Chris Gilmour's diary volume 12

Epilogue

2007-08-01T08:10:00.001Z

It started last night, Tom Snowball's show at the 13th Note. Friends were there, Stoo Drive Carefully, Christina, Uncle Brendan, Aiden, The Naked Chick from Post-It Notes, Katesby.

I chatted with Katesby briefly, she didn't know I was heading south. We hadn't seen each other for weeks or spoken and there was no other comms, no word of mouth, no bulletin. CommanderKeen on the other hand, he knew off of my post on Jockrock, I'll see him again as a useful contact with music and stuff, the Alec Downie of a new generation.

So it was tiday passed, presents and tearful farewells at work, awkward phonecalls with Nastily the girl what I'm seeing. After work, frantic last minute packing and plan changing. Phonecall with the French Girl, already flatted up in London. Lunch pencilled in for Monday.

With Alan at my side I drifted down to NPL. We saw Colin on the way, he was going to a Brazilian gig, free tickets from Mono as Katesby, and he was already clued up about my heading south and Alan's move to Hamilton, we drink and talk together often.

NPL, Adam's there to greet me and the wee guy from the Drive Carefully Crew. Over to the right is Gill, Ad's girlf, Iain Smith, Paul Smith, Dave Pope and that tall chap from uni, coming in just behind me was Katie Pope.

Ahead of me, behind the DJ desk is NPL John, Kevin chatting to himhand over his mouth. I was there at the first NPL, it was darker and the chairs were laid out as a barricade. Sam Babies on the dancefloor, Woodbine too and countless other's lost in time.

The proportions are the same, people I know and people I don't. There's a crowd in the Bowlie corner I don't recognise. Nal and Tara come in and sit a few tables away. Nal's Alan emerges from the Bowlie corner to chat to her. To my left Annoying Brian is joined by his delightful girlfriend. Andy Diamond arrives and soon rips up the dancefloor.

Christina and an Electroluv join us. JennyBelle and Wiggy on the dancefloor, I mutter to Alan about "I love the 80s on tape". Dave Pope comes over for a chat, Jed wanders past, nods and smiles. I'll see Dave in a few weeks when his band play London. I ought to have promo in place ready.

Some of Camera Obscura appear and sit to the left between Nal's mob and mine, another Colin passes by.

No sign of The Naked Chick or Claire or any other Drive Carefully folk.

Time passes and I lose myself in my head. John plays about two songs I know and love, Devo and "100,000 Fireflies". Me and Alan's band play a cover of it in a few weeks when I pop North. Only Love Will Break Your Heart - Saint Etienne.

Some large friend of Rachel's appears and sits at the far side. Fast Eddie moves from right to left. John looks bored. Paul Smith hands out BabyGoBoom and PinUp night flyers, Jed hands out Drunk at the Pulpit ones. I'll never go to either of these again.

Alan announces he's leaving, to hit the internet, hopefully spread the word about the Wolfknuckle gig.

At that exact moment Rachel arrives, stood just behind me and then to my right, chatting to friends.

I focus on the BabyGoBoom flyer, hoping to become invisible. More invisible that I already am. I am not invisible, just thinly spread with possibilities. When you read this, I shall be like Schrodingers Cat, but spread between Glasgow, London and Manchester.

I feel its time to leave, but how? A tour of the room, bidding farewell to everyone I've ever known? People I haven't spoken to for months for years. Nodding acquaintances, "Oh I didn't know you were moving" whose fault is that? Don't I shout loud enough? And what if they didn't give a shit? How soul crushing would that be? I glance round. How would I do a knight's tour of the room and to what end? Singling out those I regret losing touch with from those I loathe?

No Idles here, no Twitch, no Leanne, no Nick, no Paul. I already left. Years ago.

Adam approaches so I stand, he know's its time, maybe he sees my eyes glistening. He knows we'll stay in touch onliune with MSN. We don't know what the future holds, but MSN won't be disrupted. I pinch a smile, and blink rapidly as I put on my old leather jacket, nod to Christine, regret that Naked Chick wasn't here as we'd said hey online hours earlier.

Adam gives my shoulder a squeeze, I glance to my right.

Outside, I'm shaking slightly. This is momentous. NPL isn't worth travelling 400 miles to me, so I may never be here again. These people, these memories.

Rachel's large friend, outside smoking, recognises me. The fifth person I'd spoken to all night.

"I'm moving to London right now"
"Tomorrow morning?"
"No, right now, well, as soon as I get to my car"

A pang of regret again for not telling more people. Folk I used to know, lost touch with. Monkey sphere, drifting away.

Halfway home, Sounds of Sweden Stacy, Sarah the foreign girl, and Kate the Australian pass by, nods and eye sparkles in salutation.

"Was it that bad?" asks Kate
"I have a long drive ahead"

How could I have run my life and told anyone? Who would care? Why are we spread so thinly now?

**updated**
New blog here
Update yer links

2007-07-27T18:19:00.000Z

Crikey, I was in tears when they gave me the leaving card at work, and the presents and stuff. They'd even been in touch with Nasterly to find out my poison.

Right, I reckon this is a neat end to Volume 12. Its going to be a rollercoaster over the next few hours, days and weeks.

Necking the Angostura rum Chris'd got me and playing an old bootleg of Cracktown playing Wimoweh, packing up my computer right now.

Gilmour out

2007-07-25T19:04:00.000Z

Hi everyone,

Its going to be a bit hectic. I've still got another few loads of boxes to take to the storage depot, but right now I'm about to head off for a final Deep Fried Wolfknuckles rehearsal, Luigi's ill, but we'll soldier on without him.

Then two days left of employment in Glasgow. Friday's going to be a case of slinging all my remaining possessions, clothes, and 'puter into my car, heading to Pop League for a lone drink, an embarrassed nod to friends I'll be leaving and quick baggy shimmy on the dancefloor, then back in the car to head south.

Indietracks this weekend, a load of the bands playing are ones I've reviewed on my gig review website, Last Night From Glasgow Indie Eyespy, so I feel strangely obliged. I'll be wandering about with my notepad trying to write coherently about all the bands and people and things and stuff.

Then, Monday morning head into London, into an internet cafe to find suitable accomodation on Gumtree, and frantic driving round Middlesex to find a place to call home. Maybe I'll spend the night there, before heading to Manchester to pick up whatever stuff I left, and back to London.

I've got a fortnight to get on my feet before starting work for Roksan, so there'll be gigs to go to and pummelling Facebook for people to meet for coffee.

Its been fun, ten years in Glasgow.

2007-07-23T07:13:00.000Z

Well, my flathunting jaunt to London was a bit of a disaster, not very successful, my phone ran out od juice, all the rooms were taken and my car ran out of oil.

But it does help to focus the mind.

Only one week left accomodated in Glasgow, but the sun's shining.

2007-07-20T15:54:00.000Z

Everything is like walking through treacle today. I got home late last night, not late enough, I missed the last few songs of a gig.

For the past few months, I've been waking up really early, 5am ish and dozing to the soundtrack of my flatmates getting ready for work. I only need to get up at 7:30 oe 8 so I'm missing hours of quality REM sleep. I've been hitting the sack later and later too, trudging home from friends and gigs in the dark.

I think this long term sleep deprivation could have some effect on my mental health, at the moment enhancing my creative output at the same time as increasing my resentment and rage.

I'll be running on vapours by the time I finish this weekend's trip to London.

What if I sleep and crash and die on the motorway?

Ach, at least I'll be going out on a high. Its a shame that no one's responded to Otto Wolfknuckle's post.

It could be my parting shot.

2007-07-20T15:46:00.000Z

I, for one, am filled with terror. Just when I thought interest in my subversive art website was slowly dropping off after the excitement of last week, it gets discovered by several northern and eastern european countries.

It made me $0.09 today already

2007-07-18T22:14:00.001Z

More piccies from Hull

2007-07-18T06:49:00.001Z

Not that I'm one for bad-mouthing my own friends, but Otto Wolfknuckle ain't really the best at promoting gigs.

Here lieth the thread about the last ever Deep Fried Wolfknuckles gig with me as the guitarist. What he ought to have said is who The Deep Fried Wolfknuckles are, what we sound like, how we set your soul on fire, and how we're back by public demand.

A few links to videos and gentle reminders as to where you've heard them before would have been neat too. Just vanilla links to myspace pages don't cut it anymore. Photies, needs photies.

From a stylistic point, we're not really a surf guitar band, we play rockabilly, Billy Childish and Magnetic Fields covers.

I'm pretty sure at one point we'd agreed the band was called

The Deep Fried Wolfknuckles

rather than

The Deep-Fried Wolf Knuckles

a bit of consistency goes a long way.

Look, here's the video Lydiapond took of them at their debut gig

and a couple of Last Night From Glasgow shows

Sure this is all things and stuff and information that people would get if they click through, but if they don't then they'll never know, and never care. Not giving it to them straight up in the original post just show's contempt for the medium.

Admittedly I already have contempt for the medium, but that's mostly personal against David Kitchen for banning me, but not against my friends and gig going colleges in Glasgow. I love those guys and I'm going to miss them, so I need to say goodbye properly, at this gig.

Even the other bands on the bill ought to get more of a mention, does anyone even randomly click on these things any more?

2007-07-17T19:47:00.000Z

God dammit, I can’t do it. There’s no solution. This is no NP-complete problem.

It was the weekly-ish phonecall with my mother, I’d been out of Sunday night, and out again all Monday, so today she’d tried calling the flat, I was out so she texted me and when I got in from the supermarket the flatmates told me she’d called so I phoned her. And we blethered and chatted and I was sat in the hall, with my feet up blethering, and she was pottering about putting the tea on, putting her shopping away and she fell over. Whilst on the phone.

So I can hear her writhing in agony. Mum are you okay? Yeah, she’d tripped and fallen into the garage, banged her ankle and her shoulder, bruises on bruises. And I’m two hundred and ten miles away and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t drive down, she’ll be in bed by the time I get there, or still up pottering about on her ankle, waiting on me. There’s no one I can call, there’s nothing I can do.

If she’d been sat down nattering to me, she wouldn’t have fallen. But its too late cos she has.

It wasn’t my fault, there was nothing I could have done.

There is now, I can insist whenever we chat on the phone that she’s sat down, and hang up if I suspect she’s pottering about whilst blethering.

Of course, just over to the left in a parallel universe I abandon moving to London and instead move to Manchester, quit any kind of job or career and become a full time carer for mum. But the growing resentment in such situations would lead at least one of us to kill themselves. Its what usually happens when I try to suppress myself.

Its hard being an engineer, not having a soul.

Knowing when there’s nothing you can do, so that’s exactly what you do.

2007-07-17T16:50:00.000Z

Crikey, what an action packed and fun-filled weekend. Friday night brough frantic Just Joans CD manufacturing and subsequent delivery via Baby Go Boom at the Woody, and then a text message from Robbie taking me to dinner. I staggered into Asia Style on St. Georges Road, about half an hour late, twas a gathering of Glasgow-based internet folk, rather pleasant, if a little drafty. I had beef porridge, which was unpleasant, the duck and shredded beef on the other plates looked nice.

The Scooby Gang moved on to the Bon Accord on North Street, which was nice cos Nastalie was serving and recommending which beers would suit.

I'm going to miss these internet folk, Steph and Tom, Colin and Jed. Hopefully I'll still see people from time to time.

The next morning, me and Robbie piled into my wee car with fine beer and dapper suits and headed south. The going was easy, we made a detour to hit the pie shop at Westmorland Farm Shops and cut across the picturesque villages of Yorkshire, and traffic jams around York. Music was provided by Motown Chart Busters, Kraftwerk and Pere Ubu. The KLF brought us into Hull city centre, helping us get lost and find the way. It would have been helpful if Robbie had the directions message from Astrid or even if anyone had known I was coming.

I'd tried asking Toffle and Robbie to clearly state online and confirm my attendance, but a wee mention of Poesia Urbana, a long-forgotten alias, slipped by unnoticed. My first few hours were awkward despite Jonny's warm hosting and grand tour of the house. They had a staircase which goes both up and down, depening on which end you're standing at, amazing.

Familiar company was pleasant. I was reading through a client's Single Shared Assessment at work today, there was the phrase "...doesn't engage with people he doesn't know," which I think sums up my attitude at the party, chatting with Sandy and Justin and few others.

Its funny how time passes, I was talking to Justin about west and east african elephants last time I was temping between proper jobs, before I started at Linn Products, maybe six years ago.

Time passes.

The music was loud, Kevin wresting people away from the DJ booth, Herr Kitchen demanding to know who I was text messaging. Four out of five conversations were about Bowlie, with the fifth being JamieC saying "So, Robbie, I hear you drive a Smart car."

When the party was done and people were forraging for corners to sleep in, I headed outside to my usual away from home sleeping spot, slumped over onto my passenger seat, under old big blue.

The next morning, the party ventured out for coffee, I took my usual Sunday Telegraph and pondered my survival.

It was evening when I arrived home, barely enough time to upload photies to flickr before heading to the Cottiers for Viva Melodia.

The next morning Nasters was bombarding me with text messages to come round, it was a Bank Holiday here in Scotland and we were going for a picnic.

Loch Lomond in the rain with a friend Gillian and Amy the dog, possibly called Amie, I was convinced it was a Sharpy, but according to String Bean Jen commenting on Flickr its a shar pei. Rather relaxing and refreshing, especially in the pub when the sub came out, and too tired to walk, we just sat and read books.

It was late evening again when I arrived home, my packing is still going painfully slowly. I've resolved to just start giving away my stuff rather the figure out how to put it in storage or transport south.

2007-07-16T21:36:00.000Z

Never has there's been a prouder moment in my life than this.

Someone gets it.

2007-07-16T20:58:00.000Z

Crikey, no rest for the wicked, out at Loch Lomond today with Nasters, Gillian and Ami-dog. Picnics in the rain, kind of like what summer holidays ought to be.

2007-07-16T00:39:00.000Z

Bit of a shambles, good to see some old friends again, I miss those guys.
Photies here, more words after sleeps

2007-07-13T15:43:00.000Z

Wishin' for this

2007-07-13T09:55:00.000Z

Splitting headache, its Friday the 13th, people keep phoning in and I can't connect them, so they get upset and angry and I get frustrated. I wanna put my phone on divert and hide under my desk, sobbing quietly to myself.

Suddenly I'm in Shetland, its dusk, its darkening, I'm wandering through Lerwick. There's a wee house with a little private beach, the sea lapping gentle at the mottled sand. Its cold, but I have fish and chip, drenched and salt and vinegar and a small plastic fork slowly decomposing.

Time passes and I'm in Los Angeles, the sky orange and smoggy, blue clouds. The shadows are long as we pass Hollywood High School. Ben Folds in the air.

2007-07-12T23:38:00.000Z

Went to cinema with Nasters to see the new Harry Potter movie, she looked rather fetching in black dress and witches hat.

Thought the movie was cool, Harry gets into traditional teenage things such as being fucked over by women, and self-mutilation. Sound in the cinema was rather pants, and the audience kept on clapping at things.

2007-07-12T16:54:00.000Z

Christ, this is killing me, from a gig every two days to one a fortnight. My health is deteriorating, my patience shortening and my mood is pants.

I'm feeling scungy, so I think stream of consciousness writing may help, or at least distract me from my cow orkers, (two weeks and a day left). Hull this weeknd, seeing people I haven't seen, spoken to or otherwise communicated with for months, some even years. And whilst in some communities there's an excited buzz about it, I can't share in the discourse. Instead I'm going out of my mind.

I gotta make a to do list:-
Buy boxes and start packing stuff
Buy blank CDs and make Just Joans albums
Chase cash machine stolen money
Get a mobile phone wot does email
Advertise spare room
Capitalise on nuddy website
Go to gigs
Find route to Hull and find something to do there if I storm of the party having not been invited or just feeling awkward from not drinking cos of the driving and stuff.

2007-07-12T07:20:00.000Z

Saw this and had to post.

Crikey thems American's sure use a lot of petrol

2007-07-11T18:42:00.000Z

I visited Bob, the seven foot tall, one-legged black gentleman blog-pseudonym of my ex-girlfriend the photographer, last night, to reclaim my bass guitar, which I'd lent to him/her two months ago. Bob was either really sad about me leaving town or something's up.

I didn't act too concerned, I've been around long enough to know when I should or shouldn't be dragged into the quagmire of other people's self-induced problems.

The wee quirky personality traits I used to find adorable or so irritating I'd try to jab my eyes out when we were younger, I now think are having serious effects on Bob's career and future. The faulty way bob percieves events, people and opinion, is like walking around unable to see the colour yellow.

Thank god I have such a great embrace of the philosophy or "fuck that shit" and enough will power for "not my problem".

Maybe I've just being un-magnanimous becasue my own "art" website is going from strength to strength.

2007-07-10T07:17:00.000Z

Webtraffic to my nuddy website over the past month. My internet traffic hasn't spun this far out of control since I did that work blog thing. Its all a matter of placement and content, in that order.

My problem now is how to make it lucrative. Google only seems to put one adsense advert on the page even though I've booked out four or five slots.

2007-07-09T20:48:00.000Z

Eeep, Plimptons on the radio, on XFM, not sure how they got noticed, but its part of some uploady competition. They're playing Impulse Records as I type.

You can vote for them here

and for your delictation, here's a live of them playing it live at Stereo in Glasgow

2007-07-09T10:52:00.000Z

I've stalled, I can't wait to start my new job. Where I am right now, I'm adding nothing to the sum of mankind's achievements. All the websites off my own back don't count, I need institutions, organisations. I need to contribute.

Heull next weekend. I wonder what I'll find there. Robbie's dragging me along, Toffle too, a room full of friends, in a town I've conquered before. Stockholm was so long ago, clear blue skies and days that would last for days. Things started going wrong then. Was it just a slow steady descent from then to now?

Gamla Stan, what did I leave behind.

Life goes on, its the same cloudless blue sky out there now. There's a new life for me just round the corner, how much of thing can I leave behind? Why can't I leave behind these memories? I was in Spain on my way to work this morning, just for a moment. Warm sunshine, old buildings, a wonder at the world, Toledo. If I couldn;t have that life, I don't want any of it.

A comment on the blog yesterday rather rocked me, so after a few hours of fuming at the back of Viva Melodia, I unleashed my decret weapon.

Makes me wonder if there's going to be trouble in London.

Its a large town, can I hide if I need to?

2007-07-08T17:20:00.000Z

Beautifully shot live video, of a vaguely uninspired performance. They've played better.

2007-07-08T10:54:00.001Z

Spinal Tap at Live Earth 2007

2007-07-07T00:19:00.000Z

I still haven't been to any gigs in ages, five days now, and twenty four days until I leave Glasgow, and now, its thirty three days until the final Deep Fried Wolfknuckles gg, at the 13th Note.

That's the 9th of August, put it in your diary now, and for those of you struggling to remember just how good the Deep Fried Wolfknuckles were and why they're worth travelling to see, here are a selection of their videos off of You Tube.

Eep, this nuddy website got its first comment today, rather exciting.

I came to the terrible realisation last night

2007-07-05T19:50:00.000Z

I came to the terrible realisation last night, whilst reading through the lyrics to the Glasgow (weegie) version of Bohemian Rhapsody, that this Scotland thing, this association with Glasgow is entirely transient.

I'm not Scottish, I'm not Glasgwegian, when I depart, it'll fade quickly. Sure the memories will be there and the friends and the music and relationshipal baggage will come with me, but the Glasgow, the neds, the patois, the Glasgow culture, all that, gone to the wind. I'll leave that to the natives. I'm not a native and never will be.

"Oh, you lived in Glasgow, you must have..."

"Nope, I never did that/went there/saw that/tried that, I never wanted to, and I never will,"

I never really liked the Barras Market

2007-07-04T07:16:00.000Z

Eep, new Deep Fried Wolfknuckles gig. Some Thursday around the start of August, put it in your diary now now now, for the greatest rock n roll show like yer pappy used to put on.

2007-07-03T17:38:00.000Z

Its been weeks now since I last saw Leanne, since Dr Who's Utopia and then being moaned at for a few hours in a pub. I should be in London by now.

Resisting the urgh to just move down before the job come through. Sure I could go and temp there, but I've seen that before, that way lies damnation.

The colour's washing out of this, with my natural entropic tendencies I'm beginning to burn bridges here.

Pub last night with friends and a dog, I'll build this again far away.

2007-07-03T16:36:00.000Z

Well this neatly explains how one of my videos on youtube gets overwhealmingly more views than any of the Last Night From Glasgow webcasts.

2007-07-02T23:56:00.000Z

Wee bit of a debate over on Jockrock. I felt a little guilty, but it kinda turned out okay in the end.

Then again, about two hours after Droy's post and my reply, I remembered that I am actually an established promoter of non-profit gigs which frequently draw a regular crowd. I can't believe forget that sort of thing, even in job interviews, its like a blind spot.

2007-07-02T16:10:00.000Z

Got dragged out to the cinema last night, Shrek 3, kinda neat, I like the way the computer graphics are getting better as the series progresses, even though the first one was great. This one made a big show of showing off the water effects. I remember in one of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond movies, they made a big point about how the water for the iceburg surfing was the first time anyone had done computer graphicy water in the day time and it looked crap, but with Shrek it was ace.

Also got my dinner cooked for me and watched the entire last series of Spaced. At the back of my mind was a nagging feeling I was missing Monica Queen at The Cottiers, and I've been meaning to see her for years. But hey ho, sometimes you gotta go with the flow

Gilmour weighs in

2007-06-30T16:48:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6257194.stm

Keep calm and carry on

2007-06-30T10:10:00.000Z

Went to bed absolutely furious last night, even Johnny Cash and the Muppets couldn't help.

Anger, resentment and frustration, yes, all these things.

If you search for certain indiepop and crap scottish bands on google, my gig review site comes top, it above almost all other sites apart from the band's homepage. I've worked hard to do this, but in a vacuum, there just ain't any competition, no one else talks about these gigs online. Whatever it is out thats there, its not online.

I've worked hard at it, twelve or so gigs a month, for four months, that's how empty my life is. I hate it, its not the best thing I could be doing, but its a hell of a lot better than some alternatives.

It gives me some degree of power.

Back in the day the English language was pretty stable, but woth the rise of search engines and google, its distorted, emphasised elsewhere, words like "Ghastly" or "Bunny" now mean something different online, because other meanings or brand have better PR than just plain apathic language.

Nothing's as subjective.

Clare asked if I was going to Connect. Connect is now a music festival, rather than meaning to bind, connect or join. Apparently Bjork, The Only Ones and Jarvis are playing. She didn't seem impressed when I pointed out that The Bay City Rollers were playing at Jumpin' Jaks last night, "They were almost bigger than The Beatles". Revival bands, past their prime. You gotta keep running to keep up.

Of course a review of The Only Ones, Bjork or Jarvis, on one blogspot is unlikely to affect their careers much, but for a new band where there ain't much out there, when some journo is looking for them, online and all there is is me moaning about poor sound, the Plimps and friends, that's the some degree of power.

About a year ago, I got a book about Genocide, after threads on the Coldplaying messageboard. I know the words that genocidal regimes use to persuade the population that killing 10% is acceptable, and required.

I've always had quite right wing views politically, despite my denial of the relevance of left and right wing politics, but as I dozed off, furious last night, the thought of using these persuasive words in my gig reviews to destroy bands with whom I have personal gripes, that felt comfortable in my head.

2007-06-30T00:40:00.000Z

2007-06-27T16:19:00.000Z

Panging memories of times with Idles and the park with Leanne. There, at the pit of my stomach.

I have to stick to my resolve and avoid people and damned situations that make me feel uncomfortable, despite the disillusions in my head.

Last disc of Twin Peaks season 2, Windom Earle's playing card queens. That which I will leave behind.

2007-06-24T22:14:00.000Z

hmm, interesting epilog to the events of this post. When I put in a link to the forum from this gig review, there's no trackback or traffic coming the other way. Its almost like bad behaviour gets results and relevance goes unnoticed.

2007-06-23T15:01:00.000Z

They were looking in the wrong place, they were looking in the bueshes, they were looking in the wrong place.

It was midnight, I was driving home on the M1, there were two police cars on the hard shoulder, pulled up behind a car, five or six men peering into the bushes at the side of the road. They were looking in the bushes, they were looking in the wrong place, they were looking in the bushes, looking worried.

Two policemen emerged from the undergrowth, saying something to the men, shrugging, unable to find what they were looking for.

Twenty metres further down the hard shoulder, there was another car, empty. I could see underneath it, there was a body, I could see trainers, jeans and jacket.

They were looking in the bushes, they were looking in the wrong place.

2007-06-22T12:38:00.000Z

Prices are up at the Westmorland Farm Shop. A fiver used to get you a beef growler, duck + almonac, ham + asparagus and chicken + grape pies. Now everything's gone up by 4p so you need to rifle for change. "Inflation" the guy said.

I'm going to have to replan my driving south strategy now the golden age of changeless shopping is over.

Might have been better if they'd introduced some new pies at the same time as the price hike.

2007-06-22T07:05:00.000Z

7am

On train from Burnham to Liverpool Street. Frere gave me a run to the station after I'd had a chat with Milly. I'm still sceptical as to whether she can speak or not, but she did show some signs of intelligence. I'd given her a same piggy that I'd picked up from Sainsburys and passed on the uncley advice that if it has a curly tail, its a pig. Then her father came along and asked her where her pig was, so she presented the new pig, and when he asked about its curly tail she turned it round, to show off its curly tail.

Bless 'er , the wee soul.

Its a bit dricht out. I vaguely recognise the names of the stations the train passes, North Farmbridge, Woodham Ferriers. Its five years since I last took this train, since my brother's wedding and all that business in Romford.

If I move out of glasgow I'll have to fight the urge to review the highlights, gotta keep looking forward and fight the urge to ressurrect any passions of Scotland.

Plan for the day is to travel to Alperton, and go to the interview, then locate my car, find somewhere secure to leave it for the day, potter about, try to meet friends off of Facebook for coffee, relocate car, go to gig and drive home.

Simple.

2007-06-19T19:08:00.000Z

Music can make you do some weird things.

Keeping it 4 Real

2007-06-18T17:05:00.000Z

Eep, job interviews, loads of them.

Just when I'd planned my week's spending down to individual pennies.
Start car six times £0.33
Drive 7 miles £0.45
Make my own pack lunch rather than Greggs £3.24
Read Margrave of the Marshes rather than buying newspaper £0.00
Claim dinner from ex-wife to avoid buying own £0.00
Two for £2.50 pasta
Frozen pizzas found during de-frosting fridge £0.00
Pay phone bill £62.33

All that's gone to pot now. Now I'vew got to find out how much it costs to get a three piece suit dry cleaned, and investigate the tyre pressure of my car.

Where can I buy toy snakes suitable for 18 month old children?

2007-06-17T21:38:00.000Z

Fun and intrigue on Bowlie, going by the Current Active Users list, my money's on a bunch of London people. David Kitchen seems to be indulging in a bit of favourtism with

That the individuals were not banned outright is solely down to the fact that normally they are amongst those that contribute the most to the forum.

so I'm guessing its probably folk he's got personal thingies with or drinks with.

There ain't a tramp in Scotland who hasn't heard my rant about being banned from Bowlie and my subsequent attempts to get back. There just ain't any consistent policy on there, he's making it up as he goes along.

As previously covered on this very blog just here

Hey's announcement that half his buddies list are on probation neatly leads us to invoking Venn

However David's appearance in the comment to this post is neatly at odds with Robot Hero's assertion that moderators don't go looking for trouble.

2007-06-17T10:59:00.000Z

Just a couple of things:-

These music news links
here and here
The second link is about the chap who's office the Stone Roses poured paint over.

And for the wholesome blog entry experience, imagine the usual rant about how annoying the Photographer ex-girlfriend can be in her lack of depth of perception of some matters, and about how she has such a low opinion of my judgement on matter which I know more about.

Right I have gig reviews to write and links to inspire.

2007-06-15T18:02:00.001Z

Could this be the return of my gig review website?

2007-06-13T21:35:00.000Z

At last, my life has meaning, this is all you need

Try stories from MSN messenger #1

2007-06-11T22:28:00.000Z

Chris says:
on my way walking home from work, I had an imaginary conversation with a girl who used to sit in front of me on the school bus, we got on great
Chris says:
it was weird finding out how either of us had changed over the past ten years
a j smith says:
where is she now really?
Chris says:
London, and on my Facebook friends list

2007-06-10T10:46:00.000Z

Aw man, I so missed this yesterday. Paris Hilton been sent back to prison. Here's a video of some US news report.

The bigger this thing gets, the more of a mockery it makes of the US justice system. But its still kinda funny.

So yesterday, instead of been glued to the internet all day. I got up and wandered through Queen's Park, glorious weather out, so I called up Robski asking if we were goingt o be drinking in the park. After a coffee we headed to Parkick for the regular farmer's market, I had an ostrich burger, which was jolly nice. I always mean to buy like my regular meet from the farmers market, but chicken out after seeing the prices. The price shouldn't put me off.

In the afternoon, the ex-wife came over, we watched a few episodes of Doctor Who and had some stir-fly before heading out for another coffee.

She was getting all up tight about the internet. or at least googling her name leads people to my blog where's I'd made some, disparaging remarks about her *shrugs*. Alas even since I've changed it, the google cache version is still there, and I can't do anything about that. Luckily with statcounter, I can see who's visited my blog and if they got here from google, I can see what they were searching for, and well, in the entire history of this blog there's only been around five visitors who came searchuing for her name, of which at least one was her and maybe me too.

Now even if we wrote to google, asking them to delete the cache, there's still places like The Internet Archive, which may have copies of the page. Mountain-molehill.

She says that it damages her career, but I don't think she has much depth of perception as me about the internet. She has no career. There's almost nothing to show for her existance on google, and I reckon that's far more damaging to her career.

She says she doesn't want people searching for her name on google. Now that's a different issue, there are hundreds of millions of people out there surfing the internet, searching for whatever they like, and no one can stop them, all you can do is give them something nice to read, a bit of a candy-bar.

Actually, on rechecking google, none of my stuff is there, but she has left other bits of a silvery snail trail, here and here

We came out of the Co-Op, one of the Big Issue sellers was kicking a thei companion in the face, so we drifted down the street, I was heading to the Winchester Club, and the girl needed cigarettes. On the other side of the street another ex- was loitering, never the twain shall meet so headed our seperate ways.

The Winchester Club, I don't feel comfortable discussing, instead here are some pictures I drew in the comic book style

2007-06-09T15:05:00.000Z

I keep seeing people who look like dead friends from school. I'm on an anti-pub crawl. I'm about to go to the third pub, all evening I've been arranging to meet people who aren't there in pub. I stand around with a beer until messages come in from the next folks I should see, somewhere else.

I think I saw my former boos in the distance, the chap who made me redundant a month and six days ago. We waved recogition to each other, a street apart, well, I thought that's what the wave meant. I hope he wasn't waving me to wandre over for a chat, It's both a little too early in the eavenig and I'm a wee bit drunk and my life has fallen apart so much since.

I guess such situations are why my business career has fallen. We could have chatted, I'd mention I was looking for work away from Glasgow and he might suggest I call Brian Morris, who's setting up a House of Linn shop in Manchster and may need my skillz.

Its a warm day, bright outside and shadows are long. It reminds me of days I get dumped. The revider Kelvin smelled bad, the coffee room at work smelled of mice, and the surface is thin here, something will break or fall through.

2007-06-08T00:25:00.000Z

Unable to sleep

Racked with loneliness and depression

All thoughts of that which I've lost or pushed away

And even now can't grasp back, unwilling or unable.

Its been less than a week since I gave up going to gigs, I spend too much time online and not enough in the company of friends or even trying to do something constructive. Clicking refresh and adding links just ain't the same.

I need to get very drunk.

Keep waking up in a cold sweat, remembering phone numbers from work, and wee tasks I have to do. Then remembering how menial and insignificant it all is.

I thinks this is what being dead feels like.

2007-06-06T18:44:00.001Z

On a lighter note, here's progress on my latest knitting project

2007-06-06T18:08:00.000Z

Still in my job hunting rut, my current employment is so, depressing. I have nothing to do, I even cock things up on purpose so I can fix them to keep myself occupied, supervisors say they'll find me something to do, then go off and hide for a few hours. And all on the tax-payers tab.

In the evening's when I ought to be hunting those elusive jobs or at least trying to come up with something to do with my life, and avoid going to gigs (none since Saturday) I'm increasingly spending time on FaceBook. This is my profile page, but I doubt you can see it unless we've already clicked the 'Add to friends' button.

I'm slowly re-building the cliques and cirles I was in at school, such as The Duke of Edinburgh Award 1996 gang, and thems folk who I used to hang around in the Girl's Common room. One leading theme I have is not clicking the 'Add to friends' button for most ex-girlfriend, I think there are just two on my friendslist, and well, several 'buddies' of dubius repute.

Not that I can't track down any other ex-s I just have issues that I'm still playing over in my head. some are really annoying, some I still have feelings for which makes me run away and hide, and others I think I've burnt the bridges and salted the earth just a little too much of the past decade.

The main problem I have with the job hunting now, is that I've applied to all the other companies in the country that could do the same as what previously did, and now I'm thinking I don't have the skillz to do any other job in the world.

2007-06-05T22:05:00.000Z

I remember when this worked.

Gah, I ought to be filling in job applications and stuff, but instead I'm reading every single Dilbert strip and wishing I had my old job so I could empathsise more

2007-06-05T21:40:00.000Z

Well, here's my wee chart of the last twelve years of my love life. After conducting a small survey with ex-girlfriends and buddies of dubious repute, I've censored parts of it.

A brief guide is that it starts in 1995, names close to the left were proper relationships where both parties would claim to be boyfriendo/girlfriendo, names close to the right were just folk who I rather fancies and may have snogged when drunk, and then dreamed about for weeks afterwards, in possibly a creepy manner, heck sometimes there wasn't even any snogging.

Several names reoccur a few times, if I'd thought about it I would have had a further column for turf previously treaded, but I've already thought about it a little more than is really acceptable.

2007-06-04T22:04:00.000Z

I'm knackered, walked to and from work today, already I can feel the belly receding, but I ought to factor more carbohydrates into my diet. On other health matters I stopped off at the opticians for the first time in about ten years. My eyesight is about the same as last time. I think it was half a unit out either way last time and now its only a quarter of a unit out.

Last night I went out to see Pirates of the Caribean, it was kind of like a date with a friend of the ex-wife's. Cinema never a good choice for a date, no talking, and not enough getting to know. Due to geography, it probably won't pan out, despite my best efforts at addressing that limitation.

So at the Only One's gig I drew out a chart of my love life since it started, chronological order, with several columns, 'kind of seeing', 'fancy like crazy', and 'girlfriendo'. Seems to be just the last seven eyars that I've been recycling.

I saw Andy Sir in the street on Saturday, he was very hairy, but it reminded me of late nineties love, so I got onto Facebook, and started working back through my chart.

Terrifying stuff, to click the 'Add to friends' button or not.

I mean come on, how can people have no google results existance? How can people be so off the grid in this century, that the only reference to their existance is this blog and an ex-girlfriends thread on Bowlie?

So to click or not to click?

ooh, there's a 'poke' button.

2007-06-02T16:37:00.000Z

Could this be the end of my gig review site Last Night From Glasgow Indie Eyespy?

2007-06-02T11:33:00.001Z

Hmm, marginally concerned about whoever it is in London who checks my blog two or three times a day, usually in the middle of the night, but also at other times of the day which suggests they have no job and completely irregular sleep patterns. Its not healthy.

Can all the regular reads of this blog weigh in with comments, cheers

Also concerned about this story on the BBC, earlier on Friday it just said
The downloads cost $1.29 (99p) rather than $0.99 (79p).
But then it changed to
The downloads cost $1.29 (99p in the UK) rather than $0.99 (79p in the UK).
Kind of not highlighting that cos of exchange rates and stuff, us UKns are getting ripped off by about 30p per unit

2007-06-02T11:32:00.001Z

John Peel on This is Your life
part one
part two
part three

2007-06-01T06:57:00.000Z

Gah, what is wrong with me?

I couldn't sleep last night and fae my usual refuge of eating vast quantities of chocolate I can't cos I'm worry about the slight convex bulge my stomach is taking.

Its like I'm having some kind of break down, a long slow one, becoming unemployed, even though I have a full time job working with zombies, but the continual lack of responses to job application letters is getting me down so, even thoughI've only sent out a few, not the hundred I'd promised myself.

This going to gigs every night or so is so empty and vacuous, there's on one else out there, no one enjoying these things, just rooms full of empty people wishing it was different.

And the frequent trips to London, to try to stand anonymously in a room full of people to meet new people, even that's cocked up, there's something disconcerting about it. Some kind of lack of communication, well not really a lack, as there's was never any intention to communicate, just a choking and strangling sense of ought.

Maybe its still the crushing feeling of rejection, that even so it more self-inflicted, rather than being rejected, the other party just picks the other guy, then its mewho runs a miles and pulls down the shutters, closes up shop, blocks all previous media of communications.

There's three of me.
The man with the fixed smile at work, who sobs after each phonecall cos of the pressure and inability yo take people's names right.
The cynical student at gigs, trying to scribble a review into his notebook, but just moaning about how crap it is
The frothing at the mouth reeling and writhing man whose words your reading now, crying for help silently on a computer screen. With a faulty sense of cause and effect.

I don't know how much longer this can go on. The solutions so so simple, I just need to do it.

2007-05-31T16:52:00.000Z

Meh,

Someone do something with me this evening

2007-05-29T23:11:00.000Z

More from the hot chick - from that lipsyncing video the other day, I think she's called Amanda and she's kind of from this site

Hmm, actually I feel a little creepy about how easy it all is. Is the internet really like this that you can see a video one day and the next befriending them on half a dozen social networks.

Maybe I'm just jealous cos it never happens with me and my videos

2007-05-29T19:09:00.000Z

Plimptons QMU gig video with nekkitty

2007-05-28T23:33:00.000Z

Plimpies QMU gig photies here, with nekkitity

2007-05-28T11:24:00.000Z

Hmm, interesting, I just stuck a link in a MySpace comment, over at Atomic Beat Records, and MySpace converted it to something else, sending me to msplinks.com.

Turns out its a MySpace conspiracy to kill off the internet outside of MySpace, see here and here

It doesn't seem to be working right for my comment though, it just redirects to the MySpace homepage, rather than the gig review site.

See, this is the link
http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vbGFzdG5pZ2h0ZnJvbWdsYXNnb3dpbmRpZWV5ZXNweS5ibG9
nc3BvdC5jb20vMjAwNy8wNS9zdGFycy1vZi1hdmlhdGlvbi13aXRoLW93bHMtcG9ja2V0Ym9va3MuaHRtbA==
but it ought to send people to
http://lastnightfromglasgowindieeyespy.blogspot.com/2007/05/stars-of-aviation-with-
owls-pocketbooks.html

Links for Monday 28-May-2007

2007-05-28T00:06:00.000Z

Giant microbe cuddly toys - Indeed, ebola never seemed so cute

Poke the Penguin - Hours of fun for all the family

Flirting cards - if only I had these when I was courting

The greatest lip-syncing video ever - I see a whole new direction for my own stuff, now, finding cute girls and getting them to pretend to sing. The best bit is about 2:38, or possibly the cute girl who starts off.

2007-05-27T02:52:00.000Z

Photies from the Plimptons conquering trip to Liverpool here

2007-05-24T18:59:00.000Z

It was pointed out that I haven't met anyone "New" in years. I just hang about with the same "pool". And whilst the object of my affections and time changes, they tend to be from the same existing "pool".

I thought for a while my feelings just oscillated, I'm friends with "X" when I've fallen out with "Y". But its slightly more complex than that.

There's several players, maybe three, each at 120 degress out of sync. When I'm on really good terms with X, I've fallen out with X and I've started to mellow about Z.

Apart from the oscillations aren't of a constant period and the sliding out of or into favour aren't as smooth. More like a saw-tooth wave than a sine wave.

Can't go on for ever, mind.

2007-05-23T23:36:00.001Z

Feck!!, I've been mailing out my CVs with the wrong postage

cunting post office

2007-05-23T21:38:00.000Z

Pfft!!!

Road tax for my car this time round is £35

That's not a typo, that's thirty five pounds, God Bless my Smart Car

Alas, I have a parking fine of £60 as well

2007-05-21T22:28:00.000Z

I think it was yesterday when I was wondering about porn fetish websites and wondering how far the boundaries could be pushed. What I had in mind was skeleton fetishists, like folks shagging skeletons.

But now I think about it, there could be far more fun in constructing a matrix of all internet memotypes and firing off random porn snatches of each combination.

If our meme pool consists of:-
zombie
pirate
robot
ninja
skeleton
monkey
lesbian
cute animal

then we could have a
robot doing some cute animal from behind
lesbians and a monkey
a zombie having a cocksword fight with a pirate
etc
oh it would be so much fun and I'm bound to get on BoingBoing

Oh, the wonders of Facebook, its like the past seven years never happened

Zombie sub-species

2007-05-21T20:47:00.000Z

My theory about how zombies fall into three species who ought to be referred to as seperately as zombies, werewolves and vampires are:-

The Undead - can be stopped by a blow to the head, eat brains

The Diseased - die of hunger if you give them long enough

The Puppets - someone else controls them, stop them and you'll be fine

Of these three types, only the first can be considered supernatural, the rest are just no longer under their own control.

Admittedly confusion can occur in the Living Dead movies as the zombies are both undead, and carry the zombie disease (transmitted by biting) and in the third movie start to be controlled by mad scientists.

But in other cases like the 28 Days/Weeks Later series and The Omega Man, these folks are just diseased. They need to eat like any other living being, otherwise they die.

I think the Hammer classic Plague of Zombies uses zombies of the Puppet type.

2007-05-20T16:57:00.000Z

How can we be sure that Madeline McCann wasn't abducted by the US authorities and is now a victim of Extraordinary Rendition. Can we asked the US authorities to provide a list of all the people they've abducted recently, with their ages, names, where they were abducted from and where they are now?

Links for Saturday 19-May-2007

2007-05-19T13:25:00.000Z

Climate change - New Scientist weights in with a mega-article debunking the myths

Nobody Scores - New fave webcomic

Sandie Shaw doing Are You Ready to be Heartbroken - via the delightful Jenny Belle

No, wait, try this one - Nobody scores is so my favourite webcomic now

Pimp That Snack - Aw man, I'd so forgotten about this site, looks like its slowing down a bit since the frenzie of the other year, life's like that sometimes I guess

And finally, click this link to use your computer as a suicide bomb

Links for Friday 18-May-2007

2007-05-18T16:36:00.000Z

Forest of Black - Friendly video production company's website finally online with like all of their videos for Camera Obscura and Belle and Sebastian and the 1990s and so on

Links for Thursday 17-May-2007

2007-05-16T23:30:00.000Z

Fearless - The return of my old chum Fearless the hedgehog

Don't eat it Steve - bloke eats truly horrendous food and blogs about it

Aw man, this blog is getting so many hits from folk looking into the Linn Akurate CD, which has now been taken off the Linn website. I could start making up lies about fictional Linn Products and get bumped higher up the google search thing.

Instead here's a picture of my car's miles per gallon graphed as a bell curve

Compare and contrast with this graph from a few months ago. Still the same basic shape, but with more resolution.

2007-05-16T20:24:00.000Z

Wow, I'm temping, admin chappie in an office, well, reception, answering phones, leaving badly scrawled messages to folk. Reducing information transactions to the barest minimum. I am an IP packet router.

It was lunch time and it was raining. I just applied to another hi-fi firm, where the heck is Sussex?

That's six job apps so far, 94 to go, 3/50ths of the total. No replies yet, other than the job I'm at.

If the weather's up to it tomorrow I might walk in.

Having said that I'm exhausted, when I got home I slept until about nine. And now I'm bored and lonely. I guess it serves me right for blocking folk on MSN messenger. What happened to my plan to get new friends out there?

Right, time to start applying for the less likely jobs, now that I have the confidence to start at new places doing new things.

Crikey, I was answering phones today!! You should have seen me, it was great. Under pressure, I crumble to a quivering wreck, eyeballs millimeters from the pad scratching every detail of the call.

Fun and excitment over on Facebook as we try to figure out what happened to Big Phil. Is he likely to kill us for having forgotten about him for almost a decade? Or just a shade of sadness.

Some kind of Is This Music gig at 13th Note tomorrow, my first with any semblance of official-ness with gig reviewing.

Eep, I haven't been to any gigs for three days, I'm suffering withdrawl symptoms.

Links for Wednesday 16-May-2007

2007-05-15T21:33:00.000Z

Peugeot 207CC - Mind, I did go to the cinema yesterday for Spiderman 3 (on my own) and spotted one of the guys I used to work with in an advert for a Peugeot

Opposites - The last Hector Collectors video

Links for Tuesday 15-May-2007

2007-05-15T11:39:00.000Z

Akurate CD - Linn have launched the last CD player I worked on, Topica talk about it here

PAWN - I was looking for a web comic I remember, I think it was dieselsweeties where it was just two characters having a generic arguement where they sling stealthy retorts and witty asides at each other, but became engrossed in this instead

Miss the Occupier blog - damned MySpace cocking up html

Death Piglet - Yet another neat comic strip, piglets, killing things. Its kind of like Bunny, but with added evil

Rant on, rant off

2007-05-15T10:01:00.000Z

In the big orange Foundations of Psychology textbook I'd spent days reading when I was at school, there was this bit about some mental disorder which lead to people covering their houses with signs and placards, usually moaning about government conspiracies, or they'd wander the streets with similar signs and placards explaining all the worlds ills against them. Whilst some may be valid points, on the whole, the world doesn't care and these poor people ought to be treated or locked up, or otherwise disuaded from what they do.

Alas that was before the rise of the blog.

I've just spent about two hours pacing round my bedroom extolling all how the world has illed me, from being booted up the arse out of my job along with the casual throwaway, you had the highest IQ in the company, to the emotional turmoil last week, the inexplicable day trip to London and the sad realisation that many people I love are thoroughly unpleasant and vindictive, and, thanks to Adam, the ever growing list of people who use me as surrogate boyfriend in lieu of something better (why is that?). My response to Ad was that perhaps I should start beating up women, 'treat them mean to keep the keen' seems to work for other people.

Have now applied to five jobs, got one that starts tomorrow, only ninety five more to apply to.

Rather cocked up Miss The Occupier's blog by mistake during a fit of rage.

I'd been running through my head the conversation and arguement about the quality of my gig reviewing for a while now. Some of my reviews are really pants, and there's definitely more blog in the reviews than is necessary. But still I clutch onto the belief that any review of a gig is better than nowt. These people who take photies of the bands on stage, but the never do anything with the photies, or cameraphone videos where do they go? Why isn't the internet over flowing with poor quality unlistenable footage?

Why's it left to me? and when the hell can I get out of here? This is killing me.

2007-05-14T17:36:00.000Z

God damnit.

Some popup kept popping up prompting me to install a new version of Windows Media player and now its a lump of shit.

Windows Media Player 11

Can't figure out which track I'm currently listening to
Can't get rid of the album column on the tracks, nor change its width
Keep count how many tracks I have
Can't list my tracks properly
Lost count of how many times I'm listened to tracks
Can't figure out how long my porn videos are
Seems to have found loads of Nadia Spinks stuff I deleted ages ago
Keeps trying to play files that just aren't there.

Where's my old media player?

Links for Monday 14-May-2007

2007-05-14T11:52:00.000Z

Devient sex act fabricator - random sexual activities, god knows what it all means

NEDS - Oh, the irony, Marty Plimpton's stand up comedy partner becomes more of a musical success story than the Plimps

Links for Sunday 13-May-2007

2007-05-13T23:47:00.000Z

Amelia - I do love my neice

Links for Friday 11-May-2007

2007-05-11T10:14:00.000Z

Popurls - its like some kind of world domination checklist

Colbert - Crazy pensioner molests married man live on television

Kattparaden - Ethreal Swedish answer to Joanna Newsom, but less annoying

Pop gossip - but smarter than your usual celebrity goss.

Links for Thursday 10-May-2007

2007-05-10T09:35:00.000Z

Apple Design - neat article about the design thingi at Apple

Pregnancy DRM - can't even pass around baby photies these days

Insect verus dog - Gotta love Ugly Overload

Latest Model - I'd forgotten all about Fat Pie, how these things go

Links for Wednesday 9-May-2007

2007-05-09T09:11:00.000Z

Lolcats goes high brow - They're going to reach their goal of world domination with their calculators and their playstations

The Pookie - Rather neat anti-mine vehicles

Transformers - Photies from the set of the movie

Not safe for work - instruction-manual style sketchs of nekkit chicks

LiveJournal

2007-05-06T11:24:00.000Z

You pick yer plot and you build yer castle.

Over on my gig review website, there's some unhappy feedback from one of the acts the other day. Meaningless piffle.

It was 24hr Flickr day yesterday, sans camera I was just drawing pictures, which is a shame cos they're not allowed, and on re-readingt he rules, you can only submit one picture to the project. Fuck that shit.

I was in the 13th Note, Rowan's birthday, she's been going on about her LiveJournal thing for ages, and how I can't find it. I did set up my own LiveJournal account, many years ago, or possibly it was a DiaryLand thing. I have colonies all over the internet. In fact I set up another LiveJournal thing seven weeks ago, just here.

I have three friends, me, CY, and SingleFished. and by a process of elimation, I reckon Row is SingleFish.

Now, do I try befriending all my old internet chums on Livejournal, and possibly running the risk of forcing them to dig up old pages they'd long forgotten. Or do I just let my LiveJournal page slowly slip under the waters itself.

Links for Saturday 5-May-2007

2007-05-05T23:05:00.000Z

Spinal Tap reform - About time too, just before the end of the world

Free Comic book Day - Yeah, go to your nearest comicbook store, buy one comic and get a carrier bag full of them. I read comics, but I wouldn't say I'm a fanatic

2007-05-05T16:48:00.000Z

2007-05-04T21:46:00.000Z

Tonight Glasgow killed me.

I was at the 13th Note, supposed to be meeting friends. I'd been there earlier in the day, a long walk into town, a beer, Sounds of Sweden with the burgers and Plimptons on the juke box, the sun was shining and everything was fine. It was a long trek back home again, in the sunshine.

The SNP had conquered Scotland, and the Angelika Kluk thing had gone a bit Twin Peaksy as I fell asleep in front of the telly. Flatmate Alan came in and wouldn't stop talking, it was like that nightmare I had the other day, but this was real life. The soothing sounds of John Humphreys, downed out by Alan.

So I trekked back into town, to the 13th Note, bustling, full. Uncle Brendan over yonder and Fast in the toilets. The vibe was different, not so relaxed, my friends wren't there, and there was no response on the text messages.

I wandered to The Admiral, there'd been a plan to go to Kaput after the Note, but there it was empty save for random regulars, so I wandered again.

As I wandered all the memories came flooding back, from everywhere I passed, places I'd been with Jax, with Rachel, with Leanne, Allana, Faye, Lisa. Happy memories of happier times, sharply contrasting with the crippling loneliness of wandering alone.

I gotta get out of this city. Its not working for me, what ever happens with other people, its killing me.

**Update**
Aw fuck, wrong day

2007-05-03T23:36:00.000Z

Episode 19 of Twin Peaks, and I'm starting to feel weird about Sherilyn Fenn/Audrey Horne, her smile and eyebrows looks frighteningly familiar. Bring me a girl who looks like that.

Two inches of my bottle of pinot grigio drunk, no election results in yet.

Nightmare

2007-05-03T23:09:00.000Z

I had a nightmare this morning, the horror of which I'll try to describe. No zombies or vampires for me, no murder, blood, death or gore. Nope this was purely self-induced torture.

In my dream I was in two places, living at home with my parents, a window into their world, my mother, bless 'er, showing me things and demonstrating everything, her new laptop, her new camera, new pictures of my niece, all this banal and regular stuff, and I was supposed to be impressed and interested, I couldn't muster it.

I was in another place, the flat here in Glasgow, flatmate Alan had recieved a letter from my ex- Rachel, just a normal hey, how you doin' kind of letter, friends-like. He was reading it out aloud, and I could hear him. The jealously and bitterness and maybe even regret I was feeling was choking.

So I awoke in a cold sweat. 7am. Same time I used to wake up when I had to get up for work, but now no more.

So all day, I've been trying to find meaning, finding something to grasp hold of. Something to believe in.

A person?

On one of those high end audio messageboards they mentioned a company down in the south of England that might have an opening that appealed to me. I could stay with my brother whilst chasing it. But could I let go of everything up here?

Others have.

What would it be like in a new town where I don't know anyone, no chance of bumping into friends from university or ex-girlfriends in the street, or getting the call to go photoing. None of the baggage I have here. That terrifies me.

Well, not yet. There's still things I need to pursue here. To a bitter end or blissful sunshine.

Links for Thursday 3-May-2007

2007-05-03T10:22:00.000Z

Rate My Sexy MSP - Its elections day here in sunny scotland, so here, vote for the sexiest MSP, good showing on the female Tory field

Lazer Helmets - Neat advert for cycling helmets

2007-05-02T19:13:00.000Z

Today I was made redundant for the first time.

That Linn were restructuring and making people redundant was in the newspapers a fortnight ago, in The Herald, The Scotsman, The Daily Record, East Kilbride News, The Evening Times, no national papers or the BBC website. Over on the internet it was picked up by several Linn and and hi-fi websites, such as Topica, Vinyl Engine, Pink Fish, the amusingly titles "Sky is falling" thread at Selleri.de, the audio asylum board, and the Naim Forum. Not much of a Linn presence on the Blogosphere, but Listen Carefully has a rather balanced in-depth view. Closer to home it was even mentioned on Bowlie.

Whilst a lot of these sites were uncertain about the future of the company, its seems Linn has slashed the prices of some of their entry level systems, which has gone down okay with the hi-fi crowd, even though entry-level may be beneath them.

I'm going to miss working at Linn, I some good times there and good friends. In my spare time I manage bands, and whilst none of my bands have ever gotten onto the from cover of the NME, when the Unidisk got on the front cover of Hi-Fi World was amazing, likewise with the Majik System winning the EISA award for best product. That makes me part of the team who are the best in the world at what we do.

So, where now? Time to review my CV.
I'm the best Product Assurance End User Test Engineer in the world, I'm web2.0 literate, and I surf the Glasgow music scene like my skin was made of silver.

Gilmour out

Links for Tuesday 1-May-2007

2007-05-01T11:54:00.000Z

Strike the Colours - Jenny from Eva and Reeve is still kicking about, new album out in June

Cyanide and Happiness movies - Love the regular comic strip never realised there were movies too, alas the flash doesnae work on my machine, maybe on yours

The Scottish Idlers Guild - Via muddling through Scottish Blogs and stuff, this looks fun

Rainy Bay Art - Taking Etch-a-sketch to the next level

2007-05-01T00:23:00.000Z

Just discovered The Parsonage's myspace page, went to school with one of them, worked with one of them and went out with someone with the same name as one of them

2007-04-30T23:14:00.001Z

HSBC charges

2007-04-30T11:22:00.000Z

I've got a bit of time on my hands now, so I'm going through old bank statements, tracking down all the charges the HSBC bank have slung on me over the years.

They've recently renamed the penalty charges for going over your over draft limit, they are now referred to as their "Fair Fees" policy. Calling them fair, doesn't make them so, in fact, it doesn't stand up in court, they are unfair and disproportionate, no matter what they call them.

Their letter explaining the Fair Fees Policy, doesn't actually say what the fees are, but does have a redirect to www.hsbc.co.uk/personal/current-accounts for more details. Alas, this page doesn't have any more details about the fees, but since they've cynically got me on their website with a duff link, I tried searching for 'Fair Fees' and landed at this page, grabbed below.

Sadly, still not very helpful, explaining what the fees are not.
More clicking ensures through here, and we discover rather neatly that the fees are on PDF documents, so you can't search them, and half the links on that page just through up gobbledigook, I didn't realise that you could break PDF files.

Hmm, £25 apparently, but they seem to have charged me it twice. Cunts.

I noticed this bit too

If I needed extra copies of my statement they charge £1 a page, yet for some reason they insist on sending me blank addition pages of my statement every month.

2007-04-28T23:22:00.001Z

happy but wet, originally uploaded by idleberry.

2007-04-26T21:53:00.000Z

2007-04-26T09:09:00.000Z

I no sure when they did this but here's a newish page on Plimptoweb with lyrics to many of ther songs, although not quite all. Some quality stuff there.

Got new phonecall from the bank, Cherry called, need to sign another form cos no one at their branch knows the right process for this sort of thing. Cue lots of pacing around muttering "Cretins"

Eep, they have the new Linn website up and running and open for business. Looks pretty neat. I'm going to have to put together a list of link to products what I worked on for showing off purposes.

Cinema last night, Fracture, a carefully planned and intricate film. In real life nothingcan be planned to such a fine level, things never work out, you can't predict people's actions so finely. All you can do is hold on as tightly as you can and pray that it all works out.

We find out on Friday, what ever way it goes I'm going to use it as an excuse to lose my head. Cos that's what I do, untie cause and effect. Clutching at invisible strings, tied to nothing. A deep breath, fingers crossed, and I hope this works...

Its like when you toss a coin, you know its got a fifty percent chance of landing on heads and fifty percent chance of landing on tails, but that doesn't actually help you to plan which side it lands on and it completely ignores the chance of it landing on its side, or rolling under a cabinet, or getting caught midflight by someone who happened to be at the right place at the right to to end up with your coin, leaving you with nothing but a cynical and jaundiced view of the world.

30% Heads
28% tails
15% coin landing on the floor
14% coin is stolen
10% coin lands 'wrong' way up and experiment is abandoned
3% made redundant who gives a crap about heads or tails.

2007-04-25T09:05:00.000Z

Sainsburys
Tesco
Somerfield
Morrisons
Safeways
Co-Op
Presto
Gateway
Adsa
Lidl
Kwiksave

Contraversial, I know, but what you've just read is a list of supermarkets in order of either how posh to scummy or hott to ugly customers.

Notwithstanding scummy being the opposite of posh, or hott being the opposite of ugly, cos like you know sometimes really ugly people are strangely attractive.

Does Marks & Sparks count as a supermarket? and how many of thems no longer exist?