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Sunday 29th February

Consume Corrupt Crash Corrode

Another Leap Year passes without some young lady proposing to me (as opposed to the lady of dubious virtue who propositioned me, but that's another story....). Ah, well there'll be at least another 7 or 8 Leap Years before I'm ready for my grave, so there's still time. Anyway, I've got plenty of other stuff to bore the pants off you with, er, I mean, write about.

Friday night saw the second lastfriday event at the Mexborough Civic. It was another packed night. First band up were Odium whose collective age seemed to be somewhat less than mine. Well, not quite, but for a bunch of young kids they can play. Their set was, apparently, all covers, but I didn't recognise some of the songs so I can't vouchsafe that. I do have to say that, personally, I wouldn't be encouraging people to cover songs by The Darkness, but they didn't do a bad job of it. Anyway, it was a decent debut and I'd encourage them to stick at it. Next up were Sillibus and I thought they delivered the goods even though everything was going a bit pear-shaped. None of them seemed too happy to be there, the set ended in a shambles and I think they'll all admit they had an off night, but they still entertained me. Headliners Laruso have been causing a bit of a stir, but on that performance I was left wondering what all the fuss was about. There was certainly none of the attack and bite of the tracks on their website. I know they suffered a bit with p.a. problems and quite a few people left after Sillibus finished, but it wasn't the blistering live set I'd been lead to expect. Still, they did have some of the widest, flappiest trousers I've seen in a long while. Anyway, I'm prepared to give them another go and will try to catch them live again in the near future. Next month's event should be a cracker and I'm really looking forward to it now - hope that my new job won't prevent me from attending.

Saturday night I went up to Leeds to see my brother, Mark and his partner, Kate. They've just moved back to Leeds for Kate's new job. (You see, not everyone in my family is associated with low-lifes. Most of them, but not all.....) They're currently living in a swanky apartment close to the railway station. It's very nice but does have the drawback that the demolition crew start work on the building next door at about 5 o'clock on a Sunday morning! Anyway, we went out for a very nice meal at the Shabab restaurant on Eastgate and we got one. It's actually ages since I've been out for an Indian but I can thoroughly recommend that one. Very nice indeed. And as an added bonus I managed to blag a digital camera off my brother. Well, I say blag but actually he just gave it to me, there was no blaggery involved. So you can expect an outbreak of pictures on this site in the near(ish) future. Cheers bro'!

Regency House Party - surely this would have been better if they'd set it in Crinkly Bottom and called it Noel's Regency House Party? Picture the scene: "Forsooth, Sir Neil of Morrissey, is that not that tiresome bore, Mr Blobby?"
"I fear so, Mr Chegwin, and he is accompanied by that midget backgammon player, Lord Noely of Edmonds. I'll wager that before the night is out we shall see fair maidens in the gunge tank."
"Forshame. Mark you though, that this week we have been spared Michael Smythe Esquire's Ye Whirlywheel Challenge."

If Channels 4 and 5 merge, are they going to become Chanel 9? "Bono estente. Thetathetathet thetathetathet tetatetatet, Chris Waddle." etc, etc.

Number Two is Number One - Peter Andre's 'Mysterious Girl' has hit the top of the charts. It actually only got to Number two on its original release but obviously you don't need to sell so many singles these days. I was in HMV on Friday and they had a stack of singles on display by the checkout. As I paid for my purchases (Down By Law (widescreen) and Lord of the Rings (for my Dad) on video and a Relapse Records sampler, fact fans, reviews later) I picked one up, only to put it down in a hurry when I saw that it only had two mixes of the song on it and was £1.99. "Tempting," I said, "but I'm waiting till he releases 'Insania'" For some reason the guy behind the counter didn't find that amusing. No sense of humour some people.....

Finally, for all you electronica freaks out there, you might like to know that Australia's finest, Toecutter, is on his way to these shores for a brief tour with Planet Mu stalwarts Shitmat and Sickboy. Don't worry if you can't make it along to any of the gigs, you can enjoy webstreaming of Tuesday night's Cambridge performance thanks to 209 Radio. It's bound to be hip, hot and happening. Or possibly hot, hell and horrendous. Be there or be somewhere else.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Wednesday 25th February

Ning Nang Nong, Cows go bong

In amongst all the dashing about trying to find somewhere to live and trying to raise a bit of spare cash to tide me over for my new job, I've found time to look the sort of spam that I've been receiving on my home account. I've been trying to refine the message rules that I've set OE to apply, so that if I can't access my account for any length of time (for example, when I start work) I don't have too much spam to wade through when I can come back to it. It's not very easy or effective, so I ought to install a proper spam filter, which I may well do. I've been looking at Mailwasher because it's free - does anyone out there have anything good/bad to say about it? It's all a bit depressing but, for your delectation and delight, here's a list of the types of spam I've received in the last week:

• Drugs - not the even the decent kind, sadly, but mostly alternatives to Viagra or Prozac, sleeping pills, or "natural" growth hormones. By far the largest constituent of my spam.
• Viagra - "Genuine" over-the-counter offers for the little blue pill. Tempting but, with my blood pressure, not advisable. I have, of course, blocked anything with the word 'viagra' in it, so if you've sent me an hilarious viagra joke I won't have seen it. Now if only there was some way of easily blocking the hundreds of variations on the spelling that I'm plagued with.
• Penis enlargement - Now, how do they know I've only got a small one? Have they been spying on me or has someone been talking? If I find out it was one of you lot, there'll be trouble....
• Cheap software - save $$$s on MS, Adobe and Macromedia software - why pay full price? Well, probably because you're going to rip me off with a pirated copy, with no guarantee that it'll work and no chance of refunding my cash if it crashes my PC. That's why.
• Instant credit/loans - Have all the money you need. Just send us your bank details. Or why not visit our website to give us your details instead? Go on, it's perfectly safe. Honest.
• No name/no subject - I get at least one message a day with no sender and no subject. I've no idea what's in them as I've never opened one. The real irritation with these is that you can't use 'Block Sender' to stop them.
• Viruses - I assumed my ISP was blocking them at source but a few infected e-mails have slipped through. Still, I'm not in the habit of opening attachments from people I don't know, and am wary even when they come from people I do know.
• Competiton prizes - I have already won $20,000 and all I have to do is send my bank details to this address so that they can credit my account! It sounds too good to be true. What? The company's registered address is in the Philippines? Hhmmm, now I'm getting suspicious.
• Get rich quick schemes - much on the decrease in recent times but then I suspect that everyone's twigged these pyramid-type schemes by now. Surely?

Go on, stick your oar in:

Sunday 22nd February

Just a stranger on the bus

Thanks to mighty generosity of Burger King, I got to take my nephews to see Looney Tunes - Back in Action on Friday. Well, it wasn't that generous I suppose - the offer was one free child's ticket with every adult ticket. Anyway, I have to say that actually the film wasn't that bad. In fact, if you like the Looney Tunes cartoons, you'll probably enjoy this film. And if you don't, you can either spend the entire film wondering if that really is Steve Martin playing the bad guy, or just play 'Spot the Cameo'. The film doesn't stray too far from the tried and tested values that made the original Warner Bros cartoons so enjoyable, so there's plenty of slapstick and sight gags to keep the kids happy, but there are also plenty of in-jokes and homages to keep you interested. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a damn sight better time-waster than some of the films I've had the misfortune to see.

Praise the Lord, 'tis, National Pub Week! Well, technically it started yesterday, but I couldn't be bothered to update my site yesterday - I was too busy. Anyway, here's my list of alternative events for Pub Week.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Friday 20th February

We'll be the pirate twins again

I'll say this about my nephews - at least having them to stay gets me out of the house. On Tuesday we (my Dad and I) took them to The Funhouse in Doncaster, which is basically a converted factory unit with a play area for the kids at one end and a load of tables and a canteen at the other for the parents. I had a look at the array of nets, ladders, slides and the like on offer and thought the boys might get tired out after an hour or so. Anyway, five hours later, we're dragging two rather reluctant boys out of the building and off home for tea. Admittedly they did have three of their cousins to play with and they don't see them very often. And I had a good time as it allowed me chance to catch up with a couple of my cousins; I don't see them very often either.

Wednesday we had a brief run out to the castle for a quick look round and a game of football in the grounds. It was freezing in the wind though, so the kids weren't too keen on standing around looking at stuff. We were going to have a walk round the bottom of the castle but the recent wet weather had rendered the path very muddy and slippery so we abandoned that idea and decided to head home before it got any colder.

Yesterday we went to York for a day out. Well, it was more like half a day by the time we got organised and out of the house. We decided to use the Park & Ride service into York rather than try to find a parking space in the city centre. That turned out to be a good idea, although we did have a bit of trouble finding a space at the Park & Ride site! Anyway, the bus dropped us off by Clifford's Tower so we went up there first. It was a bit steep in more ways than one. Still, the views from the top are worth the effort if not quite the cost. From there we made our way to the York Castle Museum, where we saw the social history displays and some of the costume displays, but didn't get quite as far as the armoury. We also saw a traditional Punch and Judy show, which was very amusing. As time was ticking on (it was almost 4pm) we went off for a bite to eat and a wander down The Shambles, which, as far as I could tell, are a couple of narrow streets crammed with shops selling overpriced, "tourist" tat. Anyway, none of the things we did were actually on the original plan, which had been to visit the Jorvik Viking Centre and see some of the other attractions of the Viking festival. Well, the Jorvik plan was scuppered because we couldn't pre-book, having left it a little late, and then we simply ran out of time. We did see some people dressed as Vikings though as they strolled past Burger King whilst we were having lunch. The kids didn't seem to upset at missing out though and Dad has promised to take them back during the Easter holiday.

This afternoon we're off to the cinema to see Loony Tunes Back In Action - be still my beating heart. Expect a sneeringly derogatory review later. Mind you, I think it'll be the first time that I've been to the cinema since I moved here, so perhaps I won't be too scathing.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Monday 16th February

Slave to the parasites

Never one to resort to something new when I can trot out any old piece of tat, National Chip Week give me the chance to roll out this parody piece that I wrote about 4 years ago. I haven't updated it for a couple of years, so some of the jokes might be a tad dated. I might have done something about it if I hadn't only found out about Chip Week this morning. Also, I'm helping look after my two nephews during half-term and, whilst them pesky young kids are great fun, they do rather restrict my access to the old Internetto. Still they don't stop the old creative juices flowing, if you'll pardon the expression, and I've got a few ideas up my sleeve for a similar piece for National Pub Week, which starts on Saturday......

Go on, stick your oar in:

Friday 13th February

Unlucky for some?

Go on, stick your oar in:

Thursday 12th February

That Hellbound Train

I was off on my travels yesterday - all the way to sunny Birchwood, in fact, for an interview. I wish I'd known that it was going to be that sunny all day as I wouldn't have bothered taking my coat (That was Mistake Number 1). On the way there my train from Manchester to Birchwood suffered an electrical fault that delayed it by some twenty-five minutes and the walk from the station was a bit of a nightmare (That was Mistake Number 2), so I arrived at my interview all hot and bothered. Not a good start. Anyway, the interview went OK, I think, but I can never tell with these things. I got a taxi back to the station and arrived in plenty of time for my train (due at 5:06pm) and there the real nightmare started....

The train to Warrington arrived at Birchwood at the same time as my connecting train from Warrington was due to leave, so I decided to go via Manchester instead. Thirty minutes later the train to Manchester arrived, roughly on time, and off I went. I had to stand all the way and I arrived at Manchester Piccadilly some six minutes late, but just in time to see a train to Sheffield pulling out of the station. Then, having walked all the way from Platform 13 to the main concourse to find out when my next train was due, I found I just about had time to buy a soft drink before I had to go all the way back to Platform 13. Anyway, my train to Sheffield arrived some 8 minutes late at Manchester and some 22 minutes late in Sheffield, two minutes after my connection to Conisbrough had left. So I had to wait another 20 minutes for the next train which, irony of ironies, had come from Manchester - I could have sat in the bar there for half an hour and had a couple of pints had I but known! Anyway, even that train managed to be eight minutes late on arrival in Conisbrough, so I didn't get home till 9pm. In all the journey took an extra hour and a half, which is by no mean the worst extended journey I've ever had (the twelve and a half hours to get from Leicester to Crewe will take some beating) but the combination of minor delays and missed connections was extremely frustrating. Gah! It took me about an hour to calm down once I got home.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Sunday 8th February

He's thick but he struck it rich

Only in America Dept. - Case No 1435672359784/2 Exhibit one. It's self-explanatory, your honour. Now, I appreciate that there are some people out there who may have a much stricter moral code than I do, but surely suing Janet for exposing herself on national television is just taking the proverbial? Mind you, if this case is successful I might sue Jordan (as opposed to 'Sue Egypt', which is a Captain Beefheart song) for the psychological trauma caused by exposure to her grossly over-inflated breasts every night on I'm A Celebrity....Get Me Some Publicity. Am I the only one to find them repulsive? I wouldn't have minded so much if she'd turned out to be a nice girl but she only served to remind people of how ugly relentless self-promotion can be.

'Tis, of course, Valentine's Day this forthcoming Saturday and you'll all be pleased to note that in the run-up to this most romantic of days, this week has officially been designated National Contraceptive Awareness Week. So you've all got a week to bone up on the subject before the big day. Which, amusingly, also happens to be National Impotence Day. So you'll have spent all week thinking about contraception only to be confronted by one of the best contraceptives of all. How romantic. Incidentally, it's also a leap year this year, so all you ladies will be able to propose marriage on the 29th of the month should you so desire (that's fatfakir[at]hotmail.com, in case you'd forgotten....).

Finally, because I can't be arsed to spend all my time looking these things up for you, here are ten interesting facts from the BBC. And a guide to the fads of the 70s and 80s (courtesy of my mate elaine) which should ensure that you're as prepared for this year's 80s revival as it is possible to be. Enjoy.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Wednesday 4th February

Definitely becoming nympholeptic

My old mucker, Richard asked me about my favourite films t'other day. And I found it quite easy to name nine great (in my humble opinion) films but then started struggling a bit to complete the top ten. And on reflection I realised that there were about ten other films that I could have named that I like just as much. So, I thought about it a bit more and decided that Ten Films You Must See was probably a bit hackneyed, and besides, if you went to see any of those films and didn't like them, you'd only blame me. So here's a mix of the entertaining, the scary, the curious and the downright obscure, also known as Ten Films That I Like At the Moment:

• Grosse Pointe Blank - the high school reunion has been responsible for some right turkeys (Return to Horror High, National Lampoon's High School Reunion) but this is an honourable exception.
• Carry On Screaming - more of a plot than most Carry Ons and no Babs Windsor or Sid James. On the other hand, you get the wonderful Fenella Fielding, Harry H. Corbett and Jim Dale.
• Abominable Dr Phibes - It's Vincent Price on top form as the eponymous doctor, taking revenge on the people responsible for the death of his wife.
• Spiderman - yeah, I'm biased but even Stan Lee, the creator of Spiderman, loved this film. Has it's falts but remains true to the spirit of the comic. Plus Kirsten Dunst is gorgeous.
• Harold and Maude - strange, inter-generational love story-cum-black comedy, which features the most pointless, yet beautiful, customisation of an E-type Jaguar ever.
• Flight of the Navigator - sci-fi adventure about a missing kid who returns 8 years later and not one day older. Tosh but much enlivened by featuring Pee Wee Herman as the voice of the spaceship. "Compliance!"
• They Live - ex-wrestler Roddy Piper shows Hulk Hogan that it is possible to appear in a decent movie, in this superior, low-budget horror flick by John Carpenter. Low on gore but features one of the longest punch-ups in cinema history.
• The Rutles - Eric Idle's affectionate Beatles parody. Exquisitely observed and with quality tunes courtesy of Neil Innes.
• Evil Dead - As you can probably tell, I prefer my horror to be the low budget kind and this is one of the best. Better than the sequel, I reckon, because it has less gore in it.
• Ring - the Japanese original, obviously. Still provides one of the best shock moments towards the end. Creepy and somehow gets scarier the more you watch it.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Sunday 1st February

So much for January

Where does the time go? One minute you're making your New Year's resolutions and then before you know it you're having to plan who to stalk for Valentine's Day....

Last Friday @The Civic kicked off, er, last Friday. There was a very encouraging turn out to see three young, local(ish) bands, for not very much money. First on stage were Same Old Same, who were making their debut and a pretty decent debut it was too. There are one or two things they could have done better, but those'll come with time. Next up were +RiTALiN+ who were much better than I expected from their soundcheck. Finally, Empathy rounded things off with a very-well received set. I have to confess that I missed some of it as I was in the bar talking to Ritalin's manager at the time, but what I did catch was very good. (Incidentally, if you check out the lastfriday photo gallery, yours truly features on the far left of the crowd scene.) Overall, a pretty good start for the new venture. February's line up is currently, Odium, Laruso and Sillibus, all of whom should deliver plenty of loud, fast rock. And then check out March's killer bill - No Names Mentioned, Kid Conspiracy, Disarm and Abdoujaparov (see elsewhere for relevant links) - if you come along and none of those bands excite you, then you must be dead.

Now, some of you may remember that in the early 1990's the Tory government allowed a lot of Polytechnics to become Universities. Quite what the logic behind this was escapes me now, but I'm sure they had a good reason. Anyway, what it meant to me was that the College of Higher Education that I started my degree course on, became a Polytechnic the year I graduated and became a University a year later. The name of this august establishment? Humberside Coll, er, Poly, er, no, the University of Humberside. I later returned to the University of Humberside to study a post-graduate diploma course, which I did not complete, sadly. (I failed one of the units and couldn't get the funding to re-take it). And later still the University moved to a new purpose-built campus in Lincoln and has renamed itself the University of Lincoln. Anyway, I mention this because my old alma mater has been in the news recently, because it's Israeli franchise operation has been awarding degrees fraudulently. Of course, it's kind of old news really as the fraud first came to light in the late '90s, and the University severed ties with the Israeli company operating the franchise, but the police have just concluded their investigations. The company involved, Academion, seem to have just set up shop anywhere and sold the degrees. In one instance, they even set up a franchise office in a petrol station. And to think that I spent all that time studying when I could have just spent my grant on a return flight to Israel and well-placed bribe. Of course, now I've told you all this, you're going to start wondering just how valid my Fisheries Studies degree really is....

Go on, stick your oar in: