soundtrack by Payney

hi there

well, something of an unusual day today vibe-wise, look you see, but a very happy use of the world unusual. the soundtrack for my travels on the bus, or if you like dans le bus, came in the form of two albums my - and yes i am contractually obliged to call him this - good friend John got me for Christmas. nice one, man.

what albums were they that he got me? two that i had no idea at all what they were before i played them. had not heard of the artists involved or, perhaps consequentially, the albums themselves. still, if he who is best known around the globe as Payney reckoned that i would like them, that was good enough for me, so it was with some excitement that i got them ready to play on the pod of i today.

speaking of excitement, i dare say one or two of you would like to see a picture of me with the near-mythical, almost legendary Payney. well, you probably want to see a picture of him, at the least, and can push yourself to tolerating me being present in it. 

yeah. i do indeed have my Eat Sleep Rave Repeat t-shirt on, as you are aware this is now my way of life and so i wear it to all important events. why do i have only a short sleeved t-shirt on during a very English winter? well, we were in John's house, and his sexuality is of such a magnitude that it always makes everything hot.

on to the albums, then. i started my day off listening to On And On by Syd Arthur, which is the one below with the somewhat less controversial cover.

what's it like? very smart, as it happens. the best way i can describe it is as being a sort of 60s style psychedelic folk vibe blended to perfection with the finer moments from a journey into jazz.

any particular highlights, you ask? in truth the whole thing flowed really, really well. at times it reminded me of Forever Changes by Love, although i am not going to sit here and say it's quite as good as that legendary album. the band certainly has the potential to be, and they are on the right track.

on the bus home this evening, then, it was time for the one with the somewhat more interesting cover art. i suspect that Payney bought me the CD on the basis of the cover alone, and cared not for what the music on the album sounded like.

as it turns out, it sounds pretty good indeed. Endless Flowers, it's called, by an outfit called Crocodiles.

some of you may well have worked this out from the cover and the name of the album, but if not the sound of the album is very much what one would call trippy hippy flower power stuff. not a bad thing to have a listen to every now and then.

actually, it's perhaps a little bit more of an ambitious album than i might have led you to believe. there's a certain psychedelic element to it too, for sure, and it has a cheeky borrow of some of the more ear pleasing moments of, oddly, the long forgotten industrial movement of the 90s.

i really like the vocalist too. not sure if that's him on the cover.

both albums shall certainly get played again, which i suppose is as conclusive a review as i can give!

many thanks for the vibes, then, John! i trust you have got equal or greater enjoyment from yours!




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jolly journalism

hi there

those of you who were hoping for a better, more mature and sophisticated post to follow up from my last one are likely to be disappointed, look you see. although i suppose it does hit, by accident, on some serious stuff.

with it being so close to Christmas and that i decided, dear reader, to treat myself to a copy of that ace newspaper the Sunday Sport. it's a newspaper which boldly and bravely tackles the stories other newspapers seem reluctant to touch. like, for instance, this one.

yes, the other, perhaps lesser, newspapers have made mention of this film The Interview and all the fuss around it, but few have dared look at the further consequences. it's all very well giving publicity to the fact that Sony has been hacked, and of course that George Clooney has been allowed to be even more smug than usual, but the other victims - the far more innocent ones - tend not to get their story told.

why exactly North Korea has targeted a retired florist in, of all places, Brighton, is somewhat beyond me, but that is what the country has done, according to this newspaper article.

i know everyone is all worried about the fact that North Korea has apparently humiliated Sony by pirating some of their films on the internet and releasing some insightful emails (apparently James Bond will catch the baddies in the next film, and the pampered daughter of a Hollywood legend, that Angelina thingie, turns out to be demanding and pushy), but this is a much bigger concern. i mean, if some poor retired florist can find pictures that he would obviously have no interest at all in are planted on his computer, who is next?

i imagine that, mostly, this story will make a lot of things make a lot of sense to many people. now that they think on, there are people out there who will find some peace in the fact that any and all obscene or dubious images which happen to be on their computer - now or at some stage over the last 18 years - were probably put there by North Korea. Gary Glitter, for instance, is likely to be exonerated, and the BBC can go back to showing his class TV performances.

it's not just retired florists in Brighton who are suffering the torment of North Korean hackers targeting them. Spiros has been a victim for years. Several memberships to Turkish Baths and gymnasiums around the world have been registered in his name - clearly the North Koreans have decided to undermine him somewhat by getting hold of his credit cards and signing him up for them. that probably explains several magazines he is a regular subscriber to, too, and the contents of about five external hard drives he has. poor Spiros. i am sure they shall continue to target him for quite some time.

speaking of Spiros, i am putting this next story here only because it is the sort of thing, from his halcyon days as a special sauce chef, that interests him. any amusement i find in the story is incidental.

i quite like how the chap in question has, apparently, no qualms at all about his picture appearing with this story. and now, also, we know what Spiros is having for Christmas dinner.

sorry, will try and do a proper post here eventually.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas, Mr Lomax

hi there

i am still not 100% sure who or what a Jack Tweed is, look you see. i am fairly sure he is someone who is famous for being married to someone that no one liked until they were dead, and then everyone agreed that they all really did in fact like her.

why am i troubling myself with him, whoever he is, then? because he featured - on page three no less - of a newspaper i was handed today. here, here you go, have a look.

it seems that he is really rather keen to go back to that prison place where he has been before. oh dear.

this, somewhat obviously perhaps, brought to mind for me the last time i read a newspaper and it featured the story of this bloke going off to prison. for that you will have to go back to September 2009, which you can do by clicking this link. if you are interested.

yes, that's right, if you clicked that link, you will have been whisked away to the world of Al "Randy" Lomax, who was very eager indeed to make friends with the incarcerated Mr Tweed.

as that article from 2009 says, with a wording that is rather more direct than it is, say, articulate, it is highly unlikely that Mr Lomax will ever be a free man.

i can only assume, then, that this Tweed fellow will be, in a very real sense, reunited with a former cellmate, or if you like sparring partner.

i am guessing that this is a set of events, if not circumstances, which shall make Spiros very happy indeed. Spiros, as you might expect, is fascinated with the story of Al Lomax; fascinated perhaps to the point of obsession. whilst the new news article about this Tweed bloke makes no reference to him meeting Lomax in prison again, it will be exactly what Spiros will have thought of - perhaps hoped for - when he saw it.

i am pretty sure many of you would like to see Al Lomax once more but really are not of a mind to click on that link, so here you go, i have put that original article here for you again.

yes, i would agree with you that this is not at all the most Christmas like thing i could be posting this late into December, but i don't control the news.

best of luck, if required or appropriate, Mr Tweed. i a sure Randy Al will be thrilled to see you once more, assuming you manage to secure a booking at the same prison.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

new mug from my deathbed

hello there

well, so long as this ends in a relatively cohesive way and not abruptly, i am not quite dead, then. this man flu thing is certainly taking its toll, however, and i do expect my demise to be at some point in the future, rather than the past, look you see.

it could well, dear reader, be the case that my imminent demise is still far off. there are a few signs to this extent. firstly, and of great importance, is that i seem able and adept to rather enjoy a cigarette once more. another is that i have a most splendid new mug from which to quaff beverages.

yes indeed, it's a mug that carries upon it images of one of my all time favourite bands of all time, the much magnificent One Direction. which is my favourite 1Der? it has to be Harry, for he was kind enough to write his name clearly on the mug. I can't read the others. I think one starts with a J, one with an N and maybe one of them has a L. if there is a fifth member of the band, i have no idea what letter he thinks he starts his name with.

favourite One D song? tough call, really, as obviously i go right ahead and do a lot of girlie, nancy boys screaming and squelching whenever they are on the radio and someone alerts me to the fact that it is my top, top band on. that one they do where they say how happy they are they know that girl is quite smart.

is it not, you ask, the case that i purchased this mug because it was cheap? no. i am not so fancy, so la-de-dah and bourgeois that i view £1 as cheap or an amount easily thrown away on a mug. this purchase is a sign of my long term commitment to the excellence of the band McBusted.

the sense of imminent death from manflu, a disease which is pretty much like being hit on the head with a hammer what has got ebola sellotaped or welded to it, is no doubt accentuated - or if you like enhanced - by the dark days we have right now. here i am at about 7:20am this morning.

it stayed dark until sometime after 9am, went all slightly grey for a moment, and the world returned to darkness at around 2pm. terribly depressing, English winters without snow are, always were and always shall be. but we get on with it, look you see.

actually, looking a the above, excusing that yes i am no pretty picture to behold i am thinking that i should also get a smart One Direction beanie to wear on my travels. i would look smart with one, i believe. i shall, if time permits, browse the relevant retailers tomorrow and see if i can't arrange to get one.

meanwhile, if you are wondering how i am for keyrings at the moment, the answer is very well indeed, thank you. here are some that the boys made for me.

well, i suppose it is the truth to say that they made them for my (considerably) better half and i. but you know what i mean, surely. self-portraits them pictures are, and it shows that they are far, far better at drawing than me. nice one.

back to the mug, then, to finish off. i know a few of you will be getting excited about the idea of me having a new mug at verk, hoping for a return to posts rather like this one and this one and this one and of course this one, but alas no. things are somewhat more restrained here in the workplace. but it was nice having a look at those posts again, some very fond and happy memories.

but now, of course, it is time for me to forge new memories with my new mug.

what have i used the mug for thus far? i had one of them hot lemon things earlier, and then i washed it out a bit and made one of those horrid, if not rancid, Nestle 3 in one coffee tube things in it. here, hang on, let me see if i can get a picture off of one of them.

that's the stuff, bloody horrible it is; sh!t even. that you get seven (7) of them for £1 probably tells you all you need to know of the quality of coffee, sugar and powdered milk in it.

but then yeah, drinking it from my smart new 1D mug did make it all seem to taste better.

anyway, i am off to do one of them hot lemon things or something.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

still ill

hi there

nothing of consequence, look you see, just checking in to say that this worse than ebola manflu is still taking its toll on me. not getting to take a break or rest is probably not helping my recovery from this usually fatal disease.

just how bad is it? well, when i woke this morning i had no interest at all in having a cigarette, a feeling that carried on for some considerable time. despite my best efforts to have one or two this evening, it remains the case that i still have no interest in one.

no doubt you would like a picture to illustrate my plight, so here you go.

it is my most earnest, sincere and dearest hope that you, dear reader, whoever or wherever you are, be in considerably better health and of finer feeing than i am.

thank you for your good wishes if indeed you are transmitting them to me. if you are expressing the hope that i get even worse, well, fair do's, i can handle it and indeed understand such a wish.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

does the Disney Infinity 1.0 original game disc work with the 2.0 base on an Xbox 360?

hi there

a strange title for a post, granted. it is a question, however, that i am sure i am far from alone in asking of the world via the internet. oddly, i had found no clear cut answer to it. therefore, i spent and i experimented to find the answer for myself and have decided to share my findings.

the answer is yes, yes it does. if you purchase the Infinity 2.0 starter set for the Xbox 360, with Iron Man and all that in it, you can use the original game disc from Infinity 1.0 and still play the Pirates Of The Caribbean, Incredibles and Monsters Inc games off of them. so long as you have the characters and the game piece.

if you don't have the disc then no, you cannot play the games with the characters and 2.0 disc.

i figured that this would be the case as the base was just basic hardware, but it was baffling that no one could give me that straightforward an answer across the internet.

i would imagine, of course, that Disney quite like the idea of people buying a new base for 2.0. which, in fairness, they have to, since 1.0 owners cannot, at this stage, buy the 2.0 software alone. from my side, i bought the 2.0 starter set, found the 1.0 software pre-owned at Game and then found the figures from that starter set over on ebay, or if you like the bay of e, look you see.

right, with that out of the way, some random things.

well, almost out of the way - hope the above information has helped someone or other know what they need to know!

this is a guitar, ladies and gents. what is? that picture to the side. it is a guitar, i am reliably informed, that was brought onboard a vehicle of public transport by a student. a student that was also carrying a laptop bag and one of them big massive backpack things.

it seems that these days students are obliged to carry a combination of laptop, big massive backpack and large musical instrument with them whenever they board a vehicle purpose designed and built for public transport.

i don't get it, really i don't. for what reason is it that they need to take all three with them all the time? can they not be computer people or musical people? and do they have to do both every single day at whatever educational facility it is they are attending? as far as i am aware, most successful musicians did not go to music school to be that; they rather went off and did gigs and rehearsals and all of that sort of thing.

anyway, coffee. i bought a tin of some coffee i had not tried before, and to date have still not tried. here is a picture of it for you.

why did i buy it? as i think you can see, the tin it is in is shiny. i like shiny things, shiny things make everything all better. also, it was on special. i think it was, at least. i mean, i have no idea what it usually costs, so am not at all sure that the price i paid for it did in fact represent a decent deal.

what did i pay for it? can't remember, and the receipt is probably in the bin.

anyway, that will do for now.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cards, lizard and vader

hi there

nothing much really, except to say i have a really sore back, look you see. also, i have some pictures here so i thought i would shove them in a post for your passing interest.

first up, Christmas cards, or if you like, cards of Christmas. a lot of them, in truth, and more of them just keep coming. this is excellent stuff.

we have, we think, received more cards this year than in the entirety of the last 10 or so years combined. aaaah. a lot of this is, of course, due to the high number of school friends the boys have. also, however, Christmas cards weren't really a "thing" in Africa. some sent, but not as many as did and do in England.

it helps, of course, in sending and receiving Christmas cards when you have a mostly reliably postal service.

closely related to the above is an arbitrary pic of a lizard that i was recently forwarded. 

if you are wondering if this is being posted for some covert, hidden and indeed secret message purpose, the answer is yes, of course. response was sent in an entirely different way, this is just a way of in secret saying that the message landed and that all happened. it's just too much of a class picture of a lizard, arbitrary or otherwise, not to share here.

meanwhile, over at Disney the drive to recoup their spends on Star Wars continues with this perfectly natural bringing together of Darth Vader, shower gel, a sponge and a keyring.

it's the keyring that throws me a bit, really. what place does a keyring normally have in association with quality branded shower accessories? i mean, am i missing something?

actually quality is a bit misleading there - the sponge is basically knacked after one rudimentary, indeed conventional, use.

right, that will do, i need to prepare, or if you like prep, for the week ahead.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

books from bus time

hi there

ok so i have not been quite killed by this uber-ebola strength variant of manflu. not, at the least, look you see, yet. i fully anticipate it to, and indeed you are welcome to run around telling all who might have the most passing of interest that i told you so, for i will be unable to do so.

onwards, then, to three more books that i have read whilst on, or if pedantic ways are your persuasion yes in, the bus. these were to be the last three of this calendar, if not quite academic, year, but it turns out that they shall not be.

what or which three? well, the first was i think hinted at in several ways by the last set of reviews i did, but here we go.

short, spoiler-free review of them? all the novels you see above were really rather good - yes, the one in the middle too. surprisingly so, perhaps, but if you wish to learn more then do read on.

links, as ever, are for ease of reference alone and are not in any way an endorsement or shared with you for any sort of commercial purpose. just trying to make it easy for you if you wish to buy them without leaving your computer, phone, or whatever device you are reading this on. and thanks for reading.

i picked up The Spy Who Came For Christmas earlier in the year - July sounds familiar, but it could have been August or June -  and had an inkling that it might be reserved for reading until a season popped along that felt suitable for the title. well, it is close to Christmas, so there we have it.

plot? a very deep under cover agent type of spy dude faces a moral dilemma, breaks cover, crash lands into a family house whilst being chased by those that caused him to have the moral dilemma thing. he, for the most part, discusses who the three wise men, or kings or whatever, out of that story people tell at this time of year might have actually been.

it's very good. also, it is very short. it is one of them "novella" things as they were once called, but i am not sure the phrase is terribly popular or widely used anymore. but hey, if you judge a novel by its length you are heading for trouble. if you applied the same criteria to music, and i think i have done this here before, the one and only album Jedward were allowed to release was almost twice as long as the majority of Beatles albums. does that mean that Jedward are twice as good as the Beatles - even allowing for the Ringo factor?

i was, by this novel, mostly reminded of how good David Morrell is. i read the original novel of First Blood some 30 years ago and can still quite easily recall some of the rich descriptions and passages in it. i believe i should have a gander at his other works, too, and read some.

onwards, then, to Spa Wars, which might not seem like a natural choice of novel for me. that is because it isn't, but a friend thought i might quite like it. they turned out to be correct.

plot? goodness me, i am not sure i can do this. some sort of apparently blonde lady allegedly devoid of intelligence and  famous only for being in one of them reality show things off the television stumbles into a beauty spa when she has an emergency situation with one of her nails - something to do with acrylics and a chip, forgive me for not knowing the specifics. a friendship forms, or does it?

i was kind of expecting this to be easily dismissed trash, and i anticipated not reading anything of it beyond the first couple of chapters. it turned out, however, to be jolly good fun, entertaining and - above all - exceptionally well written. if you slapped the name, for example, Ben Elton on this, or some sort of Amis, it would be hailed as a "great post-modernist challenge to 21st Century culture". instead, however, it has the name of a lady called Chris shoved on it and this it gets a nice, sparkly, glitter loaded cover featuring a fancy model with one of them hairdryer things.

good fun, Spa Wars was, and i would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone. in a worst case, the elitist and the aloof could read it, thoroughly enjoy it and then be dismissive of it so they could look all big and clever and impress people.

and finally, then, something called The Watchman, which i believe is volume X in a series of Y novels, which i loathe the concept of, but all the same i managed to read it and not have too many references to other novels fly over my head.

plot? some ex-copper gets in to bodyguard a witness to a car crash. the witness is busy being tried to be made dead by possibly known but also perhaps unknown people who are not at all happy that she witnessed the car crash. guns, bullets, chasing, hiding, evading authorities, intrigue, twists, etc, follow.

i have, over the last ten or so novels, got quite tired of certain formula-esque, by the numbers premises and turns in novels. so if i say from that perspective the premise of this novel, and the way that it all goes, was really very good indeed maybe that means something. or maybe not. all i know for certain is that this was a really enjoyable read - sure, some elements of "super bodyguard" were quite "out there" in terms of being fine to digest, but it makes no claim of being "authentic and like, something that could totally really happen". as with the other two novels, i would not have any issue or quarrel at all with reading further works by this writer.

so there you go, three novels which - despite any ideas i had beforehand - kept me thoroughly entertained on the bus. read any or all of them without fear or hesitation, then.

back of the books? sure, why not. 

we have, dear reader, very few working days of the year left. for that reason, i was going to leave books alone for the remainder of it, and just listen to the pod of i or something.

however, some business took me past HMV for the third time this week, and HMV waved the following at me for a price that said "it does not matter that you have 2 or 3 copies of it, look at it, it has a different cover from all your other copies and go on, read it again".

it is not really Christmas reading as such. it's also not really all that pleasant reading. it is, however, quite brilliant; it being from a time when the author still gave a damn about what his name appeared on.

i shall read it, then, on the remaining journeys ahead of me for the year. will i post a review? i am pretty sure at a push i could do that for you now, really, so perhaps not. in short, it is far from being for everyone's tastes.

whatever you are reading, happy reading!




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a gift from Spiros

hi there

yeah, i know, scary - nearly a week, look you see, without any reference to Spiros here, or the Spiros if you prefer to call him that. actually it might be even longer than a week since i mentioned him. i am not checking; you are very welcome to.

curious, if not bad, postal services seem to follow me, alas. the plight of the South African Post Office, where staff are for some reason expected to work for the money they get paid and thus get upset and strike, has been well documented here and elsewhere. Royal Mail, who i have spent nearly a year singing the praises of, seem to have noticed this and adopted it as part of the "new way".

no, they are not on strike as such. more of a "go slow". 1st Class mail, which was once next day delivery, is currently 2 (or so) days; 2nd Class mail, which was normally 2 but could be 3 days, is now a minimum of 4 days. they will no doubt blame it nearly being Christmas for this; always naughty of Christmas to sneak up on them and take them by surprise instead of being a fixed element of the calendar every single f*****g year.

i know the above because my mail has become all delayed, as was the case with this rather fine item received, somewhat late, off of Spiros.

 yes, indeed Spiros has sent me a voucher off of them at Sainsburys, the shop i believe he has made his top choice of proprietor. i think this came about after he got banned off of Asda after an incident with lager or something like that.

this could, by the way, be my final blog post, dear readers. yes, both of you. i am suffering with a cold, or if you like 'manflu', and am composing this pretty much from my death bed. how ill am i? in my imagination it is a combination of swine flu, bird flu, pneumonia, ebola, something what the Americans are going to make up as a chemical weapon and use it as an excuse to go to war with someone in the next ten years, duck flu and scurvy. it's pretty bad. but never mind, if this is a final post, what a one to bow out on!

yeah, many of you will have seen the value of the voucher off of Spiros for Sainsburys already, but here is a close up.

indeed, 1p. even (delayed) second class, it cost him some 1000%, give or take, more to post it to me than it is worth, which in fairness is a magisterial celebration and valuation of our friendship that he would undertake such a thing for me.

will i be using the voucher? alas, no. i am unaware of a Sainsburys anywhere near me, and from what i recall of the place it is rather too feminine, delicate and fancy for my tastes. but, as i said, the thought, indeed the gesture, is very much appreciated. nice one Spiros, cheers man.

i don't think it is too clear on these pictures, but the expiry date for this voucher just so happens to be 21st of December. that is, as many of you will agree, one of the best dates on the calendar itself - top 3%, easy.

anyway, back to my death bed i go, dear reader.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the things you miss

hello there

there was a sense of joy and nostalgia as i went around a spot of business earlier today. this does, you are right to say, happen a lot to me, look you see. it does not, however, frequently involve a magazine as such.

today it did, for this week - quite possibly Tuesday, if my memory serves correct and things have not changed all that much - this edition was published and offered for sale.

yes, the whopper double edition of the Radio Times is what excited me, ladies and gents.

is that all, you ask? well, yeah. try, if you will, going some 20 years without it. i did so without a thought, in truth, but seeing it once again brought back some very happy memories.

it will be difficult for the kids of today to do, but if you will remember or imagine a time when films were released on video 3 (three) years after their cinema run. a time when you didn't really own loads of films at home. a time when it cost, if you were fortunate,  £2 to rent a video for the night. and, indeed, a time when one had only 4 (four) TV channels to choose from. the big Christmas line-up was, then something to get all excited about.

i remember rushing in from school on a Tuesday to read the Radio Times, and indeed the TV Times, to see which channel had the best selection of movies on. now, of course, anyone in England can watch any movie they want any time they like. this isn't a bad thing, far from it - it's what we dreamed of being possible.

highlights this year? The Dark Knight and The Avengers (decent one with Hulk and that) in regards of films, but the best of the best of the best is easily a 32 year old show being repeated.

yeah, the quality is not so good on that picture. you can, however, i think make out that i am speaking of Chas & Dave's Knees Up!, a celebrated and somewhat seminal slice of cockney culture. as well as Chas and Dave, you get Jimmy Crickett, that Eric Clapton bloke and none other than Jim Davidson.

let that line up sink in. and then have a look at this slightly clearer image of the above.

i have only flicked through the magazine thus far but have noticed that something called Channel 5, which is showing this celebration of Chas N Dave, has a noticeably large amount of content featuring Jim Davidson scheduled for broadcast. i seem to recall seeing the proprietor of Channel 5, a renowned if not formidable pornographer of note, is rather good friends with Jim. lucky man.

anyway, off i go to read the magazine in full, then. there i shall, no doubt, discover a number of shows that certain people in New Zealand (hello, Dad) will want taping.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

on Marlboro gold touch

hi there

for some reason my posts on the subject of Marlboro get an awful lot of reading figures. if that's what you want kids, that's what you will get, look you see. do Marlboro pay or endorse me to do this? ha, i wish!! sadly not, i am merely a consumer that keeps bankrolling their extravagant lives.

in the shop earlier today the shop did not have my usual choice of cheapest available cigarette, the Carlton brand. they also did not have the next cheapest, which would be them Player's things as preferred, if not favoured, by salty sea dog sailors.

the chap in front of me, someone of such young looks they were required to show proof of age before being allowed to buy, requested a packet of something called Marlboro Gold Touch. i observed them, or rather observed the price. at £6.99 they were some 30% cheaper than my much missed Marlboro red. so i got a packet of them to see.

yeah, as it happens, via the immense kindness of a very good friend, i am indeed in the possession of some of the aforementioned beloved Marlboro red, so we can do a comparison if you like. and as you can see in this comparison, the Gold Touch things are clearly much, much smaller than the standard pack.

i did, as point of fact, assume that i had paid a high price for 10 cigarettes at first, but oh no, there are 20 of them in the packet. 20 smaller than usual cigarettes, as we shall see just now. in the mean time, here's another of them size comparison pictures for you if, for some reason, you wished to see confirmation of the smaller size.

if you didn't want to see further comparison or some sort of confirmation then please disregard the above picture.

how are the Marlboro Gold? they are very, very nice indeed. something of a love affair was rekindled when i had one earlier today, dear reader. smaller, oddly named Marlboro remain Marlboro after all, the finest there is in the world of the cigarette.

here i am trying one of them. yes, that's one of them pullover sort of tank top jumpers i have on over my smart new lilac shirt. whereas it is cold enough to warrant such an un-Yorkshire garment, it was not worn for reasons of cold.

i had an incident this morning, dear reader, in which i did so deftly and precisely spill coffee all the way down the front of my shirt. i popped into that Sports Direct shop, then, owned by that self-proclaimed "Geordie Messiah" and de facto head of the 'Cockney Mafia', to purchase this jumper thing to hide my indiscretion. worked a treat, too, except that i kept lifting up the jumper to show people the class stain.

smoking, let us be clear, is a pretty dumb and stupid thing to do. this post, and ones like it i do, are not meant to in any way make it seem like a cool or attractive thing to do, even if i do happen to look particularly stylish and sophisticated in this picture. the purpose of this post, and others like it, is to share some information with my fellow wounded animals that happen to quite like smoking. we are a dying breed, unlike all them immortal non-smokers, and so i feel it is of some passing benefit to share my findings.

that said, would i purchase Gold Leaf again? possibly not, and that would purely be from an economics perspective. i may well, once a week or so, get a pack, but they will not be a regular choice. sensibly priced Marlboro Red would be first prize, or a source of income that let me get them at the exorbitant tax rate placed on them to fund whatever the hell it is David Cameron does with the money; batter ducks or something.

second prize would be a return of Marlboro Bright Leaf, which were pretty smart and very nicely priced. not sure why they vanished. the trick is, i suppose, is that Marlboro do not do cheap.

here's that cigarette size comparison thing i mentioned. as you can see, the Gold Touch is some 50% to 75% the width of a Marlboro Red, no i am not getting a ruler, protractor or any other such stuff out to check.

to repeat, then - smoking is very silly and not something you should do. if you do do that, though, then here for what it is worth has been my thoughts on the subject of this Gold Touch business.

enjoy if you do, appreciate the health if you don't.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

day of release / HMV redeemed

hi there

well, my falling out with HMV lasted, oh, two weeks, give or take. well a smart CD was released today, and i wished - or at least felt compelled - to buy it. so off i went today, look you see.

yes, Band Aid 30. i appreciate that it features a whole load of artists that no one cares of along with Bono. i appreciate that it features horrid lyrics which are patronizing at best. i don't doubt that some if not all of the money will be squandered, or if you prefer wasted, in a way that gives no help at all. i am just of a generation of when music still mattered, you see, and it felt like it could actually change things.

if this was purchased out of a misguided sense of loyalty or nostalgia, so be it.

meanwhile, some of you will have spotted something else lurking in the background. yes, horror shock, a decent deal at HMV was to be had, and thus i had it.

i have been humming and ha-ing about the blu-ray edition of the Mad Max trilogy for quite some time. i mean, i love the films - who does not? it's just that these discs are bereft of extras, when extra things are known to exist - deleted scenes from the last two, production documentaries from the first. plus, i already have the one i really love, Mad Max 2, on blu-ray.

it turned out that a £9.99 price tag and it being right there in front of me was quite enough to bring an abrupt end to my hums and ha's on the subject of potential ownership.

the cover you see there is quite correct, for this is a "collection" rather than a "box set", for it is simply the three separate discs shoved in a rudimentary cardboard box.

it's quite funny how here Mad Max 2 is called The Road Warrior on the box. why is it funny? because this optical disc is the only version of the film you can obtain which features the film both uncut and with the correct Mad Max 2 title on it. the DVD and post-1984 videotapes of the film feature Mad Max 2 on the box, but Road Warrior on the credits and a cut to ribbons version of the film.

more of the details about that can be found on what is to date the most popular blog post what i have ever done, with nearly 9000 separate readings of it.

Christmas trees? well, if you want to see, sure. here's a highlight, detail or if you will fragment of ours, that the members of my family which you all actually like put together on Sunday afternoon.

so, back to Band Aid. i further to the above do not disagree with the condescending, patronizing racism inherent in it - a bunch of mostly white dudes singing for black people in a place called Africaland; a place few of the artists will ever visit. it is not like, after all, when a tragedy strikes America or Europe that Africa decides it will be quite class to get together and have a singsong to show sympathy for their plight.

interestingly the four track CD includes all official variants of the song, in reverse chronological order, or if you like backwards in time. this is something like a reverse 'greatest hits' set, then, as it starts off with the worst and improves up to finishing off with the best.
 

what, if not a song like this, could 'the west' or 'the first world' do to "help" Africa? very simple, really - free and fair trade agreements. build the economies up, give the nations a boost that way. far better, long term and easily more sustainable than having a wild haired Irishman swear at people to throw money at him to give to them once in a while, nice though Bob is.

i think the major problem with the musicians (except Bono) on this 30th anniversary edition is that no one cares anymore. all of the artists, to my knowledge, are talented and able. they are simply lacking the personality to make one interested in them or care about what they have to say. it's a great, great shame that music has gone this way.

anyway, a sort of back of the boxes sort of thing, including a special look at the magnetic security tag thing on the Mad Max box. a bit excessive, i think - how fast is it that HMV thought that i would be able to run with this in my hands?

and to finish off,. a gander at the insides of the Mad Max blu ray discs.as you can see, with these glorious, black and white photocopied faces, practically every expense possible in this set has been spared.

what's on the disc surface doesn't really matter, i suppose - you seldom actually see it. however, black and white faces like this just attract attention to how cheap they are. rather just slam the name of the film on the disc, as Disney have taken to doing with DVDs.

i understand it is not at all popular or fashionable to own things with Mel Gibson in them anymore and i have no clue as to when i will sit and watch them, but i am rather glad to have them. and yes, when they do release the "special edition" variant with extras on no doubt i will get it.

so there you have it. thank you, HMV, for not being cheeky with this lot today.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mount Maunganui festive market, December 2014

hi there

i haven't mentioned the magnificence of Old Grumpy's Gallery for a while here, except for in the first part of this sentence of course.

you will notice that neither Bob Geldof or him off of Ultravox has ever written a song about New Zealand in general or Mount Maunganui in particular. this would be because, outside of the brothers Finn having it pretty much covered, they do indeed know when it is Christmas there.

to celebrate this, there is of course the monthly market to look forward to.

so, if you are fortunate enough to be in or near Mount Maunganui on December 12th, 13th or 14th, do pop down the excellence of Mount Maunganui Road and see what you can find!

i think the last post about Old Grumpy's Gallery was in regards of the visit of esteemed author Karen Rose. this was, as fans who were able to get a ticket to attend have testified, truly brilliant.

well, as everyone near Mount Maunganui will be on their way to Old Grumpy's Gallery, i will leave this post here, more or less.

for those unable to get there in person, visit the place virtually via the Old Grumpy's Gallery website, a site that i know has a pretty good web designer working for it.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

prelude

hello there


should it snow here this December, dear reader, it would not be that much of a shock, surely. i mean, here in the realm of the northern hemisphere (unless the "magnetic north" has flipped or something), snow is expected at Christmas, look you see. actually, i am not sure that's the case - i seem to recall reading somewhere or other that in the last 100 years the Bing Crosby dream of a white Christmas has only happened 7 times. or maybe 8.

that said, there was talk of snow being somewhat possible this weekend. if it fell, it did so away from my notice and further did so in a way that it did not lay. this is not, however, to say that the crispness of the cold of the season has not touched the earth at all. far from it.

this was somewhere a little after 9:30 in the morning, after i had conducted some business matters at the post office (hi Dad, yes something on the way), whereas this is not the best quality picture, i believe that it reveals the sun has not graced us with a temperature which would melt away this icy frost by this time. that's something of an indicator that this quiet corner of the globe is getting ready to accept snow.

yeah, i know - for the more general reader of this blog there will be something of a sense of "harumph", for any weather anywhere in the world is recorded on the internet it seems. well, this is more for friends and family around the world who wish to see some familiar places and, indeed, see me in snow.

downwards through the village with my travels, and along past the beck. this picture, perhaps, better shows off the frost on the grass for you, since i was a good deal closer to it. 

has this flowing water ever frozen over, you ask, dear reader? oh goodness yes it has. not sure if it will get all so cold enough to do that this year, but hard to gauge. i do wonder where the ducks all go when that happens. should we get the stream frozen over for us to have a gander at, i will do my best to remember to investigate this.

further on down the stream, then - and indeed on the safer side of the road to walk - i managed to snap a picture of what shows the sun trying its best to get out a bit and help the surface of the earth shed some of this frost. nice one sun, cheers. 

the sun did have some success in this respect, for by midday, or if you will noon, most of the ice and frost or whatever you want to call it had in fact cleared. which made walking around somewhat less of a slippery experience in a footing sense.

and, as my travels took me past it, it would have been so very wrong of me not to take a picture of the church and the memorial on this fine, crisp winter morning.

as i mentioned above, as we went into afternoon the frost had all but gone from our life. i have, as it happens, just a moment ago stepped outside to successfully fail all ambition in respect of quitting / cutting down considerably on this smoking business and have observed that the frost is returning this evening.

it was not a little bit more than just a moment ago this evening when i, as it happens, walked down towards the village again. and yes i did indeed take another, for now final, image.

the family, those of them you like more than me and get pictured here from time to time, desired pizza for the evening, and so off i went to get them what they desired. yes, i got myself one too.

and that's just about that for this post, then. more later, as and when it happens. as i intend to do a spot of fancy driving tomorrow, it would not be a shock if nature decided to throw some snow down. or maybe a touch of ice. watch this space.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

all your base are belong to us

hello there


well, yeah. i mean, ok, i admit it, i am not at all well known or renowned for my skills with the language of the English, look you see. i know this so please do not point it out. this in itself must surely mean that this mistake that i believe i spotted is, then, all the more glaring and obvious.

surely, dear reader, as the plural is in action in the word 'cards', it should be "were" in respect of what the pricing was, not "was"? it is not just me is it, "cards was a fiver" does not sound right?

or maybe it is the correct use of English, i don't know.

anyway. look how awesome the dude in the fleece lined items is. or was, if it is someone no longer with us.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!