I Don't Know My Arse From My...

Hello, my name is Craig and I am a fan of Elbow.  Like Elbow I am from Bury, but this has nothing to do with why I like Elbow. I like them because they do fucking ace music.... AND they're from Bury. Like me.

I have had a couple of their albums knocking about for a while, but I only really got into them in the past couple of years or so. Not because I didn't like any of their stuff, I just never really gave them the attention they deserved. I listened to some of their things and enjoyed it, but didn't seek out any of their other things. I'm not sure why I suddenly turned on to them in a big way, or why this didn't happen sooner. Maybe it was the version of One Day Like This they did live at Abbey Road; maybe it was before that, I can't really remember, but like them in a big way I now do. The 2 albums I originally had were MP3s of The Seldom Seen Kid and Leaders Of The Free World. My friend Rick gave me copies of them (naughty I know, but stay with me). I decided that I wanted to seek out their other albums and own them on original CDs, bought by me. So I set about finding them ALL on Amazon.... or Play.... or both. I can't really remember, I know I found Asleep In The Back; Cast Of Thousands; Leaders Of The Free World and Build A Rocket Boys at a very reasonable price and ordered them. By this point I had seen them live too.

They. Were. Amazing.

On the way back from that gig my friend Janis was driving. She put her copy of The Seldom Seen Kid Live At Abbey Road on in the car. The WHOLE album performed live at Abbey Road. I wanted this on CD too. Or was it DVD? Or was it both? Well, it had to be CD, cos she had it on in her car and there were no pictures. But it could also be both. I don't know. Rather than simply asking Janis I set about randomly clicking on things on the internet in an effort to find out. I found a CD on Amazon that looked right.  The Seldom Seen Kid and Live At Abbey Road on DVD. I clicked buy and waited for my package. Weeks passed. No package. All the other albums arrived, but not this one. I emailed the supplier, who seemed to be in America, even though I ordered it from Amazon UK. They said they had sent it weeks ago and I should have it. I said I didn't. They said they could do one of two things: Send me another one, or process a refund. I said I wanted the album, so could they send another one. They said they would. A week passed. No package. I received another email from them. They said they no longer had it in stock and so had cancelled my order and processed a complete refund. Damn! 6 weeks or so had passed and I needed to start again.

Then something got in the way for a while. I got married and went on my Honeymoon. Whilst on my Honeymoon in New York and Hawaii ( I KNOW!!!) I had a look in a couple of music shops in the hope it might be there. The order was supposed to be shipped from America after all. No luck. I did see "The Royal Wedding: The Album" in New York though. What the actual fuck?! Who would buy that?! Not bloody me.

I got home and set about trying to find it online again. On the HMV website I saw The Seldom Seen Kid. 2 disks. That must be the one. I bought it.

A week passed. Whilst at work a leaflet got posted through my door saying there was a parcel at the post office for me that was too big for the letter box. This had to be it. It struck me as odd that they couldn't fit a CD through the letterbox, but it seemed my wait was finally over. I went to the post office and picked up my parcel.

Now, before I say the next bit, I need to say something. When I placed the order I had just spent nearly 2 days travelling home from Hawaii. I hadn't slept for pretty much that entire 2 days. And my body was almost nocturnal as Hawaii is 11 hours different from home. Basically, I was tired.

I got the parcel. It was rather unCD like. It was about the right thickness, but it was a little larger. About 12" in total. A similar size to.... oh God..... a record. You know, vinyl. For any youngsters (or my wife), ask your Dad what that is. I opened the parcel. Yep. I had The Seldom Seen Kid on vinyl. How cool is that? It cost me £18, but hey, vinyl is quite cool. I mean, I don't have a record player, but that's quite a good collectors item. Oh, and it wasn't even the Live At Abbey Road version. It was just the original album. I went on the HMV website again and yep, in rather obvious writing, 2 x LP. Fuck! I am a knob.

By this point we are practically up to my birthday. My Dad asked what I wanted and I told him this story. He laughed and said he would buy me the one I wanted. I offered to find it on the internet and send him a link.  We both agreed my track record (no pun intended) on this wasn't great and to just leave it with him.

My birthday arrived. There was a rather large box from my Dad. A little odd. I opened the card first. I am polite like that. In the card it said this:

I opened the box. Inside there was a tin of Tesco chopped tomatoes; a tin of Bachelor's Condensed Tomato Soup; a tin of Bachelor's Condensed Cream of Chicken and White Wine Soup; a bass guitar strap (I don't have a bass guitar); 2 bass plectrums (I DON'T have a bass guitar) and 2 bass guitar leads ( I DON'T HAVE... oh hang on... I have a guitar and the leads are the same and I actually need a new lead. Nice one). 


Funny fucker my Dad.

2 days later (yesterday) I went to my Dad's and there was another present waiting for me. A CD sized present. I opened it. YEEESSS!!!! Elbow and the BBC Concert Orchestra - The Seldom Seen Kid - Live At Abbey Road. CD and DVD. SUCCESS!!!!! I put in on in the car on the way home. Oh. It's JUST the live album. That's GREAT! I wanted that, but I thought it had the original album too. It doesn't. So I could have bought that all those weeks (months) ago anyway. If I'd have employed a little bit of brain power on this fairly simple premise I would have realised that. Ah well. I finally have the live version that I started seeking out all that time ago.

Today I went to Bury and bought the original album. The task is now complete. I have all the Elbow albums on CD. And bonus.... how many people can say they own The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow on vinyl... and CD... and the live version of the album... on CD... and DVD? Not many, I would wager, is the answer.

Thank Fuck (Off) It's Friday

This may go against the grain of most people's opinion on this matter, but I hate Fridays! Yes ok, they are practically the weekend, but they are not ACTUALLY the weekend.  Not during the day anyway. Cos that's when you are in work.  It's just another day in work, except it's so close to the weekend that it's depressing.  Being nearly the weekend makes the day drag. Especially the afternoon. And you have to put up with people saying "Thank Fuck/God/Gosh It's Friday!" or, "Cheer up, it's Friday".  Fuck the fuck off!  Yes it's Friday, but I still have to be at work for over 8 hours, much like I did Monday to Thursday, and I still have shit to do.  So being cheery about the fact that it's not quite actually the weekend yet, and telling me what day it is like that should change anything, makes you look like a dick. 

To sum it all up.  Here is  a breakdown of my thoughts on the various parts of a Friday:

Friday morning = Urrgghh. 

Friday afternoon = Longer than a year.

Friday night = YES! 

I don't mind Mondays though.  Once I'm up and at work that is.  Obviously waking up early on a Monday and having to drag your arse to work is worse than the lowest level in all the levels of hell.  But once you're there it's ok.  Low expectations see. You don't expect anything from a Monday. It's the beginning of the week.  It's not nearly weekend, so you just get your head down and get on with things.  You don't count down to anything, because that would be beyond depressing.  5 days would seem like a lifetime, so no one thinks about it.  But Fridays in work, and people pointing out what day it is, can just FUCK OFF!

Come On Curiosity... Do Your Thing

I'm not really sure what I want to say with this blog.  Well I do. It's FUCKING BASTARD CATS! But how I want to say that in more detail I don't know. Maybe I will just tell you the story and see where that takes us. I guess it doesn't need to have a satisfying resolution. Few things in life do.

A few weeks ago I was soundly asleep in bed. I was awoken by a wailing noise. "What the fuck is that?!" It sounded like a child crying, but a really scary child. "Is that The Omen Child, Damien?!" The wail then went into a pitched screech. Oh it's a cat. Another screech. Fighting with another cat.  One obviously lost and the other cat pissed off. We were then subjected to a wailing cat nursing it's wounds for an hour.  Eventually it faded and I fell asleep. The next day was a struggle.  This has happened on and off ever since. About once a week. The early hours of this morning it culminated in me running outside with a plant spray and chasing one of the fuckers up the drive wearing only my dressing gown. Me wearing it, not the cat.

I HATE being kept awake.  In the wee hours I can plot quite irrational levels of MURDER if I am kept awake.  So to be kept awake by a creature I already have a  firm dislike of has meant my feelings towards cats has become a fevered hatred!  Dogs don't roam the streets at night keeping me awake. Dogs don't piss off whenever they feel and return only for food. Dogs are loyal creatures that are part of the family. Cats are free-loading spongers that KEEP. ME. AWAKE. Why would anyone want a cat? They don't enrich your life. You might as well have a fish. At least fish are pretty.  They are not a pet.  A pet is a part of the family. That you love and loves you in return. If you want a pet, get a dog. Jesus, get a goat, or a snake, or a fucking silverback gorilla.  Just don't get a cat.  The best is a dog though.  Dogs are brilliant creatures. They are like a child. If you leave them, for even a minute, they miss you. Cats barely even notice you exist in the first place. Apart from the fact you are the tuna provider. If someone is a better tuna provider then they will piss off and hang around their gaff instead. No loyalty. No conscience.  Basically, they are evil.  Kittens are quite cute I suppose. But don't be fooled. They become cats. Your kitten is basically a Siren. It's cuteness is the song luring you onto the rocks of owning a selfish wailing tuna eater.

Sharon doesn't mind cats. She prefers dogs obviously because she's not completely mental.  The only reason we don't have a dog is that we work.  And we feel it is cruel to have what is essentially a child, then leave them alone in the house for 8 hours. That's why dogs chew things and ignore their owners.  It's because they are pack animals that need companionship. I digress. This blog is about how monumentally worthless and annoying cats are. Not me sharing my hatred for mistreating dogs. (Awww. Aren't dogs great!)

As I said, Sharon doesn't mind cats.  She quite regularly strokes the cat from next door but one.  The little fucker!  He has no sense of fear or self preservation. You run at him to chase him out of the garden and he sits there looking at you as if to say, "What ARE you doing?", until you get to him and have to stop because you're all bluster. I have started using the spray gun we have for plants.  Even then he mostly just trots away getting wet. Inconvenienced, rather than scared. If you leave a door open, he is in the house and you have a comedy chase to throw him out.  Curious bastard! I hope that age old cliché is true. The cat from next door but one the other way regularly falls asleep on the warm bonnet of any car on the street. Not mine. It has learnt. But Sharon lets it. NO. LONGER. The welcome stops here Sharon!  No more stroking of that pussy (Come on. It HAD to be done at some point)! The rule is now that no cat will be made to feel welcome on our property. Period.  Hopefully this will mean they no longer feel our property is somewhere to be a safe haven during/after a fight. Or, as my boss thinks the noise is, a place they can go to fuck! Any cat seen in or around our garden will NOT be stroked, it will be chased away and attacked with water.  Any person who contravenes this will also receive the same treatment.  Sharon laughed when I told her this.  I'm not sure how much laughing she'll be doing the first time I throw a bucket of water over her stroking a cat in the garden.  We'll see. To be honest I have slightly higher hopes that the cats will learn before the woman.  But that's ok.  It's the cats I want to get rid of.  The cats contribute cock all to the mortgage, whereas Sharon can make much bolder claims on that front. I guess you could say, it's her house too.

Let's see how it goes. My boss has advised that step 2 could be to paint Calpol everywhere.  Apparently cats find paracetamol EXTREMELY TOXIC and it will solve the problem permanently. Errr, RSPCA anyone? I am obviously not endorsing this solution. I would never knowingly injure an animal. No, I would prefer that they kill each other to death. In the face. Now where's my shopping list?  

C-A-L...

Turning The Tables

We recently bought the house we are renting.  We are all growed up now and have to worry about things like building insurance, damp kitchens, leaking roofs and paying back the bank a shit load of cash.  When we rented the house we rented it part furnished.  I say part, what this actually meant was the landlady had some stuff she wanted to leave there and we were seriously lacking in furniture. We came to a mutually beneficial agreement.  We would use her furniture and save us buying some and she wouldn't have to store it (Why would she? She owned a fucking house!).  This worked out rather well for us for 2 years.  Then we bought the house.  FUCK, we need to spend a gazillion dollars on furniture!  Fortunately the God of Fate was smiling on us (I actually don't believe in such a god, so let's just say things worked out well).  Our landlady didn't want all her furniture back and she offered to sell us most of it at rather a great price.  We happily accepted.  It left us with the house pretty much as we'd known it.  With 2 notable differences.  She took the nice dining room table and chairs and the mattress off the bed in the spare room.  We needed to replace these things.

The mattress was easy enough.  We walked into a shop that sold beds and mattresses and said, "Give us your cheapest double mattress please".  £99. Bargain.  It's only for the spare room. It's not like it needs to be a NASA memory foam job. (I actually HATE those memory foam things.  Feels strange when I lie on it. I like a proper sprung mattress.) We have people staying over very rarely.  Mainly because I don't like people coming round to my house (See here), let alone STAYING OVER!!! Jesus, imagine people STILL being there the next day... *shudders*.

The table was a little more work.  We had a nice table before with the landlady's.  Nice chairs too.  In our minds we were trying to find something pretty much the same.  We had a look around and it became clear this was going to cost us rather a lot of money.  Eventually we went to the home section bit of The Trafford Centre and had a look in all the different shops.  We walked into British Home Stores and saw a table and chairs that was pretty much everything we were looking for.  And bonus, it was half price.  We bought it there and then and they said someone would be in touch to arrange delivery and assembly.  £35.  Ouch! Delivery AND assembly.  Is there no other option?  I am quite capable of putting a table together.  I asked the question and said could they not just deliver it for a cheaper price and I would put it together.  They said it was an all-in-one package and the only option they had.  I had little choice but to accept it.  Then next day someone contacted me and a delivery date was set.  They ONLY did Tuesdays in my area. During office hours.  "La-la-laaaa. Not listening. That's what we do and we are not flexible."  They offered two possible Tuesdays.  What about another Tuesday that is not one of those two?  "La-la-laaaa. Not listening. That's what we do and we are not flexible."  I chose the Tuesday after Easter Monday (not daft me) and, with a little juggling, arranged to work from home.  I also arranged the mattress delivery for the same day to take full advantage of working at home that day.

The day arrived and the table arrived at 8:10am.  I was impressed.  They said between 8am and 10am.  The 2 blokes started carrying boxes into the dining room and set about building the table.  I had a quick peek to make sure it looked like the right table and left them to it. 10 minutes later they announced they were done.  It looked ok, apart from being 90 degrees wrong in the dining room, but I hadn't specified and could easily move it.  I signed the papers. As a parting shot the bloke said that my dining room floor was a mile out.  He left and I quickly legged it into the dining room. Just as I feared the table rocked like a bastard. And I don't mean it was Jimi Hendrix.  I mean it wobbled.  One leg was a few millimeters off the floor. I hoped it was the floor at that angle, as the table needed turning 90 degrees, and rotated it.

Nope. Still wobbling. Still the same leg.  Fucking fuck fuckers!

I got my tape measure out and measure all the legs. They were all the same length. Relief.  The table was fine. It had just been assembled by numpties.  I went and got my tool box.  I loosened the nuts and bolts and the table relaxed.  All four legs were now on the ground.  I got everything nicely settled and systematically tightened everything back up.  Problem solved.  Took me 5 minutes.  It wasn't exactly Rocket Science.  It was Table Science and in the scale of sciences that is at least 7 places lower than Rocket Science. Somewhere below Lawn-Mower Science, but higher than Making-Toast Science. What they had done was assemble it upside down and tighten everything up full and then flip it over onto its feet (that is rather less acrobatic than it sounds). Rather than loosely getting the pieces together upside down, turning it over, getting it sound, and then tightening everything up.  And they are the professionals!? Dickheads!  It's not like it took me long to sort, but I'd paid thirty-five fucking quid for the privilege of redoing part of their job.

In future I think I'll insist on assembling things myself even if it is included in the price.  It's not like I'm a bloody joiner or whatnot. I just have an ounce of common sense. And in this instance that was about a million times more than the so called professionals.

I Paint Quite A Picture

I am writing a quick blog because I have a little story I want to tell and it's too long to tweet. It's even too long for a Facebook status.

I have just been doing a painting for my wedding seating plan. It will match up with the invitations and other stationary I designed.  Whilst painting I did a complicated swirly bit. It took me ages.  Once I was done I set about doing a bit of touch up on the edges of the canvas from a previous bit I had painted last week. I got into what I was doing and started moving the canvas around to get the best angle to get at what I was doing.  When I had done I stood back to inspect my work. Looks goo.... 

I had been putting my leg against the complicated swirly bit, smudging the fuck out of it. 

You know at the end of Back To The Future when Doc Brown is at the top of the clock tower trying to reconnect the cables so Marty can travel back to the future and he yanks so hard on the cable that the connection pulls apart on the lamp post below? You know the noise he makes? (this) That's the noise I made!
 

But like Doc I was resolute and half an hour with a wet cloth and some white paint and I was able to salvage it.

Phew

We All Stand Together... (Reprise)

Let's get this out of the way. I LOVE The Beatles. Ask anyone who knows me what my "thing" is and once they've made a hilarious knob gag they will tell you my thing is The Beatles.  I love listening to them, I love reading about them, I love loving them.  People randomly walk over to me just to tell me something they heard about The Beatles or they were somewhere and a Beatles song started playing because "it made me think of you". I love being thought about because of something I love.

Now to the post. People like to say what the first album/single/CD/record/tape/cylinder/8-track/whatever, but simply put, MUSIC they ever owned is.  It's a badge of honour or embarrassment. Mine would be in the latter category to some people. Mine is Paul McCartney and The Frog Chorus - We All Stand Together.  When I was about 5 my Dad bought me the picture disk shaped like Paul McCartney with his arm around Rupert The Bear (it was like the one you can see in the picture above). You may or may not know that Rupert The Bear was in the video and that's where the connection comes from. McCartney had just bought the copyright to Rupert The Bear and wanted to do a kids song with him in it. As a Beatles maniac the fact that my first ever record is a Paul McCartney one is really rather special for me.  So special that I treasured that picture disk.  My Dad kept it in the sleeve of his Paul McCartney - All The Best album and I used to ask to just look at it.  As I got a little older we moved house a couple of times.  My Dad stopped listening to his records as much and they went up into the attic.  I always knew that my picture disk was there though and I was happy with that.  Then in my teens I decided to dig it out. I. Looked. Everywhere. I couldn't find Paul McCartney - All The Best anywhere. More importantly I couldn't find my picture disk. I was quite upset as you can imagine.  The other McCartney/Beatles records were there. Genesis was there. Paul Young was there. Where were All The Best and my picture disk?!  We never found out. All we can think is that my Dad leant All The Best to someone and along the way never got it back. Then forgot who it was. I was distraught. My Dad felt guilty. Not as guilty as when he threw a snowball at 6 year old me and I used a sledge for a shield. The snowball was hard. I was soft. The sledge hit me in the face and broke my first adult tooth. My front tooth. I have the cap as a permanent souvenir now. I wasn't particularly arsed, still not, accidents happen, but my Dad was. Every time I crooked smiled until I had it properly capped at 17.  Like I said, I wasn't arsed about that, what I was arsed about was my picture disk.  Especially at 17. My tooth was capped and so fixed. My Beatles obsession was well underway from being the music my Dad liked when I was young into becoming my "thing". I mentioned the picture disk again. We looked again. No joy again.  My Dad went in the attic and came back with all his Beatles records. Including an original White Album. He handed them to me and said they were now mine.  He also scoured a few car boot sales and bought me some McCartney/Lennon/Harrison/Beatles 7" singles. He could see how much this meant to me. Years passed. I wheeled this story out now and again. Losing my first ever record and how I obtained my Beatles vinyl. I thought it was the end of the story.

I was wrong.

A few weeks ago my boss was again telling me how he really can't stand Paul McCartney. How his voice just grates him. Our tastes are all different. It keeps us interesting. It's why a silly picture disk means so much to me and cock all to you.  McCartney's voice grating is not my opinion, but I can imagine how that must be the case for some people.   It's probably the same way I feel when Celine Dion is on.  That need to make it stop. Either by destroying the source of the warbling horror or by jabbing sharp objects in my ears.  Anyway, my boss was saying how he was doing some thing on Facebook and he needed his least favourite song and he couldn't choose between Mull Of Kintyre (ironically, one of the 7" singles my Dad bought me from a car boot sale) or The Frogs Chorus (which is what most people seem to call We All Stand Together).  I told him the story I have so far recited and then went about my day.  But it was back in my head again.  And we have resources now that we didn't have when I was 17. We have an easily accessible internet. We have ebay. I went on ebay and did a search for "We All Stand Together picture disk". I got a result. I clicked on it. It was the exactly the same. It was up to £15. For a vinyl single. That seemed steep. I bidded £20!  Money was tight at the time. We were buying a house and paying for a wedding (still are), so I sent Sharon a grovelling email.  I then set about the next few days waiting. We went to a friend's house where it was mentioned that his missus bought a lamp for £300. For a lamp?!  This wasn't a lamp that was a toaster and a hi-fi. It was a very nice lamp, but it was just a lamp. A fancy holder for a light bulb and a switch. I defended her saying that things are worth what they are worth to us, not purely the monetary value. For example I had just bid £20 on a mid 80's single that I had no intention of listening to. "WHAT?!" Sharon. "Errrr. I sent you a grovelling email?"

"I haven't checked my email." So I then had to explain, in front of my friend and his missus, to my missus what I had done. She has heard the story and was cool with it. She knows what it meant to me.

5 days passed and, not wanting to disappoint or keep you in suspense too long, I will jump to the chase. I won the bid and my record was delivered to me a couple of days later. It was a joyful reunion. I bought a frame for it and put it up on the wall next to my computer. It is in fact the actual one in the picture above. Something I loved and lost has (in a way) been returned to me. It is looking over me as I write this and I will treasure it.

NOW the story is at the end and it's a happy one.

A Quick Note...

I am busy, so this is going to be a very short blog.

See.