ALL THE THINGS THAT MAKE US LAUGH AND CRY

Before I forget, I want to write about something I saw the other day. I was walking back from the station. I'd lost my headphones (again) and had my iPod next to my ear playing WU LYF as loud as I could without distressing the old people in my village too much. The old people were nowhere. It was six. Curtains closed, gates locked just in case MOAT or HUNGERFORD or CUMBRIA happens in Brent Knoll. I'll say it now, because it's expected.

That will never happen. Not here. Not to us. We don't belong in the newspapers. Even the post office's local headlines are never about Brent Knoll. This week it's about molestation on Burnham sea front. My mum said - something. She remarked.

I was walking and Heavy Pop had just ended. I heard some more music in the background. It sounded like some weird jaunty arabic music that had been composed by a drug-stuffed Tinkerbell. Whenever I hear music outside in the village, I tut. There's a party. The other day I went outside of my back door and I head 'Tik Tok'. I tutted, went up to my room and thought about the weird sex games that the old people must get up to.

Kesha does that to me. Music outside does that to me, but only in the village. Villages are places where life doesn't happen. Or, life happens in a structured and safe environment. Once a month with the bazaar, once a year with the wassail.

LIFEDOESN'TGETMUCHMOREEXCITINGTHANTHIS

Christ. I'm stretching this anecdote.

When I got closer (this all took about 10 seconds by the way) I heard that the song was, in fact, Cyndi Lauper's 'Time After Time' and the wind had somehow distorted it. I was walking past the open gates of the house expecting to see some children running around, a BBQ, men in hats with cigars and cider, other men laughing with men at the BBQ, women with wine, men looking at other men and laughing and then shouting something about football just in case someone thought that the look was, in fact, underlined by homoeroticism. Which it was. Sausages burning and punch.

There was one car in the driveway.

There was one fat woman dancing in her garden.

And I wanted to dance with her. To go through the gates, dance for a bit, find some wine to quaff and then, when her husband comes out, she can say 'This is Will, my new friend' and we would have laughed and it would have been a bit awkward but, heck, I love those ransom connections. And I always pretend that I have lots of them.

I always speak to people at bus stops, or meet people at parties. But nothing sticks.

Olives on the verandah. Dreams.

There was a road sign opposite the gates, one with black and white arrows. There was tar smeared in shots on the white of the sign.

I walked on. In my mind, she's still dancing.

OH, YOU SAID IT FRIEND. ACH, EACH DRINK WAS LIKE

I was in London again recently and

the thing about big cities,

about getting away and being in nice hotels with devices to clean your bum-hole

well, one of the things

I find

is that people are more people-ish and less

this is hard to describe

more desperate to make friends and be friends and show that HEY I AM A FRIEND

AND THIS CONNECTION IS REAL. OK?

not that everyone’s shouty.

people are less shouty.

there’s silence everywhere and people who are people

not people who are with other people with iPods blazing and kids sparking handrails with dirty hands.

Although there are dirty hands.

Ugh.

Expect better.

I don’t know where I was. I don’t know where I am today, really.

Bristol, milkshake. Park and ICE. In the rink, where I didn’t fall over once.

I am a king, of sorts. All sorts.

PAP SMEAR

And excuses for my awful record of blogging lately.

Number one. It’s summer, and I like to go outside and play with all of the other pasty big kids.

Number two. It’s summer, and ice cream.

Number three. I’ve been operating a laptop without the ‘h’, ‘y’, ‘?’, ‘6’ and shift keys until today when I ventured into PC World and purchased a keyboard so I can type everything and anything that I can ever want to.

Like... Who’s 6th? Why, you ought not to worry about such silly things.

Spectacular.

And I’m going to look silly in the library with my laptop and keyboard, but I find that most people in libraries aren’t really people who are familiar with the freezing heights of Cool Mountain so I won’t really worry.

Shit, and I said that I would do a glastonbury review.

Um.

OK.

Here: it was good. I enjoyed myself.

WHAT FOLLOWS IS PRETTY INCOHERENT. IT’S HERE BECAUSE IT CAN BE AND IT’S GOOD TO RECALL THINGS SOMETIMES. I HAVE A DIARY WITH NOTHING IN IT.

OOPS.

More specifically, I got there on the Friday and missed Tegan and Sarah. Apparently they were average. I arrived just in time to see Vampire Weekend be all amazing and Summery and I wanted to drink some Horchanta and I want to see them again right now. As in now now. Then Dizzee Rascal, and I danced with friends. Most of my friends danced, with the notable exception of Ben who refused to dance/stay awake/not wander off taking photos of lights and grass for the entirety of the weekend. And then I missed Radiohead but I don’t really mind because, well....

OVERRATED.

and I’ve said it. Radiohead.are.not.Gods.

Broken Bells...good but not as good as I wanted them to be. To be fair, I couldn’t really see anything because I had horrific hay fever and I was blindblindblind to everything. Many people asked me if I was alright. Many people assumed that Thom Yorke made me cry. Not so. Because, well....

OVERRATED.

and it’s true, if it’s said enough times.

And no XX because of eye-death but that’s alright because they’re kind of overrated too.

(SIDENOTE: THE XX SHOULD NOT WIN THE MERCURY AWARD. WILD BEASTS DESERVE IT. I BET TWO POUNDS ON WILL HILL THAT THEY WOULD WIN AND I NEED THE MONEY RIGHT NOW. I’M TAKING OUT A CREDIT CARD WHEN I GET OFF THIS TRAIN AND I NEED RENT AND A PLACE TO STAY. SHIT. I SPENT £35 ON A KEYBOARD. SHIT.)

and wake up. notable on Saturday...um. Memory. Is. Not. Working. Because.

I didn’t take any drugs.

I barely drank.

From what I can remember, here’s a list

GOOD

THE NATIONAL

TUNNG

MUSE

SCISSOR SISTERS

Pizza was tasty...um.

RAY DAVIES

BAD

EMPIRE OF THE SUN

I DON’T LIKE KATE NASH

I THINK THAT JACK JOHNSON IS A TWAT.

besides, all of this is irrelevant.

my half-remembered observations mean nothing

if you went and enjoyed it, great.

if you didn’t, sorry. That’s not my fault.

And sorry for this post.

Expect better.

HALF AWAKE IN A FAKE EMPIRE

it's july and I just-shit no posts in july- so here I am,

tail between my legs

there's not really been any reason for me to be quiet apart from being ridiculously busy most days. glastonbury, moving+cleaning to make the landlord have a money orgasm of my deposit money, spending a few days in Taunton without the internet and today

which I have spent sleeping, largely. Apart from the ten minutes which I took out to watch Maury

I usually love Maury. He's never judgmental of the twats who are NOT the father of whatever illigetimate child popped out of the dirty prostitute spreading her crabs on his chairs

but that's kind of the problem. Maury is a breedingplace for misogyny. FEMINIST ALL OVER YOUR FACE because it's depressing how I can watch a tv show and just accept that every woman on there is a Whore or a Slut and, you know, those sort of labels are a bad thing. and the dad is almost always a bumhole. everyone's usually from the ghetto or the huge plains of America where condoms don't exist

and I can imagine the swathes of unemployed people judging everyone on their tv, worms wriggling around their cellulite as they don't realise that even though there are people more fucked up than them on tv

you know, sort your life out. pow.

today's Maury was a jolly holiday special. The audience had to guess whether the woman strutting around his stage are 'real' women or transgender. Or, as Maury kept asking-

WHAT IS IT?!?!?!?!

which is kind of insensitive, kind of anti-queer, kind of misogynistic, kind of simplistic, kind of disturbing, kind of zoo-like

all kinds of wrong, basically.

and it really doesn't warrant a whole hour long program

about people who want to be freaks

and want to be vilified

and torn to shreds

and objects.

I couldn't watch all of it. STILL. I was curious to see whether IT was a MAN OR A WOMAN?!?!?!?!?! so I Sky+ed it and I will watch it later

because I'm a huge hypocrite

because I am a bad person?

or, because I'm trying to care about something that I know I should care about but, shit, it's hard to care about this stuff sometimes

when it's thursday, and I'm sat on my ass doing nothing

you know, you know, you know,

I should be doing shit. not being slightly outraged by maury.

game of 40/40 in anyone?

A LITTLE WHISTLE

It's probably better without confession. Things in the real world could get messy. We'll see tomorrow.

messmess mess I like to make a mess

with my cheese and onion sandwich filler

I also need new music. I need to go on a binge of all of the bands who I probably should like/am going to see at Glastonbury.

I need to decide whether I like The Big Pink or not. I quite like their Dominoes song I think but this is what Spotify is for. True story, I was supposed to be in their video for 'Tonight' but I couldn't make it. It wasn't paid so I was hardly going to go out of my way for it.

but, errr the Big Pink. OK. My reaction is similar to that band that everyone liked a couple of years ago that sung about daddies. Glasvegas. People were properly cumming their pants about them so I went to see them in the Queen's Head on the Thursday and they were the grumpiest group of shits I've ever had the misfortune to see. Heads so far up their own arses that their heads were back on top of their shoulders stinking of shit. If that makes any sense.

If you want some original insults, ask Malcolm Tucker. He'll chuck in a few fuckityfucks for free.

I'm clearly not laddish enough for The Big Pink. SO. Not going to see them, please. If I want to feel like I'm at a football match I'll go to watch West Brom play against Grimsby Town instead. Except this would be like a football match with hipster type people who are there because Dazed did a piece on how cool The Big Pink are and it's cool to like them, or something, even though their music's shit.

I'm glad I gave them a listen. I would have been one of those people otherwise.

I'm also not looking forward to the amount of people wearing something ill-advisedly 'festival' from Topman/shop. Last year everyone wore black fedoras with white stripes. I felt like crying.

I just listened to 'The Chordettes' sing 'Mr. Sandman' as a remedy to The Big Pink. You might recall that I felt equally repulsed by The Dirty Projectors. And the same goes for The Drums. They're another band that just appeared and everyone's cumming themselves because they were on a Kitsune compilation album, Morrissey went to their gig and they wear bow ties and shorts and omg they're well fit bbz, but like in a they'd totally break if I bent them over the desk and fucked them lolz are they gay bbz? kind of way

and I am repulsed that I typed that. Text speak should not be used in writing. I tweeted this to Margaret Atwood the other day. This is what she had to say in response:

MargaretAtwood

@the_burningboy: Aw...me writing in Textspeak: No worse than Telegraphese, once.. doesn't mean one no longer speaks plain English, eh?

Margaret Atwood should not be text speaking. It's just wrong. Anyway, I'll give some first impressions of bands that I'm supposed to love because I'm a boy and I wear short shorts in a moment.

Midlake: comparisons to Radiohead. As in, good. I will happily listen to this forever.

Beach House: the singer seems a bit whiney. Like...ooh. I sing. And I try to sing like I'm stuck on top of a cloud. I can imagine some girlfriend in her mid-twenties dragging her boyfriend along to this for a spot of ill advised romance. And him looking confused with a beer in hand. I mean, I'm bored of them.

Next.

These New Puritans: I heard something from these people a few years ago. They were alright then. They've got worse. Well. Wait. No, worse. Like a cross between System of a Down and the Ting Tings. I like System of a Down. I hate the Ting Tings. Also, the singer has a speech impediment. Lulz. OK. I gave them another shot. This song's alright, but the rest of it is shit. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt:

(note...these bands probably appeared on my list of bands i'm really fucking keen to see that I posted on here the other day. I'm a hypocrite. Shoot me.)

Everything Everything: quite good. I would enjoy seeing them, at least. I can dance. And that's important. And the man sings in falsetto, which means that he dances. And I like this song, I'm listening to Schoolin'. I'm going to see them. DEDICATION. Here's another song by Everything Everything:

errrrr that's the list for now.

I'm planning on giving short reviews of everyone I end up seeing, more so that I can remember what I did more than anything else. I can never remember everyone I've seen after a few weeks.

I really like Schoolin'

It's going to be a song of the moment.

POW

ps. your feet smell like cheese

LAST NIGHT'S LOVE AFFAIR IS LOOKING VULNERABLE

I wish I had made this blog more anonymous.

I have

I want to tell stories of

but I don't feel guilty.

and it shouldn't matter.

but I'm exercising restraint when I don't want to be.

just saying.

ALL YOU EVER THINK ABOUT IS SICK IDEAS INVOLVING ME INVOLVING YOU

so, I've been obsessing again. just listening to one song over and over and over and over and over again

I say obsessing, because the song is 'Obsessions' by Marina and the Diamonds. I tried to hate her, but I can't.

Spotify is aching. Also, Kelis. 4th July. I'm having a macho week.

Something about sport,

but who cares about the world cup anyway? England were always going to be shit. We haven't not been shit for so long that I don't know why it's a surprise. Hopefully it can all be over come wednesday and flags can be taken down from cars.

and I can be satisfied, because my couple months old prediction of Argentina winning is going to come into fruition. People hate that I'm a pundit now. People hate it when I'm right.

particularly about something I know relatively little about. but I know stuff, and I can talk football

it just does nothing for me. it's drone, it's noise. it's men and sweat and

you know, that's not nice.

so, life is watching Come Dine With Me and-

-the other day. there was a peace festival in Leamington Spa. Which I attended. And there was no SPORT. There wasn't really any peace,

just tramps singing and circles of people and tramps singing in circles of people

demented facepaint. a girl painted to look like Jigglypuff got raped.

crying women, everywhere

and lots of weed, people shaking eating cakes. This was a Dante vision, under the smog of 'peace'

with the hope that

peace starts in the lower middle classes

and spreads to the rest of the world.

we went to pubs and I was almost debauched

but for now, eyes closed. summer's coming.