Friday 30 September 2005

The Friday Quiz

This week's quiz was compiled by Fraser. I'll post the one I did last week some other time. Answers in the comments section please.

I have taken this quiz in work with a score of 10.5. This is me with my prize a copy of Private Eye's Colemanballs 12, which has lay on Fraser's desk for about 6 weeks now.

As a hint the answer to the last question is neither Kurt Cobain nor my guess Ivor Cutler.

1) In rock music who is the “Lizard King”?

2) 82 year old Walter Wolfgang was chucked out of the Labour Party Conference this week. Who was he heckling?

3) Which Scottish location is being used by the makers of movie “The Da Vinci Code?

4) Which popular US sit-com was aired live this week?

5) Who is the King of Sweden?

6) Who was known as the “king of the kop”?

7) Which Scottish comic book writer created “The Invisibles” and revitalised “Animal Man” and the “Doom Patrol”?

8) Name 5 major Belgian cities.

9) Who did Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali beat to become world champ for the first time?

10) Who wrote this?

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

4PM UPDATE: The answers are now in the Comments section.

Albert Brooks

Albert Brooks has got into bother with his new film Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. It appears that the use of the word ‘Muslim’ has set distributor Sony into a flap.

If ya don’t know Albert Brooks is a comedian and film maker who has been consistently making his own movies for decades. His real name is Albert Einstein (seriously) and he began his career as a stand-up comedian. I once saw his bad ventriloquist routine Danny and Dave on The Ed Sullivan Show and it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen.

As well as making his own films such as Real Life (1979), Lost in America (1985), Mother (1996) and The Muse (1999) he has also appeared in many films by other directors. His most notable roles have been in Taxi Driver (1976) and Broadcast News (1987). For the latter he was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. For me he provided a star turn as Ripley in Out of Sight (1998).

He ahs also appeared as a voice on The Simpsons several times playing memorable characters such as Jacques, the bowler who tries to seduce Marge, Brad Goodman the Self Help Guru who believes in bringing out the inner child in all of us and my personal favourite Hank Scorpio boss of Globex.

Here’s a lengthy interview with him as he promotes The Muse. And finally an interview with him in Playboy magazine.

"Me, Too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

Here Emo Phillips talks about a classic joke of his, that has been voted the number one religious joke of all time. I remember him doing it when I saw him at the King’s Theatre back in 1990.

He also discusses the intention of the Government here to outlaws potentially ‘offensive’ religious jokes.

Thursday 29 September 2005

Singing Uncle Junior

Here’s an interview with Dominic Chianese who plays Uncle Junior on The Sopranos. In it he discusses his role in Woody Allen’s play A Second Hand Memory that played off-Broadway at the end of last year. It’s an interesting little take on Woody’s methods of working.

Also if you click on the link to his website you will see that Uncle Junior is also a well known singer around New York.

Wednesday 28 September 2005

Phil Daniels

In 1984 Mike Leigh made a film called Meantime. Set on a London housing estate and a pretty bleak story with plenty of plinky plonky dreary incidental music it sounds much the same as a large selection of his back catalogue.

Meantime, devised by Leigh and the cast, as are all his films, featured some of the best acting talent of the day. It saw future Hollywood stars in Alfred Molina, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.

However at the time of the production the biggest acting talent among the cast was one Phil Daniels. He’d starred in Scum and Quadrophenia and was the young prospect touted for success.

Molina has featured in numerous Hollywood films including Boogie Nights and last year’s Spiderman 2. Oldman of course starred in Dracula, JFK and this year as the young Commissioner Gordon in Batman Begins. Tim Roth landed an Oscar nomination for Rob Roy and is a familiar face on screen thanks to roles in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Dark Water.

Phil Daniels this week joins the cast of Eastenders.

Although I’ve obviously written this to highlight the fact that Daniels hasn’t reached the status of his peers, what his involvement in Eastenders will surely do is create some great drama for the show. Eastenders has been consistently the best soap opera on television for my money since the glory days of Brookside ended some ten years or so ago. That said it stumbles every now and again, bringing back and then killing off yet again Dity Den is just one of those glitches.

Daniels’ career path has had its highs and lows over the years. Perhaps his biggest hit of the 90s was singing on Blur’s Parklife. Of course he has done some good TV work including the recent Outlaws, The Long Firm and from a few years ago his bulimic food critic in Holding On.

I think Phil Daniels’ chance of appearing as the lead in a big movie has gone, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be responsible for some of the best soap opera drama in the coming year.

Sein On

Jerry Seinfeld is touring around America at the moment. Tommy has just told me that he’ll be playing California when he’s over there. Nicola also had a hilarious mishap attempting to buy tickets for him in Vegas last month.

Here’s some stories on Jerry.

A queue builds for tickets to Jerry’s show in Helena. Jerry Seinfeld walks into a diner and has a burger. A review of a show in Wisconsin.

Jerry’s, already documented here, take on Terrorist training films.

Jerry Seinfeld usually doesn't get political, but he did manage to throw in some zingers Saturday night at the Hollywood benefit for Autism Speaks. "Seems like the war in Iraq is going smoothly," he said. "Can't seem to find the terrorists, yet we have a tremendous amount of film of terrorists training in their camps. They need to find the guy dropping off the film"

And here’s a bit about Jerry’s all time comedy hero Robert Klein.

Destroy Guerrilla Marketing


Travelling to work today I noticed a spray painted publicity blurb for uber-dull Scottish dance act Mylo on a electrical signal box. It hadn’t really hit me before, but why has this guy and his record label Breastfed been allowed to spray graffiti and effectively deface the city in a bid to sell records?

If anyone remembers, I blogged about a despicable example of what’s known as guerrilla marketing a few weeks ago, when Nike stole Minor Threat’s logo and image as part of a corporate skateboarding event. But at least they weren’t actually damaging and defacing public utilities, although I’m sure they would if they though it would sell a few more pairs of gutties.

Ultimately, Mylo’s spray painted marketing campaign will have to be cleaned up and who will have to pay for it? That’s right, me and every other muggins council tax payer in the city. So this fud and his “cool” cronies are probably going to end up costing me money.

Of course, the other possibility is that it will just be left to fade over the years, like so much of the damage done to this decaying wreck of a city by its near-sighted residents.

In the meantime, I’m going to try to get the ball rolling on the Council suing Breastfed, or at least getting them to pay for the clean-up.

Hopefully the move will bankrupt them, allowing me to enjoy my remaining years free from their vapid back catalogue, helping me to escape the inevitable point where their marketing campaign for a new record involves them pissing through my letterbox or slashing the name of someone’s new album into my cheek.

Let’s see how cool and clever these cynical fucks think they are when City Chambers has them in overalls and marigolds cleaning up the mess they have made.

Tuesday 27 September 2005

How to Build a Joke

If you need an instruction on how to build a joke, you will get no better person to teach you than Demetri Martin.

And here is The Ten Funniest New Yorkers You've Never Heard Of.

Merchant City Festival

No mention of us in this article of course, but apparently the Merchant City Festival, which of course YOMG was part of attracted crowds of around 40,000.

The picture there is, as you will have guessed, the cover to the YOMG programme, featuring Bertie, the most popular member of the cast. Though he wasn't holding court in the bar afterwards like he did in July...here that's a thing where is Bertie?

Ted Leo Interview

Here's an interview with Ted Leo, when he was in Manchester on his British tour earlier this year.

While we're here, why don't you try heading over to his own site and playing some of the numerous mp3s? If you've never heard Ted Leo and the Pharamcists properly it's a great way to get into them. I'd suggest starting with Me and Mia but there's a load of good songs on there.

A Best Seller

Through a round of TV appearances cult author Kurt Vonnegut writer of such books as Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse Five, has found himself in the best sellers list.

His latest book A Man Without a Country has reached the top 10 on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.

On this page you'll find a link to a video of his appearance on The Daily Show. If you can't watch it, here's a blog that extracts some of the choice bits. This is a link to his appearance on Bill Maher's show.

“Writing allows mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into intelligence.”

—Kurt Vonnegut

Roger Moore was the Best Bond

I'll start off this morning with a football post. This is former Ipswich, Manchester United and Scotland striker Alan Brazil talking to The Guardian about his career.

He briefly discusses Scotland's 1982 World Cup campaign as well as his fondness for 'so many' kinds of drink.

He's now a radio sports presenter and has notoriously been fired more than once for turning up for his early morning shift while still drunk from the night before.

Monday 26 September 2005

Beard Contest

I can't remember exactly what kicked off the idea, but at work, or specifically at my desk, we've decided to have a beard contest. There are four of us involved. Myself, Alasdair, John and Ian.

Today is Day One. We all start off clean shaven. The rules are that shaping is allowed, but trimming is not. I think we agreed to chuck ten quid into a pot each. We haven't set a final date, so I think the winner is whoever is last to shave.

Below I've put photographs of the contestants. I guess I'll update it weekly. The contestants are as follows, Alasdair, John, me and Ian.







Grain Salt

Here's an interview from today's Metro with the League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith. He talks about the forthcoming LoG stage show.

Glue Review

Tommy has posted his review of YOMG. T was a punter this time round, so he's entitled to his critical opinion.

Southland Tales

The other day there, Fizz, Iain and I were looking at the website for Richard Kelly's new film Southland Tales.

How do you follow up a cult hit like Donnie Darko? Well, you assemble a cast that includes The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kevin Smith and Janeane Garofalo; set it in Los Angeles on July 4, 2008, as it stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental disaster. Sit back and see what happens.

In the lead up to the film five graphic novels will be published. You don't have to buy them to understand the film, but doing so will "enrich the experience".

Sunday 25 September 2005

"Your Wife Donated Your Car to the Contest to Stop Global Warming."

In America Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm are back for their 5th season. Over here Season Four is about to be released on DVD. I've already watched all of the 4th season and it keeps up the high standard of previous seasons. The final hour long episode in particular is a delight. The thread that has been running all season long finally unravels in style.

Season 5 includes an episode called 'The Christ Nail' and I found these details about a thread running through this season.

It seems that throughout the coming season, there will be a theme of Larry searching for his identity while mining his Jewish roots and looking into his very birth history to uncover whether or not he was adopted (based on a semi-delirious comment from his father while recovering in a hospital bed).

These two articles highlight the return of the show.

Saturday 24 September 2005

It's a Hit

I think we can safely hail the 3rd You Owe Me Glue a success. A complete sell-out, we were in the odd position of turning people away at the door, we even had someone attempting to blag his way in. "I know Tom Brogan," he told me. Naw you don't mate.

As for the show itself we stormed it, although for my part I didn't think I performed all that well. The crowd were very responsive, we had them shouting out and they really got into a few of the sketches.

Darran put in a first class performance shutting the one heckler up, making the most of his every line and turning what I thought was one of the weakest sketches into a stormer. His portrayal of Jesus went over well and he played up to my lairy Judas very well.

The one sketch though that absolutely slayed the crowd was Fight Night on the 40. A boxing TV show on the bus. Fizz nailed his sportscaster well and Dazza and Jason mugged to the audience perfectly. It was a weird feeling performing it as with the lights deciding to go on and off and the crowd shouting out and roaring along with it, there was a real sense of something chaotic happening. With this type of show we fall into an odd middle ground between theatre and stand-up and the two really crossed over last night.

I should mention of course Anne-Marie and Moira who were both excellent. And the sketch that Anne-Marie contributed to the show went over well too, with no small part played by Darran's performance. It was met by a mixture of laughter and disgust.

So all in all a great night. The only thing now is where to go from here. In my humble opinion it's become too good a show to do to a local audience on an irregular basis. We have to find somewhere to do this regularly, build some sort of momentum and start to take ourselves more seriously in terms of getting media and television folk to take some interest in us.

The show was filmed, so hopefully we can get a few copies made up. Have a look at the new YOMG thread on Chortle for further evidence of a satisfied crowd.

I should also say thanks to Graeme for doing the lighting and sound. He got everything just right despite having to contend with some technical problems. And thanks to Iain for doing the artwork and Lindsay (who I forgot to thank in the programme) who did flyers for us and designed our DVD cover.

Friday 23 September 2005

"You're Never Alone on the Dole in Manchester"

No Friday quiz today, I'll post it next week. I compiled it this week and some of it seems to have been too tough for the folk in here, so I'll alter the best bits and post next Friday when all quizzers are online.

It's just as well that YOMG is sold out for tonight as the publicity is still as incompetent as ever. We are listed in the Metro today, but for the second show in a row they have us listed on the wrong night. Last time they advertised the Sunday show as a Friday. This time they swap that blunder around.

Anyway in the meantime have a look at this great interview with Ian Brown from today's Guardian. Promoting his new Greatest Hits album the chat covers a lot of early Stone Roses ground.

Thursday 22 September 2005

Glue is a Sell-Out

We've just got the word that You Owe Me Glue is sold out for tommorow's performance.

This is good news of course, but now leaves us with the unexpected problem of trying to squeeze in several guest-listed pals and important bods invited to the show, most of them before we had been bumped from Arta, a much bigger venue.

Still, more the promoters problem than ours. I've just had the oddest experience of having to tell friends calling me and texting me about tickets that there are none left and that they can't come to see us this time round.

While there's an upside to that as well if you want to see it, I do hate the idea of having to turn away folk from seeing us, because we've been booked into too small a venue.

Ah well, we'll probably book a barn next night and play to 6 people.

From Lord To Bitch In One Easy Fire-Raising...


It's 16 months in the pokey with a cork (or more likely a cell-mate) in his bum for Lord Watson, the pyro-peer. Too fucking funny for words.

Wednesday 21 September 2005

We're The Replacements or The Pixies of Comedy

Here's a really good interview with Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald from The Kids in the Hall. They are currently appearing in Sky High, a film about the children of Super-Heroes where they play schoolteachers.

The interview spends more time talking, though, about Kids in the Hall and the problems they faced when making their early TV series. They also discuss the New Comedy Mafia - Stiller, Vaughn and O. Wilson.

Shoot Him Carl

I’m amused by the trial of So Solid Crew’s Megaman. Not least because his real name is Dwayne. And the guy he had a gun battle in the street with (or rather his flunky, Carl, had a gun battle with) was called Colin.

Rock Talk


Since everybody hates work, here’s a link to a preview and interviews about Chris Rocks’ new sit–com “Everybody Hates Chris”.

I’m hoping it will be a good show, mainly because I think Chris Rock is about the best stand-up working today, with the possible exception of Doug Stanhope.

Rock is much bigger than Doug though and hasn’t yet been reduced to selling hand made gifts from pre-pubescent family members on ebay.

I have a weird feeling “Everybody Hates Chris” will be average at best though. The main reason being that well, it’s an American sit-com but also because I always felt that Rock was never a writer and is often too eager to appeal to a mass audience.

His Saturday Night Live stuff I’ve seen often seemed well below par and he also has an odd habit of picking really poor movie vehicles that fail to show him as he is; a riotously funny and acerbic observer of modern life.

Here’s hoping I’m wrong. All will be revealed over here when Five run with it in the new year.

Best Blog Ever?

This could be the best blog ever. Landry, who works with us, has his own blog and considering his propensity for being hilarious, even though sometimes he doesn't realise it, this could be very entertaining. Get yourself over to it and see if he'll share some of his crazy views with you. At the moment he is reviewing the first CD in our new CD Exchange.

Coming Together Like Glue

Two days to go until Glue Time. Rehearsals are going shabbily, we had problems with transport and technology last night. Fizz, Graeme and I arrived half an hour late cos of the buses and Jason came along quarter of an hour after that, cos he got lost. The laptop that we’re using for the sound effects may not be suitable and it turns out we’re all still tripping over our lines. Great stuff eh?

Better (or perhaps worse) news is that so far we have sold 45 tickets. For a venue with a capacity of 70 that’s not bad and if you add on our guestlist, we’re up to about 60 bodies.

The DVDs are ready. We have 50 copies that will be selling on the night for £5 a throw. The sleeves are looking smart and I’ll be off to get them printed up tonight. So all we have to do is not be rubbish and it’ll all be sweet.

Turn it Down

This may be something that you've noticed in the years you've been watching television. That adverts are louder than the rest of the programmes. ITV have just been done for increasing the sound level of their adverts. This article also explains how TV companies manipulate the sound of the ads so that they are at the same volume, yet sound louder.

Tuesday 20 September 2005

Calvin and Hobbes

Alasdair just sent me a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon and it got me searching. Calvin and Hobbes will be 20 years old in November. I’ve been reading them for about 15 years. It appears that more than 300 newspapers in America are starting to run Calvin and Hobbes strips once again. So rather than link to just one paper, here is the Google search with links to many newspapers’ articles on Calvin and Hobbes.

Next month The Complete Calvin and Hobbes will be released. Weighing 23 pounds per complete set, it will cost £90, and will be 1440 pages. It will become the most expensive and heaviest book ever to make The New York Times Best Seller List, should it do so.

Here’s a link to the publishers’ Calvin and Hobbes page, it includes trivia and much more.

Monday 19 September 2005

Scenes from The Saville Enquiry

The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London has developed a reputation in recent years for performing plays based on transcripts of public enquiries such as the reconstruction of The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry – The Colour of Justice. Currently they are presenting Bloody Sunday – Scenes from The Saville Enquiry. Here is a feature on its production and why it should be televised, from The Guardian.

Fantasy Round- Up

Despite promising myself that I’d enter just the one this year, I find myself embroiled in no less than 3 fantasy football leagues.

After my treble triumph last year, “the pressure is on” to maintain my record of having never lost a fantasy league.

Currently, I’m 8th in the Herald League at work, well in touch with the leaders.

In the improved Champions League game Tom found we are both languishing near the bottom, after one full round of matches. Still a lot of football to be played there.

The one that really matters though, is the Cheerybananaship, which is shaping up nicely.

In this game your combined knowledge of the English, Spanish, German and Italian leagues is stretched and as a bit of a football buff, I find this one the most fun to play, with the thrills spills and vagaries of not one but four top class leagues deciding the fate of your chosen 11. With all four leagues in full swing now, the points are beginning to go on the board.

In the lead are FC Ballsack with a tasty 193 points; a healthy 19 delivered by Inter striker Adriano.

In second place are my own Big Fanny Failures on 177. Man United defender Mikael Silvestre is my main man so far.

Big performances from usual suspects John Terry and Frank Lampard see The Confederates in third place.

Just behind are Tom’s Habitual Line Steppers who have pulled in a massive 45 points via Chelsea keeper Peter Cech.

In 5th lie Tommy’s Skalcoholic Astros, with Edwin Van Der Sar and the ever popular Frank Lampard scoring well. A couple of changes required for Tommy though as he seems to have a couple of players no longer eligible for the game in his squad.

Three points separate sixth from fourth and it’s 6th place for the moment for John’s Celtic FC.

Glazed Ham United lead the chasing pack in 7th, having scored well with the now injured Asier Del Horno.

It’s a three pronged attack for Venceremos! in 8th, who have Munich’s Michael Ballack at the heart of things.

It’s been a slow start for the David Hasslehoff Fan Club who languish in 9th on 94 points.

And propping up the table is Ronnie’s Dinamo Explosivo on a very disappointing 69 points.

Is Ronnie adrift and out of it already? Only time will tell…

Bored - So Here Are Some Random Links

Awright there’s no work here to do in this rotten wee office, so here’s some links. I found a set of photographs taken at the Arcade Fire show I was at in May. They’re not that great though, as the photographer himself acknowledged. They were taken from around about the same place I was standing.

David Bowie recently played a few shows with Arcade Fire and on this site there’s an mp3 of them performing Wake Up.

Two Raith Rovers fans went around the football grounds of Scotland at the weekend to raise funds for Reclaim the Rovers campaign. Here’s their blog of the day.

I’ll also share some bands I’ve been listening to recently. For the last few months I’ve been playing Rilo Kiley constantly. I think I’ve posted this link before; a fan site with a number of live shows available to download.

I’ve also recently been listening to The New Pornographers. They have a new album, Twin Cinema, out now. The link is blocked in here due to the ‘adult’ name. So you could go here instead.

Viva Voce
are great – a husband and wife team from Portland, Oregon, they play Glasgow next month.

Manda Rin from Data Panik (and formerly from Bis) appears to have had some recent trouble with the soundmen at Oran Mor. As I recall when I did something there back in May the soundman was less than helpful.

No Rock ‘n’ Roll Fun is a pretty entertaining music news blog.

The work of One Neck is now featuring in the Gaseous Brain blog.

I hope you’re all watching Arrested Development. Each episode of this second series has been consistently hilarious. Including last night’s with GOB demanding that the Bleuth Company staff don’t damage his increasingly more expensive suit.

I have noticed that one of the producers on this series is Jennifer Crittenden. She wrote several episodes of The Simpsons as well as episodes of Seinfeld and was a producer on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Here's something for us all to be proud of here. Scotland has been named The Most Violent Country in the Developed World. Get it right up ye America.

You are three times as likely to feel the warm hand of a mugger round about your face in Scotland as in the U S of A. It seems our love of ‘booze and blades’ and our embracing of sectarian hatred is paramount in our role World’s Best Chib Merchants. Makes you proud eh?

Friday 16 September 2005

Another Friday Quiz

Here's some questions from this week's work quiz. This one was made up by Fraser and Graeme. It has a Scottish/Canadian flavour.

Basically this boils down to a challenge between Tommy and Nicola. Answers in the comments section please kids. You're both generally as useless as one another, so it should be a tight contest. And no lenient marking for birthday girls.

I've had to add a couple of questions of my own cos mainly they were questions on Canadian Heavy Metal.

Which Scot considered the architect of Canada’s Health system was voted “Greatest ever Canadian” this year?

Which famous Scot wrote the poem “Dangerous Dan McGrew” while living in the Yukon?

John Buchan was named Governor General of Canada in 1935. Name the writers most famous novel.

Which gymnast recorded a perfect 10 at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal?

Before they formed Steely Dan Donald Fagen and Walter Becker had a band called The Bad Rock Group. What famous actor/comedian was their drummer?

Wednesday 14 September 2005

“…And I Promise Not To Set Fire To Anything”


I forgot to blog about this when it happened but things are “hotting up” (sorry) down my way in the Cathcart by-election, called of course because twisted firestarter Mike Watson resigned when he was done for willful fire-raising.

For anyone not familiar with the story, Lord Watson got a bit miffed after the Politician of the Year Awards a while back after an event organiser scolded him for being rude to staff while pished out of his tits. So he set fire to the hotel he was staying in. And then denied it for ages. And then admitted it when it emerged he’d been caught bang to rights on CCTV. Lord Watson ladies and gentlemen, give him a big hand!

Given that the Labour Party aren’t exactly popular right now what with the fuel prices, their daft crusade in Iraq and their general inability to do anything right, do you really think that Labour by-election candidate Charles Gordon needed to be launching his career off the back of Lord Backdraft?

Still he could always threaten to set fire to folk if they don’t vote for him I suppose.

Roastit Bubbly Jocks

Yesterday was Jo’s birthday, so lucky her I took her to Roastit Bubbly Jocks for dinner. I think we both agreed that it was fantastic. Situated in Partick it wasn’t far for us to go. A Bring Your Own Bottle I made sure to get stocked up on Tempranillo from the offie across the road.

Jo started off with the Scallops and I had the seafood platter, though we shared them both. The seafood platter was great, it could easily have done as the main course and to be honest was probably tastier than what was to follow.

For main Jo had duck and I had chicken supreme. They both went down well and we had some raspberry and strawberry styled desserts respectively.

It certainly has the Tom seal of approval, though it wasn’t cheap.

Chappelle Happier

Dave Chappelle says he’s happier now playing small comedy clubs than he was making his great sketch show Chappelle’s Show.

Tuesday 13 September 2005

YOMG Promotion Campaign

The YOMG promotion drive is in full effect. With the help of Nicola I put posters up around some Merchant City establishments. All right, Nicola put posters up around some Merchant City establishments.

Below is a snap of one of the posters in the 13th Note's window. Below that is an indication that we really need to use better quality Blu Tac in future. Or indeed use actual Blu Tac as opposed to Pound Shop Super Tack.

We also managed a meal in Fat Cat too.



Sunday 11 September 2005

Arcade Fire in at 19

You may recall my post from 11 months ago when I raved about Arcade Fire (or indeed several posts subsequently). Radio 1 have just about caught up and now, even although I pay scant attention to the charts, I notice that they have crashed the Top 20.

Latest single Rebellion (lies) has entered the charts at number 19. I heartily recommend you picking up the DVD single which is going for about 2 to 3 quid. It gives you a great idea of what a fantastic band they are live.

Tommy hailed them as the best band he saw at the Leeds Festival the other week and if I had only found out about their Franz Ferdinand support slot before the tickets had sold out I would have happily paid 30 quid just to see them again.

The photos below are screenshots from the DVD.







The Aristocrats


Over the weekend I went to see The Aristocrats. If you don't know about it here's a brief outline. It's a documentary featuring around 100 (mostly American) comedians telling one particular joke. The joke is 'a secret handshake among comics' and is traditionally told backstage. It always has the same set up and punchline but the idea of it, is that in the middle section everyone can improvise their own take on it. Oh yeah and it has to be the filthiest, craziest, vilest acts and situations you can think of.

Anyway, it was very funny. Although it sounds repetitive it never really is. As well as numerous tellings of the joke people talk about why it's funny, why it's not funny, where the idea comes from, how it bailed out Gilbert Gottfried from a post 9/11 faux pas and how people's ideas of what's offensive have changed over the years.

The highlights for me were Kevin Pollak doing an impression of Christopher Walken telling it, an hilarious South Park segment where Cartman tells it to his bemused chums and Doug Stanhope reciting it to his infant nephew. A mime does a great version of it, obviously without using words at all and Steven Wright performs a completely clean version.

The Wikipedia page on it has links to many pages on it, including a Windows Media file of Cartman's version and an article on family entertainer Bob Saget's appearance in the film.

It's not a film I would recommend to everyone, cos if you don't like jokes about pedophilia, incest and excrement you probably won't go for it.

Saturday 10 September 2005

Jock Stein


Today, as you may have read in the newspapers, is the 20th anniversary of the death of Jock Stein. 13 at the time I remember the night he died well. It was the kind of big match that was common place for Scotland fans then, but seem to come far and few between nowadays.

As I recall the game itself wasn't that great, but then with what happened at the final whistle you tend to forget what went on during the match. I remember it being typical Scotland in that we got the result but made it hard for ourselves.

My Dad was a big Celtic fan and when I was young would constantly regale me with stories of Stein's legend. I think he went to bed before news came through that Stein had died. I remember my Mum worrying that my Dad would take some kind of turn when she told him the next day.

Four days later a minute's silence was held at every match in Scotland. At that time Clydebank were enjoying their first season back in the Premier league having achieved promotion the season before. We played host to Rangers that day and I remember the feeling that as Stein was a legendary figure at Celtic there would be the chance that some Rangers supporters would distrupt the silence.

What I remember clearly about that day was the complete silence around the 10,000 capacity crowd, as the memorial was spotlessly observed.

Stein is talked about in legendary terms today. But that was also the case while he was alive. Celtic are well known as the first British team to win the European Cup, but at the time Stein led them to victory, the European Cup had only ever been won by sides from Spain, Italy and Portugal. A Scottish side made a breakthrough where other Northern European countries had failed. Of course within a few short years the Dutch and the West German sides began to enjoy the dominance that at that time looked possible for Scottish clubs.

As a protegee of Stein Sir Alex Ferguson went on to emulate him 14 years after his death by lifting the European Cup.

Here's two articles on Stein from today's Scotsman.

Friday 9 September 2005

The Friday Quiz

It looks like I have won this week’s quiz here at work with a score of 9/10. No prize though cos John forgot all about it until he was on the bus this morning. Here are his questions.

Q1. What is the name of Derek Trotter’s local?

Q2. Michael Owen finally signed for Newcastle for what transfer fee?

Q3. Which Under-21 player’s overlooked suspension meant Scotland forfeited their 2-2 draw against Italy?

Q4. Duffle coats are named after a town in which country?

Q5. What was the name of the enigmatic fifth Marx brother, who quit the act in order to take a job selling "women's apparel"?

Q6. In The Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins's inmate begins tunnelling out of jail from behind a poster of which movie sex symbol?

Q7. Jack Nicholson once implied that a sex scene in one of his movies was unsimulated. Name the film, and his long-suffering co-star

Q8. Director Jonathan Demme captured the last major tour of this band in his 1984 documentary, Stop Making Sense.

Q9. Which year was Nirvana's 'Nevermind' LP released?

Q10. Which member of the Manic Street Preachers disappeared without trace in 1995?

1.40pm update: I have indeed taken this week's quiz beating my nearest challenger by a cool 3 points. The answers are now in the comments section.

Rebirth and Decline


Congratulations to the Scotland side who managed to bring back a bit of national pride with their cracking 1-2 victory over Norway the other night. As everyone is saying, Walter Smith and the goals of Wolves striker Kenny Miller have managed to instil some belief and fight into a bunch of guys who were being routinely beaten by nothing nations only a few short months ago. Although qualification for Germany 2006 is probably a bridge too far, it would seem we are back from the brink.

Not so England, our more illustrious cousins. After his first defeat in a qualifier Sven-Goran Eriksson has the English press and a number of fans out for his blood.

England’s problem is that they believe their own hype. European football results do little to bare out the commonly held belief that the Premiership is “the best in the world”. Yet that’s what English football supporters uniformly believe. You just have to listen to the incredulity when one of their teams is defeated (like two were, Liverpool and Blackburn by then Scottish champions Celtic in 2003).

So the fans are living in a dream world. Fair enough; they are fans, they are allowed to dream.

But the players all seem to believe it as well. The England team always give the impression they think they are World Cup winners in waiting, fed by an English press pack constantly telling them how brilliant they are. Again, results have failed to bare this arrogance out, but it's the inevitable consequence of listening to a bunch of sycophantic so-called journalists who know nothing.

A classic example of the kind of media uber-tube I'm talking about is Spoony, a DJ who has inexplicably been given the task of hosting radio football phone in 606 on Radio 5. After the match on Wednesday he cut off a caller who suggested that Paul Robinson should have picked up a throw in instead of lumping the ball up the park:

"Can't do that mate, it would have been a foul. Can't pick up a throw in." Spoony assured him.

Of course, a goalkeeper CAN pick up a throw in, as anyone with even a basic knowledge of football would have known.

So there is part of the problem right there, one of England's foremost football opinion-makers hasn't a clue what he is talking about.

When England deservedly went one down to Northern Ireland on Wednesday, commentator John Motson lasted about 2 minutes before hinting that the manager should be sacked. In his after-match interview with the utterly insidious Garth Crookes, Skipper David Beckham gave Northern Ireland no credit whatsoever. England apparently beat themselves. Baseless arrogance even in defeat, and from players who are nowhere near as good as they think they are.

Watching them flounder against a Northern Ireland side full of the spirit and grit England so sorely lacked was a pleasure. It will be even more satisfying watching them fail yet again in the World Cup, should they eventually qualify.

Why? Because there’s nothing better than watching Billy Big Baws getting a showing up.

Thursday 8 September 2005

Change to Comments

As you'll have seen from a few posts ago we've been getting spammed a bit recently. They've been coming into the comments as fast as I can delete them.

So in order to comment on posts, (all er hardly any of you) you'll have to complete a word verification check, which isn't as much of an obstacle as it sounds. You'll probably have encountered this on hotmail or the like anyway. The spam is obviously automated so this should stop it. We hope.

It Has Caught On!



On June 30th, I posted this review on indie music site Diskant:

“THE MITFORD GIRLS - The Mitford Girls (Demo)

This is a fun collection of three really good songs (Binary Boy, Pills to Paris and my favorite, Angry Raisins) by the Glasgow based band, who appear to have developed a distinctive sound without pulling away totally from Glastronica (my swiftly made up name for the many Glasgow bands who blend electronics with other instruments and, dare I say it, tend to sound vaguely the same in doing so).

I won't lie, this kind of stuff is generally not my cup of tea. But the songs on this self-produced 3 tracker are all well conceived and executed with amusing, intelligent lyrics.

If you like your Glastronica (it'll catch on, I'm telling you) tongue in cheek and frankly a cut above the norm, check them out.

You can find out where they're playing next and what their plans are here.


I’ve just been told that the afore-mentioned Mitford Girls have a bit in The List describing them as guess what? Glastronica.

Stick with us here at Pish for more new words and trendsetting…

Fuck With Glue, See What Happens


As you may or may not know, our latest production of You Owe Me Glue (Friday September 23rd, Blackfriars, 8pm) was turfed out of original venue Arta, when Rod’s Stewart’s people made it clear he wanted to use the room we had booked for a party.

Go here to find out what the cosmic forces guiding Glue did to the old has-been as a result.

Tuesday 6 September 2005

A Nation Of Liars


Work has always been a bug bear for me. Being pretty sure of what I want to do, I resent wasting my time doing something that isn’t it really; it’s pretty simple.

Of course there is all the attendant pish that goes with a job, the stupid rules, the requirement to defer to idiots and nothings etc, etc.

But at least there used to be dignity in honest work. That seems a rarity these days. Waiting on the bus the other day, a guy and a girl walked past talking about their jobs, saying stuff about how they had to “lie to customers” to get them off the phone. This is a frequent complaint where I work, mainly due to the fact that the fairly crap product we offer is aggressively sold to people as if it were a cure for cancer. It seems that most of us have a job that requires some element of dishonesty these days and as a workforce we just have to take it because it’s all that’s going. We used to make things as a nation. Now it seems we make up things, sell them to people and fail to deliver. Thus a vast tranche of the workforce are now employed to mop up the eventual and inevitable fall-out: customer rage, disappointment, complaints etc.

I don’t want to sound like a hippy here but cosmically, it can’t be good for individuals or society in general to have so many of us employed as sops for the let-down and defrauded. If you work in a call-centre all day, the accumulative effect of having dozens of people express rage and disappointment toward you all day long can have a devastating effect. I know that for a fact. 8 months at Scottish Power turned me into a gibbering, joyless shell.

But I’m straying from the point, which is that we have drifted into dangerous waters as a society by allowing large companies to employ offices full of apologists and liars, there simply to shield the top brass from the ire of customers they have conned and deceived.

The dilemma is obvious. You take the work that is going when you’re skint and when trying to run a country, companies creating jobs (any kind of jobs) are a Godsend.

When I complain about the hollow, avaricious cynicism inherent in our society these days; when I complain about being asked to lie, I’m often told to “grow up” or come to terms with “the real world”, but reality is merely what we create for ourselves.

It’s just a shame that this seems to be all some of us can manage to come up with.

Monday 5 September 2005

100% Of Spammers Are Fuds...


As some of you may have noticed, we have some sort of daftie spamming the comments section of our blog. Not really sure what we can do about it but we will find out AND DESTROY YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Judge Not...


Go here and read about some band of uber-Christian nutjobs who think Hurricane Katrina was Gods way of punishing New Orleans for “tolerating” homosexuals.

Can there be any cogent argument against just pumping several dozen bullets into these fundamentalist idiots?

The person who wrote that article deserves to suffer and die.

People like that lead me to believe that it would be best to just concrete over America and start again.

Fun Running Motherfuckers


It was the “Great Scottish Run” or some such pish yesterday and I’m sorry to sound un-charitable but I hope all involved suffer anal prolapse and die.

I have nothing against people running, or anything against the various charities they were running for. I am however against a 10 minute journey into town becoming an 1hr 45 min ordeal on a sweltering, mobbed bus for no good reason.

Why does this daft event have to take place on the road? Is there not a more rural setting they could use? Or here’s an idea, A FUCKING RUNNING TRACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I get two days off a week. To have wasted the best past of two hours of it because of the pig ignorance of a bunch of do-gooder spindly running bastards boils my fucking blood.

Seriously, vitriol aside, is there no other way this event could have been planned?

There were people on my bus phoning their work telling them they’d be over an hour late. I don’t know about your workplace, but that earns you a bollocking in most places I’ve been. These folk were put in this position through no fault of their own.

And what about everyone else and their precious free time? To commandeer some of the busiest streets in Glasgow for so long when so many people rely on these routes involves downright ignorance going way past poor planning.

The question of people being inconvenienced had to come up in the planning stages. The answer seems to have come back “fuck them”.

Typical Glasgow event planning. I am growing to hate this shitty town.

Friday 2 September 2005

You Owe Me Competent Promotion


Here's our 60 word entry in the Merchant City Festival Brochure. The one I spent half an hour finding the right 60 words. As you'll see we've cleverly condensed it into a mere 19. Except we didn't! There's also no sign of the URL. Blackfriars is spelled incorrectly and if you like Ceilidhs then be sure to get along to the free one we're running after the show. Except we're not!

Friday Quiz

My turn to make up the quiz here at work today. (Well me and Marceline, but mainly me, cos she has real work to do) So I thought I'd post some of the questions for you lot. Here's the General Knowledge section. Though most of it is about music. If you want to play then, just like in here you're not allowed to look up the answers.

General Knowledge

1. What Three countries border Burundi?

2. Over what three countries do The Ardennes stretch?

3. In 1992 The Vatican called the record transfer of which football player "an offence against the dignity of work"?

4. Which singer is famous for the songs La Vie en Rose, Milord and Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien?

5. Which American author wrote the novels A Confederate General From Big Sur, Trout Fishing in America and In Watermelon Sugar?

6. The following are areas of which West of Scotland town? Ashton, Cardwell Bay, Levan, McInroy's Point, Midton, Trumpethill

7. James K Polk was the 11th President of the United States. But he is perhaps better known for being immortalised in song by which American pop/rock duo?

8. Who directed ABBA:The Movie?

9. Which musician joined the Velvet Underground in 1968 becoming so much of a threat to Lou Reed, Reed eventually left the band?

10. Which cartoon dog wrote, in 1971, a novel entitled It Was A Dark And Stormy Night?

2.50pm UPDATE: Answers now in the comments section. Thanks all who told me that they could only get one of the answers.