New Brat In Town *

Isn't great when a right dive of a pub gets a refurbishment and is tranformed into a really really nice boozer? Nice decor, nice furniture, nice choice of food, an excellent looking listings for future gigs (Subway Sect on Saturday night) and a half decent selection of beer (not too hot on the bitters or real ales and no wine by the bottle). Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... ta ra, The Amersham Arms. A most impressive transformation for what was a real flea pit to a place which is great to go along at any time of day for a relaxing pint or two. And really nice people behind the bar. Well, that is, there were until Monday night!

Here I have been banging on to folks about how nice the Amersham is these days and that I couldn't wait to take JJ in there for a drink. Monday night sees us with our first real opportunity to do so. I go to the bar and I'm served by the most miserable and rude people I have ever had the misfortune to be served by in my 27 years of going to pubs. A truly hideous person. So it was drink drinks and leave and let me ponder whether I ever enter the place's doors again - apart from Saturday night, of course, if JJ fancies going to see Subway Sect! I really don't want to come across anyone like this in there again!

*The Auteurs

Last Night*

Went to Arcade Fire gig at Ally Pally last night - WOW! What a fucking set, that was!

There was JJ, the ex, the boy and me. For various reasons, we missed both support acts. It was pissing down with rain. Ally Pally is a shit music venue (you can't see the band - the stage really should be two or three feet higher).

But, hey, what a sound. And what a performance Arcade Fire put on. Can't think of a more energetic band on stage in my 29 years of going to gigs. Can't think of a more amazingly beautiful set of songs to be heard live. Lovely way in which they segued Neon Bible into a cover of Age of Consent, by the way. Brilliant way in which they thrashed out every song. The visual backdrop helped those of us who were toward the back of the aptly named Great Hall in this beautiful venue as the set-up does not suit those of us who are below six feet six. And the generally appreciatiave and knowledgeable crowd diminished that most annoying of incidents at gigs - those cunts who talk all the way through - what is that all about? (a campaign really has to be started to get any idiots who talk too much at gigs thrown out). For reasons known to me and mine, a tear rolled down my cheek when No Cars Go was heard, but I then shook myself together and joined in the singing.

This was an amazing sound, an amazing set, an amazing live band.

Ok, I was rather nervy about the ex joining JJ and me for the evening, but I think it all worked out very well. Except for my incessant nonsense during the car journey home, of course!

JJ and I go to see Interpol at Ally Pally next week - think we'll try to get there early and get down the front!

* The Strokes

Final Scene*

Well, it wasn't to be. I don't agree with McFaddyen that the ref robbed us. Nah, he was just rubbish. Now, I don't usually comment on the performance of refs or their assistants - which infuriates the hell out of JJ, btw - but this one cannot go by without a few words. Italy should have been 2-0 up, but had a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside. Scotland's goal was well offside. And that free-kick at the end was simply not a free kick. At worst, it was a throw in for Italy. But, there we go.

World Cup qualifying draw takes place on Friday - bring 'em on!

* Delta 5 (And, to cite another of their's, Anticipation is definitely so much better)

Beautiful World*

Football is just a game. It is a very stupid game of 22 people kicking or catching or heading a round object on a green patch of land. Football is not a metaphor for life, living, society or community. Football is meaningless. Football is not important. Fooball is crass. Football is divisive. Football breeds racism, reaction and contempt for "others". Football is the playground of the super-rich. Football exploits working class people.

Football also makes me happy.

At 5 o'clock today, the Scotland football team will take to the field and I will cry. I will shout at the television screen. I will jump out of my seat frequently. Today, I am thinking there are no huns, fenians, blue Brazils, Arabs, Thistle, Ayrshire Killie, Dons, United, Meadow, Vics, Pollock, Arthurlie, Jambos, Hibbees, Rovers or any of that. There is just one thing today - WE ARE SCOTLAND! Come on ya fuckin beauties - get right intae them!

* Devo

Ill In The Head *

Lawrence Donegan wrote this load of old bollocks in yesterday's Guardian:

Glasgow's chance
The city of Glasgow will learn this week whether or not it will host the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Let's hope it does. Let us hope, too, that Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, who has travelled with a delegation from Scotland to Sri Lanka, where the announcement will be made tomorrow, will use the occasion of Glasgow's success - if that is what it turns out to be - to celebrate the city's reinvention as a modern, vibrant metropolis capable of hosting the world and not, as the nationalist-run Scottish government tends to do these days, as an excuse to wrap himself in the saltire.

As I say, what a load of old bollocks!

*Dead Kennedys

Dumb *

Should get on this computer to do some blogging later, but, for now, I'll simply pass on what I think I heard on Radio 5 last night in the run-up to the Nurnburg v Everton UEFA Cup game.

Commentator mentions that there are far more Everton fans in the ground than their ticket allocation and that, unlike elsewhere, fans from Britain travel in huge numbers for away games in European competitions. "Yes," his co-commentator John (didn't get his last name, might have been Colquohoun, ex of Hearts, Celtic, Millwall and many other clubs) says, "it's great. It's part of our tradition. A bit like going and claiming part of another country!"

You fucking what? Football fans as the new colonialists and occupiers? And that's a good thing?

Stupid twat!

I'm off down the pub - Amersham Arms, I think! Well, what else is one to do at 3 o'clock on a Friday afternoon?

*Nirvana

Paranoid*

Just a wee bit over the top, perchance? And, of course, the reason why they put such garbage in this rag is so that they can attract comments such as the following:

All the usual apologist immigrant excuses are commented upon here...our own people lazy and not willing to work, there's an older population blah blah blah... Yes, we know that but it's the same old brainwashing arguments over and over again. The fact is that many of our own people are the way they are because of liberal lefty ideas which have made them that way i.e. the benefits culture for one. This has not only encouraged them to become totally useless and dependant but also invited the world and his uncle to join them too. The fact is that there's no more time for excuses and slagging off our own kind. We've got to stop this bunch of treacherous lefty loonies before they put paid to all of us with their madcap ideologies and schemes. Time is running out.

What a lovely society we live in!

* Black Sabbath

Chop Chop*

The Hanover Tourist Board has produced this advent calendar. But that does not look like any ordinary Xmas reveller lurking there. Read here to find out who he is!

* Youngbloodz