Noodles and Locusts and Mosquitos and all kinds of stuff
2012-08-30, 9:39 p.m.
OMIGOODNESS, what a busy few days! Thanks so much to all of you who left comments about �The Black-Hearted Irish� � I really appreciate your kindness and your support. If you have a mind to, you can now WATCH IT ON YOU TUBE and/or share it with your friends without having to compromise D�land securities. Take no notice of the �blurb� that L wrote to accompany the video. He clearly has no understanding of the meaning of the word �satirical� and he�s managed to somehow imply that it�s a novelty song or something. Arse. Anyways, it would be good to have a few more hits on there and Im happy for y�all to share it with whoever might be interested.Onwards and upwards then!
First off was the small matter of Jooj�s GCSE results. She was pretty nervous walking down to school on Thursday but she needn�t have worried as she did really well, netting herself 7 A* grades (US readers � an A* is like an A+, I guess. Its whatever they can give that is �better than an A�), 6 As and 2 Bs. One of the B�s was for Statistics � if you remember how much she was hating revising for it (see it HERE ) then you�ll know that�s a pretty good result! Especially when you consider that she didn�t actually have any lessons for it either � they just said �Do you want to take Stats?�, she said �Umm, yeh ok� and they gave a her a text book to look at in her free periods. So, yeh, a B�ll do nicely, thanks very much.
In the evening she had a little party with her pals. I was only required to provide pizza and sleeping bags and even though rather more beer than I would have liked got drunk, it wasn�t the end of the world.
Friday was a bit of a momentous day, too, seeing as it was MY FIRST GIG WITH THE NEW BAND!!! It was at the roughest pub in Poshtown so it could have gone spectacularly badly, but the crowd seemed to be with us and nothing bad happened at all! There were even people dancing, which is always a good sign�at least, its better than seeing people scowling and looking at their watches, I guess. Mind you, we aren�t the sort of band where you have to listen intently and then clap politely and with restrained appreciation at the marvellously executed jazz chords and syncopated harmonies like some bands I could mention *cough* L�s band *cough*. We�re more of a �jump around, sing along, stamp your feet� kind of band. I wasn�t even required to do any real �talky bits� between the numbers, which was fine by me as my foot switch wasn�t working properly and talky bits with the reverb on always sounds like you stuck your head in a rucksack.
Wish Id known I wasn�t going to have to talk much BEFORE the gig started as Id worked out a whole load of �hilarious� anecdotes and bits of musical trivia to introduce the numbers. But it seems like we aren�t the sort of band who likes to ramble on for ages about the guest drummer on the original artist�s recording also being the harmonica player on the B-side of the only top forty hit Donald Fagen had in Mesopotamia either, unlike some bands I could mention *cough* L�s band *cough*. We�re more of a �finish one song, have a quick swig of whisky while the intro for the next song starts and then start singing again� type band.
Anyways, no major incidents - aside from a slightly bruised palm from over-enthusiastic tambourining and black feet from having to kick off my shoes in the second half as they were crushing my toes and not helping with the general aura of sweaty jump-aroundyness. Oh, and at the end of the night I got paid, which was the first money I have earned from singing live since 1986. YAY!
Saturday was a sort of a rest day�.except it wasn�t as I had to prepare for L�s �PROPER� birthday party on Sunday. By �prepare� I mean clean the house, do all the shopping for food AND booze, and make a giant guitar shaped cake, complete with red liquorice strings and multi-tonal chocolate ganache (dark, milk and white) marquetry icing, seeing as I knew *somebody* would moan if the guitar didn�t ACTUALLY look exactly like�umm�a guitar.
Oh, and before I did all that I had to go to the hospital as I got bitten on the back of the thigh by a mosquito and my leg swelled up to dangerously scary proportions, went so hot you could have friend an egg on it and then made a scary �track� up towards the rest of my body as the venom (do mosquitoes HAVE venom? I don�t know what word to use if they don�t. Poison? Mosquito Spit?) travelled along my circulatory system. Eeeek! It looked like I had the burner from a ceramic hob stuck on my leg and ITCHY?!?!?!?! Oh Em F�ing Geeeeeee, I was nearly riving my bloody leg off.
Side Note: Is �riving� a word anywhere other than in the north of England? My friend Kazzo, who is from Newcastle used to say �there�s a difference between scratching your bum and riving your arse off� to mean �lets not over-react to this situation�. Hang on. I�ll look it up. Oh! It�s a kind of woodworking term, apparently. Something to do with �rending asunder� and other dangerous sounding things. That makes sense, then. That was definitely what I was doing to my leg.
There was nobody at my doctors office on Saturday, so I had to go to the Minor Injuries Unit at the local hospital (only about ten miles away), where I shamelessly played the cancer card to get seen more quickly and where the nurse decided it jolly well WASN�T a minor injury and promptly despatched me with a course of antibiotics and some Piriton and instructions on the use of ice-packs and recommendations in the use of bug-spray in case I should get another one and my whole body swell up and go red-hot like�
Side Note: Brief hiatus while I try to think of something rock hard and massive and red-hot that I can compare my bitten self to. Nope. Cant think of anything. Feel free to add your own suggestion. I was going to go with super-nova or something like that but I don�t think anything that stellar really cuts it. Im thinking more �roasted water melon�. Whatever.
So I only actually had half a day to do all the party prep as the rest of the day was taken up with scratching and strapping bags of frozen peas to my leg with a crepe bandage and hopping round the kitchen swearing and marking demarcation lines on myself with biro so I could see if the redness was spreading or not.
Sunday was L�s party. Even though his birthday was in June, we had the party this weekend as I wasn�t really up to partying much in June, not least the sort of partying that involved enormous amounts of guests and a guitar-shaped cake with three sorts of chocolate marquetry, fersure.
Unfortunately, L was in charge of distributing the invitations. I designed them, and they definitely said �4pm for coffee and cake or 8pm for drinking and dancing�. Im not sure quite how that got lost in translation but it totally did as the world and his wife (and all their friends and relations) turned up at 6, a full three hours before the �evening food� was due to be ready and in far too great a number for the �afternoon food� to be any use at all.
OH! The amount of booze they brought! And OH OH OHHHHH! How readily they got stuck into it.
Needless to say, by the time the slow-roast pork and the shredded chicken and the battered haggis and the onion bhajis etc etc etc were ready, they were all well and truly oiled and fell upon my capacious repast like a plague of the proverbial locusts. But special extra hungry locusts. Like locusts who had had a couple of joints and got the locust munchies and stopped by the Locust Subway and found they were completely out of Locust Meatball Marinara. Or something.
Anyway, it was a great party, even WITH the drunkards. If you know L on Fartsbook you can see a little video of the Brummie Drummer Boy drumming along to �Lets Face the Music� with two wooden spoons on a selection of household articles. He also drummed with a couple of steak knives on a selection of glassware, until a champagne flute was subjected to a particularly vigorous paradiddle and splintered into a million bits on the stone floor of the conservatory. What you also cant see is L having to help Jooj�s Boyf down the stairs and onto the sofa when he had clearly misread the label on a bottle of Captain Morgans and thought it said �Cram One More Down�. L had been no stranger to the beer bottle so it was a bit �blind (drunk) leading the blind (drunk)� but I would much rather that Boyf fell on L coming down the stairs than on Jooj who is young and pretty and has her whole life ahead of her and almost NEVER farts in my bed or makes me wish I hadn�t married her�.unlike SOMEONE I could mention.
Because Boyf is 17 and capable of bouncing back in an annoying fashion, next morning he was perkily unscathed and able to help Jooj and Treacle to inflate some blow-up guitars and form pretty much the world�s Worst Shadows Tribute Band EVER!
Im not sure what kind of fashion statement Jooj is making. She kind of looks like Noodle out of Gorillaz. Look, here�s Noodle:
and then look here, where between 0:29 to about 0:36 Jooj can clearly be seen, playing her guitar and nodding her head slightly out of time!
Off down to Sissy�s tomorrow for a couple of days so I don�t knife L before school starts. Back at the weekend����..or maybe just stay there and play about on the allotment and walk on the beach and generally NOT be anything much.
Like THAT could happen.
Later