Jimmy Page’s Trousers

Baby Trousers has a CD of Christmas ’staples’ that my wife picked up, assuming that it’d be a good idea. It wasn’t. At least in my opinion, which counts for less and less as Baby Trousers gets bigger and bigger. God it’s bad. Some ‘proper’ singers singing wobbly versions of such classics as Jingle Bells, When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney and, the always popular, Christmas Is Coming And The Goose Is Getting Fat (Please Put A Penny In The Old Man’s Hat).

The proper singers are backed by what seems to be the cheapest Yamaha keyboard that they could find in the shops on Christmas Eve. I reckon its about 8 inches long and has an enormous one octave range. It’s one tinny, three-inch speaker has been carefully miked by the recording engineer using the ‘tin can on a string’ miking method favoured by many popular recording artists of past and present. Not wanting to waste any of the vast musical potential of this keyboard, the producers have utilised the full gamut of its sample library. Sleigh bells were heard (not, oddly enough, on Walking In A Winter Wonderland). Flugelhorns or something along those lines make a number of appearances. The church organ sound is particularly impressive. However, my favourite, especially given the festive nature of the performance was the steel drums.  No shit… steel drums.  Such multi-orchestration is like listening to a Mike Oldfield Christmas Special.

Good King Wenceslas reminded me that, when I was a kid, I used to think the song was about a king called Wences who had last looked out his window on the Feast of Stephen. Apparently my wife still did. I also thought his page’s name was ‘Hither’ though.

I won’t talk about the dustbin that I believed figured strongly in a Boney M song about a Russian monk.

I mentioned my wife and films in a previous post. I thought that I’d expand that and discuss a pet hate of hers when it comes to films however.

She really, really, really hates it when films end. I don’t mean when they finish and the words ‘The End’ (or ‘Fin’ if it’s a posh one) appear on screen. I mean when they don’t come to an obvious conclusion with all threads nicely sewn up.

As an example, we watched Broken Flowers the other night. I liked it a lot. Bill Murray stars and makes a bit of a study in stillness which was refreshing. Anyway, after watching it for 90-odd minutes, the film ended without answering a couple of questions that were posed throughout (sorry if this is a spoiler - if it is, it’s not a really bad one). Personally I quite liked the lack of a ‘Hollywood-Happy-Ever-After’ ending but I knew that Lady Trousers (I’m still toying with that moniker for the purposes of the blog) wouldn’t be keen. Sure enough, she expressed her displeasure wholeheartedly.

Another example was Lost in Translation. I know that’s two Bill Murray movies. I’m not stalking him or anything - it’s just another example that I’ve thought of. At the end (another spoiler) where Bill whispers to Johanssen but we don’t hear what’s said… Man, did she hate that (the missus, not Ms. Johanssen).

Basically, she considers it a cheat. If she’s sat for 90 minutes or more, she wants a pay off. She needs the money-shot to bring it all together. I like the non-Hollywood endings and they’re even more enjoyable if I’ve watched the film with my wife. Bring on the rant.

Dull Bloke (previously ‘Alpha-Tosser‘ but lack of any alpha qualities whatsoever and an abundance of dullness necessitated a rename) in my workplace likes titles. When I arrived, all of his emails were signed:

Dull Bloke
Team Leader

As nobody seemed to treat him with any respect whatsoever, I inquired to his role of one of the more bearable folk in the office. She responded…

“Team leader? Nope. He was a team leader two years ago but his team was taken away. He’s not a team leader, he’s a plank.”

As I’d already made up my mind on the plank thing myself, I accepted this happily.

Fast forward a week. Dull Bloke has handed over his very menial and very unimportant work to me and our boss has asked him to do something else that is equally menial and unimportant. Not to Dull Bloke though. Dull Bloke has been able to make it sound interesting.

I noticed that, within minutes of being given his new menial and unimportant task, his email signature had changed to:

Dull Bloke
Engagement and Solutioning Lead

What’s that? It doesn’t mean anything. He’s not doing anything of importance and he’s certainly not leading anything. Nobody gave him that title. He made it up himself. And he did so within minutes of being given the pointless task to concentrate on.

The more astute reader may have noticed the word ‘Solutioning’ in the title. Unfortunately, I can’t credit Dull Bloke with making up a word for his title. Nope, in the fucking annoying company where I work, ’solution’ is used as a verb. As in ‘yeah, we’ll get together and solution that for you’ or ‘we’ve got some serious solutioning to do’. I have vowed never to succumb to this nonsense but Dull Bloke is obviously happy enough with misused/made-up words that he would include them in his, undoubtedly impressive, title.

GJ over at the fantastically titled James Blunt Must Die was kind enough to link to me. He and I seem to share a number of dislikes and I think I can safely say, he seems like a stand-up guy (GJ obviously - not Mr. Blount (not a typo)).

As I was humming away to the tune of ‘You’re Beautiful’ however, I thought I’d show my appreciation to Mr Blount for birthing such a fine song to the world. Below then, are the lyrics of this, Bl(o)unt’s magnum opus. A classic, I think you’ll agree…

My life is brilliant
Indeed it may well be, but those of us that have to listen to this drivel are decidedly less than brilliant. Fucking annoyed would be more accurate.

My love is pure.
Yeah, yeah. Tosser.

I saw an angel.
Ah, if only he were seeing angels.

Of that I’m sure.
She smiled at me on the subway.
Have you seen Blunt? Has the girl on the subway?

She was with another man.
Beware: Blunt. He’ll try to swipe your girlfriend without even a pang of conscience.

But I won’t lose no sleep on that,
See, no conscience.

‘Cause I’ve got a plan.
A plan, is it? Well, let’s see about that.

You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.
You’re beautiful, it’s true.
Redundant. Lazy songwriting.

I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don’t know what to do,
So what happened to this great plan of his. It seems to have amounted to naught. I’d have thought that an ex-army captain (as the media seems to keep reminding us - I assume to try to limit the number of people that try to beat him up) would be able to plan and execute a more effective strategy.

‘Cause I’ll never be with you.
Hang on. A minute ago he was all cocksure and smug, lording it over everyone with his ‘plan’ to steal other blokes’ girlfriends. Now he seems to have run up the white flag and accepted he’ll never be with the beautiful girl. I feel I must again point out his supposed time as an army captain. Sounds like just the guy you’d want in a sticky situation. Captain Fucking Blackadder maybe. Or Captain Cadman (anyone remember him?).

It goes on. Jesus.

Yes, she caught my eye,
I’m assuming it’s a glass eye due to some war accident. Most likely got snagged on a branch as he scarpered.

As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Fucking high,
Fucking? Fucking high? Apparently, this is the CD version and the radio version has ‘Flying high’. Dear oh dear. James, James, James. You’re impressing no one with this swearing (especially when it makes no sense to do so - why put ‘fucking high’ in?). Swearing is not big and is not clever. You fucker.

And I don’t think that I’ll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last ’till the end.
Christ.

[Chorus snipped as it's the same arse as before]

La la la la la la la la la
La-di-fucking-la?

You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.
You’re beautiful, it’s true.
There must be an angel with a smile on her face,
When she thought up that I should be with you.
What? Is that actually English? All of the words are English but they don’t actually mean anything much, do they? “Thought up that I should be with you”? What are you on about James?

But it’s time to face the truth,
I will never be with you.
I hope and pray that any lady beautiful or otherwise has more fucking sense, Jamie.

That was it then. I doubt that there can be many who have heard the song that have failed to be impressed with the depth and passion of the lyrics; the clever interweaving of diverse threads into a coherent whole and the strong delivery of the singer. It’s obviously an instant classic and one for the ages. Our children’s children’s children will still be singing and, indeed, living it’s message of hope. It shines like a beacon for the world.

And it’s obviously not a stinking, worthless, meandering, nonsensical, steaming pile of shite and a crime against music. Nope.

Now, what rhymes with ‘Blunt’?

Corporate training days. Customer care courses. This is time that you don’t get back. Yep, today I had to attend a customer care course. Not just any course, but one customised for my own particular purgatorial corporation (or so the very nice man giving the course informed us).

Now, I’ve been at enough of these things in my working life (a peril of the job) to know that it’s not going to be terribly interesting. We’ll learn about listening and asking open and closed questions and then get to see a video with John Cleese in it. Not the most thrilling way to spend a day, but in the convict spirit, I know that the best way to get through it is to keep your head down and do your time.

I also know that the quickest way to get through this is not to engage the instructor in ridiculous, inane argument about issues that are not even related to the very dreary subject matter in question.

The last thing I know about these courses however is that there is always some tosser that will feel an irresistible compulsion to engage the instructor in ridiculous, inane argument about issues that are not even related to the very dreary subject matter in question.

At every fucking turn, this tosser felt he had to contribute or question the current topic. Or possibly the previous topic. Or a topic that wasn’t anything to do with what was going on. One particular incident sticks out. As the poxy PowerPoint slides crawled past, one popped up on ‘first impressions’. It had a picture of a cunt in a beige suit holding a laptop and a picture of a cunt in a jeans and T-shirt. The point was pretty obvious even in a semi-conscious state - obviously the cunt in the suit is the kind of stand-up guy that you’d want selling you insurance or fixing your computer or fucking your sister. Easy, fine, let’s move on. Nope. Mr. I-Have-A-Fucking-Opinion-On-Every-Fucking-Thing has to start a fucking debate on the changes in the thirty years (man and boy) that he’s been in the job and how sometimes it’s acceptable to wear something like Chinos. You’d think that a point like that might take, at most, a minute to discuss. You’d probably be surprised, therefore, to learn that it took twenty minutes of my fucking life and the lives of the other sorry bastards in the room with me. Jesus.

He also spent a quarter of an hour boring the shite out of us with tales of how he’s so important that he has too many things ‘multitasking’ in his head to ‘actively’ listen to someone and to actually focus exclusively on what that person is saying. He’s far to busy to be able to listen and anyway, he didn’t get to where he is today by listening.

I’d like to propose an additional rating on those evaluation sheets you get at the end of these courses…

• Please rate the other participants in the course in terms of their cuntishness.
  -Not Very Cuntish. -Quite Cuntish. -Very Cuntish. -Off The Fucking Scale Cuntish.

Take a stroll with me down Conservative Avenue.

I love reading about what the mentalist, right-wing, God-fearing, American toss-pots are doing. I love hearing what sort of nut-job idea they’re currently kicking around as it makes me feel lucky that I’m not a complete blinkered cunt too. As luck would have it, today I found two new insanities.

Both come from WorldNetDaily, which touts itself as ‘A Free Press For A Free People’. Nice. Among their balanced views, I noticed a dire warning…

Soy is making kids gay. For fuck’s sake. Apparently, soy is just bursting with estrogen and it’s being pumped into kids. This turns otherwise heterosexual, all-American kids into boys who like other boy’s bums. Did you know this? Well it’s true. “Soy is feminising, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality“. Worse than we thought - not only are they gay, they’re gay and have small knobs. How are they expected to pull? “That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products“. Dear God. Won’t someone think of the children. Fuckwits.

The second item I found over there was a blurb to try pawn off some right-wing propaganda in handy paperback form. It was a sales pitch trying to sell right-thinking Christians a book entitled, “Shooting Back. The right and duty of self defense“. This useful paperback deals with a particular everyday issue that most of us have faced. Namely, “what would you do if armed terrorists broke into your church and starting attacking your friends with automatic weapons in the middle of a worship service?”

Hmmmmm. A thorny issue indeed, and one that, I’m sure every Christian considers when heading out the door to church. The author however, is on hand to help out. He helpfully makes a biblical, Christian case for individuals arming themselves with guns.

Now, call me a liberal, pinko, commie who’s soft on gays but tough on gun control if you will, but I feel the need to note that these people are cunts of the highest order. They are uber-cunts. They are the daddies of all cunts.

I realise I’ve used the ‘C’ word excessively in this post but Jesus, what cunts.

A post over at Spinsterella’s blog (I like reading occasionally and enjoy the bits of Irish culture she pops in from time to time) got me to thinking. She was considering men’s tastes regarding girlie versus non-girly girls and the comments were really flying. I even added a comment as a joke but the estrogen levels were too high among those commenting and it was, at best, ignored or, at worst, my name has been added to some ‘Very Serious Women’s List of Idiot Males‘ (although that boat has most likely sailed).

I couldn’t really get on board with most of the comments as many seemed to be a bit of a humour-free zone. The post itself however did get me to thinking about my own good lady wife. Maybe we’ll call her Lady Trousers? Maybe not though. Anyway, we differ in many ways…

• I like films. I like proper films and, occasionally if the mood takes me, I like rubbish action films. I don’t like films that are arty for the sake of being arty but love films that are beautifully written, directed, acted, and shot.
• My missus likes some films and will happily watch a made-for-TV movie about one woman’s fight for justice against impossible odds to save her child from a fire, violent husband, tsunami or despotic foreign dictatorship.

• I like music. I have a vast bundle of CD’s (that my 2 year old daughter keeps mixing up) and, since the advent of downloading, I have a vast bundle of 1’s and 0’s representing music on my computer. I have relatively ecclectic tastes and have a pretty broad collection. I love blues, rock, a bit of jazz, soul, weird freaky stuff, nostalgic 80’s pop and even have a couple of dozen classical CD’s.
• My wife probably owns two CD’s. That I bought for her. It’s not that she dislikes music but she could happily live without it. Weird.

• I like beautiful cars (I’m a cliché, I know). While not a complete car-geek and certainly not a boy-racer, I am interested in the aesthetics of beautiful cars and in the mechanical trickery that makes them go and drive well. I like the sound that a ‘proper’ engine makes.
• My wife wouldn’t care if she drove to work in a combine harvester (except possibly for the increased parking difficulty). She couldn’t give a toss about the sound of a beautiful engine.

I could go on ad nauseum (I haven’t even mentioned power tools yet) but I won’t. Instead, I’ll try to figure out if I’ve actually got a point here.

Hmmmm. Possibly not. But the fact of the matter is that we’re doing ok. We have many differences and a few common points (we both immensely love the aforementioned, 2 year old Baby Trousers for instance - that’s got to be the biggest thing at the moment). I love and respect my missus immensely too, even though she hasn’t succumb to the gravelly wiles of Tom Waits.

Basically, I’m writing this because the over-analysing, over-thinking, over-talking commenters over at Spinny’s place annoyed me. Not all of them but I thought I could hear the sound of hobby-horse hooves beating on soap boxes while reading quite a few comments. Relax, will you? Get over it. Move on. Blah, blah, blah. Bleedin’ militant ‘relationship’ people. Just go out and meet someone will you? Stop analysing every tiny thing. Jesus.

A pox on vending machines. Who the hell puts crisps in them? Refrigerated crisps? Jesus.

Vending machines are all I’ve got at work unfortunately. Bummer. The more delicate chocolate bars, like the ‘Twirl’ for example, inevitably break when they hit the bottom of the delivery chute thing. Yeah, I like Twirls. Nothing unmanly about that.

And I still can’t get a decent cup of tea around here. Who’d be me?

For your listening delectation, the result of an afternoon’s hungover arsing about with my long-time collaborator, bass player extraordinaire, soon-to-be-blogger and all round good egg, The Dumb Oracle.

Cheesetastic.

Tossers in cars. Ignorant cunts that think they have more right than you to be on the road. You know the sort. The ones that cut you up, drive up the bus lane, think nothing of parking in the disabled spot - general wankers, basically.

While popping out to the shops today (it necessitates a drive unfortunately, especially as it was raining like a bastard), I was stopped at traffic lights waiting to drive straight across a junction. I was first and there was a queue of cars behind me. A car pulled into the ‘I’m definitely going to turn right so this is the appropriate lane for doing so’ lane beside me. But I could tell. I knew that when the lights changed, he’d be off and pulling in front of me to go straight on. I knew.

And I was right. When the lights changed, he sped off and cut me up. Understandably angry, I treated him to a jolly good parping. A long parping at that. After some seconds of this parping, I heard a police siren. It just sounded for a second but for a brief moment, I thought “wonderful, now Mr. Lane-Markings-Mean-Nothing-To-Me will get his just deserts”. I pictured my driving past on my return from the shops to see him in handcuffs, being helped into the back of a police car. A righteous and virtuous copper placing a hand on the perp’s scummy head so that he didn’t knock it before he got back to the station for a good kicking.

Alas no. The brief blast of police siren had actually come from the car that had just cut me off and was to indicate that, rather than being a complete and utter fuckwit, he was in fact a police officer in an unmarked car about some extremely important police business that necessitated not waiting in line at the lights and cutting up a member of the public.

Being a lay-person, I obviously didn’t recognise the signs of the high-speed pursuit that he was engaged in. I had evidently failed to notice the speeding articulated lorry and the Trans Am being driven by a mustachioed bloke in a cowboy hat that this copper was desperate to apprehend. I had also forgotten the fact that some members of the force seem to consider themselves ‘better’ than the rest of us and therefore not subject to the same laws, rules, common sense and good fucking manners. They are not better. They are, in fact, cunts.