Nearly time to raise the drawbridge and eat nuts for a week.
It's probably not logically possible to stop something that's not occurring, but I'm now officially giving up any further attempt to post this side of Xmas.
So Merry Christmas to all my readers. You're both jolly nice people.
First Man: There was a knock at our door last night and when I opened it there was this great big six foot cockroach. It just looked at me for a moment then it punched me on the nose. kicked me on the ankle, laughed and ran off.
Second Man: Yes, I heard there was a nasty bug going around.
We are all stymied. Jake brought back some gastric scramble germs on Tuesday night and since yesterday evening one by one we've all gone down with it. The vom has flowed freely, as freely as any slop, and Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ to redeem us all from the chop.
One consolation is that we went out on Tuesday and bought an EEnormous telly. Thirty two inches, no less. About the same size as our fireplace with a fanttastic picture. It replaces an old Sony thing the size of Peckham Library which had only the flimsiest of allegiances to the colour format, preferring to flick in and out of black and white with absolutely no qualms. After about four episodes of 'Rome' all shot in moody darkness leaving us no clue what was going on we clubbed together - with Mr Visa - and brought our home entertainment facilities this side of the millenium. Actually this side of the 1950s for a lot of the time.
So while the others have all been honking away like Christmas geese I am proud to say that I have yet to review my recent eating. I feel sick but remain steadfast.
Ho ho ho.
It was Jake's public musical debut last night, playing cornet in the Junior Wind Ensemble. No sniggering at the back there. He played delightfully and I reckon all the funny notes came from the trumpets. Fortunately he was first on because I lapsed into a deep sleep immediately afterwards only to be woken by Mel's urgent nudging, or the Bassoon Quartet. Hard to tell.
No sleeping last Thursday, though, when I attended a Mercury Rev gig. I have a friend who is a compulsive gig goer and he drags me out fairly regularly. Probably good for me. The last time was to see Goldie Looking Chain and Kasabian, two acts in search of a set's worth of material at the time. We would have had Babyshambles too, but Pete Doherty was on bail that night and indisposed by curfew, a rare and VE-ry rock n roll excuse. Highlight of the evening was walking past two thirtysomethings leaning on a rail one of whom said, much louder than he thought he did:
"Look, there's two blokes even older than US!"
Laughed? We did. They didn't.
Back to the present and the Shepherd's Bush Empire. Mercury Rev are not very familiar to me and having stood through an evening with them I couldn't begin to describe what they do in terms of the US music tradition. No discernible country-rock or blues-soul in there. Perhaps they grew up listening to 70s Brit prog. They certainly treated us to the most tripped out slide show, all speeded up flowers and philosophy about the Universe and Beingness. The audience lapped it up and I can now honestly say I know what cosmic moshing looks like. It's a sort of mild mannered nodding, a movement both slight and contemplative allowing the Oneness of Allness to flood into the Infinityness of the Moment. Heavyosity was achieved and sustained, along with a fair amount of loudness. Some dickhead nearly sundered the Oneness of my Beer with his elbow but the synergetic Unity on hand was such that no drop crested the plastic rim of its beery Perception. There's a lesson for us all in that, I'm sure.
The third gig of the week was listening to Zoe sing carols in St Martin's In The Fields just off Trafalgar Square. That was delightful, only marred by getting to the line 'See the tender lamb appears' and realising that I still had hours to go before my supper.
Yay! Our free Stevie Wonder CD has arrived, courtesy of the Guardian. We're now saving box tops for the Marvin Gaye one.
How times change. If you were starting out in soul music today you might choose Wonder for a name. Or Cent. Or even Legend. But would anybody have the nerve to choose Gaye?
Zoe has dragged home 'Now...! 62' and I've been getting back up to speed with chart music. Sheesh. And who would choose a name like James Blunt? I'm afraid I'm not a fan. Mr Obtuse has a querulous, vulnerable voice which exudes a certain pathos and probably appeals directly to women who like a boyfriend to sound permanently as if he's going to burst into tears. That song about loving a beautiful angel on the Underground makes the point, I think. He will, indeed, never beeee with her, I can guarantee that. He has also, on a more technical level, pulled off the remarkable feat of writing songs that have no discernible melody. All the notes he sings are in the stated chord of the accompaniment, with a few occasional exceptions. This gives me the impression that his voice is missing certain notes, like a children's xylophone, and that he's somehow bashing away happily, unmindful of the empty spaces. Probably not aimed at me though, let's face it, and I'm unlikely to succumb to his charms having heard via Desert Island Discs that Michael Winner is a fan. His girlfriend apparently introduced him to Blunty and plays his music 'in the bedroom area'.
Area!!? Meaning 'in the general vicinity of' the bedroom? Like on the stairs? Or, as I suspect, is Mr Winner's bedroom so large that only the concept of an area is big enough to do it justice? At least he didn't call it 'the bedroom location'.
Anyway Zoe can listen to her Sugarbabes, I'll stick to Stevie W. Now that's what I call music.