I am going away over the weekend but will write something on Monday.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Abi and Georgie's Barn Party (15/05/07)
I do not have good luck when it comes to my car and parties. Last party I went to, I may/may not have run over a small kitten. This time, I got a parking ticket about three hours beforehand. Eighty bloody quid for parking on a road I have parked along dozens of times with nary a drop of complaint! It was bloody annoying. Although I guess I was bang to rights - not only was I parked across TWO clearly marked residents parking spots, I wasn't even properly parked there, and was kind of sticking out across the road. And as it happened, it turned out to only be £40; they halve it if you pay within two weeks. However, the cheeky knob who gave the ticket folded it over inside the little plastic wallet so when I picked it off the windscreen I could only see the £80. I think that this is all part of a cunning ruse; they hope that people will see the ticket, only see the eighty, and then be like 'SCREW THAT' and throw the ticket on the floor and drive away. Then when the time rolls along when you are forced to actually PAY the fucking thing, you have to pay eighty instead of the forty. Clever, Kingston Borough Council, very very clever. So I was annoyed about that for the entirety rowing session we had beforehand. However, my head coach gave me some good advice which really made me feel better about it.
"I once got a parking ticket for £50," he solemnly told me. "I ignored it and then it went up to £100!" He looked really pleased with himself. Then he added "But that's ok, because I was at a GIRL'S house! Having sex!" I think expected me to yell "BOO YA! HIGH FIVE!" and do that jumping chest-bump thing with him. As it was I kind of glared blankly and then slowly, silently, turned around and walked briskly off.
I'm not sure how this parking ticket actually relates to the party in question, other than the fact that this party will forever be known as 'The Party When I Got The Parking Ticket'. I also started to relate everything to how much it cost compared to the parking ticket. I had a shower and got dressed. The clothes I wore were some socks and boxers I didn't pay for, the KAZAKHSTAN tshirt that cost me £11, some awesome jeans that cost me £40, some shoes stolen off my little brother that probably cost about £29. So in monetary terms, the option was 'Park on a road illegally for an hour' or 'Buy the clothes that I went to the party in'. Not gonna lie, I preferred the clothes. Oh yeah, I also wore my amazing Boat Club hat, which I will discuss later.
The party itself was held in a big-ass barn thing at a golf club. According to a poster on the wall of the toilet, to rent the golf club for the evening cost £200. So the option was 'Park on the road', or 'Rent an entire golf club for an hour'. Not impressed.
Inside was filled with smoke and the hideous writhing bodies of nubile teenage girls and the ironically bouncing spectres of far-too-cool-for-this teenage boys. I'm going to estimate that 80% of the boys were wearing stripy shirts. I'm also going to estimate that, other than one knob wearing a flat cap, and a wifebeater OVER his stripy shirt, I was the only one wearing a hat. The hat in question is from a limited run of Hampton Boat Club hats produced by our school shop about ten years ago. They were so ugly and hideous that they couldn't sell them and ended up shifting them at cost of about £2. Naturally, I bought two. They are literally the biggest ugliest hats you have ever seen. Formed of some weird foam/cotton hybrid, there has not been a person born who has managed to wear one of these hats and not look slightly ridiculous. The only real way to carry it off is to just place it at an angle on the side of your head and pretend that you are being ironically gangsta. Therefore, I kind of bounced sideways into the party, walking with that 'My pelvis is jelly' swagger that typified the gangsta genre, singing some ghetto music and ignoring any greetings that came my way.
"Tom! Hello! How are you?"
"Ladies come, ladies go through my revolving door, some ladies never come back - most come back for more."
"What?"
"Aint no need for me to brag about the way I'm hung, lets just say I got the skillz to get the flyest girl hung."
"What?"
"I'm gangsta."
"... yeah."
It is imperative not to underestimate the impact of wearing a huge ugly black hat at a party. For reasons unknown, people at parties are fascinated by hats. Frankly, my hat had a bigger impact at the party than I did; I must have had about 20 conversations about it over the course of the evening. It was constantly twisting through an endlessly repeating cycle of being stolen, placed on my head, rotated, flipped, argued over and reclaimed. At one point I thought I'd lost it for good; some random chav was wearing it and was refusing to give it back. However, I managed to rationally defuse the situation by calmly explaining that I indeed had purchased the piece of habidashery for £2 several years before, and thus the hat did technically belong to me, and as he was not a member of the Hampton Boat Club, there was no call for him to be wearing it anyway; he understood my argument and returned it without any quibbles. Nah, joking, I just got Rose to jiggle her boobs at him, then when he was distracted got Amy to steal the hat. Then when he was trying to get it off Amy I stole it back and ran away. And so I bought her and Rose a lemonade in thanks. That's teamwork, right there.
Frankly, I can't really remember much more about this party. It wasn't because I was drunk, it was just because not much really happpened. Kris got really drunk, I guess, and started doing imitations of people and animals. "Do a chipmunk!" we cried, and she started acting like a gorrilla and making a stern face (?). "Do a mouse!" we yelled, and she just closed her eyes really tightly. "Make some sunglasses with your hands for your eyes!" I suggested, and she sort of punched herself in the face. Then she picked up a chair and started waltzing with it, at which point the burly black security guard stepped in. There was a brief tug of war for the possession of the chair, but fortunately the black security guard won over the 5ft pissed Kazaksthanian (KRIS IS FROM KAZAKSTAHN! I pointed this out to her in relation to the tshirt and she kind of stroked the picture of the mountains on it) and order was restored.
That was pretty funny.
In conclusion.
Horribly Unimpressive Photographic Summing-Up of the Soirée
"I once got a parking ticket for £50," he solemnly told me. "I ignored it and then it went up to £100!" He looked really pleased with himself. Then he added "But that's ok, because I was at a GIRL'S house! Having sex!" I think expected me to yell "BOO YA! HIGH FIVE!" and do that jumping chest-bump thing with him. As it was I kind of glared blankly and then slowly, silently, turned around and walked briskly off.
I'm not sure how this parking ticket actually relates to the party in question, other than the fact that this party will forever be known as 'The Party When I Got The Parking Ticket'. I also started to relate everything to how much it cost compared to the parking ticket. I had a shower and got dressed. The clothes I wore were some socks and boxers I didn't pay for, the KAZAKHSTAN tshirt that cost me £11, some awesome jeans that cost me £40, some shoes stolen off my little brother that probably cost about £29. So in monetary terms, the option was 'Park on a road illegally for an hour' or 'Buy the clothes that I went to the party in'. Not gonna lie, I preferred the clothes. Oh yeah, I also wore my amazing Boat Club hat, which I will discuss later.
The party itself was held in a big-ass barn thing at a golf club. According to a poster on the wall of the toilet, to rent the golf club for the evening cost £200. So the option was 'Park on the road', or 'Rent an entire golf club for an hour'. Not impressed.
Inside was filled with smoke and the hideous writhing bodies of nubile teenage girls and the ironically bouncing spectres of far-too-cool-for-this teenage boys. I'm going to estimate that 80% of the boys were wearing stripy shirts. I'm also going to estimate that, other than one knob wearing a flat cap, and a wifebeater OVER his stripy shirt, I was the only one wearing a hat. The hat in question is from a limited run of Hampton Boat Club hats produced by our school shop about ten years ago. They were so ugly and hideous that they couldn't sell them and ended up shifting them at cost of about £2. Naturally, I bought two. They are literally the biggest ugliest hats you have ever seen. Formed of some weird foam/cotton hybrid, there has not been a person born who has managed to wear one of these hats and not look slightly ridiculous. The only real way to carry it off is to just place it at an angle on the side of your head and pretend that you are being ironically gangsta. Therefore, I kind of bounced sideways into the party, walking with that 'My pelvis is jelly' swagger that typified the gangsta genre, singing some ghetto music and ignoring any greetings that came my way.
"Tom! Hello! How are you?"
"Ladies come, ladies go through my revolving door, some ladies never come back - most come back for more."
"What?"
"Aint no need for me to brag about the way I'm hung, lets just say I got the skillz to get the flyest girl hung."
"What?"
"I'm gangsta."
"... yeah."
It is imperative not to underestimate the impact of wearing a huge ugly black hat at a party. For reasons unknown, people at parties are fascinated by hats. Frankly, my hat had a bigger impact at the party than I did; I must have had about 20 conversations about it over the course of the evening. It was constantly twisting through an endlessly repeating cycle of being stolen, placed on my head, rotated, flipped, argued over and reclaimed. At one point I thought I'd lost it for good; some random chav was wearing it and was refusing to give it back. However, I managed to rationally defuse the situation by calmly explaining that I indeed had purchased the piece of habidashery for £2 several years before, and thus the hat did technically belong to me, and as he was not a member of the Hampton Boat Club, there was no call for him to be wearing it anyway; he understood my argument and returned it without any quibbles. Nah, joking, I just got Rose to jiggle her boobs at him, then when he was distracted got Amy to steal the hat. Then when he was trying to get it off Amy I stole it back and ran away. And so I bought her and Rose a lemonade in thanks. That's teamwork, right there.
Frankly, I can't really remember much more about this party. It wasn't because I was drunk, it was just because not much really happpened. Kris got really drunk, I guess, and started doing imitations of people and animals. "Do a chipmunk!" we cried, and she started acting like a gorrilla and making a stern face (?). "Do a mouse!" we yelled, and she just closed her eyes really tightly. "Make some sunglasses with your hands for your eyes!" I suggested, and she sort of punched herself in the face. Then she picked up a chair and started waltzing with it, at which point the burly black security guard stepped in. There was a brief tug of war for the possession of the chair, but fortunately the black security guard won over the 5ft pissed Kazaksthanian (KRIS IS FROM KAZAKSTAHN! I pointed this out to her in relation to the tshirt and she kind of stroked the picture of the mountains on it) and order was restored.
That was pretty funny.
In conclusion.
Horribly Unimpressive Photographic Summing-Up of the Soirée
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
A list of 8 Excellent things that I have seen in recent days (in no order)
1: The new banner to this blog. I know that I technically made it before seeing it, but frankly every time I clap eyes on it my breath is taken away by how simply Excellent it is. It's well cool innit. In fact, it is more than cool. If somebody put a gun to my head and told me to come up with one word to describe it, would I say it was cool? NO I WOULD NOT. In fact, I would totally describe it as 'Hardcore'.
Man, just look at it. It is so hardcore I can barely breathe. Its more hardcore than Steve, my hardcore friend who goes to clubs and dances really hard and then takes drugs and then is so happy on the train ride home that she just can't stop herself from CRYING and then she is so hardcore that she gets thrown out of her house. It's more hardcore than a bunch of guys from an anonymous private boys' school in Wimbledon starting their own alt-indie-wuss-rock band and then playing to a packed concert hall filled with more guys from an anonymous private boys' school in Wimbledon. It's more hardcore that that slashy-faced guy in Ichi the Killer. It's even more hardcore than how hardcore the centre of the earth would be if the centre of the earth was made out of diamond, or reinforced concrete, or possibly Vinnie Jones. That's how hardcore it is.
2: The other day, I was driving down the road. I was stuck behind a bus and was a bit annoyed as buses move at about -1mph and stop every time a leaf blows across the road. However, fortunately the bus stopped at a bus stop and I thought to myself "AHA, time to make a cheeky little overtake". So I quickly pulled out. But then all of a sudden, a group of like 6 little chavvy kids leapt out from behind the bus stop. They screamed and jabbered in their native tongue, and then, with lethal force, violently hurled something at the back of the bus. It was a spherical object. Brown. It splintered and shattered upon impact, covering the bus and the road with yellow and white material. As I overtook, I managed to catch a brief glimpse of what they had thrown.
It was a scotch egg.
I really wish I had some sort of secret camera into the mindsets of certain people. I would just like to be a fly on the wall at the executive meeting when all of those chavvy kids sat around a table in leather chairs and made the decision to go out, buy that scotch egg, and then throw it at a bus. Why a scotch egg? Why a bus? What were they hoping would happen? What is the best possible outcome from throwing a scotch egg at a bus? And why a scotch egg? Why not an oatcake? Or a black pudding? Or some tapioca? Or an entire box of Sunny-D? So many questions, so little time. Humans are interesting.
But it was Excellent.
3: This picture:
NB: This was not the cat that I ran over. Well, I hope not.
4: There was a bee at the Boat Club today. It was just chillaxing on the floor and its legs were covered, COVERED I SAY, in pollen. It looked like it had little MC-Hammer Stylee Bee trousers on. It was really Excellent. Naturally we all laid down on the floor and peered at it. Everything was going nicely when suddenly the bee moved and, being the manly men we are, we all screamed hysterically and like, THREW ourselves backwards as though pulled by little invisible bungees. Our cox, who is a hardcore motherfucker called Andrew "Felix" Curruzzlywuzzly, was not impressed. "Boys, you are meant to be the 2nd VIII, you have to be harder than that. You can't let a bee push you around or else you'll just be letting ABINGDON push you around." Our cox likes to relate everything to Abingdon. But this was enough to pump us up so we leant back and really gave that bee a verbal battering the likes of which it had probably never experienced before.
"Stupid bee!"
"Twat!"
"Your yellow legs look dumb!"
"Knob!"
"Your dad's a coward!"
The really Excellent thing was that, due to the amount of pollen on its legs, the bee was unable to fly away to escape our verbal rinsing of it or attempt to verbally cuss us back. Of course, there is no real comeback to "Your dad's a coward" (except for, possibly, "Your mum's boring!"... however luckily it was a bee and thus incapable of articulating speech). However, we were distracted for a second by Northern Mark from the North, our coach, and when we looked back the bee was gone.
All of the above actually happened, by the way. And it was Excellent.
5: I went up to London with Rose on Saturday to buy an esoteric CD. We wandered through Covent Garden, which was filled with those mime guys whose job it is to stand really still dressed in silly costumes. There was a woman in a dress with a big camera who was paying them money to take photographs of them. Now forgive me if I am wrong, but if the entire gimmic is that they stand still, not moving, for long periods of time, taking a still photograph (in which everybody is standing still) will surely not capture the whole effect of the stillness. Maybe if she had taken a video it would have gone some way to capture the essence of the moment. I quite wanted to go and reason with her, but I figured that I really could not be bothered. So instead I chuckled to myself at the Excellent nature of this circumstance.
6: Gimmicky tourist postcards in the shape of Princess Diana's face, the hilarious and Excellent possibilities for comic tomfoolery inherent in such objects, and thus the following photograph:
How exciting, this is the first photograph of me to ever appear on this blog. When we were taking it, people looked disapprovingly at us. I think that it is ironic that you get frowned at for using Diana's image to spread joy and laughter, but not for printing it out on cheapo cardboard and then letting people write on the back for 50p a pop. Very ironic.
7: My excellent new T-Shirt, which I am modelling in the above photograph. It is blue. It has mountains on it. It says "KAZAKHSTAN". I look like quite a catch in it. Yesterday, I caught myself modelling it in the mirror and thinking to myself, "I have turned into quite a man in recent weeks." I like T-shirts. They give me hope. You wouldn't get that from a cardigan.
8: This little fanzine that we found in a little indie record shop. It was named "SYNTAX ERROR CRABS IN THE UK", and was like a little pamphlet. In it, some clever wag had cunningly cut up and rearranged headlines from newspapers next to the faces of prominent politicians. Thus, for example, a headline ORIGINALLY about the levels of obesity in Britain was thought-provokingly placed next to a picture of fat-pie Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. "Ah," I thought to myself when I saw it "John Prescott is indeed fat. They make a good point." As I read on, I was amazed to find more and more of my previous misconceptions and beliefs about our political system simply TORN TO SHREDS. There was a picture of George Bush next to a headline saying "He flies in, flaps about and leaves a mess behind". The Labour party was juxtaposed with a headline describing how some chavs had broken into a house and smashed all of the things and then probably thrown a scotch egg at the owner. It was horrific.
Then on the final page it turned out that "SYNTAX ERROR CRABS IN THE UK" was actually NOT an accredited political journal, but in fact a flier advertising a combined art/rock show. On the back was written "Art Exhibition + Live: Tiger Force and Optimist Club and Abi Makes Music! Plus - ART!" I love the Plus- ART! Imagine if that was the Tate's new marketing drive. 'An overpriced coffee shop, loads of esoteric books on style and a big metal slide! Plus - Art!
Thinking about it, I really want to go. I literally cannot imagine anything better. OH NO IT'S TONIGHT I MISSED IT. Grumble. It kind of makes me a bit sad that the only place that flier exists is in the hearts and minds of the people who made it. And me. There is no history of it anywhere, no recording of its existance. Once the combined art/rock show is over and the flier reduced to landfill, then, to the collective consciousness, it never existed.
How sad.
But equally, the fact that it exists at all is Excellent.
Take that, Kilroy!
Man, just look at it. It is so hardcore I can barely breathe. Its more hardcore than Steve, my hardcore friend who goes to clubs and dances really hard and then takes drugs and then is so happy on the train ride home that she just can't stop herself from CRYING and then she is so hardcore that she gets thrown out of her house. It's more hardcore than a bunch of guys from an anonymous private boys' school in Wimbledon starting their own alt-indie-wuss-rock band and then playing to a packed concert hall filled with more guys from an anonymous private boys' school in Wimbledon. It's more hardcore that that slashy-faced guy in Ichi the Killer. It's even more hardcore than how hardcore the centre of the earth would be if the centre of the earth was made out of diamond, or reinforced concrete, or possibly Vinnie Jones. That's how hardcore it is.
2: The other day, I was driving down the road. I was stuck behind a bus and was a bit annoyed as buses move at about -1mph and stop every time a leaf blows across the road. However, fortunately the bus stopped at a bus stop and I thought to myself "AHA, time to make a cheeky little overtake". So I quickly pulled out. But then all of a sudden, a group of like 6 little chavvy kids leapt out from behind the bus stop. They screamed and jabbered in their native tongue, and then, with lethal force, violently hurled something at the back of the bus. It was a spherical object. Brown. It splintered and shattered upon impact, covering the bus and the road with yellow and white material. As I overtook, I managed to catch a brief glimpse of what they had thrown.
It was a scotch egg.
I really wish I had some sort of secret camera into the mindsets of certain people. I would just like to be a fly on the wall at the executive meeting when all of those chavvy kids sat around a table in leather chairs and made the decision to go out, buy that scotch egg, and then throw it at a bus. Why a scotch egg? Why a bus? What were they hoping would happen? What is the best possible outcome from throwing a scotch egg at a bus? And why a scotch egg? Why not an oatcake? Or a black pudding? Or some tapioca? Or an entire box of Sunny-D? So many questions, so little time. Humans are interesting.
But it was Excellent.
3: This picture:
NB: This was not the cat that I ran over. Well, I hope not.
4: There was a bee at the Boat Club today. It was just chillaxing on the floor and its legs were covered, COVERED I SAY, in pollen. It looked like it had little MC-Hammer Stylee Bee trousers on. It was really Excellent. Naturally we all laid down on the floor and peered at it. Everything was going nicely when suddenly the bee moved and, being the manly men we are, we all screamed hysterically and like, THREW ourselves backwards as though pulled by little invisible bungees. Our cox, who is a hardcore motherfucker called Andrew "Felix" Curruzzlywuzzly, was not impressed. "Boys, you are meant to be the 2nd VIII, you have to be harder than that. You can't let a bee push you around or else you'll just be letting ABINGDON push you around." Our cox likes to relate everything to Abingdon. But this was enough to pump us up so we leant back and really gave that bee a verbal battering the likes of which it had probably never experienced before.
"Stupid bee!"
"Twat!"
"Your yellow legs look dumb!"
"Knob!"
"Your dad's a coward!"
The really Excellent thing was that, due to the amount of pollen on its legs, the bee was unable to fly away to escape our verbal rinsing of it or attempt to verbally cuss us back. Of course, there is no real comeback to "Your dad's a coward" (except for, possibly, "Your mum's boring!"... however luckily it was a bee and thus incapable of articulating speech). However, we were distracted for a second by Northern Mark from the North, our coach, and when we looked back the bee was gone.
All of the above actually happened, by the way. And it was Excellent.
5: I went up to London with Rose on Saturday to buy an esoteric CD. We wandered through Covent Garden, which was filled with those mime guys whose job it is to stand really still dressed in silly costumes. There was a woman in a dress with a big camera who was paying them money to take photographs of them. Now forgive me if I am wrong, but if the entire gimmic is that they stand still, not moving, for long periods of time, taking a still photograph (in which everybody is standing still) will surely not capture the whole effect of the stillness. Maybe if she had taken a video it would have gone some way to capture the essence of the moment. I quite wanted to go and reason with her, but I figured that I really could not be bothered. So instead I chuckled to myself at the Excellent nature of this circumstance.
6: Gimmicky tourist postcards in the shape of Princess Diana's face, the hilarious and Excellent possibilities for comic tomfoolery inherent in such objects, and thus the following photograph:
How exciting, this is the first photograph of me to ever appear on this blog. When we were taking it, people looked disapprovingly at us. I think that it is ironic that you get frowned at for using Diana's image to spread joy and laughter, but not for printing it out on cheapo cardboard and then letting people write on the back for 50p a pop. Very ironic.
7: My excellent new T-Shirt, which I am modelling in the above photograph. It is blue. It has mountains on it. It says "KAZAKHSTAN". I look like quite a catch in it. Yesterday, I caught myself modelling it in the mirror and thinking to myself, "I have turned into quite a man in recent weeks." I like T-shirts. They give me hope. You wouldn't get that from a cardigan.
8: This little fanzine that we found in a little indie record shop. It was named "SYNTAX ERROR CRABS IN THE UK", and was like a little pamphlet. In it, some clever wag had cunningly cut up and rearranged headlines from newspapers next to the faces of prominent politicians. Thus, for example, a headline ORIGINALLY about the levels of obesity in Britain was thought-provokingly placed next to a picture of fat-pie Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. "Ah," I thought to myself when I saw it "John Prescott is indeed fat. They make a good point." As I read on, I was amazed to find more and more of my previous misconceptions and beliefs about our political system simply TORN TO SHREDS. There was a picture of George Bush next to a headline saying "He flies in, flaps about and leaves a mess behind". The Labour party was juxtaposed with a headline describing how some chavs had broken into a house and smashed all of the things and then probably thrown a scotch egg at the owner. It was horrific.
Then on the final page it turned out that "SYNTAX ERROR CRABS IN THE UK" was actually NOT an accredited political journal, but in fact a flier advertising a combined art/rock show. On the back was written "Art Exhibition + Live: Tiger Force and Optimist Club and Abi Makes Music! Plus - ART!" I love the Plus- ART! Imagine if that was the Tate's new marketing drive. 'An overpriced coffee shop, loads of esoteric books on style and a big metal slide! Plus - Art!
Thinking about it, I really want to go. I literally cannot imagine anything better. OH NO IT'S TONIGHT I MISSED IT. Grumble. It kind of makes me a bit sad that the only place that flier exists is in the hearts and minds of the people who made it. And me. There is no history of it anywhere, no recording of its existance. Once the combined art/rock show is over and the flier reduced to landfill, then, to the collective consciousness, it never existed.
How sad.
But equally, the fact that it exists at all is Excellent.
Take that, Kilroy!
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