new from Gallow Slutt enterprises...

CASTAWAY 2
starring Tom Cruise.

while going home to his fiance for christmas, Jock Strap (Tom Cruise, days of thunderpants, mission irreversible 2: lost in new york)'s FED EX(tm) plane is struck by a furious tropical storm and crash-lands on a deserted mid-pacific paradise. although the only survivor, Strap suffers from massive internal haemorrhages, and dies within hours of freeing himself from the fuselage; the rest of the film consists of time-lapse footage of his corpse decaying over the next two years.

so.. a couple of new jokes. the first one, here, made Thom and Luarence laugh down the pub. if you don't find it funny, it's probably because you don't have a penis. unlike rachel, in my dream this morning.


Why is a girlfriend like a bus?

because you wait ages for one... and then she rips your heart out and fucking stamps on it.

i want to use the feed-line as the title for rebessica's first ep. the punch line can be underneath the cd (in a secret booklet... printed only in glow in the dark ink...) i did want to call it 'pretty girls make cakes' but i think that's a good name for the one that's currently titled 'small/far away'. as i saw saying to abi from the formerly-titled Drop Dead Dave last night, i come up with more good titles for songs/ bands than actual riffs/opportunities.

reminds me of the bloodhound gang cd 'use your fingers', which had (to the effect of) 'what's ugly, smelly, stupid, and likes the bloodhound gang? (see other side writen on the front of the cd. i liked that.

whilst we are on the subject of cool guys called jeffrey (see here, and here) - overcompensating.

oh, and i finally found out what it means to be on the Ephel Duath Street Team; it means someone emails you the day before and says you can have some free tickets if i collect people's email adresses. did they think that i checked email every day? did they not think that i might already have a ticket?


ah, yes; the duath. they promised us a big surprise; it was awesome. they had a live trombonist, fatterning out the sound and doing everything as they should. the new arrangements were subtley different; last time i saw them, they were pretty much playing the tracks off 'the painter's pallette' without the melodic singer, and using the odd backing tape for sound effects, like the trumpet on 'the passage'. now they've really cleaned up their act, between the new trombonist and the screamer, they've hacked up the parts nicely, as well as filling in the need for a second guitarist. i'm sure the actual music was different too, but i can't remember how; i was surprised a couple of times when te songs didn't do what i expected them to (i say this with some irony).

poison the well - ahh, never mind.

but the Plan were just phenomonal. i gave myself a stitch dancing to 'when good dogs..', after which i couldn't quite get the energy back as from when we were dancing by the edge - couldn't see them, but we had more room. we moved into the middle after a few songs, just behind the moshpit. some girls brought them cans of tuna, after they asked for food on their website. my dreams do't come true very often, but i had one where we forgot to bring them anything (i wanted to get them something from grubb's). and then we went backstage and met the Duath, but the bouncers wouldn't let us back out front! so we missed the show.

did Luciano remember you from that gig in Leeds? did he? no. he remembered me though. mmhmm. so bought the red t-shirt and both badges. i asked Davide where he got the band's ties. he said: 'my mother!' of course. you're Italian. like maybe someone else. except he might not be Italian... he might be gay. or just somehow, inexplicably, cool.

joke two: the 'duck' joke. it follows the tired format of 'man short of money walks into a brothel', since it origanted from a mis-expected punchline of such a joke; you know how i love to subvert the genres. it ahs evolved since then, and an art twist has been added.

so it's Berlin, 1937. Hans, on his way home from work, wheels his barrow of money to the Brothel, and enters. the pimp, Dieter, is manning the counter. 'Dieter,' he says, 'my old friend. it has been a bad week for me; i have only 35,000 Marks to pay you with. please, can you find someone for me to loosen my seed into?' Dieter says, 'my friend, you are a loyal and valued customer. everyone is having a bad week at the moment. i can't do you any deal, but i'll see what i can find for that money.' Dieter exits and inits. he is followed by a beautiful, blonde, buxom, bona fide lass. Hans looks on in astonishment. 'Dieter, you service me a great favour that one day i hope to repay you,' he says. he takes the whore down the corridor... and then he... dyswidt?

so the next week, Hans' business is a little brisker. he is spotted pusing two barrows of money down to Dieter's brothel, with a gay swing in his step.
'my good man, this week, i bring you twice the money i brought you last week. here is 70,000 marks. maybe you bring me something twice as gut, ja?'
this time Dieter is followed in by an almost identicle looking blonde buxom lass. Hans waits a couple of seconds, looks through the door to see if anyone else is coming.. and his smile fades. he says to Dieter, 'my friend, what is this? last week you said you could not do me a deal; you gave me a woman for 35,000 Marks. this week i bring you twice the amount, and you give me a woman that looks just the same? how can you justify this insult?
Dieter keeps his calm. 'but Hans, this woman is not Jewish.'



i think i'll go now.

spunk on my tits.

'is this the most offensive image in britain?' scream the sun. it's a hilarious article, but i think we should prove them wrong and show them exactly what we think is the most offensive picture in britain. and then i saw some dopey twat buying a copy in the co-op, along with a chocolate bar, a bag of crisps, and (probably) a can of coke, while i was buying my christmas Viz. and i really hate how the sun puts those little bits in italics, signifying when they're not even trying to make something news.

It is supposed to be fun. But for some people, fun is a dirty word.

arrgh! the article is actually devoid of any news; there are no references to anything real happening. it's just a way to get chrismas and Micheal Howard in the paper. yup. the sun are backing Howard.


the ultimate music quiz! how on earth does it work? it doesn't have every single album ever recorded quite yet, but it's clearly on the way. ah... song samples off amazon.com. i see now. very, very clever.

lets go to blackpool!

edit: i think these stories, without th'illustrations, are even more brutal.

the coolest blog war ever!

http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=524
vs.
http://www.respectcoalition.org/index.php?ite=298
via
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2004/12/06/hari_catches_galloway_in_flatout_lie.php

apologies to Richard Hahn for not linking to his site when i posted those pictures. very unprofessional of me. www.lumakick.com

this stuff is cat-agious

this is what infinity looks like

dirty cheating infinite cat project:

Don't worry if your kitty pic is a few cats out of date because I often get simlutaneous submissions that require me to use an image editor to replace the image in the monitor.

it's only fair, but a branching network of infinite cats would be so much way-cooler!

www.grilly.tl is now mirrored at www.grili.co.uk, so ta big bruv.

.

oh, and one more thing... (warning! may contain spoilers)

so a while ago, i re-read Halo Jones, in a batch of old 2000AD monthlies i ebayed. i know i've got them all in my dad's basement, but it didn't seem worth getting them down (but i will, when i get my own place {HAH!}) and upon finishing it, realised i had a completely different emotional reaction to the one i was used to.

i used to find the ending crushing. the ultimate joke, as i saw it, was that she finally escaped from the world she knew, of shit, repression, poverty and futility; and what did she find? vaccuum. she was out, and there weas nothing. that was how i read it.

but since then, i've read the history of 2000AD, and interviews with Alan Moore, and have become aware that they had about nine books planned, and only got round to doing three.

and when i saw that final frame this time, Halo blasting into space, i felt great. she had escaped. there was stuff to do out there. knowing she would go on to have the fantastic adventures described in the intro to book two, and become a galactic legend (something that i hadn't taken into account at first), gave the escape a completely different emphasis. it was a victory. do i miss my original interpretation? no. not because the new one is better, but you just have to let go of these things don't you? of course, the new meaning is even better, becuase it overcomes the original failure that i felt. but i think they're both valid.



what do you mean you haven't read it?

reader:

get with the times, dude! that strip is twenty years old!

erm, yes. ok.

poo, i forgot - Thom's new irregular webcomic, Pear & Bear, is now online. i think it says more about him than it does about pears or bears.

gallow slutt software - prop. George Gallowslutt - will be operational before one can say 'boo'. in space.

and, lest we forget...

sheep.

so there i am. standing at the end of a 12-person queue for the cashpoint. i don't put my walkman on; waiting with headphones is simply antisocial, it's the only chance you have to meet new people (in daylight), and it's a waste to deliberately isolate yourself. as i get two people away from the cashpoints (there are two) it becomes apparant the one is out of order, explaining the long queue. orisit? from where i'm standing, it looks fine. the barclays ads are ticking round, exactly as normal. so i ask the lady in front of me (first in the queue)
G: "is there something wrong with the other cash point?"

you can see where this is going.

Lady: "there must be, otherwise why are we all queueing for that one?"

i make sure i can squeeze back in to the queue if it doesn't.

but it does. in fact, it shits out two crisp fivers. the lady laughs.

L: "god, we're all such sheep aren't we?"

speak for your bloody self, love.

today is wonderful. the sky is a swish of yellow, white and blue; i feel like i fell in love last night. with Rebessica.

and then this morning i wrote and recorded a rubbish new song. it really is shit though. it's inspired by a calling card i saw in the toilet of Robert House, with a picture of a semi-naked girl saying "i'm happy because i like my job". for some reason it popped into my head this morning while i was puttin gout my laundry, along with heywood lane-style chords. and that was it! made up some more words, recorded it in about half an hour, with five vocals and three guitars. i'm actually quite happy with it listening back.

i just googled the title - 'fair trade whore' - and the first link was an interview with Chris Martin. classic.

When he started down this activist path, Martin says, "I felt like a third-rate Bono.... Hopefully, it'll escalate until I feel like a full-on Bono."

you can listen to it on the audio page (soundclick doesn't like external links), as well as the demo for 'Quinlank'which is good in a different kind of way, even if it doesn't have the "drink your weak lemon drink NOW!" hook line yet. i made it at the end of last term, in a fug of smoked whiskey and roll-ups, because i thought that's how rock stars get their inspiration. i got around to half-recording and mixing one song. rock stars are wankers.

i was going to put on the demo of 'girl in the kid a top', which is almost exactly a year old (it was meant for the original conception of womansour), but it's only the wrong format, innit? and it's just not ready yet.)

we need another two requests before i tell the awful duck joke. it's not even that good, i shouldn't be bigging it up like this, it's got out of hand now.

get this! Soundclick have now gone creative commons crazy! that means all i have to do is check a couple of boxes and my music is automatically covered. topper.

and... blacksmoke advent calender is now operational.

and... new kef mp3s.

It would be worth pointing out that your intro on 'Girl
In The Kid A Top' is longer than any Kefranski song currently being
played, apart from 'L'Oxford' which is 35 minutes long

i was going to put 3 of my old websites back online, archived for completeness. but with the way geocities works, it would take hours of just clicking.

and.. i'm finding sleeping very difficult.

i'm going to go home and get my chops up.

and i must say for those who don't read luarence's i-can't-believe-it's-not-blog, that out in the glouscter the other night, we just kept drawing at moo-pah-chi (stone-paper-scissors). after 6 or 7 draws, we just gave up. the tension was too great.


and forever is quadruple time. i was playing it triple time, but there's no way i can fit that many notes into a bar.

why are all my interesting thoughts in bed, not now, when i'm on the computer? maybe there's a lesson.

shall i tell you my dirty duck joke? please leave a comment if you want to hear it.

This is the personal website of John Fulton, it's twatting great, and could save my project.
and also very good, linked from the above, is fractal music.

and i just joined the ephel duath street team. whatever that means.

INJUSTICE SEQUEL BEING PLANNED

an important message from our sponsors -

INJUSTICE SEQUEL BEING PLANNED
APPEAL FOR SUPPORT

INJUSTICE, the film about deaths in police custody, has had a huge impact nationally and internationally. The film exposed, for the first time ever, that 1000 people had died in police custody in the UK and that not one single police officer had been convicted for these deaths. The making of Injustice brought different families of those killed together and led to the formation of the United Families & Friends campaign. Injustice directly challenged the police responsible for these deaths and has contributed to the reforms now taking place within the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Crown Prosecution Service.

INJUSTICE is a critical success in its own right. It has been distributed by the British Film Institute and Migrant Media across the UK making it the longest running independent theatrical release for a documentary feature. We have had thousands of screenings of the film all over the world and hundreds of these have included Q&A sessions with the families. INJUSTICE has been shown in over 60 international film festivals and has won several awards. It has raised the issue of deaths in police custody in the UK to an international level. However the police's attempt to ban the film and also Channel 4, and the BBC's refusal to support the making of the film, and their continual refusal to screen it, has resulted in serious financial losses.

Huge numbers of people have asked us to produce a sequel. We are pleased to announce that we will be producing a follow up to Injustice called LICENCE TO KILL. Once again broadcasters are refusing to support us. We are therefore making a financial appeal to you for support. LICENCE TO KILL will include updates on the cases featured in the first film and will also cover strategic new cases and current political developments. Over the coming year we will follow some new high profile cases and we also plan to broaden the international connections between families. Once again the struggles of the families will be central to the story and both the production and screenings of the new film will help to move this struggle forward.

If you are outraged at the continuous cover-ups, giving the police a LICENCE TO KILL - support this production.


WHAT YOU CAN DO?
The cost of LICENCE TO KILL will be around £100,000. Make a donation and your support will help to produce a film that will assist the families of death in custody victims in their struggles for justice. We will credit all contributors at the end of the film.
Please circulate this email also.

You can make a donation by sending a cheque made payable to Migrant Media and sending it to:

Migrant Media
PO Box 47412
London
N13 5WG

Or by paying it directly into the following account, please inform us of the reference and your details also:

Bank name: HSBC 150 Stoke Newington High Street, London, N16 7JP. UK

Account name: MIGRANT MEDIA LIMITED

Account number: 41116908

Sort code: 40 05 05

SWIFT CODE: MIDLGB 22 40 05 05 41116908

Please make sure you let us know you name if you want a credit on the film. If you have any other ideas for raising funds for the film, or want more details on our plans, call the directors on 07770 432 439



For details of INJUSTICE www.injusticefilm.co.uk

meanwhile, in Chatteris... honestly, what are local papers like?


new from Gallow Slutt enterprises... Starscream & Hutch! starring Chris Latta and Owen Wilson as the fight-crime-at-all-costs duo. in the first episode, when S&H are assigned to track down some Chinese opium smugglers, Hutch is mysteriously hit in the back by a huge fucking las-cannon blast which confines him to a wheelchair, or robo-walker thing. Starscream remarks on the advance technology of those Chins, what with their banana bulletts and all, and then tries to butter up the chief of police, or poison him. then they all laugh, and the episode ends.

friday: after being assured that Music Technology was a valid option for next term (yes!) and that the essay i did in Ireland (mostly) got 62% (and iw as crapping myself), i put on my ROCK loud, cylcled into town, and cycled into town to buy the new David Wrench single. but amazingly, in Dave's books, they had a new Craig Thompson book i was unaware of, a simple travel diary.
(by the way - is the 'Blankets' soundtrack cool or cash-in?)
so i got that, and Cheapass Games' 'Witch Trial', which is a good game, if slightly flawed since only two players can take part in a trial. friday we went clubbing again, at the glouster. more indie. ahh. but the Blue Minkies are playing this Friday! (supporting miss pain) hurrahh! but their website makes my eyes cry blue tears, and contravenes every rule my web teacher taught me (blue on black = eye strain).
george came down, which was great, so we hung out with him and julie a lot. breakfast at Dave's diner, roast at the george (even though it's a Barracuda pub...)

and then there was the Booth Natural History Museum, which had literally hundreds of taxi-dermised birds of many, many species, from blue tits pecking a bush to great hooded gulls attacking a lamb. very strange.

x

grilly tries observational comedy

please visualise in a smoky bar, with bare brick walls, canned laughter and an Australian Question Inclination.

you know, when you go out drinking? and you have a really meaningful thought, and write it on your hand before you go to bed? and you wake up in the morning and read and have no idea what it related to? and you're like *throws arms outwards (including one holding microphone, although not as far)* 'Faaaarck! what does it mean?!'

'Ann Mitchell'.

in this case, i was going to bed and thought: i smell like Ann Mitchell's old cottage.
i loved that place.

tuesday was a good day for shopping, but a bad night for sleeping. to wit: i picked up Micheal Jackson's Great Beer Guide in a charity shop, bought Dillinger Escape Plan/Poison The Well/Ephel Duath tickets for Laurence, Thom, and I, bought a few post cards, picked up our free chocolates from sainsbury's (a card through the door, 'happy birthday laurence', meant for the previous tennenant - not really that wierd, before you start) and toilet paper, as well as organic cheese and some very nice humus. i bought a brand new radio alarm clock. we had chip kebabs for tea (dude, it was solid salad. healthy! ok, so the chips might be a wee bit carcinogenic..) and then before bed, i had a cheese and humus sandwich. well i had to. i know. ever since i read that episode of Desperate Dan, i've known you should never eat cheese before bed. i didn't need it or anything; it was just they were both so new. well; i slept badly, what can i say? woke up in bed with the electric guitar - i think the first time i've ever actually slept with a guitar. alarm went off at eight; i sat and listened to the news for an hour. turned it off and put Andy's Nes Advantage inspiration disc 2 on (you know, the one with 'death of a disco dancer' on). listened to it all the way through (kept thinking, oh! i can't go and make a cup of tea now - 'do the Manta Ray' {or whichever track} has just started). and then fell asleep again for the next two hours. dreampt of being on a double decker bus in indonesia, which hit MC Cake (who was riding a bike) and started toppling and spinning and reeling, 'like Norman Wisdom pretending to be lost in a hotel corridor'. and then i dreampt of the Opwall reunion (to which i won't be going, contrary to popular mis-belief), about ten of was walking through an estate to get there, and the local scallies start hurling bottles at us, one of us gets into proper fistycuffs, and then police arrive in a sideways car, and they're all really tall, and i think one looks like the lead singer of Proudhon. (holy fuck! Trencher did a split 5" with http://www.millionraces.com/orthrelm.htm!!??! and while i'm on the brighton music scene, which i've been completely out of touch with, The Phil COllins Three have a rather excellent site, and a new video of Pants And Vest! and tonnes of great flash stuff) and then it was wednesday of course. i bought a big bin. andthen laurence and i went, with Dan and his girlfriend and two other people (i dislike not knowing everyone on a night out) to the music library for indie night! at one point, they were playing some shit that no-one in their right mind would dance to, but everyone did, so i perched on the end of the bar. and a bouncer came over and gave me a right bollocking! now you have your hieararchy. i'm not a criminal; i wasn't attacking anyone, or being aggressive, unlike him, who was only creating a good deal of tension in the club, where there wasn't any before.
this guy is a fantastic drummer. i've seen him. i think he used to live with Yentz.
it was a good night. Ewa was there! Laur said she would be. but she's going back to manchester in february, so i'd better get round to seeing her loads before then.

and how can they play Interpol (fuck it, no more links, i'm just going to finish up) after Joy Division? as a celebration of how far we've come? i say this because i found Antics in a temp folder on a uni computer, stuck it on my mp3 player, and i have to say i'm unimpressed with it. it all sounds so ordinary, to the point of being rubbish. sorry thom, who i know really likes that record. but at least i don't even have to say that Keane are shite, Andy. Jeffry lewis is where it's at.

but why don't i feel super?

oh god. there's a new leisure suit larry game.

bye later!

quick edit: detecting a theme in Gillen's work; on Vampyre: the Masquerade:

I found myself gleefully playing a femme fatale for the majority of the game...

on Everquest:

My character is a seven-foot Amazonian woman.

when i find more examples, i'll post them. but then, don't we all like a bit of eye candy? wasn't that the idea behind Lara Croft - who wants to watch a builder's arse for the duration of the whole game?

and the thing about joy division is... well to eb honeset, i don't they're that good either. seeing a live performance of transmission on Peel Night, BBC2, years ago, was life-threatening. but listening to Substance, courtesy of one David Lulhan's temp folder, i'm not that impressed. yes, Transmission; yes, She's Lost Control; very yes, New Dawn Fades (absent from this compilation); yes, Atmosphere (number one song in all time festive fifty); okay, Love Will Tear Us Apart. but Leaders of Men? Dead Souls? No Love Lost? i don't get it yet.

no more branston!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/3974043.stm

The game starts aboard a ship, where your initial training takes place. To learn combat you have to - and even as I write this, I can't believe a developer could still think this a good idea - purge the vessel of rats. My character is a seven-foot Amazonian woman. The rat is a foot-long furry thing with a tail. It looks utterly ludicrous. The millions of pounds spent on trying to create a beautiful graphical world to lose yourself in, entirely wasted by something so bloody stupid. Yes, every RPG does it. This is because every RPG is rubbish. And - as I've been informed since writing this - if the developers thought it was actually a joke, they should have played it as one. Just doing it again isn't a gag. It's not even a clever reference. With nothing other than its context, doing it again is just doing it again, and doing it again is RUBBISH.

which relate to: latest penny arcade

reminds me of my awful work for PCG. oh, the embarresment.

probably the funniest thing about going to Ireland, was how i ended up staying at Fiona's. she'd said it would be okay before i came, but her phone number that Gillian gave me didn't work. then i recieved a text from her; well, i assumed it was her. i checked the last three digits to my saved one and they were the same (obviously, the first three were the same too). so i replied with something about staying monday night. she replied, in a 'comic' cockney accent, asking me why i needed to stay. i was confused, and couldn't be bothered to respond.

it's lucky i didn't. it turns out it wasn't Fiona, but Shona, Jim's local friend who he called from my phone (eek! bill!). and she thought i was Jim. so everyone was confused and nothing was real.

so how did i end up staying with Fiona? the only thing i can think of is that Fi is the gorgeous type of person who is so nice that if you assume that you are staying at their house, they will happily accomodate you, even if you've not spoken to them about it or anything. it was good in Ireland. everyone looked so clean and everything. seeing people in their natural element. walking round the town. enjoying the craic in a real irish pub.

and the crappest thing about livejournal image tool is the quizilla pix that keep getting uploaded; and the crappest thing about that is the 'which little prince character are you?' quiz. i'm not going to link to it. it can eat my arse.

and the sweetest thing:

fred vellacott Sunday, 11/14/04, 3:52 AM

grilly,your email tends to evade me, but hope this message and website with a selection of wedding photos reaches you. Our best friend in saint p's is Robin, who who have been known to reside with in places of bright. Saw kid koala friday, slightly out of place in russki new rich heaven, but still best night here so far. Love fred

*sniff*.




only thing is, that site seems to think it is actaully okay to eat cows. but for years i did anyway, so i apologise for then.


edit: hey, you fuck! why aren't you watching the new Cunt of Lula video?

and while we're at it, apologies to Rachel Sewart for leaving all that filth on her computer. the party on friday was well good. best game of gaydar yahtzee yet. laurence won with this guy


and i keep bumbing into Jordan and Rosie (who looks even better without makeup on). we were in spar last night (i only left the house to go the shops to buy things to eat immediately, this weekend). it's a crap shop; they really don't sell anything to actually eat. Jordan successfully noticed the 'z' on heinz baked beanz, when it was adjacent to an older can of baked beans. i bought two cans of heinz soup for 99p, even though buying tinned soup is, frankly, admitting you might as well kill yourself. but i accepted that a long time ago, and it holds no fear for me now.

and at least i don't "buy soup in cartons, not in tins".

and i finally got my bike working again - the dodgy inner tube with the firm valve has been defeated, courtesy my Butonese sarong. so i cycled in to university, even though mending my bike meant missing my lectures. but i just had to finish the job.

and after that hiatus, if anyone wants me to cook them dinner, please just invite yonder good self over. i could do with the company.
and i wonder if i am missing anything in my life.

grilly.xxx


edit2: radiohead and copyright

two things make me happy:

1:

Valerie will be releasing "Five Foot One" and "Big Bad Billy C" and we will have our first compilation sealed with a loving flick out in the new year.

2: new half man half biscuit songs available.

whe i last saw the Val, they told me a tragic tale about there lost album sessions, which were sadly destroyed (although they weren't too bothered). way to bounce back, lasses!


oh, and the blacksmoke advent calender is up.

official squaxx dex thargo!

"If we need a special school for homosexuals, maybe we need a special school for little short fat kids, because they get picked on too" is the view of Mike Long, chairman of the Conservative Party in New York.

last night, Laurence and i were watching the doom 2 14:41 video, with a fine tooth comb. verdict: impossible. although the movie is a tremendous feat of skill, some of the actions performed are simply impossible. Our Hero moves far too quickly, sometimes at unbelievable speeds. after L went to bed, i experimented with the turbo boost on doom95, and even the maximum boost of 400 isn't as quick as the player (and at that speed, the controls fuck up). sometimes he runs through gaps far too thin to fit through (e.g. nirvana) or solid walls (the refuelling base) and picks up the yellow keycard on the factory through a wall. and on monster condo, he opens a red door without the key. what's that about? i tried to copy his rocket jump on the waste tunnels for a while too - it seems technically possible, but i couldn't replicate it, and i doubt anyone could do what he does in one life - at times he's down to 1% health, and surely only survives through luck. it could be programmed; more likely, it's a patch job of various attempts (i'm looking at some others now), but that doesn't explain the imp-ossible bits.

so i had a dream of tooth ache (clearly inspired by Jess), my tooth was loose and like a milk tooth but very painful, i couldn't stop fiddling with it, and then when i woke up i saw sure it was still loose. and then; something amazing happened. lying there in bed, i heard a tapping on my phone. i looked over at it, but there was nothing there. it was half 8; i thought about getting up. but it kept happening. i'd lie in bed, and the tapping would keep coming back, it was the sound of someone rapping their fingernails on the plastic coating, i'd swear. but when i looked it was just my phone, looking back at me. after two hours of this, i got the message and got out of bed. the tapping stopped.

and so.. Dublin.
James made me go. he said i could stay at his, we'd do work, it'd be nice. it was all true. we set out gone six on friday night, and stopped in sometown somewhere while looking for petrol at an organic pizzeria for dinner; had the big bowl of sloppy pasta i'd been craving. we drove on; while james' driving is technically good, his actual driving is questionable. changing lanes at the last minute (often when i'd pointed out we were in the wrong lane), missing turn-offs, using his knee, doing three times the speed limit... i only properly feared for my life once, though, when he tried to pull in between two trucks as our lane was being terminated. got to his house in county Meath at about seven in the morning.

might write some more of this later. i should get going home.


oh yeah, and the trial and error records night tonight was cancelled, due to lack of licence. oh well. never mind, because it's Jordan's birthday tonight, and 'November spawned a Mozzer' tomorrow night at the penthouse (is 3 hours of morrisey enough?). i'll see you there.

i liked Stanley Donward better before he sold out and started making xmas cards.

i used to think that unstable old people were all really good footy players... that was why people always called them 'gerry hat-tricks'.

big blog coming after this seminar, but i thought i'd just put this up to see if it works.

http://us.share.geocities.com/grillygrillbo/project.swfand it does!! whoo!

ps. code ripped off rob manuel's blog.


edit 01/12/04: flash object dis-embedded to stop page being nosiy.

tanks deployed at peace protest makes no sense!

this just in:

[Half Man Half Biscuit]'s final Peel Session will be broadcast on Tuesday 16th November in the usual Peel slot (11pm-1am). Rob Da Bank is hosting the programme for the rest of the year, and will be airing all of the recorded Peel Sessions. The Festive Fifty will also appear over Christmas.

i don't clutch my pillow all night anymore.

but sometimes, i'll scrunch myself up against the wall, and only use half the bed, as if there qwas someone in the other half.

by the way there's a change of plan on the trial and error night:

you may have heard rumblings on the grapevine but
Trial and Error recordings is officially rearing its
beautific head and making itself known via the medium
of Party,
the first will take place on 19th November at 17
Kingsland road. Doloroso will be performing live with
a special acoustic set from Garden, also featuring
Simian Mobile Disco, Tomp(Warp), Wheelsinsteadofhooves
and Blasé djs - get there early at 8pm. This is not a
date to miss!

cool.

Tim Curry Syndrome

so i finally got around to installing Gabriel Knight 3 yesterday. danny gave it me for my birthday years ago, i've never had the time... time? did i say time? that's not what i meant. it's not more time i've got. i just fancied something intelligent for my lonely hours, and i don't even have very many of them. only really when laurence goes round Aimees.
Anyway, imagine my joy whne i find that Gabriel himself is narrated by tim bleeding curry, and his 'southern accent'! his first three lines honestly sound completely incoherent - he cycles through australian, east-end, and finally settles on some fucked-up kind of american. it's so funny. so later, in the pub (i'm so sick of expensive pubs - 3.65 for a pint of ale and a bag of crisps (well, honey bbq pretzel pieces). and lager's even more expensive!) i invited everyone to guess who it was, of course laurence got it. john said Bill Murray, which led to all sorts of hints, not least the Charlie's Angels Sumo wrestling scene - the greatest scene in cinema.

listening to Riley's Rocket Science on BBC internet right now. he just played a classic Beefheart, a classic Tyrannasauros Rex, and something new from Block Party. great.

by the way, i thought i'd put links to my parent's web pages:



i had a dream..
it had huge, expanding, blue/grey/green mutant monsters in a cinema. my school friends and i had to go back years later to investigate; inside now were statues, or clones, or something.

i think shatner was in it somewhere.

and i had planned to go away to indonesia again, but there was a four day science conference over the weekend, and it got moved to the monday so it finished on thursday, and that was when i was supposed to leave, so i couldn't go.

today, on the bus, it was so funny. driving past the Brighton Uni campus next to Moulsecoombe station, and there was a Give Blood van parked outside. in front of it was another Give Blood van, identicle to the last. and in front of that was another van, exactly the same size, but said "Ginsters: Cornish through and through" on the side. i laughed, oh i laughed. no one else on the bus had any idea. i feel like a character in that Philip K. Dick short story with the man hanging from a lamppost, and the guy says, "why is there a body hanging from a lamppost?!" and everyone says, "oh, it must be there for a reason. maybe he wanted to be there. or maybe the cops did it." and it turns out the generic body snatchers have come, and are luring out the un-snatched with such examples. everyone's so oblivious. like Hienz Baked Beanz. see? you can spot it instantly when it's written like that, but put it on a can of beans on the shelf, and no-one notices. or fabulous juice (or is it a juice drink?) the excellently titled 'Tropicana Tropics Tropical'. that was another one i didn't notice the title of until i got home. or when people stand up in an AGM and try and amend a motion against violence against women, replacing every instance of 'women' with 'women and men'. "why is this motion especially against women?" they ask. "because some violence is especially against women" is my answer. and Steve From Last Year can fuck off too. "i'm too busy to submit my own motion! i'm a father of three, who i only get to see three days a week, i'm studying, i'm working..." ah, never mind.

Bush Does Victory Lap Around World Trade Center Site

thanks to th'onion for that title.

i'll present to you the picture that currently adorns my backdrop:


i've been a bit pissed off today (...envisages future where house-hold communicates only through websites...chortles because only Joel's computer can get internet...), so it was absolutely great to hear some fantastic news.

last year we were living with Robin, right? it was great. but this year she went to St. Petersburg. in Russia. then i found out my good friend Fred was going to exactly the same city, in Russia, with his wife Molly, for the same year. "great!" i thought. "i'll put them in touch. they can have friends." of course i never got around to it. i mean, what am i? so imagine my delight when i went to afras today, and saw kate, and she said, she'd had a wierd email from the lass Robin, saying she'd met someone who i'd sang at her wedding...

it's Sod's law at work again, isn't it? i knew deep down, if i introduced them to each other by email, they'd never get around to meeting. but it happened anyway. how did they possibly find about a mutual friend though? reminds of Jo in italy with a her childhood friend, and she said something about 'grilly' and well they realised they each knew a different grilly. wow. and the parsnip soup was well nice.

Rufus keeps sending me crytip text messages. i.e.:

New O2 Sim. Now, Inverted Within, Evilly Hidden: Names, Unseen, Lurk Acrostically.

and

Plays, essays, novels, and now drawings. Pen and paper estrange reality, until some established time heaven's eloquence manifests.

oh bugger, i've gone and deleted the other one. well, keep up the good work, man.

going to the AGM in a minute, purely to vote against the sports teams on every issue. fund-grabbing arseholes.

grilly out.xxx

...rebessica...

the ultimate lovely girl. she's got a boyfreind though.

here's Brooker's censored, hilarious, article.

the weekend was on the whole, lovely. i got new shoes! veggie shoes! jammed out "the girl in the kid a top" with Laurence. went to Abi & Astra's residency last night, lovely people, new heavy songs. less people than previous weeks, i thought. but it's become a bit of a scene, and i don't mind talking over the songs like i used to. but some you just can't.

not much to say.

except -

November 18th - Trail & Error launch party at 17 Kingsland road.
Doloroso, Lions & Tigers and Garden will be performing live with Simian Mobile Disco and Blasé djs - get there early at 8pm.

each of those bands contains at least one member of Simian. this is good news.

http://intothegarden.co.uk/

even men with steel hearts...

..love to see a dog on the pitch. slightly demeans the monumental news of Peel's death on tuesday to have that as fron page news. but still cheers us up.




trouble is, these days, you never see a dog on the pitch.

what are you, some kind of fascist?

talk about music snobs... i submitted my SFA review with a mark of 86%. Beth called me up and said she wanted it out of ten. i gave it eight. you see what i'm getting at.

Vernon Kaye simulator

today i've had an email, a call, and three text messages telling me John Peel has died. thanks everybody, sorry i can't reply to all your communications individually.

i'm reminded (sudennly) of staying with anna, and how she didn't want to sell a comissioned UV painting, because she'd put too much of herself into it, and it was basically too good. this popped into my head thinking about Tony Hart's 'the gallery', where they could never return your pictures - if you love something, you must let it go.

but Peel's fucking dead.


listen to some interesting facts about numbers by simon singh (ta b3ta).

i'm going to go home and fight the zombie.

and possibly cry in my pint.

edit: a couple of recent dreams.

this morning i was at a Super Furry Animals gig. Micheal Jackson was there. we ended up having a dance-off, which was unfair because he was wearing an animated street fighter two t-shirt and it was distracting me.

a couple of days ago, i was back in Indonesia. there was a significant 'authority' presence. we had to levitate/fly around everywhere, but i kept landing, i had to do long, low-grav-style leaps instead of the real floating everyone else was doing. i had to go to the toilet at night.

i just listened to a very good song called 'The Devil and Danny Cohen' by Danny Cohen, from the album 'Dannyland'. not that he's self obsessed or anything.
www.anti.com to listen to a song of his. it's not as good as the one i was listening to, though...

and Kieron's posted the last episode of Negativeland on big robot. don't read the last episode unless you've read the rest, so click the 'gillen archive', not the picture under 'current gillen'. and now... i'm going home.

hm. how do avoid getting a Grubbs burger tonight?

text from a Bernard Matthews trade ad:

WE HAVE THE POWER
Back in 1985, Bernard Matthews recognised the potential of shaped products for children with the launch of Golden Drummers.

Over The years we have continually innovated, successfully harnessing pester power to become the true market leader.

that's pearly, isn't it? they're so proud of themselves.

everything was so nice.
my project was to be based on a book called 'virtual music', in stock in the library. commentry by, obviously, Douglas Hofstadter. i put Alec Empire's intelligence and sacrifice into my ears, and galloped towards the bus stop (my bike has a flat tyre). it being tuesday, the market was on, and just as i was walking under falmer house, i spotted out of the corner of my eye - Alan Moore's 'a small killing'. propped up against the legs of a cheap table. i rushed over, and scrabbled through leaves of comics - 2000AD monthly issue 74, comprising Halo Jones book 1! there was a spiderman comic by garth ennis as well, but only one issue, and well.. i got so sick of preacher.
i felt so cool.
the monthly and the graphic novel cost me a total of two pounds.
i went to cafe scientifique with Alex, Simon Singh and a cosmologist from Sussex talking about the big bang - you see, it's not that matter in the universe is spreading out - it's that space is expanding. oh, my love of understandable, crazy science!

wednesday was spent waiting for the NTL man to come. he didn't; the reason? "oh, apperently, no-one was assigned to do it." worse excuse ever. shouldn't put up with that kind of abuse. saw Drop Dead Dave's debut dispension, down de Freebutt. very deep, good music. they played four or five (now familiar) songs, being Abi and Astra plus pianist, which makes her songs much properer. er. i don't think they need anyone else.

but then thursday... it all went a bit skew-y. i realised that, even though i'm enjoying all my courses, that doesn't mean they might not be beyond me. eek!

click for the unofficial no-hands gallery!. some are well shit, but others are delightful.

and so: come round our's on saturday, we're having a party. it'll be big.

this wasn't very good was it? i'll try harder next time.

to finish off, here's my idea for a comic strip or sit-com called...

ROSEMARY'S BEER BELLY

Abstract: drinking shit beer makes you a twat.
one night, in the union bar, Rosemary Mint buys a pint of Foster's lager. however, surprisingly, it's the Devil's piss.. no, literally the Devil's piss! (there was an mix-up at the bottling plant.) the piss sickens her, but though she can't help herself, she keeps drinking, and the beer soaks through her stomach wall, causing her belly to swell and become possessed, and it directs her to do awful acts, which i haven't thought of yet.

it would work very well as a Viz one-off; if anyone wants to develop this with me, drop me a line at the usual address.

oh fuck.

the world is my skip

see that comment on the last post? that's from liz. 'short american person', to quote her good self. liz, please leave your email adress next time so i can get back in touch with you. i never write it down when Jess tells me.

i've cleaned up the jokes section.

happy birthday dan!

here are some very good songs.

do it AGAIN.

so Laur and i were watching The Berzerker DVD the other night, while we ate our lovely curry. that Luke - The Berzerker himself - hardly plays or sings a note of the record, and causes his guitarists to nearly dislocate their shoulders trying to play his riffs, which he's sequenced at simply stupid speeds, meanwhile his singing is put in at a slower speed, then time-stretched - well, the whole thing is pretty sick. Luke just seems calmly obsessed for the whole document, seemingly not sleeping, and barely letting his musicians get a wink either. seemingly the Captain Beefheart of bloody-minded-death-speed-core, and all that that entails.


did the shopping (in the piss) yesterday and nearly bought a Zoid - the brachiosaur model. but it was a tenner! and what's with the Co-op selling McSlurry toys anyway? i was still in impulse purchase mood, and bought two of the most gorgeous mugs - big, round, and chocolate-coloured. dinner = parsnip, carrot, and potato mash, with Beano-style sausages.

yesterday i watched the entire first series of Spaced.

i'm not proud.

edit: Keiron Gillen posted this link to KLF's The Manual. enjoy.

edit2: there's a whole new Ergo Phizmiz record to download, i haven't heard it yet, but it's a collection of Velvet Underground covers, so it's going to be great.

"You look like the drum and bass type..."

said the man handing out flyers, to the woman next to me, as i was walking onto campus. "and i don't?" i queried. we laughed about it. i didn't take a flyer.

this happened a while ago, but i'm reminded of it as i myself have been handing out flyers to people this lunch time. a common conversation would go:

G: trade justice interest you at all?
Passer-By: no.

i was picking on ethnic minorites (deliberate misspelling; i do want to rank for "ethnic minorites"), people wearing lots of cloth, shells round their necks, beards... quite why i gave one to sally and amy - park village house mates - i don't know. i'd love to see them their though.

COGS OPEN LECTURES AUTUMN 2004
Professor Margaret Boden
Tuesdays at 11-11.50
Biology Lecture Theatre, John Maynard Smith Building

October 12 Man as Machine: Origins of the Idea
October 19 Are Minds Machines Too?
October 26 The Rise of Computational Psychology
November 2 The Birth of Connectionism
November 9 When GOFAI was NEWFAI
November 16 A-Life in Embryo
November 23 Philosophies of Mind and Machine
All welcome - particularly Informatics first and second year undergraduates, new masters and DPhil students, COGS-IDP students, and interested students of Psychology and Philosophy

i like that last bit - for some reason, they deliberately excluded third years in that list; to the effect that they may as well have listed 'everyone that's not a third year'. the image of maggie, standing at the door, scanning for potential third years (who don't get that complimentary glass of wine) brings a titter to my eye.

REEVE DEAD

does that make those jokes funnier or not?

"Without leaving his wheelchair, he was able to make great strides toward a cure for conditions like his," Kerry said.

cheese.

meanwhile, here's two sides of a debate:

Callum Rankine, Species Officer, WWF.
Animals do not exist for our benefit. They exist because they evolved to do a certain job within nature. But if a species does not benefit people directly, they often don't see a reason to conserve it.

We at WWF are looking at it from an ecological point of view: All species are doing a job, even if we don't know what that job is.

Removing a species from the ecosystem is like removing a rivet from an aeroplane without knowing its function. Nobody would want to fly in that aeroplane - but that is what we are doing to our environment. We are causing species to go extinct left right and centre without knowing what they do.

As far as we know, this is the only planet we can live on. We are stuck here and we are mucking about with our life support system. That doesn't strike me as sensible.



Ian Parker, author and game hunter.

As many life forms are harmful to human well-being, it is downright silly to say we should preserve the world's biodiversity in toto.

We want to exterminate Aids viruses, bacteria that cause tuberculosis, malaria plasmodia that kill millions of children annually, and countless other harmful pathogens. So it is, too, with black rats and locusts.

Our welfare relates directly to eliminating harmful forms of life and we are unavoidably committed to modifying our environments to suit our particular needs.

Common sense calls for accepting that in many cases, this means exterminating some of its elements.

The challenge conservationists face is to keep them as few as possible, and avoiding dogmatic and palpably insupportable claims that all must be preserved.

bye the waye, there's a new 3-track demo by colourmap for download, and it's most definately a marked improvement.

this time next week:

19th October 2004:The Big Bang ? the greatest story
ever told?
Simon Singh, writer, broadcaster and bestselling
author of Fermat’s Last Theorem and The Code Book, and
Andrew Liddle, Professor of Astrophysics, University
of Sussex
Everybody has heard of the Big Bang theory. But how
many of us can actually claim to understand it? Join
bestselling Simon Singh as he tells the story of the
brilliant minds that deciphered the mysteries of the
Big Bang, and hear physicist Andrew Liddle’s take on
some of the physics that underlie the universe.

at the terraces, where i once had a reather tasty meal with pops. mmm.. food. time to go and eat.

add to wish list...

two compliments today: "you're looking well" and "you're looking very clean". Jess said my life was "pretty much perfect". my new album is being produced by rick rubin. at the expense of not going to Rita's funeral, i've had a very good weekend, in which i've slept with two ladies (technically)*. friday involved being so up for it, that on my solo walk back from the pub, i popped into the glouschestershire, and had a bit of a jig, and then Ewa appeared and the night went on, until i was ejecting five strangers from my house at four o'clock in the morning. Ewa stayed the night, bless her, and her thankfully-odourless feet. then to london for Ed's birthday party, dressed as 'Radiohead's 'difficult' period'. lots of lovely faces, old and new. upon the point of leaving for brighton at two, Ruth turned up, and we sat chatting to the sound of Billy Bragg 'til four, then went back and watched The Simpons. went for further drinking with Ed and Pete in a terrible Scream pub the next day, and was home by ten in the evening, for Grass, and Laurence's parents had left me a bottle of organic Black Isle Porter, for which i am very thankful.

i used to get away with saying 'clarts' without bringing strangers home for a jam. interesting.


this takes the biscuit:


grilly.xxx
* dammit jim, i'm a doctor, not an ambiguity!
that said, i don't have a new album, and i don't want to make salacious, dirty humourisms based upon my adventures of the mate of the bloke who set up the P.A.. i just thought it was funny that i can technically get away with saying that.

EDIT: looking at the baby tiger sketches page, i notice that alongside Monica Queen is an act called 'Quinn'. could this be the same Quinn that felighted audiences in Durham with tales of his 'Dirty Laundry', 'Pink Pashmina', and 'Expensive Giraffe'? i think we should be told.

larvely..

Super furry animals long peel session - listen to it before they take it down (wednesday).

and check the fuck out of the Swarrrm track near the start of the program. that's so sweet.


i love them already. why do the japanese do everything so very well?

"what does 'creativity' mean to you?"

erm..

that was the focus group on the new 'excellence in creativity and learning' centre the university is bidding for funding for. the Government has decided that although our insitutions are (to sum up) 'fuckled', it's going to put extra money - that could be going on the basics, and the essentials - into special, high-tech, caucasian pachyodermic, point-missing, new, malleable spaces.

on the other side of the argument - it will refurbish a part of the university already listed for such as part of the 'rolling upgrade' plan, and provide a space for design students to do stuff they used to have to do on corridor walls in east slope.

the woman asked, "what can we put in to make it more creative?" and i said "drugs." she didn't like that idea.

yes. rachel's dinner for us was fun and entertaining. she lives with two women who have a cat - a big, round, tabby cat which will qwuite happily bite you, the naughty thing.

oops! seminar.

x

yay me!

i got 20/30 correct on this difficult analogies quiz, which just pushes me into the 'gifted' category. it's difficult not to smile at myself and think how great i am, but then, i'm good at difficult things. except fancy dress.


'funky drummer guy'. yes, it's from b3ta, and i don't want to have to keep putting their stuff up here, so please, just read it, annoying and smarmy and frequently bobbins as it is.

here's some more:

>> God FAQ <<
Some thoughtful people haven taken the time and
effort to collect all the available information
about God and collate it into a handy 'Frequently
Asked Questions' list. Everything you could
ever need to know about God and more.
http://www.400monkeys.com/God/index.html

new elliot smith mini-site

here.

laurence just sent me an email from his gmail account; it arrived in hotmail's junk folder. political? toi?

quickly: just searched for difficulty, looking for inspiration for ed's party on saturday, for which the web page is classic, but iw on't put it up as it contains contact information, and detailed directions to his house - and we don't want gate crashers! what came up first? the Which OS Are You? quiz! even better-sounding is the Which Nigerian Spammer Are You? quiz, which it offers at the end.

i'm superhorney, like single malt whiskey...

the ultimate sick jokes page? now lets never talk of that again. what's really sad is the repitition - people should take some responsibility for their jokes. god, i'm so sick of dead baby jokes now, although i remember Thom being sick of them first. Joel had a really good one though last night, on the way to his induction to Grub's. what was it? there was something kind of superior about it...

meanwhile, as i was drifting off to sleep last night, thought about the concept of "meeting up for a drink". what's that all about, eh? it stares us in the face, how insecure we all are, everytime we want to meet someone. "lets me up for something to occupy our hands, and distract us from each other, and fill in the silences when we run out of things to say, and relax(alcohol)/stimulate(caffine) us so that we can interact better."

the weekend was excellent. Father and i left warslow at seven(?), got to brighton about 11.15, then picked up an Eshna's and got to the house. i had been allocated the same room as last year, and since Jess had done the same, and entirely recreated her old room, i was left with the piano on the other side of my wall.
what did i say? what was the one thing (or an otter) i didn't want this year? fortunately, i'm an 'easy going guy' (or so i tell girls online) and i don't actually care that much. i got my amp. yup.
so during our curry, Mitri says we should unload the car now, while it's quiet. so we lug all the stuff into my room; it only took me a couple of hours (three) to pack it up, since a lot was still in the boxes it was brought in. and then, at one in the morning, he says: "right. i think i'll go home now." his eyes were really wired, and he's raring to get it out of the way. he drove to somewhere round brummygam way, slept, got home at eight, slept until twelve. the mad bastard.

the next day, we Laurence and i said hello to brighton. hung out in dave's (i copied and pasted that sentence from an old post). actively didn't buy ceedees. because i just got an old David Wrench record from '97, where he does a very good Nick Cave impression throughout, and an MJ Hibbett record. and that night, we went to the Sanctuary Cafe (see last post). he was class, and the guys after him, actually only one astronaut and a friend of his on guitar, was absolutely excellent. someone was fiddling with a delay effect too, which was fun, but didn't really improve the performance. and then Rosie's party, which was the best for ages, because every one was so nice to me. people normally turn their noses up, like my grandma susan always said they would. so thanks to every one who was there for making it so nice. sunday... wait a minute, i'll just check Laur's blog... right enough, dave's diner, house shop, house meeting, it's all there. seeing Beth again was delightful. drunk some single malt. went to bed.


and last night, was Astra and Abi and the Warmal pub (or something). hugely delightful, and full of vaguely familiar pretty faces. please go next time she's on. her songs are rather deep; i can't find it in myself to write stuff like that, or Martha Tilston. maybe my life just isn't that emotional. i think the last actual song i wrote was 'Edmond'.


the only other thing i have to say is: i'm planning on playing ultimate frisbee again this year. need to work on my forehand, as my gfinger still hurts when i try that one.

love,
grilly.x

firstly: Italian Rita died this morning. Stevie was sat outside the bathroom when i came out, and it was obvious. they'd said for a couple of days that it was going to happen soon, and since she was diagnosed as terminal, it think she's done everything she wanted to - that i know of, at least - and hasn't had a long period of suffering, as is much in her character. she said that saying goodbye to her grandchildren was the hardest thing she'd ever done. she's taught me a lot, in fact many of my opinions come wholesale from her (after careful consideration, she often makes a whole lot of sense), and anyone who's ever commented on my clothes will know my traditional response - '50p from sally army in lockerbie,' since she has kitted out my wardrobe for as long as i can remember. my biggest regret is that i never got round to bringing any of my freinds to see her. she reminded me in so many ways of Aughra, and now she has returned to the stones and trees (dark crystal reference, google it). i'll miss the funeral - scattering her ashes on burnswark hill with a few bottles of scotch - but that's probably just the way she'll have wanted it.






on a lighter note, Hen Heaven benefit weekender:

>Next weekend at splendid Sanctuary Cafe is a Beat Bedsit weekend in aid of
>Hen Heaven, a bird sanctuary in Henfield (no, really). Here's the
>lowdown..
>
>FRIDAY 1st OCTOBER to SUNDAY 3rd OCTOBER
>Downstairs At The Sanctuary Cafe,
>Brunswick Street East (off Western Road)
>Brighton, 01273 770006
>
>Entry each night £5, weekend ticket available on the Friday for £12
>Doors open 7.30pm, music runs till 11.15pm
>Plus DJs and compere Justin Rhyme
>and fabulous cakes and meals upstairs of course...
>
>FRIDAY 1st
>
>GIRL AFRAID
>Garage pop of the highest calibre
>WOB
>Spring heeled indie pop fellow with lungs of elastic
>PROJECT ADORNO
>Electronic bubble wrap beat poetry that verges on the unique.
>SHORT TERM DIARY
>Thoughtful and incisive acoustic emo.
>POG
>Acoustic ska folk punk, pepped up with beats and a heart shaped bass.
>
>SATURDAY 2nd
>STEVE LAKE
>Zounds singer playing a solo set of acoustic sea shanties.
>DICK LUCAS
>Subhumans / Citizen Fish / Culture Shock frontman in poetry mode.
>THE ASTRONAUTS
>Legendary and elusive anarcho outfit.
>MOONEY
>Devastating barrage of venomous and hilarious verse.
>MJ HIBBETT
>Ultra-indie songwriter - a fusion of Billy Bragg and Half Man Half Biscuit
>with a bit of David Gedge.
>WILBERFORCE
>South London English pop eccentrics.
>
>SUNDAY 3rd
>THE LAS VEGAS MERMAIDS
>Lunatic collective of sketches, songs and giant gingerbread men.
>BIG HAIRY BAND
>Blissed out indie grooves.
>RACHEL PANTECHNICON
>A lady and her musings on a number of inflammatory subjects.
>WE AM JANET
>Cross the Bonzo Dog Doo Da Band with Syd Barrett and you're close.
>THE PARACETAMOLS
>Compere Justin Rhyme with toy obsessed rock combo.
>
>All money raised after expenses will go to Hen Heaven, a sanctuary for
>ex-battery birds.
>
>If you want more information, please get in touch.
>
>Hopefully see you there!
>
>Paul

NB. one just hopes that the Mooney following the lovely MJ Hibbett isn't the one we all know and call fuckface, behind his back.

Super Trotter Bros.

can't be bothered to flesh it out. i mean it's obivous really - you do the ARITHMATIC. Satre for 10: mario = del, luigi = rodney, toadstool = uncle albert.

this just in - new Cult Of Luna album best record since the black album.

October tour:
1st DE BERLIN Kastanie
3rd FR PARIS La Locomotive
4th Oxford Zodiac (Tel: 01865 420042)
5th London Garage (Tel: 020 7607 1818)
6th Bradford Rios (Tel: 01274 735549)
7th Leicester The Charlotte (Tel: 0115 912 9000)
8th Leeds Josephs Well (Tel: 0113 2450875)!!!*
9th Sheffield Corporation (Tel: 0114 2760262)
10th Glasgow King Tuts (Tel: 0141 204 5279)
11th Nottingham Rescue Rooms (Tel: 0115 941 2544)
12th Manchester Academy 3 (Tel: 0161 200 2020)
13th Liverpool Academy (Tel: 0151 256 5555)
14th Birmingham Academy 2 (Tel: 0870 9032222)


*the idea of all seven of the cult, and their multifarious instruments, squeezing onto the Joseph's Well stage, is quite pleasing.

best tour ever.

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN + POISON THE WELL + EPHEL DUATH - (UK Tour 2004)

Nov. 25 – Portsmouth, UK @ Wedgewood Rooms
Nov. 26 – Oxford, UK @ Zodiac
Nov. 27 - Leeds, UK @ Cockpit
Nov. 28 - Bristol, UK @ Fleece And Firkin
Nov. 29 - Newport, UK @ Barfly
Nov. 30 - Wolverhampton, UK @ Wulfren
Dec. 01 - Exeter, UK @ Lemon Grove
Dec. 02 - Manchester, UK @ Academy 3
Dec. 03 - Edingburgh, UK @ Liquid Rooms
Dec. 04 - Glasgow, UK @ Garage
Dec. 06 - Newcastle, UK @ Nuu Global
Dec. 07 - Nottingham, UK @ Rock City
Dec. 08 - Northampton, UK @ Roadmenders
Dec. 09 - London, UK @ The Forum
Dec. 10 - Brighton, UK @ Concorde
Dec. 11 - Colchester, UK @ Arts Centre

didn't i say that last time the Duath played?

i'd just like to quote Anaal Nathrakh:

Friday, 13th August 2004
Recording is now complete on Domine Non Es Dignus. Without the use of keyboards, vocal distortion or harmonizers. They are for wimps.

contains a track called "To Err is Human, To Dream - Futile."

bye now.

a quicky...

"It is an old communitarian trick to claim that enlighted individuals - Lenin or Hitler, for example - know what the people really want, that the views and preferences that peiople express are not what they would think if only they could break free from their social condition. the assualt on brands is a new, intellectually feeble twist on this old theme. But the sentiments that lie behind it are equally obnoxious. They hint at fascism, all in the name of the people."

Philip Legrain, 'Open World: the truth about globalisation",

hooray for post 70!

interesting stuff recently that i haven't written:

bumbed into... this is very important. someone called for me, i turned around, and a crazy-looking, wild-haired, 'bloke' was standing in the queue for registration. he said he had been to school with me, did i remember him? i said not yet.. fuck, it was Jihad. as he said his name, his face bloody transformed, i'm not kidding, into his old face. i gave him my number, he said he'd call (but didn't). his friend was utterly short with me - J:"this is my firend grilly from school!" J's freind:"i, who ya doing," then turned away without any intention of saying anything to me ever again.

went to lick the wall. saw valerie. woo!yay! they only got to do four songs, but we *love* them. Chloe poems was ultimate poetry-core; hilarious, threatening, correct, and had the audience by the gingham panties. in attendence: deb pugh and steve, my very good freinds (who i do remember from school), and bizzarely, dave garcon, old freind of my parents, played in tim's band, owns logoprint and was playing that night in robin nature bold's band, 'ism'.

got a call from andrew conway, another school friend i haven't seen for far too long. now in london, which makes fings easy.

back to work now!
see you all in brighton, please come.
grilly

More greetings from easyInternetCafe!

.
the cafe is a seperate business and charges 'net customers 20p a shot to use the loo.
i'm becoming quite a regular here. if it were smaller, and more soulful, i might start to recognise the staff and clientel. except, if it had any character, it would be more expensive, and i would probably go somewhere else. where? a phonebox? at £4 an hour? everybody else is out of business.

the only email i got today was from rounder records in brighton. it was very funny and strange, this week, wasn't it? sorry if you don't get it, had this very good link

this is most definitely NOT my website

an oldish anecdote that needs telling:

i was strolling to the pub, and Dear Darling's 'Everything All At Once' ep (more like a mini album, as it's 5 tracks stretch over 23 minutes) had just started. in front of me, a way away, were Mat and Dom, with a pint of ale ready for me at the table. the albums opening rhyming couplet rang in my ears -

I spend time with you, 'cause i don't have, anything better to do-ooo-ooo-oo-oo...

don't you hate how the font changes? must sort that out.

i heard the words, and saw my friends in front of me, and knew that they didn't match 87)

xx

*this blog is a sackable offence*

what pisses me off? david wrench gig (supporting fi-lo radio, storm records night) on monday is cancelled.
anyone fancy valerie on saturday night?

work is fun though - this week has been very light. my logic is thus: i've signed off work, so they can't possibly sack me for using the internet in work hours (the database is online, so the computers have to be plugged in, you see).

finished consider phlebas; an adequate book. three stars. paid today, so shopping for cds online - but can't remember which ones i wanted. when the hell is a new zabrinski record coming out?

gone off Miss Machine a bit, since i heard 'last night i dreamt that somebody loved me' at a rather oppertune moment. DEP just aren't the Smiths. most bands aren't; there's nothing wrong with not being the Smiths. that's not to say my finger didn't hover over the 'buy' button of 'Caluclating infinity' on earache's webstore. but i thought i'd continue exploring their other material a bit longer first. and they're playing over here again in december, and i'm ^so^ there.

Thanks to Ewa, who sent me a lovely mix CD, with a winter slant. it has three bands i know on - and one song that i'd actually just put on a cd myself! it's magic when that happens (but i wasn't satisfied with the cd i'd made, and so it sits...).

y'see, when i don't blog very often, i can't really think of anything to say. and it's only when i lose myself in someone else, that i find myself, i find myself...

xxx

p.s. cheers to nina for mail, i'll 'write' soon.

"guess kids these days just can't tell their gravity from their rotating frames of reference."

that there from "consider phlebas" by Iain M. Banks. of course anti-gravity suits don't work on ring worlds! i love sci-fi. also just read a 'pocket essential' biog of Alan Moore. gee, i didn't know he was the only person writing comics for the last 15 years, and started every cultural revolution in the intervening period. thanks pocket essentials. it was good though. i now know i need to read Miracleman (i've already read some of the later Neil Gaiman ones), and v for vendetta, which play off each other as foils, and basically everything he's ever done, because otherwise, my life isn't worth shit. thanks, pocket essentials.

i've also started reading a very confusing book, about, as the author puts it "strange loops" (or as my brother puts it, "circles"). read reviews at the link.


i've been staring at a computer for 2 days and you should be thankful i've taking this time to write anything. at least it's only LCD. i hate cathode rays.


grilly
xxx

absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the last two posts have been irish-related jokes, this one goes out to all my very sexy lady friends in dublin...

ladyfest dublin

i trust all you self-realised hardcore lasses will be going; there's just a chance i will be there. how do i know about this? valerie, of course. they'll be playing on the 18th of sept., at the green room, manchester, and i will be there.

now i must download mp3s.

ps. lots of new jokes coming.

xxx

absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the last two posts have been irish-related jokes, this one goes out to all my very sexy lady friends in dublin...

ladyfest dublin

i trust all you self-realised hardcore lasses will be going. how do i know about this? valerie, of course. they'll be playing on the 18th of sept., at the green room, manchester, and i will be there.

now i must download mp3s.

ps. lots of new jokes coming.

xxx

i can't believe it! another joke!

do you remember the currency Ireland had before the euro, where every coin and note had a dirty innuendo on?

no?

it was dublin tender!
(sounds like, "double entendre")

thus.

the new, famous, irish man/psychology student joke!!!!11

made this up on holiday:

this psychology student is running an experiment, right, and she wants to measure the base rate of human error, so she picks a ludricously easy task, and montiors how succesfully volunteers perform at it; she decides to take a pair of chimes and just 'ting!' them together, different numbers of times, and the volunteer must say how many times they hear the sound. so she has lots of volunteers, and gets some good data.

on the last day of the experiment, a stereotypical irish man walks in. she explains the experiment to him again, saying, "all you've got to do is say how many times i've rang the chimes," he says, "okay, okay." so she rings the chimes once - 'ting!' - and the man says, in his best gruff irish accent, "one," and then she rings it several times, and the man pauses a moment and says, "that would be a river-dwelling mammal."
the experimenteer is silent for a beat; then explodes.
"What!? why the hell did you say that? what's that got to do with anything?"
the irish man relaxes back in his chair, takes a wee dram from a previously unobserved bottle of Power's, and says...

"well, you see, with me, it's either one t'ing or an otter!"

PGS! You're all PGS!

there's a revealing, long interview with the *charming* Maria Schneider of pathetic geek stories fame; listen to it here, or go to the link above, and browse to old news where you get a few more links.

in my life: i really need a teddy bear. i've been cuddling my spare pillow all night. not that there's anything wrong with that type of thing, an actual teddy bear won't provide any more comfort than a pillow, but it's the image, yk? who would want to sleep with a guy who sleeps with his pillow? chix dig guys who like teddy bears. but do they like guys who realise that the comfort is merely from holding something soft? probably not, because there is the aesthetic to a teddy bear; even when you're not holding it, it looks cute, and that doesn't happen with a pillow. a pillow is shaped more like a human torso...

...ah, so it was my beloved David Wrench that Thom wouldn't let cover creep (and dickhead got away with it?)

EP: The debut release on Storm records for David will be the WORLD WAR IV e.p. Featuring the tracks WORLD WAR IV, LIKE A COMMUNIST, CREEP, and FUCK YOU AND YOUR WAR ON TERROR. expect to see it in the shops (if not the charts) early next year. David is putting the finishing touches to the forthcoming album THE ATOMIC WORLD OF TOMORROW as we write this.

EP: Due to Radiohead banning the cover of creep, the world war IV ep has been withdrawn. We approached Thom Yorke of the band in manchester to ask why permission was not allowed, but all he did was get angry and started shouting "do you know how hard I work?", well probably quite hard Mr Yorke, but then again so does everyone else I know, and for a fraction of the pay and satisfaction you get out of work. We genuinely believed that Radiohead would have given permission for use of their song on an anti war ep, but they work far too hard apparently. FAKE PLASTIC POP STARS. If you would like to let Radiohead themselves know what you think, the email address for their management is bryce@cyard.com

.
so it turns out, according to free indie rag The Fly, david wrench's physics teacher at school was motherfucking genius Gorwel Owen. is there no end to the man's talents? apart from producing all my favourite records, he inspired young wrench to do the first ever welsh language acid house track, and taught the coolest subject(?). i do pick 'em don't i? regular readers will know how i bought wrenchy's single superhorny purely because he produced/co-wrote some zabrinski tracks, if i wrote that anecdote up. other facts of wrench (from his biog):

Produced records for Zabrinski, Wendykurk, Adom and MC Mabon.
Engineered records for The Blueskins, Julian Cope, Jackie Leven, David Thomas, British Sea Power,the Archie Bronson Outfit, Ian McCulloch, Ectogram and tons of others.
Did 3 British tours supporting Gorkys Zygotic Mynci.

i still think it's funny that the Welsh for 'welsh', 'cymraeg' sounds like 'cumrag'. still. in the face of all that adversity, and the fact that i deliberately mispronounce it. maybe that has finally excercised all the humour now.

well, i've got a month of laurence's blog to read up on, so i've gotta go. catch you later, hepcats.

miss machine

buy it. buy the fuck out of it. i can't believe how good this album is.

on a related note, i'm going to have to start liking Rahzel, who's touring with mike patton and appearing on the new bjork record.

bought deloused in the comatorium today; i find it very reminiscant of 'six' by Mansun. the first track's great and then i got bored. maybe i was just frustrated 'cause everyone said it was great, and to me it sounds familiar.

enough posting.

i am here to fuck.

so preacher, then. great... and then he spends all of book seven as a sheriff of a texan town, taking on the boss of the local meat-packing plant. why? i know they needed to fill in 6 months of his life, but it was a total waste of time. no herr starr (the greatest character in the comic - there's something about ultra-violent, bald comic stars, no? jesse custer himself is ultra-violent, but that's just frustrating because he could just tell the people to poke themselves in the eye and check into hospital, and they would. the violence is unjustifiable).

andyhead is online!! rejoice. sadly, he seems to be suffering from "blog novelty" syndrome, where after a couple of days the inspiration dries up.. keep yer end up, mate.

wicked new mp3.

my last post got et by the ethernet, and i can't remember what it was now..
band name: "jennifer, my girlfriend." turns out narcoleprosy is already used, so back to the drawing board.

got a job today - registering freshers at salford uni. money in yer pocket.

kudos to vicky for contacting me by email, but i can't find her anywahere on line so, please luv, get in touch again.

i think that's it... anythng else will come later.

love,gxx

"(t-s)hurts so good..."

a story about fashion, a fabric pen, and post-irony.

before i went away, i bought a fabric pen to label laundary; it came in useless, but while writing 'dcg' illegibly, in black, on black socks, i decided to grafitize a gray t-shirt someone had given me. can't print onto gray t-shirts. so i wrote a slogan on it, except, you might remember, i dislike slogan t-shirts. so what is the only slogan a creature like me would write on a t-shirt?

THIS T-SHIRT WAS FUNNY WHEN I BOUGHT IT.

hilarious! i'm a genius! i wore it round and proud. i wore it to heathrow, and staff thought it was funny. after about, ooh, five days of wear, i put it in the wash. went back to "visualise voluntary human extinction", and its ilk. when it came back from the wash, something was different about it. well, it hadn't changed. but suddenly it wasn't as funny. but then, when i realised that, it instantly became a whole room of american sit-com writers funnier. "it was funny when i bought it... and now it's not funny at all!! i kill me!". so i wore it again. now, the third time it came out of the wash, it had changed again. i looked upon it and realised i had entered the game of pricks. i was only in the same league as the people with "you're just jealous because the little voices are talking to me" t-shirts. for all my irony, i was no better. and now i'm embarresed to wear it. it sits at the top of my drawer, while every time i root underneath it for others... and soon, the next load of laundary will fall upon it, and it may be buried forever...

the chroncles of Roddick

in the far future, humanity is threatened by a maleveolent force from another galaxy. only the mercanarious super-brandeer Roddick can save us, with her over-priced hand creams and subtle beauty faschism...

honestly have you been in the body shop recently? it's like boots but everything's made out of wood, and there's no cheap stuff. that article was meant to be a lot longer, but iona desperately wants to go on the computer, and i need to get to altrincham to go big job hunting.

rant #2: the worst promotion ever.

i got home, fed the cat for the first time. a sign on the kitty kat box:

you could Win a free Odeon kids ticket!

erm.. worst promotion ever. they normally give those things away, with the redundant clause "with full paying adult". i mean a kids ticket is a couple of quid, you need to be accompanied, and there's going to be pop corn, and drinks.. you're going to make a fortune. so why restrict this by only giving away so many? at this point i saw the other clause - it's a kids ticket, at odeon, for the garfield movie. so you don't even get the choice? sad really.

new band names - bedford rascal, narcoleprosy, roddick.
new page coming soon: "101 things that automatically make you a cunt", as long as i continue using that word as a slander.

oh yeah, and indonesia was great. i' will be reading from my diary in brighton, but suffice to say, it was really quite beautiful and the people were very nice to us.

grilly out.

today's letter is 'B'

i think highlight of last week might have been dancing with anna in the fabulous Bell pub in bath, to a rather excellent jazz/blues band - very 50's, very technical, very good. on the way home we stopped in to continue dancing in a pub that had lots of reeally ruff jamai-core and other people dancing in, for a couple of minutes.

however, in a wonderful move, the berzerker has seen sense and put his pre-earche gabba eps on line - you can find this sick shit here nice to see his work defined as @death-core@. tried to go home today but leaving bath when i did i would have had to be picked in a round trip of nearly two hours for mes parents gone nine, so i came back to dann's in Baff. my worst travel experiance ever? leaving rachel's in Brummygham at about half five i think, got to New Street just past a train about ten past six. made it to my Brighton bed gone two in the morning. ah, memories..

the past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.

i'm going soon, this might be my last blog until i come back to the normal world. i've nearly got everything i need to go away with. so thanks for reading, i love you, i'll see you soon.

gwiwy
xxxxx
p.s. this page actually looks normal in mozilla. but laurenec's doesn't. hmmm.
 
pps.
i want that book back.

it's official!!

i can - "proceed to the next year". in ecsaticism, i went to the pub,
and a pint and chips and read the joy of yiddish. there's a funny story
attached to finding that book at home, which i won't go into here.

but grilly, that's what this website is for!

but it's the way i tell it...

stayed with anna wednesday night. she's helping make a set of UV paintings for use in a psy-trance club night. we talked at legnth about one she had made, beautiful and monochrome, that she didn't want to give away; i talked her round i think. reminded me of dorian gray: "i have put too much of myself into it." there were three good points that i made... what were they? 1, it doesn't really matter; 2, it's nice that it'll be appreciated by hundreds of revellers, and at home it's too large to not be in the way; 3, can't remember. was there a third even? she has all these lovely people putting everything together in such a nice atmosphere.

fred's wedding was lovely. they had a handfasting - very traditional, but not
the usual tradition. they held hands, which were tied for a couple of
minutes, they said some silent vows, then they were (physically) untied
and we pelted them with rose petals. i played some songs - tried to
stick to the classics, because that's what people wanted -

going for a pie
24 hour garage people
superhorny
pete
in the garage
a sad attempt at ideoteque (during which someone started drumming, and carried on till the end of the set, which was of course...)
christmas song, with anna

i didn't want to play too many TotF songs.
everthing
was so good. the weather played it safe, the company was great, the
look on their faces, how they complement each other... a good wedding,
all things considered. yes, it was top to see owen, and dale, and cara, and definately fred, and others i won't go into here.
look it was great. soon...

grilly..xxx
x

"Go home and be a family man!" takes a holiday

well, my long-awaited next album has hit the shelves again, and not just because i don't know when i'll have time/inspiration to do it; the feature-legnth record (k, the definition of a feature-length film is one that is longer than 55 minutes, so the adage doesn't stretch to albums. you don't need to point this out to me!), to include the songs "the girl in the kid A top" (to feature drums and bass by thom ash [is that ok?]) and "new boyfriend", which have both existed fully formed in my head for about two years (if only there was an easier way to get them out) has been put back a release. yes, i have a project i wish to complete first. let me tell you about it.

before i came home this summer, i burnt off 3 copies of a cd of almost all the tunes i'd done in brighton on the computer, and gave them to people i wanted to hear them and maybe play with - Thom, Laurence, and Andyhead. it had thirty-two tracks - enough to pick filler material from for loads of releases. then, just the other day, it struck me. i was looking through a pc format dan had just sent me... what is special about the number 32? think back about ten years, for a second.



D00M II.

32 levels, each with a "par time". all i have to do is make each tune the length of a appropriate doom II level, et voila! instant concept, double album. 95 minutes. cd1 - the spaceport and the city. cd2 - HELL (and secret levels). songs can range from 30 seconds to seven minutes. i'm so exited. the best part is, i don't have to do that much work, just stretch the tunes to fit around the par times, and i get to use all those chunky great songs that would otherwaise never see the light of day - AND i get to use a pretentious "inspiration" for my "cycle" of music. could make a ballet, or an opera, out of it. see? great.