Happy St George's day

I would just like to wish those that care a happy St Georges day. I have my flag flying(which was considered illegal until recently, I love being a little subversive) and some bottles of English ale sat in the fridge to toast the day when I get home from work, assuming it’s safe to drink them on top of the painkillers I am using to suppress a killer tooth ache.
Here’s a little something I found on Youtube a while back, I really think this should be used as the official English national anthem(seeing as we don’t have one, god save the queen is in fact the British anthem and that’s an entirely different animal (and a crap song)).

Saturday night in

While developing a passing interest in the origins of English, or should I say Anglo Saxon culture (beyond drinking tea and talking about the weather), I thought I would give the film Beowulf ago (I really wanted to rent I am Legend from the shop but it was out). I had read a translation of the poem years ago about the same time I was reading the Saga of Asgard and some Celtic legends too. I have always found any film-involving Ray Winston as amusing but probably not in the way intended but at least with this film, I did not have to look at him. His character (Beowulf) looked more like Sean Bean (another actor I have mixed feelings about). Another thing I noticed was all the characters eyes seemed to close together, I don’t know why but this bothered me. I found the animation style slightly irritating and on further reading discovered the story deviated considerably from the original, which always pisses me off (even though I can understand why it’s done).

You can see the link with Tolkien though but he never made a secret of using Beowulf as an inspiration. That was another film, or series of films that pissed me off, while everybody else was saying how fantastic Lord of the Rings was there was me being totally nerdy and listing all the things wrong with it.

At least ive got the four DVD boxed set of the Tremors series to watch that my son has just ordered on Amazon, that should cover a few Saturday nights.

nightwish - dark passion play

It’s taken a long time to get round to this but I can be a bit slow on the uptake at times. After seeing one of their videos on some music channel my daughter was watching I thought I would give it a go. I have read about them, seen pictures and known there was a scene and had it described to me by a radion dj, but to honest, it just went over my head and away into the subconscious. Symphonic metal sounds so …… cheesy.
Dark passion play by Nightwish is cheesy,pompous over the top nonsense, I love it. You can cook to it; not as good as a really good cooking album but it gets 7/10. You can cycle to it, though I had to work this one out on numerous short trips but I’ll give it 9/10. Moreover, you can listen to it while the little one nods off, a good 8/10 for that. You can also read (sci fi/fantasy) to it and bath to it.
Despite Anette Olzon looking like she should be working in a chip shop and for some reason reminding me of Abba crossed with Led Zeppelin ,Iron Maiden ,Sisters of Mercy and Clanned they are well worth listening and very very fun.

8/10

"vinegar with that love?"

poison - look what the cat dragged in

I had to find out, had this album matured like a good cheese, or would it turn out to be like a cup of hot chocolate left under the bed for several weeks, fuzzy but disgusting at the same time.
When this album was released I would have been more interested in playng dungeons and dragons and battling with my hormones. I do not remember much else about 1986, though a quick check on wikipedia shows it to be an eventful year and Highlander, Aliens, and Platoon are all in my favourite films list.
Look What The Cat Dragged In has the kind of cover that would confirm all your parents’ fears about rock music. To say to your dad “I want to look like these guys” would probably get you marched down to the army careers office faster than you could say “cross-dressing pansies”, but as I said, I was interested on other things at the time.
As before, I will asses the album using three criteria, today they are walking home in the rain, cooking, and pretending to be asleep while the little one goes to bed.
1. Walking home in the rain – I decided on this category because a, that’s what I was doing and b, I could not escape the album even if I wanted to. It was overall quite a pleasant experience, the music being bland enough to let my mind wander but not so flat or awful that I would just turn it off. 6/10.
2. Cooking – again the album just blended into the background without becoming irritating, not as good as some cooking music but acceptable so 5/10.
3. Pretending to be asleep while the little one goes to bed – my youngest son insists on somebody lying on his brother’s bed while he goes to sleep listening to cbeebies music. I have a habit of taking in an mp3 player turned down low when its my turn. Now this is a more difficult mark to give because I actually fell asleep. was I tired, relaxed or just bored? I do not know. So for this I will have to give 5/10 just to be fair.

Overall mark 5.3/10

Cheesy chocolate anyone?



Ps
This song includes the most romantic sounding phrase in the English language “cellar door”.

something different

While I sit here wallowing in misery, having trod on a nail in the garden then later in the afternoon I had a tooth extracted (aching at both ends), I thought I might share a new discovery (new for me anyway).
Jelonek by Michal Jelonek is a strange mix of violin driven rock from Poland, it’s very difficult to find out more about this chap as all the articles on the internet seem to be in polish.
I put the album to the three tests, the cycling test, the cooking test and the bathing test.
The cycling test- here I thought the changing pace of the album would be a problem, starting fast and then dropping off, but after five miles I was quite glad of the slowdown, just long enough to get it together before the pace picked up, only complaint was that it did not last long enough to get my home again (though I was out for two hours) – overall a good cycling album 9/10
The cooking test- I like to listen to music when I cook, its one of the few occasions I can listen to music and ignore the moans of other family members, when I cook I am god, anyone who comes into the kitchen had better tread carefully. Jelonek is not the best cooking album going, its ok but its not great, you can do a Sunday roast to it but breakfast and lunch just don’t work. So cooking gets 5/10
The bathing test- this involves nothing more than lying in a hot bath with a glass of something and listening to the music on an mp3 player, I think this is what did for my last two mp3 players. Again this is an ok album for chilling in the bath too, not great but not bad but it gets a bit boring after a while just doing nothing and listening to it so for bathing it gets 5/10

Overall 6.3/10

crock of shite

I went to my first gig in ages last night. An all-day event at Grays civic hall that was comprised of unsigned acts and local bands, it was also the first time my daughter was to see any live acts.
I can’t say it was a particularly pleasant experience, we arrived late due to other commitments and missed the first six hours (this turned out to be a blessing). I knew I would probably stand out as a bit old for this but was a little unprepared for the youthfulness of the crowd, I felt like a 70 year old in a school play. The sound was awful, the bands while all looking different all sounded the same though I don’t think this was an intended feature of the night, the only decent act we saw was a DJ who I never caught the name of doing some quite impressive stuff on his decks.
The crowd provided some amusement, watching over emotional alcohol fuelled teenagers interacting was interesting, with the homogenized style of dress and identi-haircuts it did make me wonder if this was how my crowd was viewed 19-20 years ago. The other odd thing about the young masses who inhabited this strange little get together was the tidal action you always get when bands come and go from the stage, normally you expect everybody to go to the bar between acts but here it was the other way round with people charging on to the dance floor to bounce around to the likes of Baggy Trousers or Enter Sandman and then all file out when the band came on. Weird or is it just me?

I will have to make it up to the poor girl, I thought this would be something she enjoyed but I know she was not impressed.

Last time I went to one of these events at the local civic hall was fifteen years ago, I now know why.

Happy new year all

So the year is at an end, cant say from a personal point of view that it has been spectacular but then I cant say it has been bad so no complaints there.
Good points: still alive, always a good thing. My daughter seems to be on her way to school genius (slight exaggeration but not to far off). I have learned to produce my own alcohol (what do you mean you’ve never tried, do it). My little sister got married.
Bad points: my wife and brother in law have both been ill with nasty illnesses. My bike stolen. Down to my last bottle of home made cider. From a music point of view I’m in no position to judge releases from 2007, most of what I’ve been listening to has been older, sometimes much older. I suppose the most listened to albums of 2007 are probably: Manic Street Preachers Send Away The Tigers, which while not a metal album by any means certainly appealed to me; New Model Army’s High which was almost a sure bet for me and; The 69 Eyes Angels who are a new discovery for me and both my daughter and myself think this album is brilliant, well recommended to any out there who have not listened to it.
Most listened to old stuff has to be (in no particular order), Tigertailz, Dogs D’armour, Black Sabbath and Little Angels.

By the way, I was in Sainsbury’s on Christmas Eve and I saw Father Christmas (Santa) and when I say that I mean the real one. He had waist length white hair and a big straggly white beard; he was dressed in a green jacket and knee length trousers with white stockings and brown shoes. None of this had the look of costume about it, his whole getup looked to well worn and used, nothing fake, he also had a look on his face that if you spoke to him he would rip your tits off, like an old angry hippy. So now you know, old Chris Cringle lives in the Chafford Hundred housing development in Essex England.

need to know

Is Robbie Rotten related to Johnny Rotten?
Why do we pay more tax on biscuits than cakes?

Ok so I am a bit slow on the uptake but I have just found out that Wolfsbane have reformed and are supporting the Wildhearts tonight at the Astoria. So the news has been knocking around for about two months but nobody fucking told me!
All my planned gigs have had to be cancelled this year but I think I would have really made the effort for this one but it now clashes with the works Christmas party. I will have to get doubly drunk now just to make it up.

nothing but a good time

There I was, singing along to an ad for the xbox 360 when suddenly two things occurred to me 1; I was singing along with a jingle and 2; even though I don’t think I had seen the advert I new the words, then it was gone and thought I new the words I couldn’t place them.
It took several occasions of watching the advert before it came to me, it was Poisons nothing but a good time sung by what sounds like a school choir.
So two questions, first, did they sing all the lyrics? And second, isn’t it all slightly wrong?