but something as noticeable as a lip ring would surely not escape the wrath of the newspaper Nazis.
Instead I have a week off at Christmas and I am going to get it done then. Then I can take out the stud during the day and put it back in as I leave work.
It is silly I know, but they look so damn cool.

Blondie at the Royal Albert Hall

2005-11-24T11:24:00.000Z

Those of you possesing rat-like cunning will I am sure deduce from the title that I went to see Blondie at the Royal Albert Hall last night and you would be right.
I was left with very mixed feelings about the whole experience.
On one hand I love Blondie and I had a good dance, it was fun etc. But, something weird was going on.
Blondie were essentially a punk/pop band and anybody who is familiar with their work will probably put them into this bracket. Songs like "Hanging on the Telephone" and "Atomic" just did not sound right when performed in the Royal Albert Hall. The hall is an amazing place and I am sure that the philharmonic orchestra or even Simply Red would sound great there, but its just not rock and roll.
The last time I went to see Blondie, they played at the Manchester Evening News Arena in 2001. This again is not the most punk venue but there were only about 150 people in a venue which holds 15,000. We all just crammed behind the barrier right in front of the stage, po-going and going insane. That my friends is what punk is about.
To make matters worse Debbie Harry was really ropey and kept forgetting the words to songs. She couldn't even cover it up, it was embarassing.
The crowd were like an old peoples home on a day out as well. It reminded me of an Eric Clapton concert I once had the misfortune to attend. Everybody sat down nodding their heads and making air guitar movements with the hands. Get up and move you geriatric bastards.
There was one sublime moment when I thought I saw a sliver of life come back to the old punk-rockers. In the song "Rapture", Harry says the words "Don't stop punk rock" and a scream of delight reverberated around the venue.
Then I looked to my left hand side and noticed the fat mechanic out of Eastenders, 'Minty' swaying his hips...
Who said rock and roll is dead?

Terrible teeth...but you still would

2005-11-18T16:44:00.000Z

Alex Kapranos is exactly my kind of man. Uber-fashionable, chiselled to perfection and very musically talented. He is also really quirky and by that I mean not really conventionally handsome.
I love guys with androgynous looks and something out of the ordinary about them, espescially if they have bad teeth.
I don't know what it is, but I can never resist it, it must be an Austin Power's thing.
I hate body odour or uncleaness of any kind but there is something that grabs me about teeth.
I am not talking Austin Power's or anything but perfect, blindingly white gnashers are just boring.
Anyway there is something quintessentially English about terrible dentures don't you think?

The Burning Question...

2005-11-18T15:18:00.000Z

Can vegetarians eat chicken crisps?

In the words of Noddy Holder...

2005-11-17T18:50:00.000Z

...It's Christmas!!!
Well not quite, but nearly. I am usually a miserable bastard, but it is at this time of year that I become some kind of Marsha Brady-esque, happy clappy weirdo.
You see I LOVE Christmas.
I love the mince pies, the mulled wine, the tinsel, the cheeriness of everyone and espescially the lights. My God I love the lights. The other day I was travelling on the bus near Piccadilly Circus and I was hit by them. I got so excited that I had to get off the bus andhave a proper look. I was like a moth to a flame, as I walked through town marvelling at them.
Fair enough, they are a bit corporate, as they feature charachters from Disney's Ice Age. But if this wasn't the case you would only get Ebenezzer's moaning about the waste of tax payers money to pay for them.
So come on everybody join in "Jingle Bells, Jingle..."

Bullying

2005-11-17T18:35:00.000Z

My newspaper are on an Anti-Bullying drive this week, as next week is National Bullying Week. This does not mean that kids are encouraged to beat the crap out of each other, before pedants-you know who are you are Galatea-say it, but is a measure to reduce the amount of bullying which goes on in Britain's schools.
As a result of this I have been speaking to lots of children who have been affected by bullying.
Some of these cases have been just horrific. Believe it or not, people have had hair set on fire, been stabbed in the eye and in some cases even worse.
Never before has the words "Kids can be so cruel" been so apt, yet so inadequate.
I was extremely lucky that I was never bullied and those who knew me at school may go so far as to say that I was occasionally a bit mean myself.
But while even one more child contemplates suicide, or worse still goes through with it we are failing our children.

Music Hall of Fame

2005-11-17T17:29:00.000Z

Really glad to hear that Eurythmics and New Order were inducted into the Music Hall of Fame on Channel 4 last night.
Eurythmics have been responsible for some of the best songs ever written and Annie Lennox's voice is often hauntingly beautifull.
New Order or Joy Division in their previous incarnation, were just ground-breaking and a fellow blogger has explained why, much better than I ever could. (see www.chesneywold.blogspot.com)
But one person who I cannot quite believe has not even been nominated yet is Prince.
Many people think that he is just a purple catsuit obsessed midget with a mullet to rival a German footballer.
All this is true, but he is also one of the most talented song-writers ever. When songs like Soft and Wet, When the Doves Cry, Pop Life and U-Got the Look play, it is impossible for the listener to stay seated.
Anyone who has ever been in love can relate to the lyrics of his masterpiece, I Would Die 4 U.

"I’m not your lover
I’m not your friend
I am something that you’ll never comprehend

No need 2 worry
No need 2 cry
I’m your messiah and you’re the reason why

I would die 4 u, yeah
Darling if u want me 2
I would die 4 u"

Also the fantastic 1983 movie, Purple Rain would have been when many boys would have caught their first glimpse of a chuff.
Amazing, even if the perv did remove to of his own ribs so he could suck his own cock....

One foot in the grave

2005-10-06T17:48:00.000Z

Poor 'wavey arms' Peter Snow has been axed from the BBC's political coverage. No more will viewers get to delight in the sight of his swingometer to liven up another Paxman grilling.
Apparently, the Beeb want to freshen up the image of election nights, making it appeal to a younger audience.
This "out with the old" seems to be a theme in politics right now, but you can always count on good old Clarkie to buck the trend.
Cuddly Ken is 65, so if he wins the Tory leadership race he will be in his 70's by the time the next general election comes around.
Andrew Neil kept banging on the other day about how Ken is not what the party needs, as he will never be able to strike a chord with the young.
Bullshit.
Every young person I have spoken to who is interested in the leadership race has backed Ken all the way. Many friends of mine who are Labour supporters have even (whisper it) professed admiration for him.
The Conservative party need somebody who can bring the party forward and appeal to voters who are not called 'Edmund', drive a barouche and dine in the First Circle. I believe this man is Ken.
For example, the issue of Europe is one which often turns leftys away from the party. Although Ken's views have traditionally clashed with my own Eurosceptic ones, I now find myself agreeing with him.
It is imperative that the UK is more integrated into Europe via the Euro and the EU constitution. If we as a nation continue to vote 'Non', or worse still, totally ignore European elections, it will be impossible for us to move into a prosperous future.
Mr Clarke may be over the hill, but he is far from past it. Anyway I have always thought that being over the hill is much easier. As anyone knows, the laws of gravity dictate that an object coming down a hill will move much faster, ploughing into anything which stands in its way.
And that is just what Ken will do if he becomes leader, knocking the opposition down on his way.
Hurrah for Ken!

Wake me up when September ends...

2005-09-14T10:50:00.000Z

Deep down we are all still schoolchildren. Or so I believe. In our twelve years of compulsory schooling, we get used to defining our schedules by the timing of the academic year. We get time off at Christmas, Easter and ridiculously long summer holidays we can wile away. Then comes September, where we move up to a different school year, have new teachers and sit in different classrooms. September is a time of change and new beginnings and as an adult, this does not seem to change.
For example, in the last week two of my good friends have ended long-term relationships. Whether it is was there choice or not, obviously somebody involved thought that something changed and that September was the time to move on.
All of my friends are starting new jobs and moving into new flats as well.
Last weekend even saw a surge of celeb marriages, which was surprising. I thought that people never chose to get married in September and that the only reason people did was because they could not afford the extortionate fees, which venues charge in summer.
Obviously, Kate Garraway, Samia Ghadi, Jordan et al are all rolling in it so again it must be something about September.
Unless some gorgeous Tory, Anglo-Saxon haired hunk is going to come knocking on my door, wanting to go out with me (I mean you Boris Johnson) then I don't want any more change. I am quite happy to put my head under the covers and not emerge again until October 1..

Punching above one's weight

2005-08-27T08:38:00.000Z

Nancy are you on glue? You must be, because the man you are dating is a twat. He has cheated on you not once but twice and now one of his bits of stuff, Faria Alam claims that he is still trying to get into her pants. Yet you stay.

Why do women do this? The worst thing is that, Nancy is a milf and clearly out of Sven's league, yet she still stays after being humiliated.
There seems to be some kind of trend for really ugly men dating beautiful women. Only today I heard a rumour that Tommy Lee of Motley Crue fame allegedly 'partied' with the gorgeous Eva Longaria. This just seems utter madness!In the spirit of this I have compiled a list of the world's luckiest ugly men:

With a face even a Mother would have trouble loving, he still managed to bed Linzey Dawn Mackenzie, Alicia Duvall and a bevvy of other buxom beauties.

The freckle-faced chubster has dated Martine McCutcheon and Catherine Zeta Jones and revealed: "I got bored with sleeping with lots of different women-bored with the challenge of it." And he is ginger! What is going on?!

Although he is an absolute genius songwriter, the snaggle-toothed one should not be allowed near women as far as I am concerned but he has had several realtionships and even a long term girlfriend called Victoria Clarke.

Top porn-star Ron Jeremy has been thru more women than I have had hot dinners. They all rave about his "3rd leg" but even if you stuck a paper bag over his head, you still wouldn't. Would you...

Fat girl Slim

2005-08-25T14:15:00.000Z

The saying used to be that there are only two certain things in life. Death and taxes. I disagree. In the life of a woman, there are still two certain things and they are both to do with weight:
1. If you are curvy, you long to be skinny,
2. If you are skinny, you long for more curves.
I am generously placing myself under the curvy banner, when really a more accurate description would probably be 'distinctly porky'. It has been cheering for me and those of my ilk to see a Renaisaince of 'curvy' friendly fashion. Womenly outfits are sooo this season and sophisticated glamour rather than flesh-showing, Christina Aguelera wear is the order of the day.
Even the gossip magazines have been jumping on the band wagon by devoting cover-stories to chastising too skinny celebs.

Nicole Richie: Eat a burger

But before I chorttle to myself and scoff another lard buttie, I have to remind myself that the people who chastise Nicole Richie and sign the feed Lindsey Lohan petition are the very same lot who call Abi Titmus fat and wax lyrical about how much better Wayne's Coleen looks now shes lost her puppy fat.
MAKE YOUR MIND UP PEOPLE!!
I have a friend, who shall be known only as 'W' who informed me that he cannot abide skinny girls and would much rather go out with a 'real' looking girl. Two days later, he informed that Britney Spears is fat!
What is a girl to do?!!!To scoff or to starve, that is the question.

Et tu, Brute?

2005-08-25T10:40:00.000Z

Break ups are crap. Those of you who are in the know about my love life will wonder why I am musing now about this subject, when I broke up with my ex-fiance 7 months ago. The reason is that for a while I believed that we could be best friends.
People told me it would be impossible and too hard. My Aunty even said that after a couple of months I would probably realise that now there was no relationship, we had nothing in common and that I prob wouldn't even want to be friends with him.
It is only now that I have realised that there is little chance of that happening, so you see it has become a second break-up of sorts.
The problem is that when we split up, our ties did not end there. I had made the dreadful mistake of owing him a substantial amnount of cash and now he wanted it all back. There is nothing quite like a bit of owed money to sour a relationship...
Things were going fine until recently, but now he has felt it necessary to disclose our situation to some of my best friends.
When I found out I felt like I had been shot in the chest, betrayed and very angry. So angry that I sent him a scathing, 5 page email telling him exactly what I thought.
Now I fear that our relationship can neveer be repaired and feel even worse. Did I do the right thing?

Newspaper Nazis

2005-08-11T10:01:00.000Z

It has recently come to my attention that people in high positions in national newspapers are jobsworths. I love fashion and would go so far as to say it is one of the most important things in my life. After being full-time at a Sunday paper for the past 5 weeks, I was hauled in to see the boss. It turns out my dress is in-apropriate. The 1950's skirts and pumps combo it seems is unsuitable for knocking on peoples doors and representing the "well respected" said paper. I was quite annoyed by this and did think of saying: "It's a bit rich that a paper whose every second page is adorned with breasts is splitting hairs over my lack of pinstripe." I thought better of it however and decided, rarely, to bite my tongue.
A friend of mine also works for Bloomberg and has apparently been told that he is not allowed to have a blog! The pinstripe wearing army of Newspaper Nazis strikes again...

A Face for Radio...

2005-07-15T10:02:00.000Z

While perusing my monthly PopBitch email I clicked on one of the links and came across this.
It is a real dog. It is not a Jim Henson creation from the Labyrinth.
The 14 year old pedigree, Sam, has just won the title of World's Ugliest dog for the 3rd year running.

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=10958

The Decline of Newspapers?

2005-07-06T14:39:00.000Z

Somewhat worryingly, The Sun have today announced that they are to axe 20 jobs. For the rest of the Print Media industry this is a shocking move. The Sun is widely classed as a paper that has money to burn, so if they are suffering from financial constraints what hopes are there for the rest of us?
Coupled with the Telegraphs recent lay off of 90 journos and the Mirrors well publicised problems its a worrying time for the genial hack.
On a lighter note Huzzah to London for winning the 2012 Olympics! I wonder where we will all be in 2012? If the current rate of newspaper decline continues, without a job is probably the short answer. Oh no, back to doom and gloom then.

The fake sheikh

2005-06-15T18:45:00.000Z

As the time for me to become a proper journalist and join the ranks of a popular Sunday paper draw ever closer, I have started to think about the sort of things I will be doing in the next couple of years.
As I pondered this,I stumbled across this quiz and though you may appreciate it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/quiz/questions/0,5961,469628,00.html

Quite Interesting!

2005-05-25T11:22:00.000Z

I went with a group of pals to watch the gameshow QI being filmed the other night and had a thoroughly spiffing time! Before hand I thought of who my ideal panel would be and came up with the following:
* Alan Davies
* Jeremy Clarkson
* Bill Bailey.
Imagine my sheer delight when a friend spotted a blazer and jeans combo peeping through the curtains, about to enter the set. After some deliberation my friend decided that it could only either be him or Lovejoy and so related to me that my beloved Jezza was within inches.
Clarkson obsessiveness aside, the show was excellent and you will be able to see me guffawing on your screen in October.
During the show, the panel talked about some crazy group called the tuff tuffs (or something like that), who go around damaging speed cameras. Has anybody heard of these revolutionaries?

Bad Manners...

2005-05-17T12:30:00.000Z

and no I don't mean the amazing 80's SKA group pictured above. I am talking about the hideous habits that people seem to have no problem about displaying in public.
Whether it is picking bits of your anatomy (nose, head, etc.), or blatantly sitting with your hands down the front of your trousers fiddling with your balls, it is all incredibly rude.
Of course none of this matters when you are in the comfort of your own home, but when in public guys and girls, show a little decorum!
This is the problem with our society in general you see, people have no respect for their fellow man at all.
Just as I was about to fall into a fit of despair about Britain's 'yob culture', hurrah! Tony Blair pledges that he is going to stop disrespect on our streets...by stopping people wearing hoodies..Erm, no Tony, mate, that is not the place to start.
Yes, people in hoodies, usually chavs, make the world generally look a bit untidier but that does not mean that by banning people from wearing hoodies, yob culture problems are automatically going to disappear!
This really makes me angry because it is so obviously Tony Blair pandering to the headline makers, enabling them to create a moral panic about the hood-wearing, hooligan epidemic that is taking over our streets. I would not be surprised if the Sun brought back their 'shop a yob' campaign.
If the PM and his government seriously want to tackle the culture of disrespect on our streets and amongst young people, then respect should be being taught at grass roots levels, when children are in schools.
It seems to me that kids seem to think that they can get away with anything nowadays, as teachers can't say anything to them as they are scared to get sacked/ accused of something and sued. Children cannot even get disciplined at home as parents are not even allowed to smack their own children.
This is ridiculous. I was smacked as a child and aside from me being a bit of an any purpose rent-a-gobshite, I have turned out alright.
The sooner that the government realise that rudeness, disrespect and yobbish behaviour has nothing to do with Burberry, Rockport boots and hooded sweatshirts, the better.

The King of sports...

2005-05-06T14:08:00.000Z

DARTS!
By god folks, the premier league darts tournament is back on our screens at the moment!
A picture of Andy "the Viking" Fordham for your enjoyment. Come on oh sovereigned one.

Welcome to your Knightmare...

2005-05-05T13:25:00.000Z

It's May the 5th folks and we all know what that means, Votes! But if you are sick to death of Labour, Tories and Lib Dems put your name where it really counts. On the "Bring back Knightmare" petition.
The Knightmare fans among you may know that it is shown on Cable TV, but we want it brought back to terrestrial TV where everybody can have access to it!
So visit: www.bringbackknightmare.co.uk and register your vote.
COME ON PEOPLE...YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!

Crap TV

2005-05-04T10:49:00.000Z

Despite having a digital, freeview thingy I am still astounded at how crap TV is at the moment. How is it that I can flick through over 150 channels and still not find anything worth watching?
This annoyance got me to thinking about what some could call the golden age of TV: the late 80s/Early 90s.
My favourite show was 'Pugwall', which is (for those of you who didn't know) was an Australian show about a young man called Peter Unwin George Wall and his amazing band 'The Organic Oranges'.
Does anybody else remember this programme? What was other peoples favourite childhood viewing?

New Bands

2005-05-03T15:18:00.000Z

NME geeks will agree that there is nothing quite as satisfying as discovering a new band and charting their rise to fame.
There have been a couple of recent examples of this for me.
The first was the Kaiser Chiefs, or chefs as a friend apparently called them.
As an Undergrad in Leeds I saw the band play many times in Josephs Well and similiar spots and thought they were fantastic.
The most recent is El Presidente.
After going to an 80's DJ night at 'Turnmills' on Clerkenwell Road, I was struck by how excellent they were.
I then went to see Kasabian last week and they were supporting and then woke up the next morning to see them on no other than 'Entertainment Today' on GMTV!
Today Breakfast Television,tommorrow the world!

Just Good Friends..

2005-05-03T12:59:00.000Z

Ever heard the phrase always the bridesmaid never the bride? Well I am always the best friend never the girlfriend.
From a young age I have 'knocked about' with a group of lads and invariably started to fancy one of them, who usually tells me: "You are fantastic, one of my best friends, but I don't see you like that." It is so fucking annoying!
I mean am I grotesque or something? In the immortal words of a friend: "I mean youre not my dream girl...but your not repulsive...I'd do you twice...and you have got a nice pair of dugs."
Surely if this was true I wouldn't be still sat on the dusty shelf of singleton.
Sorry for this rather depressing post but since I have been all alone in the world (February), I have been musing in a Carrie Bradshaw manner about all the complexities of love. For example, if you went out with somebody for a long time who you thought was your soul-mate and then break up, does this mean that the person you thought was your soul mate really wasn't? Answers on a postcard please folks.
Low self-esteem is not fun. As Hattie Jacques said to Kenneth Williams in 'Carry on Camping', "Haven't I got appeal?", "Yes, but so has a banana."

Election gems

2005-04-28T16:18:00.000Z

Got these from the wires in work. Some of them are fantastic!
“Sorry, no. I am not going to shake your hand. I am a socialist and I must stick to my principles” - What a woman said to Boris Johnson, Tory candidate for Henley, before slamming the door in his face
-“Unless John Prescott thumps somebody, this is going to be the longest week in politics since last week” - Playwright and commentator Keith Waterhouse.
-“It was reported that Mr Prescott gave Sky News a piece of his mind. That should not have taken very long” - Simon McClean, of Maplehurst, West Sussex,in a letter to The Daily Telegraph.
-“This has been one of the dullest, most negative election campaigns in history. We are seeing more interest in the Eurovision Song Contest” - Simon Clare, spokesman for Coral, the bookmakers.
-“I am having some difficulty living down the fact that I was born in Cornwall” - Stanley Johnson, Conservative candidate for Teignbridge, Devon,explaining the immigration problem to a voter.