Imagine this - you've been up till 6am, you're asleep - it's 11am, you get a call - it's your MOTHER - you answer it - "We're on our way to the east end as arranged, see you at 1 then"

WHAT could be worse!? I was planning on say... sleeping in until 3, going to my favourite cafe (Mess Cafe - Amhurst Road - HACKNEY) then oh I dunno, watching cartoons & smoking naughty cigarettes until bedtime. NO - I have to meet my PARENTS in the XMAS RUSH at a poncey market in town.

OKOKOK - I had clearly arranged it a week before so it's all my fault really - but I was bitterly disapointed.

It was terribly busy in the market - I get very hypocritical when it's like that. Both grunting at stangers who decide the best place to stop and have a chat is in a main intersection - and then rolling my eyes at fustrated old ladies when I'm stood still in their way.

I coudln't really be bothered to go into this - but I got all my xmas shopping anyway. I got some of those hand made soaps with bits of fruit in them and shells for my grandmother (who's just turned 90) my mother and I both joked that she wouldn't realise there wa a shell in it and cut her wrinkly skin to ribbons. How we laughed.

Hello indeed to my skyrocketing readers. YES - someone I don't know at all complimented me on my blog. Praise be. Thanks Neal :)

Not a gigantic amount to report, Stu's band 'David Cronenburg's Wife' played a stunning set at some squat on Commercial Road. it was a very odd night - we got there and there was some horribly depressing anti-war video being shown - we joked throughout that someone would then announce - "and now ladies and gentlemen, David Cronenburg's Wife!" toa mysified audience.

After this dreadful video - there was then some 'war comedy' on tape which was dreadful, and then an on-stage skit about, yes, THE WAR - please guys - leave it to the professionals - it was horribly under-rehearsed. There was a nearly amusing moment where they had 'spot the dictator' where 3 different saddam husseins took the stage and the bastard child of david beckham and tara-palmer-tomlinson (an earlier 'joke') presented. One saddam was very ott moody, one was 'bunker saddam' who's accent moved from indian to welsh in the blink of an eye - neither were appropriate, although it ould have been funny to have a welsh saddam, and the third was 'media friendly' saddam who really held the whole thing together as he was quite lucid. Anyway - in a blind date style they were all asked various questions and then the audience had to pretend vote for the one they thought was the real dictator - but they said 'whatever you do don't press the red button!' Oooo - so the votes were cast and then they all did this wierd performance art falling around - I *think* there was supposed to be an explosion sound effect - and the presenter cried 'on no - who pressed the red button!?' tenuous in the extreme. They slid off backstage & then came on as 'saddam and the lookalikes' and performed with bongos & bass - that was pretty cool although i think 'saddam and the ants' would have been a MUCH better name.

Then there was a dreadful solo act doing rock and roll, he seemed totaly out of place amongst all those crusties (mind you - so did we). Then this band 'Hidden Depths' who were an awesome & rocking crusty band - and then the very hansome 'david cronenburgs wife' who I was worried would be a bit intelectual for this crowd - not saying at all that these people weren't intelectual - but they definately looked up for some banging music. HOWEVER - through the mashed up PA and over-powered amps they sounded as rocking as anyone. I don't think the crowd knew what to expect at first - but they were with them al the way by the end. They were intruduce and outroduced(?) in the crappiest way by the compare (who was one of the saddams) as 'david cronenburgs wifes dogs sisters uncles neighbour' and she went far to much into the fact that they were some embodiment of david cronenburgs actual wife. The whole idea of introducing a band is that you know what their actual NAME is - silly cow, another example of someone trying to show off rather than actually do their job.

After we went back to Nathan's flat just round the corner - he's DCW's guitarist and I found out he used to play guitar for the support band - they came round to and they were extremely nice & funny guys. One of their names was Clinton and he was saying people don't get his name at first so he says "Like president Clinton" and they look at him in disgust and say "Your names president Clinton? you TWAT".

I got talking to tom (from DCW) about old computer games - I ALWAYS end up talking about old computer games, it's such an easy topic - I really must stop, but it was such a magical time in my life. He said he used to have a NES and this amazing thing caled 'robbie the robot' and here he is:


more info

Amazingly I'd never heard of this phenominal piece of kit. This from a girl who owns a nintendo powerglove



Robbie was a remote controlled robot & gyroscope that sort of rolled around on your carpet picking up this gyroscope and placing it on the control panel - anyway, read the details on that site.

Tom told thestory of robbie in the most enegmatic way and stu who was all shroomed up was crying with laughter. I was feeling a bit more confused & jealous of his witty story-telling style didn't find it as funny, I am ashamed.

And what better wat to end this enormous blog entry - in SHAME. I haven't even gone into christmas shopping with my parents - I'll do that tomorrow.

CONSUMER POWER!! this is incredible! I sent the following email to Rymans the stationers:

Hello - I'm a big fan (as much as one can be a fan of notebooks) of
the Wiro Plain A5 case bound book. As a budding cartoonist, the paper
type is perfect for pencil, fineline & felt-tip pens PLUS the hard
cover means you can use it anywhere, fantastic. Nowhere else has this
kind of pad. usually for artists pads the paper is too thick & blotty
or too thin & the pen goes right through.

Anyway - it would be great if you made an A4 version of this pad. I
notice you do have some in A4 but then only have a normal spine. This
is no good because it won't lie flat in a scanner & pages cannot be
torn out without compromising the integrity of the pad.

Many thanks for your time,

Caroline

AND I GOT THIS ONE BACK:

Hello Caroline

Thank you for your email of 30 November. Your suggestion to introduce an A4
version of the Wiro Plain case bound book was brought up at the 'Range
Review' meeting, and I am pleased to tell you it was accepted. We will,
therefore, be implementing this in January 2005.

Thank you for your suggestion and good luck with the cartoons.

Wow - I'm going to write lots of consumer emails from now on - like a modern version of the mother from Goodbye Lenin - although nobody's going to fool me into thinking the Berlin wall still divides east and west germany.

Last night was the second official gig of the Mink Troubadour Kamakazi Squadron - and they had a new drummer - IT WAS ME. I've always enjoyed playing drums but have only done so ocasionally & I'm really not all that good. One of their numbers was away for the gig so I agreed to step in.

There's a funny story behind this band - we used to do this club night 'the smelly ball' and one night a couple of the bands had dropped out. My friends got together & played loads of silly joke songs they wrote while stoned. It was a resounding success & although they only did it for a laugh they got 2 gigs out of it!! In fact - we've all been in bands before and this one seems to be doing the best even though it's a complete joke. What a world.

SO - we had this gig & I was really nervous & got into a mood. I was worried cause although they all say it's only a laugh the erst of the bands are very proficient at their instruments and I'm no drummer. I was worried I was going to really fuck up. But come 11 o-clock & we were fucking cool - people LOVED it. These 2 gils at the front were literally crying with laughter at 'Eastenders christmas party on the isle of sheppy'

Er yeah - peaches. So she played & me & stu left half way through cause shellac was on - but a friend of us told us: Apparently she went crowd surfing during 'fuck the pain away' and when she got back on stage she was furious and said "I know I am sexually liberated but that doesn't give you the right to finger fuck me!" jeeesus - tough crowd.

Our mate Teabag got chatting to some bloke after Peaches and he said something along the lines of "Yeah - fucking slag if I'd have seen her I would have pinned her to the ground, punched her a few times and fucked her up the arse - that's what she wants isn't it!?" what a NUTTER. great some potential rapist running free round ATP.

ok - that's enough for now.

SO - got back from All Tomorrows Parties forgetably named 'the Nightmare Before Christmas'. Call me paranoid but this gave me a horrible feeling somethign really bad was going to happen the whole time.

I must say - the music was brilliant for pretty much the whole time. I'm gettin g into a real rut with music - nothing seems to get me going really, but some of the DJs I saw just blew me away. I really had a sense that this is the sort of music clubs should be playing, not the dreary rebirth-examples you normally get. IT WAS POUNDING!

Lightning Bolt (the fun band you can take with you) started off on the friday. They were playing somewhere in the middle of the floor so nobody could fucking see them as usual. I must say they have a great pounding sound but I have no idea what they look like and I probably never will. Last year they played about 8 times wether anyone asked them to or not. Their gimick is that they don't need a PA, I think all their amps have batteries or something. As they finished - suddenly the stage lit up and there was LFO - everyone ran over.

I knew when I saw it it was going to be my favourite. he seemed very unmoved by the whole experience I guess he had alot to concerntrate on. Really rocking though - that's all I remember.

PEACHES of all people played next. I bet she's not used to palying in front of such an empty crowd - she was going head to head with Shellac downstairs.

*** to be continued (WOOO) ***