Rumfuddle, Bon vivant and Soak

10:21 am - Worth breaking a silence for, Hopefully

A collaboration between Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(TV_series)

Not sure about the modern setting, but any Holmes is better than none.

08:59 am - Another Legend Goes

Today one of the best comics observers on life has passed,  hopefully wherever he now resides has somewhere for him to put his 'stuff'.


http://uk.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUKN2339172520080623

09:51 am - Left or right side of Brain

Now Nik next to me and myself looked at this on the same screen and I saw clockwise and he saw anti, peculiar!


http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=25642

08:44 am - Shiver me timbers

Treasure of Cutlass Reef

02:35 pm - tvtastic

At last something to watch,  this week the new series' of Bones, Heroes, House and Family guy starts.

It has been confirmed that The Dresden files has been cancelled though,  which is a shame as the last few episodes showed some real promise.

Thankfully my ratio is looking robust and my modem is hot to trot.

Current Mood: happy

02:07 pm - Daniel Kitson

This is a link to a recording of Daniel Kitson's Edinburgh show from 2002,  one of the best hour and a bit of comedy that you'll ever hear.

Quicktime is needed and there is quite a bit of fruity language.

http://web.mac.com/dk27/iWeb/Site/l/1055E8AD-F5C1-4FDC-8F16-DD41F698F667.html

01:26 pm - A week in Sweaty land.

Well that was an enjoyable week in Edinburgh despite it raining almost constantly and the fact that the Scots have bigger chips on their shoulders than the average blackman.

We left home at 5:00am last Saturday and with only a short Jimmy break en-route were ensconced in a pub on the Grassmarket at 12:30 passing time before picking up the keys to the flat.   The flat itself was lovely and had the most amazing view of the castle.  On the drive into the city we did almost manage to run over Dylan Moran who seemed to be weaving across the road carrying a full threshers bag, not a man living up to his screen image then.

The shows that we saw were all excellent, though Daniel Kitson and Paul Merton and chums were exceptional.

The only trouble with the festival is that it is just full of students, I've come to despise their pretentious nature and hate their "yar yar great " accents.

We did manage to get out of the city a couple of time,  on the Tuesday we headed off to Loch Lomond and spent part of the day walking around a bit of it, though as its 22 miles long and up to 5 miles wide we did not walk round much. On the Thursday we drove for a couple of hours up to  the Cairngorms,  which are stunningly lovely and after the 'buzz' of Edinburgh offered a bit of peace and quiet.

I


 

12:16 pm - It's been a long long time (has'nt it?)

In fifteen minutes I am finished for the week and heading home to prepare for our holiday.

We've rented a tenement flat up in Edinburgh for the next week and have a number of stand up shows booked for the fringe festival.  I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Frankie Boyle, Rich Hall and Simon Amstell.  We've left some gaps in the itinerary to hopefully catch some plays that are on,  the last time we visited the Festival six years ago we thoroughly enjoyed a play set in a mental institute starring the energetic Sylvester McCoy,  the look he gave the audience the 1st time one of the characters called him Doctor still makes me smile. We even bumped into the wee fellow by accident near the stage door before the show and I got to shake his hand and say hello, he seemed to be a very nice man.

This afternoon will be spent packing and making sure that the car is up to a 7 hour drive.  We intend to head off around 5am tomorrow with maybe a stop for a pub lunch somewhere up norf'.   Having investigated Edinburgh during the last visit we intend this time to get out of the City and see a bit more of Scotland.  Thankfully we managed to see Rosslyn Chapel on our last visit as I've heard that the da Vinci code book and movie have made the place unbearable,  when we visited it in 2001 there was only the two of us there now its thronged.

Right I'm off now,  see you on the other side.

10:28 am - Genesis Interview part 1

Radio 2 is airing the second part of it's Genesis story tonight, though its hosted by the irritating Chris Evans, Part 1 was very good with lots of interviews and some of the best tracks played.

 A link to part 1.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/doc_genesis.shtml

romney  , dont forget its a week tomorrow to Twickenham hope you've remembered, I'll give you a call tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss a meeting place (pub) and time (early)

08:29 pm - Now I like the cut of this guys Jib*

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.




* yes I know I spelled this with a G earlier, but I had been drinking since 1pm and was not in full control of my fingers.

03:14 pm - The Sopranos

Well this fantastic show has finally come to an end,  despite a small drop in quality  during this last series it has still been head and shoulders better than almost anything we can produce over here.  The ending is left open to interpretation much like Life on Mars,  with hundreds of  forums being filled with frame by frame analysis of the final scenes trying to deduce what might have happened.

 As much as I loved the show I'm glad it's over, I like shows to end when they're still on form and not slowly and painfully die week by week until only a dry shell is left (the X-files).

At least now James Gandolfini can fully concentrate on getting spurs into the champions league next season.

01:58 pm - Concert (again)

Yesterday I wrote and then managed to lose a long report about Hannover, Germans, Genesis and Beer,  somehow this disappeared  down the  internet  plughole, so here's the short(er) version.

Arrived at Heathrow with ten minutes to get through security and to gate,  much swearing and running later we just made it.

Hannover is pretty much as boring as reported on the net.  The "old town" consisted of two small streets with some bars.  The beer seemed to only consist of lager or Franziskaner which are wheat beers which I've never been keen on.

The Germans them selves are a shifty lot,  they all are a little too eager to please for both my and Monica's comfort, and boy do they love to be ordered around.


The concert itself was ok, the band sounded good though the sound was a little quiet for my tastes.  I popped out for a Jimmy during a  slow bit,  the security guards stamped my hand so that I coluld get back in down the front.  Upon my return myself and a number of German fans  were turned away by three shaven  headed  krauts in tight uniforms, despite showing my stamped hand and pointing towards the gig and shouting frau they still shoved me away and shouted Süd (south) at me, now the south stand is the furthest part away from the stage and I had no intention of going there.  Now I'd had a few beers and this mixed with a naturally wayward mouth and a bad temper led to what could have been a tight situation,  I'm not sure of the exact order but the phrases  "Jumped up Hitler",  "what you going to do take me to Auschwitz and gas me"  and "all it takes is a uniform for you cnuts"  were let loosed on the situation.   There was a period of ominous silence after this and thankfully it was at this point that a British  guy on the security staff appeared and led me through before anything more unpleasant could happen to me.  The rest of the concert was  thankfully uneventful.

On the Sunday we had some hours to pass and had pretty much lost interest in the city on the Friday so we headed out to the Zoo,  which was a pleasant way of passing a few hours.

12:16 pm - This week

I have spent the majority of this week so far sitting on the river bank amongst nettles and getting bitten by gnats, bliss.

Today we are busy arranging clothes, parking flights etc, for our weekend in Han(n)over,  we fly out at 8am tomorrow and hopefully will get home at 10pm on Sunday probably a little deafer, Saturday is the 1st of our Genesis concerts.  According to the Net, Hanover does not seem the most exciting city to visit but as long as they have stocked up on sausages and beer I shall not be complaining.

08:55 pm - A blast

At last the best of the "baddies" has returned to Dr Who,

07:42 pm - Carpet Crawler

I hereby vow never to attempt to lay a carpet again, I will never be so cheap as to take the food out of the starving children of carpet layers.  I'm off now to salve my red raw knees in  cream, my liver in JD and to pay penance for some of my earlier language.

Bugger I've still got the other bedroom to do, does anyone know where I can get a spare pair of patellas for the weekend?

06:13 pm - Bloody buggering liars

When the paint tin says Duck Egg Blue the colour on the can shows Duck Egg Blue why are my walls above the picture rail now sort  of ominious sky coloured blue, why why why?

09:35 am - biddly bum.

I just thought I'd take a few seconds to record that the last three episodes of Doctor Who have been some of the best TV this year.  The season up to this point with the Globe episode excepted had been very juvenile and at times a pain to watch.  Then it seems the writers pulled their act together, remembered what Dr Who used to be about and produced  shows of real class.

Saturdays episode was a real chiller, that was a story that would have left thousands of children having nightmares and many parents being disturbed by their offspring climbing into bed with them.  I have to admit that the hairs on the neck stood to attention once or twice and I possibly thought about adopting my Childhood Who watching position from behind a big pillow,  bloody fantastic.

 

09:03 am - 1 Room down

Huzzah,  I'm finally back on the Interblob, the back bedroom (my computer/book/stuff room) has now been gutted, sanded, painted and finally filled back up with my crap again (albeit a lot less off it and that what survived is boxed and ready to go). 

As there is no rest for the wicked (guilty), today I start the process all over again on the middle bedroom (Monica's Room), thankfully she is the opposite of a hoarder (tidy?) and it only took two hours to box up her possessions rather than the two and a half days it took for mine. 

I find no joy in decorating but I seem to have a knack for it,  there is also a pleasure to be found though in going to bed physically tired instead of just mentally exhausted,  I have not slept this well in an ages or drunk so little.

I Hope to have the second room completed by Wednesday/Thursday, then i only need to hire a transit to take all of the thrown furniture and old junk to the tip.  The next step after this will be to hire a storage utility to store all our boxed up possessions and then look at putting the house up for sale. 

With a bit of hard work I should have finished all of my chores by the end of the week, with fishing season starting on Saturday and me not starting the new job till 2nd July I see a pleasant couple of weeks ahead.
 

01:50 pm - Clearout part 2

Well despite being slowed down by my Fathers visit over the weekend,  I have finally managed to empty the back bedroom of my book collection.  All my books have now been sorted and boxed, they now just need to be stored, sold or thrown.  I now need to dismantle six bookcases which will then be off to the tip,  move my computer desk, remove all of the rest of the crap out of the room and then start decorating.

I wish I'd taken up stamp collecting instead:

01:09 pm - Clearout part 1

Well its taken a few hours but I've made the first pass at separating the wheat from the chaff in my book collection. The Vance, Pohl, Rankin, Saylor, Gemmell, Eddings, Tolkien, Conan Doyle and King are staying but I'm going to say goodbye to the collections of Vonnegut, Ian M Banks, Zelazny, Lawhead, Hobb, Kingdom, Koontze, Brooks and Harry Harrison.

I'm still undecided about the full sets of Conan books (over 30), Discworld novels and Cornwall (both Patricia and Bernard). I also know that there are at least another couple of hundred books boxed up in the attic, some of which have been there since we moved in 12 years ago. I also believe that a couple of other boxes contain a Commodore 64 and a ZX spectrum plus a few hundred games, these will also be tip bound.