If Music Could Talk

This is a great story.

This one has been annoying me not just for the last week - although my irritation has intensified beyond belief in the past few days - but ever since the imperialist machine decided that Zimbabwe was one of its next targets. The horribly misnamed Movement for Democratic Change - where did they hold their first series of press conference a few years ago? Try the Johannesburg stock exchange, the London Stock Exchange and Wall Street. So...obviously democratic, then!!

This is totally weird and I haven't yet made my mind up whether it is a piss take or not - but I fear that it isn't.

I understand that the Trashcan Sinatras are to appear on a free CD giveaway with the Guardian on Saturday. Good news for some of us, but not for this US-dwelling fan! If she asks kindly, I may buy two copies of this sickly liberal anti-union paper and send her a disc - we'll see.

I like the following joke, which was provided by Popbitch - yes, this is a brain-dead gossip e-mail service, but it never fails to bring a smile to my extremely grumpy face:
A man walks into a pub and orders a drink. While pouring the drink, the barman notices a scar right across his customer's neck. He asks where it came from, and with a hoarsevoice the man replies, "Falklands".
15 minutes later the barman approaches with a hat full of money, saying, "We've had a whip round, and this is a token of our appreciation for what you lads did for us out there."
The customer replies; "Muchas Gracias."

This reminds me of a mate/neighbour who I usually spend Sunday afternoons in the pub with, as our conversation revolves around "man walks into a pub" jokes. This invariably tend towards the "Man walks into a bar - he's still suffering from a sore head and bruising" variety. Or, how about: Horse walks into a pub and the barman says: "Why the long face?" Pure class!

While burning a couple of Trashcan CDs for a mate at work, I decided to make him a various artistes one of my own. I took some inspiration - and some of the songs - from a Jock 'n' Roll compiliation I received from The Scottish Patient (link on the sidebar - I cannot be bothered going into that link thing again). While said compilation was classy, I realised he left off some other Jock classics, such as The Blue Nile, Nyah Fearties, Camera Obscura, The Beta Band, The Delgados and, unforgivably, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Or, maybe they are lying in wait for Classic Scottish Pop Volume II and, if so, I apologise for giving the game away!

While Celtic should have been about 5-0 down to Barcelona after 20 minutes last night, it seems that my prediction of a complete gubbing didn't quite materialise - I am so glad about that!

I am starting to become irritated at the fact that so many of my sentences end with "!" !
Speak to y'all soon!

Cha Cha Loco

Joi de vivre!

Wow, man, what a place to go. If you have a spare couple of hundred of quid, go and spend it at Floridita in Wardour Street. What a place. Walking in there felt like I could have been walking onto a scene from Goodfellas or maybe Scarface or the Havana section of the Godfather films - III, I think.
Whichever, it was a totally mind-blowing experience. Went for what I thought was a relatively straightforward seven-year-old Havana Club (only two rocks of ice - a la Reidski whisky or any other form of hard liquer for that matter) while companions went for mojito (two of them) and never-came-across-before-cocktail which was some sort of apple juice and rum affair - very nice they all were.
Then had, in between Reidski flirting with male an female waiting staff - well, I'm like that, okay!! - the most amazing dinner. Starters were some sort of duck job, with jalapeno peppers topped with poached egg. Main course was the most gorgeous and succulent lamb. Apperitif for Reidski was a tobacco-infused rum while companions had more mojitos and stuff.
Yes, of course, Reidski did nearly get into fight mode when suggesting to huge 7-feet male that he should apologise to 'er indoors after he barged past. Huge bloke did indeed apologise and everything was fine. Apart from that, Reidski did think he was on good behaviour and, it must be said, a fabulous night was had by all.
On to the usual domestic affairs, the boy did not make an appearance for the footie team today as shoulder and chest injury ruled him out. Me and him, however, still turned up to cheer the team on to yet another victory - an away 6-3 win after being 2-1 down at half-time. I think if I hadn't turned up the game may not even have happened and they would have had to give away the points as there wasn't enough cars to take the kids to the game. We seem to have a core who turn up, with not much support from the other parents. But that kind of thing just makes me support the boys even more - and I get very vocal on the sidelines, even when the boy isn't playing. It was a great game, very exciting to watch, but the Lions should have scored a helluva lot more.
The drive home was a complete nightmare - what took us 20 minutes to get there took around 90 minutes on the way back. I have never minded being in traffic jams, but that has always meant that I am on my own and I put loud music on in the car. Today was a car-full of kids and a bloke who I am sure was out of his head on E's - totally wired, as Mark E Smith would say.
As I dropped the bloke off, he insisted on lending me Saw on DVD (for those who may not know, DVDs can be purchased for a fiver in the pubs of New Cross and many other part of London before the films have even hit the cinema screens).
Saw was a good idea done extremely badly - don't go and watch it at the cinema, its shite.
I'm going to bed now - good night.

No No No

novo scores

This is definitely the moment when it all went wrong - 15 minutes in and it was their first attack. We then fell apart - stupid, stupid, stupid football players we have! I'm heading out to a fancy Cuban restaurant in the West End, so have to sign off.
Just thought I would mention, however, that WE'RE STILL TOP OF THE LEAGUE!!!!!!!!!!!

Too Long

Did I mention that the boy scored his first goal of the season at the weekend? If not, what a moment. I had been thinking - and had shared thoughts with 'er indoors - that the boy had more and more over recent games been getting in the right positions, but that his foot didn't quite reach the ball at the vital moment. So, with the team already 4-1 up (I think) the boy was there in the centre to ,first, shoot and then, after goalie parried out, to prod ball into net. I looked round at the boy's mom and I could swear that a tear made an appearance. It was a magic moment - the goal, I mean, not the tear!
Talking of footie, wasn't the Scotland game a laugh a minute? That will go down in the anus of history.
Took a trip to the flicks tonight with my anonymous mate and, while the evening itself was superb, the film was definitely underwhelming. Went to see Coffee and Cigarettes, the new Jim Jarmusch film with the great cast, but not much else. Admittedly, I did pop off for five or ten minutes at one point cos I was tired - and missed most of the Jack and Meg White vignette - but I was left with the feeling of "so what?" over the whole thing. It did pick up toward the end and the highlight was the end piece from two old boys who I must find out about cos I didn't recognise either of them.
I did have a few lovely glasses of red wine before and after with my mate who encouraged me to get back to blogging ways, so you lot can either thank her or curse her.
I have so much new music in the household at the moment - newest stuff being the Delgados and Lambchop - and all if it is superb. Can't listen to any of it tomorrow night, however, as 'er indoors has her "bookclub" at chez Reidski, which means that Reidski has to spend the night out on the town - "oooohhhh, poor Reidski", I can hear you all say!!

Lazyhead and Sleepybones

I sooooo know that no-one reading this will know who produced a song with this title - without, of course, doing a search on Google or some such like internetty webby thing. Unless, of course, you have kid(s) ...

Anyway, I digress, I've thoroughly enjoyed myself over the last two weeks or so. I wouldn't say that I've drunk myself into oblivion, but I would say that oblivion is a wonderful place to visit - or so people tell me.

My previous fuck up, of which I am not yet willing to make public, has now gone down in the ever-growing chapters of the yet to be written "Isn't Reidski an idiot" book of hilarious piss-takes, rather than what I had feared was going to be "Isn't Reidski an alcoholic out of work idiot" book of Charles Bukowski-like vignettes of my life, a la Post Office.

The boy's team are going from strength to strength - a fifth win on the trot to put them top of the league. Mind you, there are a couple of teams below them who may yet overtake them if they win their games in hand, but, nonetheless, its points that count and the boys team are up there.

Talking of footie...weren't Celtic incredibilly bad last night. I hope it is on record elsewhere that I had been saying that we were in for a right bad defeat, so to be in at half time all square I thought was a minor miracle. That we took the lead was mental. And that those bad bad neonazi nasty folk from Govan could only score two against that awful defence was equally as mental. Best team won - no question! When I put my opinion to another Jock Celtic-supporting exile this morning he looked at me as if I had just declared my undying love for our monarchy and support for the fascistic assault on the Iraqi people. I've always hated that arrogance of our lot. While I'm on the subject, twice I've been called a - apologies for the sensitive among you - "blue nosed cunt" by Celtic fans in New Cross pubs. First was back in the early 90s when we played Hibs in a Scottish Cup (or was it League Cup) semi-final and some (weedgie) tosser came into the pub declaring: "Ah don't ken who ah wahnt tae win this yin cos they're baith catholics." The Reidski said something along the lines of while they both may have Irish traditions that this doesn't mean they have particular religious leanings now and that, while the huns hate catholics, this doesn't mean that we are all catholics - that, in fact, both Celtic and Hibs are not mono-religious team but are for anyone, everyone and, in my case, those with no religion whatsoever..
"Where are you fae?" was the question to what was admittedly a rather long response to his bollocks introduction.
"Irvine" was my answer and hence "blue nosed cunt" remark followed, for some reason.
The other occasion that this genital insult was hurled at the my direction in another of my locals was during the infamous Huns winning the league at Celtic Park game when Hugh Dallas - a great ref in my opinion - was left bloodied and bruised. Vider Riseth (or am I getting him mixed up with someone else?) flew in for a tackle and nearly broke someone'e legs (Ricksen?) got sent off, quite rightly, and Celtic then lost their collective heads and bottles. Violence ensued on and off the pitch. I had the audacity to say: "Even if we win this, they'll dock the points off us and Rangers'll still win the league."
"Whit dae yae mean" says (weedgie, of course) bloke watching on same table.
I then say something about how stupid it is that people take football - which is and always has been part of the entertainment industry - seriously.
"It's only a game," says the Reidski.
"It's only a game?" asks (weedgie - now about to be weedgie nutter) bloke.
"Aye, ah game." says the Reidski.
"Will it be a game if ah pit this boatle in yer face then?" asks bloke.
Reidski keeps quiet, until the inevitable question turns up.
"Whair ur ye fae?" he asks.
"Irvine."
I think you know the rest.....

Back to now.

Payday today and the Reidski thought he was going to have company to go out on the town, watch Coffee and Cigarettes and have a few beers. That didn't happen, but what did happen was good anyway. Walked down Tottenham Court Road, got a haircut, had a couple of beers, then went to record shop and got the following CDs:

Trashcan Sinatras - Weightlifting (have been meaning to get it for some weeks now)
Zutons - Who killed the...
The Futureheads - Futureheads
Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps
Joe Strummer - Rock Art and the X-ray Style
Wilco - AM
Pixies - Bossanova (Why i don't have this in my collection I don't know)
Tom Waites - Heartattack and Vine

The latter five were a buy five for £30 quid job - but the overall £60 for the lot was money sooooo well spent.
Am currently working my way through a very lovely Australian Semillon Sauvignon blanc while listening to the Trashies. What a lovely evening!

Read this, it's funny!