what i can't believe is people who used to be into Big Brother, but now hate it. The *best* study of British sociology carries on... try and watch an episode

truly, i praise the minds that came up with this redux:

ORIGINAL:


THE 'DIRTY' VERSION:


genius

H

Well, I am now a bit better - as long as I don't eat or drink anything and don't sit down to provoke the stomach cramps it should all be fine for this evening. I can take my hot water bottle with me and get them to fill it up at the pub..

What could possibly go wrong?


(In a worst case scenario I suffer mortifying Explosive Diarhoea on stage and get banned from everything forever.. ho hum at least our set is only 15 mins long)

On the plus side I believe I've already gone down a dress size; perhaps I should nurture this ailment until I can look good in miniskirts again? Hmm)

We are looking for someone to work the door from 9 til around 2 at Opium den tomorrow. You'll get frequent breaks and some drinks tokens, and we can offer £40 with a potential bonus if the night goes well.

We're also looking ofr a tea urn to serve up the opium tea in, mainly to save us running about with teapots all evening - can anyone lend us one for the evening?

We've had problems running over before so make sure you arrive promptly if there's a particular act you want to see! The running order for tomorrow is as follows:

Doors at 9pm

10 pm - Sam Astley (our very own slinkymule)
10.30 - 'femme fatale' burlesque performance by Rose Thorne
11 pm - 'Three chord' Craig Temple
11.30 - burlesque performance from amandamaesteele
12 midnight - The Stillhouse Orchestra

Then dancing and carousing til late! Do come down, this may be the very last one...

( click for flyer )

So I have booked the time off work for my Convergence Swansong; the flights are all sorted, the hotel room is paid for; it is a little over a month to go now.

Who else is definately coming then? I know some of you were thinking about it ...

Still ill. Had an amusing night getting up every 20 minutes. Steve kindly took the kids into school this morning because I was worried about the feasibility of a half hour walk.

I have a theory that all my recent little ailments are linked to the chest infection, which hasn't gone away and is probably spreading - could explain the backache, stomach upsets and mouth ulcer. I shall be visiting the doctor to demand antibiotics before my leg falls off or something. Whatever did people do before they had antibiotics? Just died, I suppose.

I am reading "The Grey King" by Susan Cooper; it's part of the Dark is Rising series I used to read when I was a kid - it's still very good. Yesterday I read Strandloper by Alan Garner (the guy who did the Owl Service etc) which is also brilliant - I would have said both books are too dark for children, but I remember adoring them when I was 8 or so, I must have just been a macabre child :)

Dropped J at the station and then threw a Uey and took the shark in and out along the Westway. Feeling rather responsible today so the soundtrack was the Today Programme on Radio 4 and I didn't press the "button"[1]. The roof stayed up.

Today is, I think, a day where I will be largely focussed on things I need to get done as opposed to things I want to do. There is one phonecall I have booked into my diary for around 10am that I am really not looking forwards to making, and plenty of work related stuff that needs to be sorted out as I'm not able to do it tomorrow. So in order to settle myself into a stressful and difficult day I am ... listening to early 1990s gabba; yeah, that'll help - good call.

(I'm actually looking for a track on this compilation that features the sample "give me a motherf*cking breakbeat" as I need to dig it out[2])

To top it all off I have just discovered that I spent the last of my change on the parking meter yesterday when I went to sort out my eyes.

fiddlesticks & amen

[1] It is next to the gear shift and it has a biohazard sticker on it - if you press it it lowers your butt onto the road surface, turns the suspension into concrete, and shoots up a mixture of meth and faery dust into the engine ... it is made of fun
[2] it occured to me after typing this that there might be a clue in the titles of the tracks ... and lo and behold, track 30 of 58 is called "motherf*ukin' breakbeat" - sorted, now I can make the compressed kick drum stop

Freedom our DSEi fighting armoured personal carrier is looking for a new home. Currently living in east London, Freedom is an 8.5 Tonne Alvis Saracen APC.

We desperately need somewhere off the roadside to store her, whilst we tinker on her and get her ready for more hijacker trouble. She is unfortunately not legal to drive on the road at the moment, but will be imminently. (within a week or so)

If you know anyone who would be up for letting us squat some yard space for a while we really need to hear from you. Especially if you are in London.

We don't have much cash, but can offer all manner of other services to help the kind soul who helps us out. Plus of course once we're up and running you get to play in a tank!

Our current hosts have recently inherited a large number of other vehicles and need us out of the way pronto, so speed is of the essence.

Please reply to robin AT spacehijackers.org if you or a friend of yours might be able to help, and please forward this far and wide.

Love and Rage

The Space Hijackers

is often ephemeral.

I had an idea for a story earlier on today as I was driving the shark up to Muswell Hill in order to buy contact lenses so that I can see. It was a good idea and it meshed very nicely with another idea I have been working on. I remember thinking that it was a bit like John Courtney Grimwood and that made me pleased. I like his writing very much.

The idea floated inside the protective bubble of my head; I added a few embellishments and saw a story arc stretch out. I rubbed my metaphorical writing hands together with glee. Although my real hands were filled with shopping bags, and the contact lenses I had bought so that I could see.

"Would you like cash back?" The woman at the checkout asked me.
"No thank you." I said.

As I spoke, the idea for the story flew out of my open mouth and was lost.

This track was produced by someone called "Jimmy J". Jimmy has elected not to use his surname because if he did it would make it much easier for me to track him down and sodomise him with weasels.

He elects not to put a photograph of himself on his "artist" profile on happyhardcore.com; one can only assume this is to further reduce the chances of men of good taste and conscience to track him down and to encourage an entire boogle of Mustela to perform the weasel war dance inside his bowel.

I have elected to share the snippet of the track with you because it is so awful that it has destroyed any hope I have of dealing with other human beings and my only hope is for you to listen, become infected with the taint, and so join me on this lower plane of existence.

MEME: Please listen to this song and then pass it on; soon the whole world will know Jimmy's name and every time he performs in public thousands of un-lubricated stoats will follow.

Is it possible to make a Myspace page update from an xml feed?

Why is it that whenever I start getting ill I get loads of different illnesses all at once? Pft.

Appear to have given myself sunstroke walking to Matts yesterday; all night and today I have been up and down to the toilet and the stomach cramps are getting a bit past a joke. It's such a wierd ilnness, I wouldn't have thought stomach cramps would have anything to so with sunstroke but I looked them up and they do. Last time I got it I just sweated and hallucinated a lot, which was more fun. Still I have been rehydrating myself and having lots of baths and finished reading "utopia" ((not in the latin, obviously) - surprisingly good although I think patriarchialism was so ingrained in those times he was being pretty harsh to women even when he thought he was being right-on..)

Hope everyone else is feeling better than I am!

tomorrow is the gig at the george - I hope i'm recovered by then or i will have to rush to the toilet after each song.

Please take a crack at translating the following phrase:

"Ja me codge ca ..."

[Responses screened]

... This song isn't really about popcorn!

I think it's quite rude; like the ghost of Benny Hill has started laying down breaks over an apocalyptic bass line with members of Girlschool[1] on guitars spliced in here and there



[1] They did that duet with Motorhead back in '81 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCR1LZY4l5U (ToTP performance iirc)

I notice that the Government of the USA have decided to remove the ANC from the list of terrorist organisations therefore allowing Nelson Mandela to enter the states without a special visa waiver. It worries me that they might be rushing things a bit - after all he's only been out of prison for 18 years and at the age of 90 he could still be a threat to the land of the free.

Mr Mandela's terrorist activities included winning the Nobel Peace Prize, being a democratically elected president who stepped down after one term in office, and being a campaigner for HIV/AIDS education in Africa[1] and spending 27 years in prison.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had called the restrictions a "rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader Nelson Mandela."

Sometimes the world just confuses me.




[1] before anyone points out that he did actually take part in a direct action campaign against the infrastructure of South Africa

housematehorror
Horror stories from the world of shared living spaces. EEK!