I only moved in this house just over 3 weeks ago and within 4 hours of being here I had two new customers. To this day I don't know how I managed that. As a businessman, I'm not that great at blowing my own trumpet. I don't do networking and to be honest I probably wouldn't have a business that has lasted for 9 years if it wasn't for my first few customers recommending me to others and that behaviour continuing on throughout the years. But I didn't have any customers out in this part of the country and I didn't know anyone until I moved here. So its a mystery how this happened. I guess I just got lucky. I got even luckier that one of them only lives a few doors down, so the fact that they can't actually run away might mean that I get paid by this couple promptly which seems to be a rare occurrence these days.
I originally met the man of the house and we talked for a good couple of hours about what he was wanting. He has a beautiful two storey blond sandstone house with gorgeous big tall windows and a garden that has great potential but has been a little neglected over the years and really the house deserves a garden to match. The guy has money, ideas of his own but is willing to let my creative side go wild. So in essence its a great job for me. Within minutes of leaving I was already thinking of possibilities. A few days later I went round again to measure up and take sketches and basically play about with ideas I had rolling about in my head. It was early in the day, I wasn't expecting anyone to be there but I knocked the door anyway and I was surprised when his wife opened the door. We hadn't met each other the first time I had went round so I had no clue what she looked like. She's gorgeous. Whilst I was busy introducing myself my head was thinking 'Oh my god, those eyes, they're like rich dark chocolate getting melted down in a pan for a gooey chocolate cake that should be illegal to digest - quick, you've stopped talking say something before she reads your mind!' I think I managed to pass the test of speaking before it became obvious.
That should have been the end of it. From then on in any time we met it should have been easier. Not a bit of it. We've now met 5 times but despite the fact that I now know what she looks like and it shouldn't take me by surprise I find I have to prepare myself for that first meeting of the day and still I get lost in those eyes. Its ridiculous. I can't be alone in this. There has to be someone in your life that has the same effect.
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
Monday, 30 July 2007
My Poisoned Fingers Ode To A Bad Day
Warning: You may not want to read this post and I would urge you not to bother wasting your time, this is just me getting a bad day off my chest so that I can move on to normal programming and not sound like an even more foul mouthed version of Billy Connolly.
Fuck you, thieving bastard who visited in the middle of the night whilst I was out enjoying myself. Fuck you, for breaking the window on the side of the house, fuck you for helping yourself to the £200 I didn’t manage to get in the bank on Friday and fuck you for taking the camera too. Fuck you!
Fuck me, for not getting round to organising the house insurance yet. Fuck me, for not finishing work earlier on Friday so I could have put that money in the bank. I guess I can forget about treating myself and a friend to the Connect festival now. Another year older, same old fucking stupid shit. And fuck me, for not leaving the camera under the seat of the van like I usually do. Somehow it was safer there, who fucking knew? Fuck me!
While I’m at it, fuck Hotpoint too and their washing machines built to last days after the guarantee runs out. I really didn’t have the time to deal with that breaking down this morning, of all mornings, nor the time to look for the receipt. That proved only to be a fucking waste of my time.
Fuck the blow out on the left front tire. Fuck the pot holes on the badly maintained roads. Fuck the politicians who want to build new motorways hen they can’t even find the money for resurfacing the roads we already have.
Fuck you, Bank Of Scotland for charging me £70 for not processing £64 worth of Direct Debits. Maybe if your staff hadn’t closed the door on my face at
If anyone did happen to read that. I hope they didn’t bother analysing the lines above it wouldn’t have been worth the effort not when I said fuck 21times.
Normal programming should return soon.
It's On Repeat #4
I feel the need for a me moment so its time for music pimping.
This is a semi-regular interactive post where I share what I'm listening to at the moment of writing and you share what you are listening to. It can be old favourites rediscovered or new bands that nobody but you as ever heard of, there are no rules other than one - share your love of music.
Obviously having bought tickets for Angus & Julia Stone they music featured regularly but I've talked enough about them so I'll move on to the others.
Bell X1, I'm a big fan of this band mainly because they don't get the as much radio airplay as they should so noone spoils it for me I therefore get to listen to them under my own terms but it was only whilst I had Mediamonkey playing random songs that I rediscovered the song Just Like Mr Benn a beautiful song that I should have been playing more ovften but somehow had neglected.
Whilst crawling along on the M8 motorway last Monday I was glad to discover that I had a copy of Love Generation Club Mix by Bob Sinclar ft Gary Pine on cd. 2 solid hours stuck on a motorway on a hot summers day is not my idea of fun, its days like that I need something to chill me out. If you can stop yourself from joining in the whistling in this song, then you can't possibly be human. Why? Because I said so.
On the same cd I found Chains by Che Fu & DLT. Unless you are a Kiwi or an Australian you probably won't find Che Fu in your local music shop which is a shame because a lot of his music deserves to be more widely listened to than the American hip hop that is available.
With all the floods in England in the previous week or two CCR's Who'll Stop The Rain kept coming to mind but this past week I've been playing Looking Out My Back Door a song which for some reason always reminds me of the Dude in The Big Lebowski.
Born In The 70s by Ed Harcourt. Good lyricist whose songs I enjoy but this song holds more appeal than most of his other work. Probably because the first few lines of this song could almost have been written by myself if a few words were changed here and there. For example my name isn't Ed and I wasn't born a few days before the king was dead but a few hours afterwards,
Water May Walk by Devendra Banhart wasn't weather inspired, it was played just because I can.
Back in the 80s I didn't much like Morrissey and The Smiths, the music was far to melancholy for me back then but I musy have grown into a miserable cunt myself since then because The Smiths are being played more and more lately, especially Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours. Could be worse I suppose it could have been You Have Killed Me, that would really have me worried.
Heavy Boots by LA's Cold War Kids is a late entry to the list. With the lyrics 'heavy boots, for crying out loud, heavy boots are caught up in the crowd' I have no idea why this song appealed.
Thats it for number 4, because I have other things to take care of. I am also still technically challenged and have no idea how to stream songs on blogger, however I am willing to share them via Pando if anyone wishes to listen but only on the understanding that if you like the song that you support the artist by checking out their other stuff.
This is a semi-regular interactive post where I share what I'm listening to at the moment of writing and you share what you are listening to. It can be old favourites rediscovered or new bands that nobody but you as ever heard of, there are no rules other than one - share your love of music.
Obviously having bought tickets for Angus & Julia Stone they music featured regularly but I've talked enough about them so I'll move on to the others.
Bell X1, I'm a big fan of this band mainly because they don't get the as much radio airplay as they should so noone spoils it for me I therefore get to listen to them under my own terms but it was only whilst I had Mediamonkey playing random songs that I rediscovered the song Just Like Mr Benn a beautiful song that I should have been playing more ovften but somehow had neglected.
Whilst crawling along on the M8 motorway last Monday I was glad to discover that I had a copy of Love Generation Club Mix by Bob Sinclar ft Gary Pine on cd. 2 solid hours stuck on a motorway on a hot summers day is not my idea of fun, its days like that I need something to chill me out. If you can stop yourself from joining in the whistling in this song, then you can't possibly be human. Why? Because I said so.
On the same cd I found Chains by Che Fu & DLT. Unless you are a Kiwi or an Australian you probably won't find Che Fu in your local music shop which is a shame because a lot of his music deserves to be more widely listened to than the American hip hop that is available.
With all the floods in England in the previous week or two CCR's Who'll Stop The Rain kept coming to mind but this past week I've been playing Looking Out My Back Door a song which for some reason always reminds me of the Dude in The Big Lebowski.
Born In The 70s by Ed Harcourt. Good lyricist whose songs I enjoy but this song holds more appeal than most of his other work. Probably because the first few lines of this song could almost have been written by myself if a few words were changed here and there. For example my name isn't Ed and I wasn't born a few days before the king was dead but a few hours afterwards,
Water May Walk by Devendra Banhart wasn't weather inspired, it was played just because I can.
Back in the 80s I didn't much like Morrissey and The Smiths, the music was far to melancholy for me back then but I musy have grown into a miserable cunt myself since then because The Smiths are being played more and more lately, especially Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours. Could be worse I suppose it could have been You Have Killed Me, that would really have me worried.
Heavy Boots by LA's Cold War Kids is a late entry to the list. With the lyrics 'heavy boots, for crying out loud, heavy boots are caught up in the crowd' I have no idea why this song appealed.
Thats it for number 4, because I have other things to take care of. I am also still technically challenged and have no idea how to stream songs on blogger, however I am willing to share them via Pando if anyone wishes to listen but only on the understanding that if you like the song that you support the artist by checking out their other stuff.
Breathe In, Breathe Out, Just Let It Go
At 5ft 8 and a bit i'm a short ass but sometimes I feel like my arse is at nature's perfect height for kicking. Some mornings aren't worth getting up out of bed because no matter what you do everything turns to crap.
Sunday, 29 July 2007
I should have worn steel toe cap boots
The gig was good, very good. So the rush of blood to my head on Friday was a good thing. My live music withdrawals have been satisfied for at least another few days.
It always amazes me no matter how many times I have been to King Tuts in the past how I somehow manage to forget, in the time it takes between visits, how intimate that place is. But I swear it seemed smaller tonight somehow. Probably the woman with the beehive hair (think Amy Winehouse and you should get the picture) helped in that regard, especially when she stood in front of me. Unfortunately she was no Amy Winehouse. Amy is mostly all hair and has very little in the way of bones. I couldn't say the same for this woman. She had very large feet that seemed to be drawn to my left foot. I'm glad she wasn't wearing heels because being stood upon about a dozen times with flat shoes was painful enough as it was.
Less painful was meeting Nicola, who was in my class at school. We hadn't actually seen each other since we left school - 13 years ago. That means I'm going to be 30 next month. Where did the time go?
http://www.angusandjuliastone.com/
It always amazes me no matter how many times I have been to King Tuts in the past how I somehow manage to forget, in the time it takes between visits, how intimate that place is. But I swear it seemed smaller tonight somehow. Probably the woman with the beehive hair (think Amy Winehouse and you should get the picture) helped in that regard, especially when she stood in front of me. Unfortunately she was no Amy Winehouse. Amy is mostly all hair and has very little in the way of bones. I couldn't say the same for this woman. She had very large feet that seemed to be drawn to my left foot. I'm glad she wasn't wearing heels because being stood upon about a dozen times with flat shoes was painful enough as it was.
Less painful was meeting Nicola, who was in my class at school. We hadn't actually seen each other since we left school - 13 years ago. That means I'm going to be 30 next month. Where did the time go?
http://www.angusandjuliastone.com/
Saturday, 28 July 2007
I'm Back!
£125 poorer.
And 20 days later after setting it in motion I finally have broadband again. That's British prices and British efficiency for you. Do the Germans have this much trouble when moving house? I think not.
Anyway I'm back online, that's the main thing and there's no need to bitch and moan about it, what is done is done.
So moving on.
I can be a bit of a numpty at times, especially when I am overworked, overstressed and suffering from musical entertainment withdrawals, like yesterday for example. I found myself in Glasgow walking along St Vincent Street at lunchtime with hunger pains in my stomach urging a refuelling pitstop - King Tuts seemed as good a place as any to eat. Whilst there I discovered that Angus & Julia Stone were playing on Sunday night. Angus & Julia Stone were introduced to me by an Australian friend about a year ago, seeing that the brother/sister duo were playing on Sunday reminded me that this friend of mind hadn't yet broken her King Tuts Wah Wah Hut's cherry yet (keep your mind out of the gutter its Glasgow's Mecca for music lovers). This was despite having promised her that I would take her there when she moved to this country. She has been living in Edinburgh for 2 months now and I have failed in my duties as a host but moving twice in 2 months is apt to lead to distractions and in my defence I haven't seen much in the way of live music for some time now however as I was eating I decided to address this and promptly bought 3 tickets, one for myself (of course), one for the her and one for her flatmate (see there was no reason for your mind to be in the gutter). I don't even know her flatmate but I thought its a bit rude not to buy her one too and I'm nice like that (sometimes).
In my haste, I forgot I might want to ask first then buy the tickets if required. I also forgot I had no internet access. No mobile phone seeing as I deliberately misplaced it years ago (I don't like them) and a new home telephone number that noone was yet familiar with. So after eating lunch a quick run down to the nearest internet cafe was required to send an email regarding sunday night and an instruction to get in touch by telephone with an answer of 'yes we'd love to come' or 'sorry we can't, other plans have been made and we really need more notice in future -eejit' or something similar with that delightful etiquette they have in the land down under. It was only after doing this and getting home from work about 9 hours later that I realised the line that I paid £125 to install had a fault and that I couldn't send or receive any calls.
Argh!
18 hrs later its now working again but its now only 26 hours until the show starts and still no word about my friend's availability. Not good. Its not about the money. £7 a ticket is hardly a bank account breaker. I'd just like to go out and enjoy some good music but I'm not going as Jimmy-no-mates. So that could mean some lucky sod gets free tickets if my friend doesn't claim them first. Anyone want them?
What, you've never heard Angus & Julia Stone? Never fear. Download Pando, then download the attachment below, on it you will find 2 songs, that's right not one but two, and you can decide if you want to take up the free tickets of course if you live in Canada, Brazil, the USA or anywhere else outside of the central belt of Scotland it might be too late for you too but the offer is there to tease you anyway.
And 20 days later after setting it in motion I finally have broadband again. That's British prices and British efficiency for you. Do the Germans have this much trouble when moving house? I think not.
Anyway I'm back online, that's the main thing and there's no need to bitch and moan about it, what is done is done.
So moving on.
I can be a bit of a numpty at times, especially when I am overworked, overstressed and suffering from musical entertainment withdrawals, like yesterday for example. I found myself in Glasgow walking along St Vincent Street at lunchtime with hunger pains in my stomach urging a refuelling pitstop - King Tuts seemed as good a place as any to eat. Whilst there I discovered that Angus & Julia Stone were playing on Sunday night. Angus & Julia Stone were introduced to me by an Australian friend about a year ago, seeing that the brother/sister duo were playing on Sunday reminded me that this friend of mind hadn't yet broken her King Tuts Wah Wah Hut's cherry yet (keep your mind out of the gutter its Glasgow's Mecca for music lovers). This was despite having promised her that I would take her there when she moved to this country. She has been living in Edinburgh for 2 months now and I have failed in my duties as a host but moving twice in 2 months is apt to lead to distractions and in my defence I haven't seen much in the way of live music for some time now however as I was eating I decided to address this and promptly bought 3 tickets, one for myself (of course), one for the her and one for her flatmate (see there was no reason for your mind to be in the gutter). I don't even know her flatmate but I thought its a bit rude not to buy her one too and I'm nice like that (sometimes).
In my haste, I forgot I might want to ask first then buy the tickets if required. I also forgot I had no internet access. No mobile phone seeing as I deliberately misplaced it years ago (I don't like them) and a new home telephone number that noone was yet familiar with. So after eating lunch a quick run down to the nearest internet cafe was required to send an email regarding sunday night and an instruction to get in touch by telephone with an answer of 'yes we'd love to come' or 'sorry we can't, other plans have been made and we really need more notice in future -eejit' or something similar with that delightful etiquette they have in the land down under. It was only after doing this and getting home from work about 9 hours later that I realised the line that I paid £125 to install had a fault and that I couldn't send or receive any calls.
Argh!
18 hrs later its now working again but its now only 26 hours until the show starts and still no word about my friend's availability. Not good. Its not about the money. £7 a ticket is hardly a bank account breaker. I'd just like to go out and enjoy some good music but I'm not going as Jimmy-no-mates. So that could mean some lucky sod gets free tickets if my friend doesn't claim them first. Anyone want them?
What, you've never heard Angus & Julia Stone? Never fear. Download Pando, then download the attachment below, on it you will find 2 songs, that's right not one but two, and you can decide if you want to take up the free tickets of course if you live in Canada, Brazil, the USA or anywhere else outside of the central belt of Scotland it might be too late for you too but the offer is there to tease you anyway.
Thursday, 5 July 2007
Its On Repeat # 3
This is a semi-regular interactive post where I share what I'm listening to at the moment of writing and you share what you are listening to. It can be old favourites rediscovered or new bands that nobody but you as ever heard of, there are no rules other than one - share your love of music.
Thirteen Senses is in my opinion an underrated band, some bands get more radio airplay than they should and others as a consequence don't get as much as they deserve. When was the last time you heard the track Do No Wrong played on the radio?
Bongo Maffin. If you haven't heard of this band do a search now. It's a South African band and there music takes me back to 1989/1990 when Soul II Soul were huge in the UK. For some unknown reason the song Amadlozi reminds me of Soul II Soul's Back To Life.
I'll be honest I don't know much about India Aire, I came across some of her music by accidental discovery but I like the way she keeps it simple. There's nothing flashy about Can I Walk With You and yet I could listen to it more than I probably should.
With all the rain we are getting this summer and no money to go travelling I have had to resort to music to give me the feel of summer and with that I've found myself playing Johannes Linstead and his Spanish guitar. Mango
Lacuna Coil, sounds like it should be the name of a gorgeous sexy B-movie Italian actress, but enough about my perversions, its not, there are instead a band that make some beautiful music, Cold being an example.
I've been told that Tiny Dancers are a great band to see live, I cannot confirm or deny haven't not seen them myself yet but I do recommend I will Wait For You
I've heard rumours that Sons & Daughters have a new album coming out this year. About time too. Its as good an excuse as any to play Monsters once again.
Grandaddy's Nature Anthem has been played way too much this week, and for no reason really. Do I need a reason? OK, OK I'm a hippy and I'm missing summer since it disappeared in April, shut up.
With me being so close to being homeless this week it was time to pull out Willy Mason's Hard Hand To Hold This boy has got a talent with words that should see him have a long career.
Anyway I'm moving in two days, so if you comment it might be a week or two before I can respond in some way. My apologies in advance.
Thirteen Senses is in my opinion an underrated band, some bands get more radio airplay than they should and others as a consequence don't get as much as they deserve. When was the last time you heard the track Do No Wrong played on the radio?
Bongo Maffin. If you haven't heard of this band do a search now. It's a South African band and there music takes me back to 1989/1990 when Soul II Soul were huge in the UK. For some unknown reason the song Amadlozi reminds me of Soul II Soul's Back To Life.
I'll be honest I don't know much about India Aire, I came across some of her music by accidental discovery but I like the way she keeps it simple. There's nothing flashy about Can I Walk With You and yet I could listen to it more than I probably should.
With all the rain we are getting this summer and no money to go travelling I have had to resort to music to give me the feel of summer and with that I've found myself playing Johannes Linstead and his Spanish guitar. Mango
Lacuna Coil, sounds like it should be the name of a gorgeous sexy B-movie Italian actress, but enough about my perversions, its not, there are instead a band that make some beautiful music, Cold being an example.
I've been told that Tiny Dancers are a great band to see live, I cannot confirm or deny haven't not seen them myself yet but I do recommend I will Wait For You
I've heard rumours that Sons & Daughters have a new album coming out this year. About time too. Its as good an excuse as any to play Monsters once again.
Grandaddy's Nature Anthem has been played way too much this week, and for no reason really. Do I need a reason? OK, OK I'm a hippy and I'm missing summer since it disappeared in April, shut up.
With me being so close to being homeless this week it was time to pull out Willy Mason's Hard Hand To Hold This boy has got a talent with words that should see him have a long career.
Anyway I'm moving in two days, so if you comment it might be a week or two before I can respond in some way. My apologies in advance.
Wednesday, 4 July 2007
Any room under the stars?
This house hunting malarkey is too much like bloody hard work, I think I might just buy myself a tent and be done with it.
Now where to pitch it.....
Now where to pitch it.....
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Ironic, Don't You Think?
The 8 people arrested for the attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow at the weekend worked for the National Health Service. They came here and got jobs that involved helping people before trying to kill, maim, and injure others. Does anyone else understand the logic?
Is this in the new terrorists handbook? Its ok to kill x amount of people as long as you've brought in x amount of babies into the world, you can injure x amount of people as long as you have been able to perform x amount of successful heart transplants. It must be like carbon offsetting for terrorists. Osama has spoken My children go forth and kill but please remember first offset the damage you are about to do.
I have to admit to being a little simple in the head at times, I've never been able to get my brain to understand terrorism but there was two things I could recognise and that was the two breeds of terrorist.
The first generation of terrorist had the know how to make a bomb and plant it somewhere that it was going to do a lot of damage but had the intelligence to walk away before the timer went off so that they could watch the havoc unfold. The second generation of terrorist had the ability to put a bomb in a backpack, or some other carrying device, get on a bus, train or aeroplane and blow themselves up. This generation was just as angry as the first but they have some morals, and couldn't live with what they did. I think I understand these two breeds of terrorists. 1st generation - mean angry bastards who want to kill and watch and kill again, 2nd generation - angry? - yes, want to kill? - yes, having done so can they look mother in the eye? - no. If only their brains weren't splattered over an area the size of a football pitch and you were the forgiving sort you might want to give this type of terrorist a hug and tell them anger is good but hate is unhealthy.
This new type of terrorist has got me confused and I can't work out what it all means. This new breed doesn't seem to be all that clever, they can't seem to follow through with their plans. You know something is wrong with the world if you can make a hero out of a London traffic warden. Worse still they can't seem to make up their minds if they want to commit suicide or not, it really should be quite a simple decision but they seem to have this halfway house thing going on. Masterminds? Not likely. Inept idiots more like it.
Where are the terrorist recruitment agencies getting these people from? And is the British National Health Service this desperate for medical personnel?
Is this in the new terrorists handbook? Its ok to kill x amount of people as long as you've brought in x amount of babies into the world, you can injure x amount of people as long as you have been able to perform x amount of successful heart transplants. It must be like carbon offsetting for terrorists. Osama has spoken My children go forth and kill but please remember first offset the damage you are about to do.
I have to admit to being a little simple in the head at times, I've never been able to get my brain to understand terrorism but there was two things I could recognise and that was the two breeds of terrorist.
The first generation of terrorist had the know how to make a bomb and plant it somewhere that it was going to do a lot of damage but had the intelligence to walk away before the timer went off so that they could watch the havoc unfold. The second generation of terrorist had the ability to put a bomb in a backpack, or some other carrying device, get on a bus, train or aeroplane and blow themselves up. This generation was just as angry as the first but they have some morals, and couldn't live with what they did. I think I understand these two breeds of terrorists. 1st generation - mean angry bastards who want to kill and watch and kill again, 2nd generation - angry? - yes, want to kill? - yes, having done so can they look mother in the eye? - no. If only their brains weren't splattered over an area the size of a football pitch and you were the forgiving sort you might want to give this type of terrorist a hug and tell them anger is good but hate is unhealthy.
This new type of terrorist has got me confused and I can't work out what it all means. This new breed doesn't seem to be all that clever, they can't seem to follow through with their plans. You know something is wrong with the world if you can make a hero out of a London traffic warden. Worse still they can't seem to make up their minds if they want to commit suicide or not, it really should be quite a simple decision but they seem to have this halfway house thing going on. Masterminds? Not likely. Inept idiots more like it.
Where are the terrorist recruitment agencies getting these people from? And is the British National Health Service this desperate for medical personnel?
Monday, 2 July 2007
Losing My Faith In The Summer Time
I'm not really one for complaining about the weather. We have it pretty good in this country, it doesn't get too hot, doesn't get too cold and the extreme elements aren't really so bad when put in context with other countries but now that it looks like I'm going to be homeless by the end of this week (finding a place to stay at such short notice is harder than I thought) the relevance of the non stop rain that we seem to be getting lately is somewhat greater. Its a pain in the arse to be sure, I have no idea how many cardboard boxes are required to keep myself dry at night.
Oasis - The Importance Of Being Idle
Oasis - The Importance Of Being Idle
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