Tornado Warning

Americans, they're everywhere, speaking, smiling, being polite. They love this shit, the conferences and the milling about aimessly saying 'Hi chuck' and 'Hi Ed' and waffling about kak that means nowt to anyone. Mz Pakistan eats for Asia and is pleasingly HM, like a dusky Fox she moos about touching fruit and alligators may break into her hotel room and other random nonsense that gives me a warm sense of nostalgia. We spend our first stand session, drinking an assortment of alcoholic concoctions and fielding futile questions of the 'what do you do?' ilk. No problems really, until a smug pair of indian boys sidle up and start hurling arbitrary queries about shite we should perhaps be familiar with but patently aren't. I larf at their obvious attempts to impress my co-worker and accidently on purpose pour a bud lite on their ugly corporate shirts so they have to scuttle off to change their nappies, children. Lunch time session, day two, exactly one person talks to us in two hours, he is utterly incomprehensible but very enthusiastic and I reward him with a pen and and three copies of the getting started book, which he clutches to his heart like the rosetta stone.

Evening session two, I am accosted by a journalist who pretends to know nothing about this smartphone business but is obviously highly clued up, I hedge madly, babbling with pristine confidence about global sales and waves of the future. He eventually realises I am a (poorly) trained stand monkey, with utterly nothing of significance to impart, and flounces away to gorge himself on sushi. The food is fabulous once again, pasta and cuban sandwiches and sushi this time as opposed to last night's prawns and fajitas and kobe beef. Obviously we all caned it a bit too much the night before and the bar tonight has been reduced to beer, wine and sodas. Mz P only drinks girly drinks with sugar/spice interfaces, and turns her nose up at wine and beer, despite this she still manages to hoover up two plates of pasta and a giant portion of risotto, I am in awe. Tomorrow we have a mid-morning session starting at 11.45am until 1.45pm and an evening session from 6 until 7.30, curtailed because of the big end-of-event party at the Hard Rock Cafe. Mz.Pakistan will be wearing black, I will be wearing thin.

B

Ish of the Day

'Tis but a hop, skip and a jump from Manchester to the rolling hills of Gisburn and the matrimonial marathon that is Ish n' Alfie's nuptials. I have fulishy attempted to assuage the raging thirst with Coke Zero(TM) and discovered it is as kark as you'd imagine. Fortunately, only men are allowed to drink it, so Loved One is spared the horror of its cancerous assault on the taste buds. I barely resist gobbing it into the carpet and am forced to have yet another soothing Murray Mint to appease my senses.

Sweeping into Stirk House we are soon ensconced in our oven/room and take to the bar as quickly as possible for a cheeky hair-dog interface. Downstairs we find Mootham in his natural habitat, scarfing chips while watching the croquet. He too is broken and blanches at the sight of our G n' T's. The crowds are beginning to gather so we take to our finery and join Mooth n' Spencer on the front lawn (No Spencer, not that Spenc..shit! Yes actually, that Spencer!) haemorrhaging water by the bucketload in their smart suits. The hotel is rammed with rellies, 300 odd of 'em, all ready n' rearing to welcome the arrival of...The Groom. The bride of course, doesn't get a look in at this stage, preferring to make a grand entrance later on in proceedings. Alfie and Papa Alfie roar up (quite literally) in an ancient vehicle held together by snot n' cat gut. Alf runs his first gauntlet of the day through a phalanx of petal wielding ladies, all intent on drowning him in rosehip before he's made it to the door.

The guests promptly head for the nearest tables, and a mild scuffle breaks out as people desperately attempt not to end up on our renegade table. Eventually a couple of mates of the bride's father, shunned by the rest of the crowd plonk themselves down with us, eying Spencer and his moist girth with obvious alarm. In filthy pig dog Westerner stylee, we all pile into the giant bowls of lamb and saucy bits, rashly forgetting this is just the first of many courses. Al-Farid is now lording it up on his throne awaiting the reading of a prayer and the contract exchange with the bride's father, which will no doubt be destroyed shortly after the event and replaced with something more suited to the bride's exacting specifications. The renegade table and new found chum, see this as the perfect cue to dart out the back for a crafty fag and some sparkling mineral water coff. Downing our double er, MW's, we arrive back at our place in time to tuck into three different types of curry and 40 kg's of rice. The temperature inside the reception area is heading into the fifties, exotic saris sway back and forth across the floor like a Bird of Paradise convention, apnabeat is laying down the bhangra vibes and events are in full swing. Bloated beads of salty sweat alliterate their way down Spencemo's cheeks and all are suffering from extreme lambasting. No rest for the sticky tho, as hurrah and huzzah the bride has arrived. She look utterly fab in her gold encrusted number, a team of engineers circling around her at all times, touching up lippie and adjusting her fringe. The woman looks like a princess to Farid's frog ha ha, ag shame Farid look tres swayve too in his bespoke savile row business. Renegades are back behind the bicycle sheds for yet more mineral action, joined by the LBC crew, who seem to have been attacking their own brand of fizz, the shame of them. The joyful couple have been plonked on their thrones for some time now, having their piccie taken with everyone, and I mean eveeerrryyyoonnnneee in the room. I have deep respect for both their stamina and their composure, which is more than I can say for team renegade who are so horribly mineralled up by this stage, they're unable to control their bodily functions. Well, one of them can't, I name no names, you know who you are you chuffy blort. Apologies to the father of the bride for the vicious blast of napalm that caught him unawares, those stains will wash out Sir. We finally wave the happy couple off, not in the ancient car, as Papa Alf forgot to put petrol in it, but in Mama Alf's handy people wagon. Finally, sheesh! Now we can get a proper drink!

Congratulations Ish n' Farid, may you forever dwell in the light of undiminishing joy.

B

H.Cooper orginal

Ah yes, a nice bowl of fruit. Simple strong lines, bold use of colour, tactile blending to delineate light n' shade. A fine piece of work. In this age of formaldehyde sharks and dirty beds, it's good to see a return to the basic principles of art. Manchester is full of this sort of return to the basics thinking. Like drinking beer for instance. Why attend a Beer Festival, which may or may not be populated by the Scum of the Earth(TM), when you can sit on your own front patio and crush a few hundred cans into your face in the company of friends and family. Sure, if you're so inclined, you can nip down to your local and ram a few tequilas and aftershocks and some weird blue shite that no one could really identify down your neck. Then it's back home to a welcoming ten more beers before bed and chronic heart palpitations around four in the morning. Just the way to prepare for a wedding...

to be continued.

B

Shine on

RIP Crazy Diamond.

B

The Dark side of the Hyde

'Is there anybody out there?' Christ on a bike Roge, are you blind, there's fookin' thousands of us. We've all overcome our mass depression of an hour ago, purged all thorts of Ingerland from our minds, trudged a thousand miles from Notting Hill Gate, just to see you mate, knock off the rhetorical questions and break out the giant pig. Alas, Roger was too busy inflating his ego to inflate yon floaty pig, but we forgive him for that for yea, he is Roger of Waters and judging by the way the aging hippies in front of us waved their pudgy arms and shook their haggard follicles, he is a Rock God(TM) It gradually dawned on me the appeal of attending a Robbie or Kylie concert for the teenies and housewives; it really rocks to be able to sing all the words to practically everything at a gig. This would be a bit smug and irritating, were it not for the fact that everyone, as far as the eye could see, was singing word perfectly too.

Roger was on stage for the duration, and he and his trusty session musos performed a brace of Floyd classics with effortless glee. Except for a brief moment in the middle when he disappeared up his own rectum in search of his latest political opus, the profoundly named 'Leaving Beirut' I will let you discover the magic of this song for yourselves, I am unable to talk about it without losing control of my bladder. After a ten minute break while a crack medical team extracted Roge from his rectal passage, it was off to the Dark Side of the Moon for us. (No Spencer, not his moon)

This naturally, was brilliant. Every moment of that album was executed to perfection, every agonising wail of 'Great Gig in the Sky' every bang clang pip bong of 'Money'. Everything. The grizzled hippies were reaching nirvana by the time that final heartbeat palpitated off into the distance. I sang my garbled version of every song with such crazed gusto my lungs fair ached. Roger couldn't bare to leave it at that of course, and dashed back on to do 'Brick in the wall Part II' but it was fine, he didn't have to, we were full to the brim and anything more was just greedy. Roger, you earned your crust of bread that night. Ingerland, I want my money back.

B