w o r d s

I’m tired. It’s two am and I can’t sleep. I have to get up early in the morning too. Part of my ceiling fell down a few days ago and the agency have finally got someone coming around in the morning to take a look. It’s probably not that bad…I hope. I’m somewhat concerned that the loose board I can see is a floorboard in which case it is that bad and then some but I suppose I’ll find out tomorrow.

I’m really not in a writing mood at all these days. I’ve let a lot of things slip by the wayside. I had to force myself to sit down and type last night and I kinda meandered and repeated myself (way more than usual) and it didn’t work so well. I eventually just saved the effort with the intent to go back. I hope that I do.

I’m kinda stuck for words which is unusual for me. Most of the time I have words, they often turn out to be the wrong words but at least I have something. It’s throwing me a bit to not even want to ramble (short of beer and whiskey and the death of a genuine icon in my life) even just a little bit. And now as I’m here I’m almost on the verge.

I both sent and received and unexpected email today. In a somewhat startling coincidence an email arrived in one mailbox as I was writing another in another mailbox. It was an odd confluence. It has, to a degree, been a week for that. If things usually come in threes, why am I up to five? Argh, right not going there anyway.

Yeah so stuck for words. Quite a week coming up, most of it planned for sometime but it still feels like it’s coming out of the blue. Tomorrow I’m going to see Blur. My sister bought tickets months and months and months ago and now she can’t go. So I’m off into Hyde Park. I’m strangely unexcited by it. I don’t know why. I’m perhaps more excited by support from Vampire Weekend. Odd!

Then Saturday I’ll no doubt watch the final Lions test match but that’s my entire plan for the weekend. Oh no well that’s not true. You may remember that I said something about growing my hair again recently, well as it turns out there is an extreme amount of grey coming through and so long hair is forever out of the picture. Also it was long enough that it was annoying me and thus it has to go. So a haircut - exciting weekend huh?

Monday is the big South American shindig. Up to a possible 15 people attending which is pretty damn impressive. It’s kinda snowballed from the Inca Trail to everyone that I met in South America. It will be interesting to see how that all goes but I can take a few guesses right now anyway or at least I could. More on that one after I suspect.

Then on Tuesday Patrick arrives over from Cork on his way back to the US. I suspect Tuesday evening will be a local catchup then on Wednesday evening there’s a ton of old work folks getting together in an old haunt for a quiet drink and some reminiscing. That’s also going to be odd but I’m very much looking forward to seeing some folks who I haven’t seen in three plus years. So that’ll be good. Patrick is staying with me until Friday morning I think so no doubt dinner again on the Thursday.

To add to all of this, earlier this afternoon my dad rang to find out if I was free for a late lunch on Wednesday as he’s in town for a morning meeting.

So kinda hectic really. Oh it sounds like it’s just started to rain outside. I hope this is the start of the storms we have been promised. Well no I don’t in that I’ll be at an outdoor gig for much of tomorrow but it is really just too hot.

On that note, it’s not really too hot. It’s a nice temperature. I spent much of last year in temperatures higher than this and in more comfort. I think it’s just quite simple that London isn’t built for heat. My flat is entirely doubleglazed and of course has no air conditioning. It’s quite sweltering in here from early afternoon onwards. I keep a large fan going if I’m sat in the front room. You just don’t expect London to be hot. There’s no sea around for a nice breeze or any sort of cooling effect and it’s just not built with heat in mind and lets not even mention the tube.

Also I was thinking that in most places that were hotter, it didn’t really matter because I was out and doing something. Who cares how hot it is when you have a bag to carry to a hostel or something to go out and see. It’s when you’ve got nothing going on that you notice the little things. It’s annoying. Aside from the fact that I generally like the rain, it’d be really really nice if this cooled the city down a bit.

Oh I don’t think I’ve mentioned that we did Mr Boardman’s birthday on Saturday night. That was good fun and sticking with the theme of the moment, nice to catchup with some old friends who I’d not seen in a long time. That was really nice. Also apparently there is a seaside which can be visited. I’m not convinced but…

Right I’m going to try and sleep again. Oooh that’s some thunder now!

I wrote about Bon Iver for a couple of hours last night and I haven’t even gotten to Tuesday evening’s gig. I’ll be writing more and hopefully posting it soon. For now, suffice it to say it was the best gig I’ve ever seen.

You may notice a few entries are now missing. They aren’t lost…I think but I was making some small changes earlier and I, well I’m not entirely sure what I did. I believe I’ve broken the RSS feed as well. I then got distracted and haven’t had time to go back to look at either of them.

So it now appears that pretty much everyone I met in South America will be in London next week and most of them will be in the pub on Monday. I’m slightly surprised how much I’m looking forward to this, well to most of it anyway.

Finally the rehearsal footage from Michael Jackson just released looks good. What could those gigs have been? Don’t think I’ve forgotten to come back and write about him. That’s on my list of things to do.

I give to you the greatest klang ever in the history of V and indeed other klangs:

I was Michael jackson’s PA for a month.

Fucker never mentioned this before we went for drinks earlier this year. Probably for the best as I think we’d have overreacted (such as you can) and demanded stories. That gives me like one degree of seperation!

They are right, you know.

You don’t *need* to be in a field to drink Brothers Cider but it jesus fuck does help.

Proper cider should be hot with added brandy and floating bits. The drinker should be soaking wet, covered in mud, totally exhausted and on a high from the music and um other things. It should also be served from a Routemaster bus in a paper up.

Otherwise ya know it’s just not the same.

I guess one of the nice things…wait hang on, the only nice thing… about unemployment is being able to sit in the park and read a book and enjoy the weather.

Other than that, it continues to suck mightily.

I’m gonna give you some more coherant content soon but for now.

November 2008. Asunción, Paraguay. The dodgy nightclub plays Billie Jean and the following ensues…