Sunday 25 December 2011

Fuck Christmas

I hope all you got for Christmas was a dead rat in a box. I hope your Christmas turkey was riddled with listeria. I hope your house burnt down and all your possessions with it. Fuck Christmas and Fuck You.

Thursday 22 December 2011

King Kong merrily on high

I was at the pub quiz last night and as it is close to Christ's Mass, it was a Christ's Mass themed spectacular. I'm normally above such base degradation, but in this instance each team had to sing Christ's Mass carols at the interval of every two questions. We were all given a song sheet with the lyrics on and we ended up with Once in Royal David's City. 'Fuck that!' we three said as one 'We'll do Tannenbaum. We'll do Tannenbaum, in German.' Nathan wrote out the words, since he'd spent the week learning them and when it was our turn we belted out the ditty.


We do what we want, and we do it with style...

It went rather well, except of the three of us, two had shaven Neo-Nazi style skinheads and I was wearing my Tiger Tank t-shirt. Added to this Nathan's Seig Heiling posturing and also adding the last line' The Fatherland will rise again!' to the song and it was like the Bürgerbräukeller Putsch and Kristalnacht all rolled into one!


 C'mon Adolf! Sing louder!!

The night ended with each of the teams having to sing a line from the Twelve Days of Christ's Mass. We had Twelve Drummer Drumming. I like this song as it has nothing to do with religion and you can belt out
Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive Gold Rings!! 
As the the entire pub did, every time it came round...

I spent today in a blasting icy wind on a hill in Huddersfield trying to hold onto the archive, directing Nick where to put his survey rod and fighting off a hangover caused by too many Roosters.

Monday 19 December 2011

Kim Jong's Ill


Farewell to the world's greatest golfer...

Thursday 15 December 2011

Nail Him!!

So, there I was, up to my elbows in medieval riverside deposits trying to find a nonexistent revetted friary quayside, when my mother rung me. She said 'I've got something to ask, but you're going to go mad.' So I steeled myself and asked her what it was. She said 'me and your dad are going shopping and wanted to know if there was any DVDs or CDs you wanted for Christmas?' She is right, I did go mad. And why? Well, quieten the fuck down and let me explain.

This year for Christ's Mass I, like Greece, implemented austerity measures in the Sotheran household. I made everyone else sign up to the idea that we would only spend £25 on each other (give or take a few quid) and we were not allowed to ask one another what we wanted. We would each have to go out and buy presents for one another that we thought they would like or appreciate and the resulting presents would be a surprise. Why did I decide this?

Well last year everyone made lists of stuff they wanted and this was the result: Both myself and my brother bought the same fucking book for my mother. It cost the better part of £20 and my copy has been sitting unsold on EBay for the last year. My brother and my mother both bought me a CD which I already had (I'd forgotten this when I made the list). My brother bought me a DVD that was the wrong region for my player, so had to be sent back. It got farcical.

This is my major problem with Christ's Mass. I love winter, but I hate this build up to the conjectural birth date of a necromancing Iron Age cabinet maker. By eliminating the need to make lists for presents I wanted I had managed to eradicate the stress of the build up towards the BIG DAY!!! Also I'm not seven years old and don't get hyper excited about the prospect of whether I'll be getting a Scalextrix or a Lego castle set. It was getting more and more difficult to think of things I wanted for Christ's Mass than it was to buy things for the rest of the family. I can afford almost everything I want. It's just another day with a week off work, which is the best part of it. If anything, Christ's Mass should be about family and eating a fuck load of food to get you through the winter months, not who can spend the most amount of money on trinkets no one really wants.

So this is why I went mad earlier, because my parents were asking me to give them an idea for a CD or DVD or book that I wanted, that I could afford to pay for myself anyway if I really wanted it. The thing is I've not even given this shit a thought since I assumed we'd done away with the need to create lists for one another, so she was putting me on the spot. this year's 'celebrations' are only a week away but for next year I am seriously considering buying a bunch of cats and stockpiling weapons and living off the land like a survivalist. Fuck your society of greed.

I FUCKING HATE CHRISTMAS!!!!


My only Christ's Mass decoration

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Cream of the Crap

OK, so I can say with alarming clarity that God does actually exist and the fucker totally hates me. How do I know? Well, 'twas on a Sunday morning that the Divine allowed His presence to be felt by guiding my clown shoe like feet to stamp on my spectacles. They were lying on the floor of my parent's spare bedroom where I had spent the night. 'Oh Flip!' said I, as I saw that the lens had come out and the ear branch was all askance. How did this come about that my glasses were on the floor of my parent's spare bedroom? Well, sit back and I shall tell thee.


Flipping Crumbs!

I had travelled down to Nottingham on Friday night to see Mr McKibbin and Miss Lee in their new house. In fact the house is pretty much owned by Alix and Craig is just mooching off her, as he has done with me all the time I've known him. Thank God, I managed to get rid of him onto her. Anyway, their new place is in the middle of Little Beirut in Nottingham and I got stabbed three times between getting out of the car and going in their front door. We piled the furniture back up against the door and had a good old fashioned catch up as IEDs went off outside.


'Yeah, just park it anywhere.'

I was also there to break up the journey I was making to Birmingham for a day of lectures and presentations as decreed by my MA. And what a day it was. I was sitting there, listening to Gary Sheffield talking about the First World War, thinking 'I fucking love this! This is the best thing I've done in ages. Why can't everyday be like this?'


FUCKING BRILLIANT!!!

The way back to York was broken up with a stop over at my folk's house in Rotherham, which nicely coincided with a gig by Goatleaf. I haven't seen them play for over six months, so it was about time I went back gave them my support. It was like stepping back in time, however, as there was a bunch of folks there I hadn't seen for years. The 'Leaf were on top form as ever, with Mr Deveaux dancing around like bear on a hot plate. The support came from 6 Needles, who were shambolic but fucking ace as well. Their flyer tells you pretty much all you need to know about them:


Anyway, I succeeded in getting drunk and even finding a taxi to get me home. Everything was going well until the next morning when I stamped on the specs. I tell you, Karma is a bitch. I had set Sunday aside for working on an essay, but fate intervened and robbed me of all opportunity to do any work at all. I called down to the Rotherham branch of Specsavers to see if they could do anything about my lunettes. Thankfully I had my work glasses in my bag, but these are so badly scratched that looking through them is like wearing a Medieval stained glass window. I sat in the opticians for an hour while they hammered away at my glasses to no avail. They thought I would have better luck at the York branch, as they have an anvil and forge set up for such occasions, so I finally made it back up north and into town. The place was heaving with desperate shoppers trying to find toys and trinkets for nephew Tarquin and niece Tallulah, as there is ONLY THREE WEEKS UNTIL CHRIST'S MASS so I bravely fought my way to Specsavers, where a callow ginger haired youth tried to help me with my predicament. Again to no avail. This resulted in a new eyetest for me and new glasses, to the tune of nearly three hundred quid. The only good thing to come out of it was the woman who fitted my new glasses was smoking hot, I joked with her as I handed over the money that the kids wouldn't be getting any presents this year. But that, dear reader, is how to put the ultimate dampener on what had been until then, a good weekend.