The Beatification of Billsworth

Extreme karaoke is the way forward. Gather ten of your most tone deaf friends. Fill them with 40kgs of dim sum and the odd litre of Pissinger 06. Lock them in a booth with bad wigs and two microphones and back away rapidly. The horror of this situation is compounded by the vast number of Abba songs programmed into the machine. All present are simultaneously chain smoking and chugging down tequilas while brawling for the mics. I creep out into the labyrinthine bowels of Lucky Voice and head for the nearest exit. I find it, but also find this lone spot, beaming down heavenly beneficence. I attempt to translocate via this badly disguised teleportation unit, but am dragged to the ground before full disintegration and hurled back into the maelstrom. I decide to fight fire with fire and croak my way through Dredlock Holiday, but all are too far gone to care and punish me with Barbie Girl and extra reverb on the mic. This Hell eventually ends when we are turfed out on the stroke of 12, with a party of slavering morons in the corridor, champing at the bit to take our place. Let it be known, Private karaoke requires tungsten lungs and a liver dipped in nitrogen, you will not survive otherwise.

B

Strokenoff

As promised, a blurred phonecam picture of what could actually be any band in the world, but is, I assure you, The Strokes. The first thing you notice when attending a performance by a superduper cool New York band - one who stormed onto the scene with a thrilling debut, cooled a bit with their difficult second album, but have now engineered a glorious return to form with their new material - is the top toff totty who frequent their gigs. Shallow I know, but there it is. Admittedly, the last gig I went to was ZZ Top, who attract a slightly more mature audience, but even at Supergrass or The Kings of Leon, or Muse even, you didn't get quite such a sophisticated sprinkling of ladeeez. Without being overly lecherous, Tom and I insinuated ourselves amongst the seething flesh, our plastic pints firmly gripped, our paunches desperately sucked in. Hammond Jnr et al, pranced on eventually and the crowd gave an expensively scented punch in the air as the distinctive bass throb of 'Juicebox' juddered through the Marshalls. So it went for two and a bit hours, the five songs I knew were played with marginal enthusiasm and Julesy Casablancas (for it is he) , demonstrated the sort of elocution techniques they teach you at the Pete Doherty school of Incoherent Rock Mumbling. 'Thangew Lunnunn, your beuwdafuhl, thiswahniscawled, blahurggblgrble.' Then they were gone. Now this is where I get pissed off, encores. One day I'd like to empty an auditorium completely, just to see the smug grins melt off their faces as they stroll back on stage, only to discover everyone has buggered off. I hate encores, I'd almost prefer it if they said 'we're going back stage now for a bit to mop down/snort something/swill Moet/ shag a badger, then we'll come back and finish the set... talk amongst yourselves.' All this sycophantic pleading for them to come back and do their job really burns my arse. There now, I've regressed to Rhodie-isms, that's how much it gets to me. When they do eventually deign to return, they play that new track that sounds disturbingly like Barry Manilow's 'Mandy'- assure us yet again that they 'lurve' us and finally leave the building. I'm glad I went, as I like Tom very much and did want to hang out with him, but The Strokes? New York can 'ave 'em.

Credit to the Nation

The enormous pain of transferring debt from one credit card to another is surely deterrent enough for the average shmo not to get caught up in the whole sordid business in the first place. Having just joined a family of guinea pigs in their quest for 0% transfer fees, I'm disturbed to find i have to immediately squander money on tickets to see the Strokes at Shepherd's Bush Empire tonight. I hear my rodent brethren squealing in disgust, along with my non-indie speaking friends, but alas tis something i must do. I will endeavour to take bad pictures on my mobile phone, be spotted by crazed bouncers and suffer a brutal drubbing in order to please the masses with blurred images of this oh so hip and trendy crew of trustafarians. Would be fine if it hadn't suddenly become ridiculously cold, as the Russian Wind (TM) barrels across London, annihilating pensioners and no doubt freezing rail tracks and kiddies in buggies in its wake, cheers Moscow, nice one.

B

Meat rules

I praise you O Turkey (Organic, from Hennesey's down Northcote road, well nawty) for giving up your fabulous meatiness (and er, life) for Chrissie day and making it all worth slaving over a nuclear powered oven for seven hours while Nan gets progressively steamed on mulled wine and some idiot sets fire to a piece of discarded wrapping paper in the middle of an ocean of discarded wrapping paper resulting in exotic burn marks on the beige carpet and 2nd degree burn marks on the idiot. I praise you O Pig, never mind you were horribly overcooked by Mrs.V from down the road and fell apart at the first prod of a carving knife into a thousand delapidated chunks of salty nothingness. We still gorged ourselves upon you, except weird Uncle Pete, who's been veggie since he was at uni and unwittingly chopped his right index finger into the stew while cooking on three tabs of double dipped Hoffman's. I meant to give thanks a while ago, but have been otherwise engaged with carpet cleaners and a chap from the RSPCA who heard a report someone had tried to flambe a newfoundland in the front living room.
Meat Be Praised.

Slog

Calm thyself sigh9, genius doesn't just spring forth from the lyrical loins, it germinates, gestates, like an elephant's child, for 21 months! So I've got a bit of time. More to the point I was horribly brought down yesterday, by an act of extreme fulishness on my apart. As a consequence of one too many lager/G n' T interfaces on Monday night, I awoke at about four with both a raging thirst and a vesuvian headache. Downing three anadin with a litre of water I retired back to my recovery pit to see out the night. On waking in the morning, I was utterly exhausted and as I zombied my way around the flat, the thort sparked in the very dim recesses of my mind, that I didn't actually have any anadin. Sick suspicion became hideous fact when i went to my bedside table and discovered three gaping holes in the sheet of nytol. This shit doesn't really work, instead, it mongs you out completely so you become an extra in Awakenings, catatonic body, active mind, frantically trying to coordinate the crunchy nut into the bowl, the spoon to lifeless lips and stop yourself sliding under the water in the bath to take away the feeling of endless torpor. The day was a right-off, I felt like I was typing with mittens on, and all conversation was reduced to primal grunting and jabbing hand gestures, Greystoke stylee. The effects eventually wore off mid-afternoon, but the day was lost and i went home feeling like I'd come through some hideous trauma (Then again, work often feels like that)

So allow me a little grace sigh9, I'm getting there, sloooowwwly.

B

Lo, a blog is born

This is a large stick, i will use to strike repeatedly across my back until i have managed to produce at least one short story, one song and one good photograph this year. Back to the House of Pain.