Brum Brum!

I got back late last night from Birmingham and my first two days as a student at the University there. I'm starting an MA in British First World War studies and Friday and Saturday were the induction days to both the College of Arts and Law and the War Studies Department. I had been told I had to attend both days and duly bought a train ticket and booked a hotel which cost the better part of £100. This had better be good, thought I. I set off at the crack of sparrows on Friday to get to the college induction at 9.00am. I needn't have bothered to be honest. It basically consisted of several introductory talks about the college and about how great we all are and how we hold the future in our hands. As an archaeologist, I am generally holding the past in my hands, but whatevs. We were also introduced to our student reps and careers people. It was more for undergraduates going straight into an MA than people who have actually spent some time in the real world working. We were then taken on a tour of the campus by a woman who no one could hear and who seemed to have no idea what anything was or had never been in any of the buildings she was pointing out to us. I did notice with glee that there was a clock tower on campus. I only need to buy a rifle and wait for graduation day so I can start doing a Charles Whitman.

Just you wait, you cunts'll get what's coming to you...

The best thing about this introduction was when I was sat waiting for the presentations to start some guy came and took the seat next to me and said 'hey, cool shirt'. He was referring to my BURZUM hoodie, we got talking about BURZUM and what he called aggressive music. The guy was from Chicago and turns out he used to be in a punk band called The Muslims, who had to change their name to The Slims for commercial reasons. Anyway, this discussion was probably the best thing that happened during that morning, so when the tour was over I fucked off to find my hotel and have a look around Birmingham (more of this amazing trip later...). The next day was the departmental induction and we had a full day of lectures. I arrived early to try to find some breakfast, but with the entire campus shut except Spar I had to go hungry. As I was wandering in search of vittles I played 'spot the War Studies student'. When we were all in the lecture room I noticed that I was correct with everyone I spotted... There is a certain demographic in the War Studies department and it certainly isn't slim pretty eighteen year old girls. The rest of the day was spent listening in awe to military history lectures, until the final part when we were taken down to the archives and saw such treasures as I never knew existed. First off there was a 1915 dated manual of British Shell types, a 1916 dated Lewis Gun Manual. It got better, they had Neville Chamberlain's personal copy of Mein Kampf, with a little dedication written by Nev himself. There was a stack of the English version of Mein Kampf in magazine form. Dutch copies of Signal Magazine. They even had Oswald Mosley's personal scrapbook of all his public appearances. It was a Fascist's wet dream! I wasn't allowed to take photos, so you'll have to make do with this picture of Natalie Imbruglia instead:

But, I hear you ask, what did I do with my Friday afternoon? Well, settle down and I'll tell you. I walked into the city centre to have a look-see at Birmingham. I've been through Brum a few times, but never really stopped so I thought I'd have a wander around. Also, a conversation I'd had with Becki at work inspired me to try to find the aquarium. I finally stumbled upon the Sea Life Centre and approached the desk. I asked the guy selling tickets how much it was, he told me £18 for an adult. I took a step back and composed myself. I asked how much with a student discount. He told me £15. I picked myself off the floor and asked him if it was worth it. He said yes, but I glanced over his shoulder and realised that because Birmingham is land locked they have no idea how to look after fish. There were cages piled on top of one another with fish flapping about in their death throes. It appeared to be feeding time as workers were pouring fresh Haribo on top of uneaten Haribo in feeding tubes on the sides of the cages. They kept shouting at the fish 'You'd better eat this, there's nothing else!' I decided the price was too high to watch fish slowly dying and took my leave.

WE NEED MORE HARIBO!!!

Jesus, I'm glad I did, because as I was walking through town I passed the Art Gallery and saw that they were housing the Staffordshire Hoard, but even better than that it was the last weekend of the HOME OF METAL exhibition! I'd completely forgotten it was on and I ran in as fast as my little legs could carry me. Here are pictures, I'm sorry about the quality but my phone camera is and the venue was dark:

Geezer Butler's favourite!

40,000 gram Sabbath vinyl!

Which one's Pink?

#22: Robert Plant buys a Laney Amp in March 1968...

I would have given my first born to have seen this gig...

Or this one...

Or any of these...

The Gods Made Heavy Metal: Tony Iommi's Laney stack and SG. Literally, cum in my pants.

CLASS WAR NOW!!!

Shane Embury's personal Napalm Death cassettes...

Pre-print mock up of Scum album

Oh God! It's Brian Tatler's guitar!!!!

A letter from Lars Ulrich to Brian Tatler from about 1982!!

The Blizzard of Shit...

Original Napalm Death rehearsal recordings...

This has to rank as one of the best live photos ever, Napalm Death at the Mermaid 1988

The King is commemorated by the city of Brimingham!

Also in the gallery I sat in awe in front of a Botticelli, then found my way to an Indian restaurant and woke up the next morning with a jelly botty. BOOM BOOM!!

Svarte Vidder

I was just in the office chatting to Berny. The conversation went like this: Me 'What you doing this weekend Bern?' Him 'Decorating, I think.' Me 'What you decorating?' Him 'The living room.' Me 'you want some help?' Him 'No.' I told him I used to be a P&D (painter and decorator) back in the day in Dublin. But even this failed to sway him. It's true though, for a short while I worked with Mad Tommy, aka, T the P (Tommy the Painter). How did this come about? Well, sit back, relax and I'll tell you. As I was saving up to drive across America with four other idiots, I needed a bit of extra cash so I turned to my landlord, Micko, to see what he could do for me. I knew he had properties all over Dublin that were ever on the mend so there wasn't a shortage of work. He told me there was a block of flats in Temple Bar that he had Tommy painting at weekends and said I could get involved in that if I wanted. I would be working free in order to pay for the rent. I agreed and went off to meet Tommy one bright sunny Saturday morning. Tommy was a stout man, a little taller than me, looked to be in his late 50's though was actually probably early 40's. He'd had that outside battering only a life in the countryside of Ireland can bring. Now, to call Tommy mad would be a disservice to mad people everywhere. He was a fucking fruit loop. Doolally and deranged, that was our Tommy. He had a heart of gold, but a mind like a box of frogs on angel dust. He didn't seem it at first, except he looked at you that way that bulls do when they are about to charge, nothing unusual about, I thought, plenty of Irish people have a similar look. Especially culchies. It's something to do with the breeding I think. But as I got to know the man I got to know the madness. He was from Galway and told me he used to be an alcoholic, but in order to drive himself away from the demon drink he'd taken up as a self employed painter. That way he could spend every hour God sent to work rather than have to take the weekends off as if he was in a regular job. Now, I'm not sure if Micko was taking advantage of this affliction or it was a care in the community type of situation. I never worked it out. Maybe Tommy was taking advantage of Micko? Who knows. The point is he also collected every single receipt for any item he ever bought. Most people who are self employed collect their receipts in order to get something back from the tax returns, a lot can be gained from self employed work if you play your tax cards right. Free lunches (business meetings), new computers/cars (business essentials), etc. But Tommy wasn't collecting his receipts for that, oh no, he was far too honest for that, he was doing it in case the government audited him and his accounts couldn't demonstrate that he had spent 178.45 Euro a year on coffee but in fact the books showed it was 179.21 Euro. He thought an Irish government tax official would drag him off to a lock up in an undisclosed location on the outskirts of Offaly and torture him to find out just what had happened to that seventy six cents:

Where's the fucking money, Tommy? Where is it?

So you can imagine his disappointment when he sent me off for coffee one time and I returned with the coffee but NO RECEIPTS! This wasn't the only eccentricity in Tommy's life. Again, as I got to know him he told about his life long dream for Galway. He'd had his eye on a patch of waste ground for years that he was saving up to buy. He was wanting to build a children's roller coaster type ride which he'd proudly called the Beetle Bug. He'd been working on this idea for years and it was what he did in the little time he had outside of work. He'd drawn up all the designs, unfortunately I never got to see them, and worked out all the costs, and submitted countless applications to Galway Council to get the project off the ground. Every single one had been roundly rejected. He couldn't understand this continual veto of his life's work and kept throwing himself against a wall of silence. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that he was a painter and decorator and not a FUCKING ROLLER COASTER DESIGNER! Yeah, maybe that was something to do with it.

Oh Tommy!

He was also naive to a point of childishness. This is not a problem at all and certainly not a personality flaw, but it did fill my days working with him with endless amusement. as I said, we were painting the interior of this massive block of flats in Dubbers and would be working along the corridors (I would do the large block areas in the centre of the walls and he would 'cut in' the edges, a P&D term for you there... Don't say you never learn owt from this blog...). Obviously we would see people come and go throughout the day and get to know some of our temporary neighbours. One day I was stunned to see two beautiful women walking down the corridor. Both were heavily made up and Eastern European looking. Both were wearing what could be best described as 'slutty' clothing. Now, I am far beyond casting dispersions upon other people's way of making a living, but I would bet ten pound to one that these girls were ladies of the night. The kind of girls that would make Jack the Ripper's whoredar go off the scale. Anyway, these girls smiled at me and disappeared into one of the flats leaving me all discombobulated. Throughout the rest of the day of us working on that corridor level several gentlemen would pass us and enter the flat, leaving about an hour or so afterwards. They wouldn't make eye contact with either myself of Tommy and had a certain shambolic shameful gait. Punters. They were all punters. But Tommy thought he had the answers. He took me into his confidence and one tea break opened up his concerns. 'Alex, I tink dem girls in that flat might be dealing drugs in dere. People keep coming and going all day long. It's the only ting I can tink of that might be going on in dere. It's shameful that such young lovely girls should be drawn into such a dark world.' I didn't have the heart to break his deeply held Country Catholic view that no one has sex before marriage and drugs would be the only possible answer as to why men kept visiting the girls.

'I'm looking for some Bolivian marching powder...'

In the end I saved up enough to be able to go to America, had the time of my life and eventually moved away from the Green Isle. I think of Tommy from time to time and wonder if he's still cutting those walls in and if he ever got the Beetle Bug built. Maybe he did. Maybe some child was decapitated by a loose iron bar and Tommy was languishing in jail for failing to comply to building regulations. Who knows?

Lazy Journalism

OK, it's that time that I again that I lazily write out some of the text message conversations I have had recently.

Ninjasaurus Rex is the subject of this latest tirade. He sent me a picture of a toy church he'd bought and included the message:

Him: My new toy. A sixties style happy clappy hippy church. I'm looking forward to burning it down.

Me: LOL, make sure there's a little plastic vicar in there when you do.

Him: I might use those PP nuns...

Me: Rape them first if you do.

Him: I'm too big for them to take.

Me: No, you're not. Don't flatter yourself.

Him: My wang is as big as an entire Peter Pig's nun's body, I'll have you know.

Me: No it's not, I've seen it.

Him: Your eyesight is far better than I thought then.

Me: It's microscopic.

Him: You giggy twat.

No response

Him: You four eyed nerk.

No response

Him: If you were a transvestite superhero, what powers would you have?

Me: Xray vision, invisibility and the ability to walk through walls. the only ones you need.

Him: I *know* that! I want superpowers that a transvestite superhero would want.

Me: A non clashing super hero costume?

Him: Is always being able to find an absolute bargain in the end of season sales a superpower?

Me: It is for Gok Wan.

Him: You know he's secretly straight, don't you? What a genius way to feel up loads of women and get away with it!

Me: I might try being secretly straight then.

Him: You could start by keeping your gay bear hair.

Me: It takes one to know one.

Him: You giggy twat.

No response

Him: The ability to coordinate any person's clothes with a single punch: Pow! Now you have brown shoes with your jeans!

Another one concerned He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named:

Me: Have you ever sat down and gave serious thought as to why it is that i absolutely fucking hate you?

Him: No, i hardly ever think about you.

Me: You do. You think about me all the time. Especially when you are touching yourself. There is a load of good films coming to the city screen this month. They are showing goodfellas on monday, you can crash here if you like?

Him: OK cool, I have booked my ticket, getting train down after work on monday and train back in the morning. This better be worth it or i'll kick you in the pancreas.

Me: I don't know where you are going to stay. I'm not here monday.

Him: Are you sleeping in the cinema?

Me: What cinema? I'm going on holiday on saturday for a week.

Him: Who is this?

Me: Your worst enemy.

Him: I hate you.

Then the next morning:

Him: Great. I walk into d----- for the first time since i got back. How long does it take till i see some student prick wearing a fedora? Two minutes. It isn't even term time yet. Fuck sakes. This is going to be a long year.

Me: Nail it to his fucking head. You need to make a swift and decisive statement to stop anymore of this shit.

And finally, I wrote the lyrics for this song about fourteen years ago, back then Johnny took them and changed bits and pieces so they fitted the music but they are still essentially mine and are just as relevant (to me anyway) today. Enjoy the 'Leaf.

Troll Piss

I went to see the Norwegian Documentary 'The Troll Hunter' last night. It served to cement my idea that Trolls do in fact exist. When I was in Iceland I saw enough evidence to point to Trolls and this documentary has only confirmed my suspicions that we are not alone in the world, but in fact are continually at the mercy of 100ft giants. Imagine being a poor Norwegian farmer and having trolls run across your land smashing the crap out of everything, just for shits and giggles. I for one am glad they use power lines to fence them in.

Lauren and I at Dimmuborgir, Iceland, STANDING IN THE MOUTH OF A FUCKING TROLL!!!!

I have been working back in an Twelfth Century church today. Previously I was excavating in the bowels of the west tower and undermining the foundations of the church in the lovely little village of Alne in the hope it would collapse. I am always wary of going in churches, my deep seated hatred of organised religion always make me think that I will either burst into flames or do something to incur the wrath of God that will see me struck by lightening. But this was not so. I suppose we were working hand in hand with the church authorities so God kept his fucking nose out of it for the time we were there. Basically the church is having a new floor put in and as the church can be traced back to the 12th century it was quite important that we were on hand to see if anything from the olden days came up. It was actually a watching brief that should have been an excavation. What I mean by this is, the builders should have been digging out the ground surface of the tower whilst I watched, but in reality, the possibility of archaeology being present meant that I had to dig out the ground surface whilst the builders watched. It became one of those jobs where I had to spend a few days explaining to the builders that my job wasn't about the fact that we hadn't found anything 'interesting' but the fact that I was actually there to make sure anything that may come up was recorded. Being a part of the building industry, you would assume that builders have a reasonable idea about what archaeologists do, but this never seems to be the case and I end up explaining my job to people who don't really give a fuck in the first place. 

You do what? For Money?

The builder lads I was working alongside were good guys, as people generally are, except for the cunts. Who are cunts, whatever. Anyway, these lads weren't cunts. One of them had the best two tattoos I've ever seen. One was a dog that looked like Rude Dog, from Rude Dog and the Dweebs, giving a smutty gesture. If that wasn't bad enough he'd gone back a few years later and got an even worse inking. It was a heart with a scroll across the centre. Upon the scroll he'd had written the name of his object of affection: BABY SPICE. I also had the usual queue of interested parties coming through the church to have a nosy at how the work was progressing. The trendy vicar, with his 'hair do', the church warder and the 'Colonel' from the Vicarage over the road. I don't mind the general public, or explaining what is going on, but when each one requires a half an hour lecture on what we've found, I wish they'd all come at the same time so I can get on with the work with minimal interruption. Despite all these interruptions, Jim and I managed to get the job done well within time. There was quite a panic on getting the job finished as there was a wedding being held, we were repeatedly told, 'On Friday'. Obviously it was the biggest thing to ever happen in Alne since the Plague and the entire village appeared to have been invited along to see the youngest people in the village betrothed. In actuality the couple weren't even from the village and were coming up from the south to get wed, so most of the village were probably gathering to see 'the queer foreigners from that London.' And our work had no right to stand in the way.

Nothing stands in the way of this!

But today I was sent back out there, ripped from the warm bosom of my front room, where I was writing a report, into the howling gales of Hurricane Scrimshaw or whatever it's called.  I had been told the builders might have found some bones in what I previously thought was an empty trench. The trench actually was empty when I walked away from it the other day and they assured me that they would be doing no more digging in there. Surprise surprise, they did some more digging when I wasn't there and found some stuff. So I found myself scratching away at a child's skeleton whilst the noises of playtime drifted across from the local primary school. a very strange experience indeed. Added to this I was still recovering from Saturday night when we had one of our twice-a-decade work night out. This one was pretty messy in all events. There are large chunks of Saturday night missing from my memory, which is unusual for me.

Stanners tries his luck

Project Dim

I went to see Project Nim last night, Chris and Chloe were also there so I ended up getting pissed with them in the bowels of the Lendal Cellars. A couple of weeks ago I went to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes with Moogdroog, so this was a perfect continuation to the monkey themed cinematic experience. Being a massive life long fan of monkeys I loved both shows, I was roaring with laughter all the way through because monkeys are so funny, even when they aren't wearing fez's or riding around on tricycles. Here is a review of Rise of the Project of the Nim:

In 1972 a monkey (Nim, played by a heavily made-up Orson Welles)  is born to human parents in Connecticut, Harold and Katie Dre (Joe Pesci and Oprah Winfrey). At first the monkey child is placid and friendly but full of intelligence, the monkey hides his intelligence knowing it may one day be his downfall. The Dre's take Nim around the country showing him at Country Fairs as his skills in riding tricycles grows. Nim becomes a national sensation as a daredevil Wall-Of-Death monkey tricyclist, quickly securing a TV contract he becomes a television star. As he becomes more famous, he grows further and further away from his parents, who by this time have given birth to a performing dog (Joe DiMaggio, uncredited). The Dre's put all their attention into the new child's singing career and Nim grows impatient and more and more distant. Nim ploughs part of his vast fortune into the fledgling race to the moon, sending monkeys into space to explore the outer reaches of human (and monkey) understanding. Then tragedy strikes and Nim is apparently killed in a stunt that goes wrong when he was set to jump over twenty London buses on fire. The nation mourns the loss of a hero and visionary, but quickly recovers when the stunt is finally beaten by the performing dog who has abandoned the singing for a career on the track.

Five years pass and the action switches to the dark side of the moon, where we discover Nim still alive and well. The stunt catastrophe was a cover up for his escape from Earth. We also learn the monkeys sent up to the Moon are also alive and have created a colony far from their human oppressors. Under Nim's instruction and funding the colony have built a startling array of weaponry, including tricylces fitted with heavy machine guns and armoured fez's. All set for an invasion Nim's monkey army begin the assault on Earth and it isn't long before all the monkeys in all the zoos in all the world are brought together to fight humanity.

Nim leads the monkeys to victory and vanquishes the remaining humans to the zoos. Only one human is left, Harold Dre, Nim's father. During Nim's absence, Harold used the time to create an exo-skeleton suit, initially for use in stunt tricks, but also housing a complex surface to air missile system. Dre defeats Nim's monkey airforce but has underestimated the intelligent powers of his son. A 78 minute cataclysmic showdown in the Grand Canyon sees Nim finally defeats his father with a clever use of an armoured tricycle (I won't reveal the delicious twist here!) and the world is enslaved under the yoke of the monkey. The film ends with a long scene in the monkey parliament where they decide which monkey will be in charge by throwing shit at each other and wanking.

10 on 10!!