Remove all the wheelblocks, there's no time to waste!

Those of you with memory spans that weren't wiped out in your late teens and early twenties by vast amounts of military grade amphetamines and industrially synthesised LSD will recall that in the last post I was wittering on about my early manoeuvres through the heady world of Heavy Metal. I got thinking about some of the other ridiculous things I did when I was finding my feet musically. I mentioned that my introduction to the world of Metal was through Kiss, I only ever owned one record by them and that was Dressed To Kill. It had been bequeathed to me by my uncle, he'd long since realised that they were just a bunch of 60 year old Jewish Grandmothers and off loaded the album onto me when I mentioned seeing them on Top of the Pops. This was the first LP I truly owned myself and I played it until the grooves ran out. I apparently loaned it to Al Sithee for a time, telling him that Anything for my Baby was the best track on the album. But besides this small interruption it was rarely off my turntable.

What the fuck was I thinking?

As previously mentioned, I was a rather fickle child and seemed to be only able to like one band at a time. When Ninjasaurus Rex learned of my interest in long hair and guitars, he loaned me Iron Maiden's debut album on cassette. Now, Ninjasaurus was already way ahead of me in the music stakes. He'd been listening to Hawkwind since he was in nappies, for fuck's sake. I had a lot of catching up to do. I'm sure he felt like he was doing me a great deal of good by opening my mind to new bands. Little did he know how fickle I was. The moment I heard Maiden, I rejected Kiss out of hand for the disco sounding stuttin' cocks that they are. Maiden was a band that was so metal they were creating new types as of yet undiscovered metal and adding them to the periodic table. They probably had a laboratory somewhere on the Rhine where they were synthesising alloys day and night. I made a copy of Ninjasaurus' album and with the lack of a proper album cover, I conceived my own, based on the original but drawn up in Biro and felt tip pens. Unfortunately this didn't survive the later Slayer cull and I don't have a copy of it anymore for you to laugh at. You just have to imagine the front cover of Iron Maiden's debut album as drawn by a retard armed with a spatula and a plastic bag full of tramp's sick and you might get the idea. Mind you, this is how Derek Riggs seems to paint all the Maiden covers anyway....

Needs more sick...

Anyway, The reason I'm telling you this is to emphasise just what was going on in my mind when I was a child. I have always been interested in making models, when I was a wee lad it was model aeroplanes. My bedroom was full of Spitfires, Messerschmitts, Focke-Wulfs and Black Widows. I was a child obsessed. I loved aeroplanes and when I first heard Aces High by Maiden, it blew my tiny fucking mind. Here was a band that were more metal than anything I could ever imagine and they were performing songs about aeroplanes! They even referred to Messerschmitts as 'Me-109s'. They knew what they were talking about! They weren't just making this shit up! I fucking loved that track and I got so obsessed with the song that I looped it over and over again on one side of a C90 cassette so I wouldn't have to keep rewinding the tape at the end of the song. Forty five fucking minutes of Aces High. This was back in the days before CD players and programmable repeat patterns. This was old school. The analogue way of doing things. I would sit for hours at my modelling table, listening to an endless (for forty five minutes) loop of Aces High, whilst inhaling a heady mixture of Humbrol enamel paint, polystyrene cement and white spirits. There's no wonder I turned out like I did.

I FUCKING LOVE THIS, ME!!

As I said, I was a fickle child, even stripping down my musical obsessions to the bare bones by repeating one song over and over. This theme actually continued when I discovered Slayer. I borrowed the album Reign in Blood from the Rovrum Library and this shit literally melted my fucking face. As soon as I heard those opening bars of Angel of Death nothing was the same again. It was like I had been held down on the living room floor by intruders intent on causing me serious aural damage. This was no longer playtime. The big boys had arrived and they had knives. (Now I can just sense I will get a load of abusive comments about South of Heaven being a better album than Reign in Blood. This is simply not true. South of Heaven, although fantastic, is the lesser album. The band were hardly speaking to one an other during the recording of South of Heaven and this disjointed approach comes through on the album. Reign in Blood is perfection. The fact that the themes of the final track (Raining Blood) can be heard building in crescendo through the two previous tracks is just one example of the brilliance of the album. The whole album holds together far better than South of Heaven, which has great tracks amongst its numbers, but feels like there is a lot more filler on South of Heaven than on Reign In Blood. I play it now and it is still as fresh as it was in 1988 when I first heard it. There, that's why it's a better album, if you disagree you are in error.)

It just is. Deal with it.

So I recorded the album, but my dislike of rewinding tapes reared it's ugly head once more and I recorded the first two tracks of the album at the end of the tape and to this day (I still have my original cassette recording of Reign in Blood) Angel of Death still bursts forth when Raining Blood has finished. This is not the only relic of my past that is encased on this particular tape. The tape I used to record Slayer on was the Aces High loop cassette. It was probably my way of wiping out the past. A stepping stone, if you will. A closing of a chapter, some might say. The problem is that Reign in Blood is only about thirty minutes long, even with two extra songs tacked on at the end, this only adds up to about thirty five minutes of recorded material. To this day, as I play the tape in my car, the end bars of Piece by Piece are replaced by about four looped recordings of Aces fucking High.

The End is Nigh...

As I was feeling down in the dumps on Saturday, I decided the best way to cheer myself up was to buy some records. So off I trotted, down through the madding crowds of Saturday afternoon York, first off to the guy who sells records on the market. The man I have to reintroduce myself to every time I visit his stall. There can't be that many returning customers in the York Market. I remember him, why can't he remember who I am and know my eclectic tastes in records ('Me and Bobby McGee' and 'Speed Kills, But Who's Dying?')? I've a good mind to boycott him, but he does let me look at the special stuff behind the stall. All the stuff that is yet to be sorted and priced. He also gives me discounts on bulk purchases. So I probably won't be boycotting him anytime soon. On this visit I also called in at Attic Records. Surprisingly it was open. There have been numerous occasions when I have called in here to see what stock he had in only to find a sign saying 'back @ 2.30' hanging on the closed door. 2.30 duly rolled round and he still wasn't back. 'Fuck him' I thought, you only get two chances with me. Well, I say that, but I have been back and he has been open, so I must have given him a few more chances. Anyhoo, none of this is of any import. He was open, I made a purchase. Happiness was reinstated for about three nanoseconds.

True dat

The reason I mention all this background fluff, is because I bought two records I never thought I'd own in my entire life. The first was Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA. I bought it as I feel that every household should have at least one copy of the Boss' work. I was very pleasantly surprised that it is actually pretty damn good. But the other purchase has such an profoundly astronomical effect on my life that I think things have changed irreconcilably. This is it, there is no looking back now. I bought Appetite for Destruction by Guns and Roses. Now this might not seem like such a big deal to you people, but let me tell you, this is massive for me. I'm a music snob, always have been, always will be. I have always hated Guns and Roses and have held them in continual contempt throughout my music listening history.

Hate you guys...

Allow me to explain how we arrive at that point: As a child I never really listened to music as such. The house was filled with Jazz and Radio Four, courtesy of my parents. The only pop song I remember from these times is Joe Dolce's 'Shaddap Your Face'. As a seven year old I thought this was swearing and was shocked that this would be played on the radio. What a fucking stupid little cunt I was. Around this time the only records myself and my brother owned were Dr Who and the Pescatons, Rolf Harris' The Court of King Caractacus and Rupert and the Firebird. My musical outlook was limited to say the least. What did happen, however, was when I got to Comprehensive school, I grew out of playing war and building dens in the quarry and realised that all the cool kids were listening to something called Pop Music. I wanted in. This was the real shizzle. This would make me accepted by my peers. So I decided that I would dip a toe in the ocean of this so-called 'popular music'. So one Saturday I bought myself some cassette tapes for a bit of illegal home recording. As I mentioned, the radio was controlled by my parents, so when it came to looking for a radio station offering pop music on the pre-tuned radio set, the best I could find happened to be BBC Radio 2. The light program. There was no Radio One in our gaff, oh no. And this is back in the day when Radio 2 wasn't the 'hip' beast that it is now, with all sorts of young upstarts playing contemporary music for a young at heart audience. This is back when they would smother the airwaves in its bed with a pillow of funerary dirges and religious tracts. Obituaries were read out in place of the news.

And later in the programme we take a candid look at medieval torture

This is what I had to contend with in my first tentative steps in the direction of music appreciation. Avowed to make a 'mix tape' that I could play at parties and impress Emma Lillyman and Tina Hinchcliffe with, I steadfastly spent the afternoon recording track after track of what I considered to be Pop Music. I still remember to this day what was on that tape. It was what one would best describe as an 'eclectic mash-up'. An even better description would be a 'fucking train wreck'. Amongst the tracks was Meat Loaf's 'I'm Gonna Love Her for the Both of Us' and Ashford & Simpson's 'Solid'. Believe me, these were the 'cool' tracks. I was determined to make a full 90 minute recording that afternoon. I filled the rest of the tape with such great hits as Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree and, I shit you not, The Black Beauty Theme. They said such great musical acts never should be brought together in one place. That afternoon, gentle reader, I proved them right.

Alan, I would have made you proud...

These first steps were soon calmed with the introduction into my life of Top of the Pops, and it was through this medium that I first discovered Metal. I was watching a show one particular evening in 1987, when something happened that changed my life forever. Kiss were performing 'Crazy, Crazy Nights'. I literally shat myself. This is what I had been looking for! Long haired men, fireworks, leather, spandex... erm. This all sounds a bit gay when you write it down. Anyway, Kiss blew me away (figuratively, not literally) that night. My life as I had known it changed. I was determined to track down more loud guitar music. I needed noise in my life. I quickly rejected Kiss when I discovered Iron Maiden and in turn I quickly rejected them when I discovered Slayer. I was a fickle child. In my mind I wouldn't allow myself to like more than one band at a time. This did soon change and the search was on for faster and harder music, Metallica, Nuclear Assault, Sepultura, Anthrax, Megadeth, Voivod, Kreator, Sodom, Acid Reign, Xentrix, Sacred Reich, Testament, and a million more were added to my growing lexicon of musical interest. This was in the glory days of Thrash Metal. I was in the maelstrom and there was no turning back.

Thrash 'til death!

So why am I telling you this? Well, this is where Guns and Roses come in. It would have been around this time that I was made aware of their growing stature in the metal world. I watched a series of programs called Heavy Metal Heaven one Christmas. Amongst the features was a gig at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go by GNR. I watched it in disbelief. here was a band that looked like women, played music that women were actually dancing to and not one person in the audience were headbanging to. There was no moshing, no stage diving, no blood and guts from a violent pit. Literally I thought; what is this shit? and waited impatiently for Metallica's feature to come up afterwards. From that day on, I have always hated Guns and Roses. This hate has become so ingrained in me over the last twenty years that in the past I have felt physically sick whenever I heard the opening bars of Sweet Child o' Mine. This Saturday all that changed. This Saturday was the beginning of new chapter in my life. A turning of the page, if you will. I spotted Appetite for Destruction on the market stall. Having discussed GNR only the other day with Logan Josh, I thought I really should see if they were as bad as I thought. With shaking hand, I handed over my money and placed the record in a bag so no one should see my shame as I walked back. Once back home, I drew the blinds, turned off the lights and locked the door should anyone be around to see what I was about to do. I placed the album on the turntable and dropped the needle on the vinyl. OH MY FUCKING GOD!! I HAVE WASTED THE LAST TWENTY YEARS HATING THIS BAND!! It blew me away, it blew me out of the goddamn room! It blew me to Mars and back! I was shocked with myself, what the fuck was going on? A few years ago I began to appreciate AC/DC for what they really were (another band that I had a long standing feud with, when I was eighteen I once even refused a date with a girl on the basis that she told me she liked AC/DC...), and now here I was loving Guns and Roses! Is this the downward spiral? Am I finally hitting middle age? Have I grown up? Am I able to appreciate what I once hated with venom? Here I am now, listening to Sweet Child of Mine and actually enjoying it. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?

Love you guys...

Bwyd Time

On Monday it was ten years since I graduated from York University with a BA in Archaeology. It feels like literally two minutes have passed since then. I can't believe it was just ten years ago that Graham and I could be found on a Tuesday night, rolling around on the filthy floor of Ziggy's nightclub demonstrating to the world our own brand of Breakdancing. I can hardly believe that almost ten years ago I was getting ready to go to Ireland, in order to get three months digging experience but ending up staying for nearly four years. It is crazy to think that I was heading out into the world that seems very different to me now. Since then, what have I done and where have a I been? I must have dug literally thousands of holes filled with shit from the olden days. Through archaeology in the past decade I have worked in the following countries: Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Singapore and Tanzania. I've driven across America, from shining coast to shining coast in the company of archaeologists. I have done a mini tour of Iceland dressed as a Ninja accompanied by an archaeologist. I have appeared in television programs on the BBC, Channel Five and the Discovery Channel. I have had the honour of locating and being involved in the identification of the missing from the Great War. I have been involved in creating archaeological sites on the Somme that are used as educational locations. I have even created and taught a University course on Great War archaeology. Yes, if the last ten years is anything to go on, archaeology has been pretty good to me. I think that decision to move out of the flat after the police raid and go to university was probably a good one. I would still be ingesting vast amounts of military grade amphetamines and LSD if I hadn't.

What you could have won...

On Tuesday I went for my CSCS test. The CSCS is a card that has been introduced for all site workers as a cover all for Health and Safety. It also serves as a license to print money for the companies that run the tests as they charge what they like and it has to be paid for by the companies. I have sat through several such tests and talks both here and in Ireland. I am now an expert on the correct ampage of electrical tools and the correct angle that scaffolding should be set at. The thing is, as this test is aimed at labourers it is as simple as they come. If they made the test too hard none of the monkeys that inhabit building sites would pass and the building trade in the UK would fall through its own arse. They even sell you a fucking book that has all the answers in it. Typical questions would be:

You find a bottle of unmarked clear chemicals, do you
a) put it somewhere safe and tell your supervisor 
b) sniff it
c) drink the bottle, passing it around the cabin at lunch time
d) all of the above

You notice the electric-hammer is damaged, do you:
a) unplug it and check for further damage
b) tell your supervisor
c) tape up the damage and tell your supervisor
d) continue using it to stove in the head of the daytime hooker who just asked you for her money

So it was on Tuesday that I found myself in the testing van clicking the mouse for all I was worth answering such questions. I was finished in under ten minutes, even doing the practise test. I was confident of my own abilities when it comes to health and safety. I'm no monkey.

'This is a computer' 

'Woah! Slow down with the science Poindexter!'

I failed.

Brappa at dem popo

I hate Bob Marley. I was listening to the radio today on my mind numbing watching brief and on came Jammin'. On local Radio all they ever seem to do is play endless repeats of Bob Marley or Queen (whom I also hate). Today, as a case in point, they played four fucking Queen songs. One of them twice. Seriously. I almost went out an committed genocide to a continental level. But, like the Beatles, you are not allowed to say you hate Bob Marley. If you do, people look at you as though you just snatched a month old puppy off a six year old child, gutted the dog with a broken shard of glass, took the entrails and hung them round your neck, stabbed the child to death with the same broken glass and wore it's skin whilst banging a drum made from a human skull and howling at the moon. Like Ed Gein. I mentioned my hatred of Bob Marley once during the University excavations and the other supervisors rounded on me like I'd just told them I had run over an old lady then instead of helping just had a shit on the still twitching corpse. I'm not going to bother going into why I hate Bob Marley, as I don't think you deserve to know. I am pretty sure by the time this is published my Facebook wall will be littered with Youtube links to Bob Marley songs, since I know who reads this and how dull witted they are when it comes to doing things that they think annoy me. So go on. Prove me wrong.

During said watching brief I was also reading an article about Lieutenant Daniel Inouye, an Asian-American soldier fighting in Italy for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. This guy is a fucking hero. As hardcore as they come. He attacked three machine gun nests alone, he destroyed one with a grenade despite taking a bullet to the stomach. After destroying the second bunker he collapsed from blood loss, but crawled to the third nest and prepared to throw his grenade. Just then a German rifle grenade nearly took his fucking arm off! The motherfucker prized the grenade out of his almost severed hand and lobbed that into the final nest, spraying the survivors with his Thompson SMG in his left hand. Finally, the lad got shot in the leg which sent him rolling back down the hill. His awards were finally upgraded to a Medal of Honour in 1991. You could learn a lot from this man. Which reminds me, I'm nearly finished watching Band of Brothers. It's getting exciting. I wonder who will win? I hope the Germans do, they have better uniforms.

213th post end of year Hogmanay Spectacular in 3D! (selected areas)

Hoots Ma Boab and Jings! Welcome to the 213th Post end of Year Hogmanay Spectacular Post! Why 213th?  Why end of year? You ask? 213th because I missed the 200th posting and end of year because it's 31st of December, you dumb fucking twat. Do try to keep up. Anyway, I thought I'd take this chance to have a look at my readership, similar to as I did on the 100th posting. That means this is all about you, yes you! and you as well. That one at the back. OK, I asked a favour of you last time and I'll ask the same favour. When you've read this post please leave a comment. It only takes a second and I know I've installed anti spamming measures, but you know, I write this for free, for you. Go on, don't be a cunt.

Do as the monkey says...

So lets take a walk down Google Analytic lane and see how many folks have strolled this same way over the past year and a bit:

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!! Over 20,000 visits!! Who are you people? Where are you coming from? What the fuck is going on here!! OK, OK that's not the whole story, the actual visitor number is a bit lower, but it's still over 16,000 people:

The mind boggles with what people hope to find here. I only started writing this so Craig could read what I was up to in Iceland, what could people possibly want with this blog? Buts lets take a look at where they are coming from:

Good God! People from 144 countries have landed on my blog! About the only place people haven't come here from is China, mind you, my writings are probably banned along with everything else in the Internet universe by the Great Firewall of China. I've even had a reader in the Congo who decided to read at least two pages of this shit! Even someone in Greenland has read a portion of this blog. I didn't even know they had electricity in Greenland! Disappointingly North Korea hasn't sent anyone over to have a look. It's a bit of a shame that really, I've been reading a lot of books recently about North Korea and I would have thought they'd have repaid the compliment.

Go on Kim, you know you want to...

Well, let's turn our attention to how people are finding their way to these pages. As usual the search engine phrases that are used to get here show the best and worst of the people using the internetz... Well, some of it makes for depressing reading. Why someone is searching for the operating times of the Boston abattoir I will never know. Maybe it was their first day on the job and wanted to get to the pig sticking plant nice and early so as not to piss off their boss? Other interesting searches to note here are 'abattoir poker' and 'abbatoire [sic] avatar':

Woah. American Masturbators Society? I can't even find the words:

Who in their right mind is searching for Bin Hookers in Belfast? Are they searching for Nazi boots, or claiming that Boots the Chemist are Nazis? And what has that cunt Bono got to do with air raid shelters in Italy? My mind is literally blowing...

I seriously doubt someone was looking for a holiday cottage in Rotherham or Singapore. I just hope they don't go about their business dressed in a costume of Germany...

You think you've seen it all, but it just keeps coming. Like a torrent of madness. What kind of world do we live in when someone calls their son Somme? Hang on, what kind of world do we live in when people search for pictures of dog slaves eating shit? No wonder they're dole scum...

Hooray! I'm not the only one! Maybe we should start up some kind of Sweetcorn survivors group!

I can't Imagine there being any sex in Litchfield, never mind tantrid [sic] sex:

Pot Noodles on planes? Pot Noodle bnp? What flavour is that? Anti-immigrant?

What is it with the Internetz and Nazis:

And I couldn't leave this search engine search without a good bit of old fashioned abuse of your truly:

I think we've all seen enough? I certainly have. You lot scare the bejesus out of me. OK, today is New Years Eve, for most of you tonight is the night you all go out and stand six deep at a bar waiting for three hours to get served, just so the drinks can get sloshed over you as you make your way back through the crowded room to the corner you've managed to secure for yourself until the bells chime out twelve o'clock. Have a good one what ever you do, BUT DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT! See you in 2011 for more shit!

Vorwärts!!

I don't want to bore you more to tears than you already are by these posts. I don't really have much to tell you about this past weekend, unless you want a blow by blow description of the Square Bashing game Ninjasaurus Rex and I had on Sunday, which I won by the way. I'm not going to describe the take away pizza I had on Saturday night (Spicy Pepperoni, by the way) nor the side of dipping chicken that I had. I will not talk about the way I waded through Saturday night entertainment provided by Harry Hill, Ant & Dec, Louis Theroux and Alan Yentob as I sat slumped, half cut from an afternoon drink with Ninjasaurus Rex. Neither will I give you a track by track review of the new Burzum album which I have listened to about six times every day since I got it. Well, eleven years is a long time to wait for something new from Mr Vikernes. So, as I am not going to do any of that, I am going to Navel gaze for a while. You may want to stop reading here, because it will be of no interest to anyone but me. Don't blame me for carrying on reading...

Last week, or the week before, I forget, I set up a Myspace page for my Great War Black Metal 'project' Abwehrschlacht. Basically, Abwehrschlacht was a return to where I began with music. Back to the Black, so to speak. The Black in question being Black Metal. It has been nearly twenty years since I recorded any form of Black Metal so this was coming full circle. Back in 1993 I was involved in the band Xaztur and my later solo project Immanis. During my time in both of these bands I was involved heavily in the underground Black Metal scene that was bubbling under the surface of music. This was the best time in my opinion for Black Metal: it was dark, underground, mysterious, dangerous, dynamic and very difficult to penetrate both musically and physically.


By the latter, I mean, to get hold of records one did not simply walk into your local branch of HMV or Tower Records like today and pick up the latest Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth album like the Pop Music they are. In fact this was actively discouraged. No, we had to write to the bands themselves or record labels and distributors in order to get hold of the recordings. Many were the hours I spent putting dollar bills into envelopes along with hand written letters in order to get the latest albums by Mayhem, Burzum, Emperor, Gorgoroth and the like. This was also the way the latest news about new releases was spread. I would write to a band to get a copy of their demo (on cassette tape) when it arrived they would send a handful of flyers, promoting their band and others, which I would send on in the next letters I wrote to friends or bands.


Why am I telling you this? To put you in the picture of how difficult it was to get hold of new music back in the day. There was no file sharing, no MP3s and no Myspace. With reference to my earlier bands, Immanis and Xaztur, I don't remember exactly how many demo tapes we sent out to people (Xaztur had one rehearsal tape and one full demo, Immanis put out two rehearsal tapes), but the final Immanis rehearsal tape was hand numbered and I think I sent out no more than thirty copies. The numbers would have been much higher for the previous releases as the last rehearsal tape for Immanis was when I decided to call it a day. Now, since setting up the Myspace page for Abwehrschalcht, it has had, to date, 555 profile views and the songs have been played 167 times. This is by no means a massive amount, but compared to 1993, it is astronomical. It is the equivalent to sending out over forty demo tapes within a week. But I still look back twenty years and feel we've lost something from the Black Metal scene. The sense of immediacy has destroyed the sense of achievement one felt when a new album came through the post.

Keep the fires burning...

It's Not All Walking

New Year's Day is now well and truly over, as is 2009, we'll never see it's like again. Thank fuck. I spent my New Year's Eve in the company of Dave, Linzi, Jon, Joolia, Richard and Wendy and we proceeded to get as drunk as ants, whilst shouting about various things like being raped by bottle nosed porpoises. Which is nowhere near as bad as getting raped by a shark, but there you go. There was a pitiful display of fireworks from the rest of the estate, but being in the poorer part of the village, what can one expect? As the evening got later and we got drunker the music got louder until Dave was blasting Metallica at a level that was enough to makes one's ears bleed. I'd hate to live next door to that stupid hippy.

A Marine Sexual Predator

Along with the New Year Decibel madness my parents have hosted two parties, the first for my mother's rambler's club. They all left at five o'clock ON THE DOT, lest they turn into pumpkins or something. The next evening was the lot from the local boozers, now this was a much more boisterous affair, being that they can take their booze due to having had good practise in the pub. Bob also came down from North Allerton, which is a lot further than Cow Rakes Lane, where Ninjasaurus Rex was hiding, although he had been repeatedly invited, least of all by my drunken mother on Christ's Mess Eve. Bob won my father's quiz, another shaming in the brainy stakes for me. She took home a picture of Whiston Manorial Barn, to be proudly displayed on her work desk at Archaeology South East, no doubt.

I coulda been a contender Charlie...

I have spent the rest of the holiday period quietly contemplating my navel and I have actually watched a massive amount of TV (for me) recently. The other night I settled down to watch 'The Turn of the Screw'. It was new BBC adaptation of the Henry James novella. The book is excellent, not much happens but the suspense it builds up is immense until the cataclysmic finale. This latest adaptation I could only watch for half an hour due to the cack-handed nature of the script. Coupled with bad acting, this was one of the worst things I've watched for a long time. It started off badly with one of the opening lines 'Tell me what terrible things happened in that beautiful house'. How clumsy are those lines? It's like holding up cue cards for the audience because the writers believe we are all so busy sucking on our own feet that we have no idea what is going on around us. It got worse, the governess was shown crossing a street in Victorian London with the voice over of the psychiatrist saying 'You were young, pretty and excited about you new job'. LET THE ACTOR SHOW IT TOO ME, I DON'T NEED TELLING! Those lines should be in the script but as a description of the character, not the voice over. The interview of the Governess was a wincingly awful scene with a really bad flirtation that would have never have happened in Victorian Britain. I turned off after twenty five minutes into an hour and a half program. It suffered as all dramas on TV, namely the people writing them are not good enough to write film scripts so they smash their way through classic writing like bulls in china shops. As usual TV treats us like idiots believing we are not up to the challenge of working things out for ourselves. I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT!

Ext: Ghostly figure walks out of door

VO: This is a ghost. It is not a person, it is a Ghost.

1st Birthday 100th Posting Special in HD (Selected Areas Only)

Good Evening and welcome to this the 100th edition of this blog. Not only do we have that milestone, but it is exactly a year since I started writing this rubbish. So because it is worthy of a double celebration what I'd thought I'd do was, rather than spewing shit out about what I've been up to since the last posting (mainly shouting at Tim, if you were wondering...), I'm going to take stock of the last years postings and have a look at you. Yes you. The reader. You over there. Stand up, come on, let's have a look at you. You can wipe that smile off your face as well.

Stand up and be counted my adoring readers!

I've asked this before and I'm going to ask it again. I would like it, if you get the end of this post, that you could leave me a comment. You can leave it anonymously if you like, but I'd rather know the names of my readers. I have stalker software installed on this blog anyway so I know how many people are visiting it. Do me a favour. I write this for free and you read it, so do something for me. Thanks.

This blog started with Craig asking me to write about my time in Iceland and since it's start up to today I have had 2,114 unique visitors. Now, far be it for me to say that each one has returned to read more, but I'm sure some of those people have. The other none-returners have probably seen the subject matter is mainly archaeology and fled in terror. Like any right-minded person would... Be that as it may, lets have a look at the kind of people who are coming across this blog. A large portion of you are coming through Facebook; actually 38.88% are using the social networking site to get here, so that means that you know me personally. I only add people on Facebook whom I have met face to face, except for a couple of exceptions, so you know me and I know you. Actually this isn't a surprise as I update my status on Facebook with the new postings. It's the only thing that Facebook is useful for. I am actually only on Facebook because of a woman I knew, who has now deleted me as a 'friend', invited me to join it and now, like a mobile phone, it's impossible to get rid of (Facebook, not the woman...). Enough of my personal life, let's get to analyzing the people who are literally queuing up to get into this blog...

'So what's all the fuss about this here blog then?'
'Well I heard it was a witty look at the world of archaeology'
'Really? Archaeology? What the fuck have I been doing wasting my time waiting here for? I'm off to read something far more funny like Metal Inquisition!'

The more 'interesting' people are dropping in from Search Engines. Obviously the largest amounts of hits I am getting are coming through the keyword search ' In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni'. Again, pretty obvious, as are the keyword searches 'alex sotheran', ' alexsotheran iceland', 'alex sotheran york' and 'alex sotheran blogspot' (all of which are in the top ten of the most searched for phrase). But these searches are far more 'me' specific and whoever is doing it knows who they are and what (or who) they are after. Now, I'm not trying to say you're stalking me or anything, but I'm on to you...

Is this you? Are you stalking me?

These stalker weirdos are not the only ones dropping on this blog, there are some decidedly odd people searching the Internet. I mean, really, who types 'i want to teach zulu kids something about metals you idiots' into a search engine and expects to get a decent result? It's really there, in at number 94:

alexsotheran.blogspot.com: Proudly helping teach Zulu kids about Metals since 2008

Even stranger, my records read that somebody did a search for 'indin big ticky' and found my blog. Whatever an indin big ticky is, they were obviously unsatisfied with the results they went back and further refined their search to 'indin big ticky womens sex'. Mind you, this yielded the same results and they were equally unimpressed as they didn't stay long according to the time of visit result.

I want indin big ticky and I want it now!

Even further out on the edge of human society are the people that found my blog with the following searches: 'clowns fucking', 'women fucking clowns', 'grandfather shagging' and far more specific and ominous, 'russian father fucking son'. I don't remember that particular patriarchal incestuous pederast posting that I wrote, but I hope they enjoyed it.

What someone was searching for, but not what they got...

OK, lets turn our attention to where you folks are all coming from. This truly is a global affair and the stalker software tells me that people in 69 separate countries have visited my blog:

The level of green shows how bored by my blog people are...

Given that there are considered to be 195 countries in the world at the moment, I have been visited by someone in 35% of the world. The UK is obviously the top one here, closely followed by the USA and Iceland. In Ireland, Canada and Italy I also seem to have a following. There is a lot of hits from Germany, but that is because it is currently the lair of Herr Docktor Clay, my Nemesis. None of these are surprising as I know someone living in each of the afore mentioned countries, but places like Hong Kong, the Philippines, Ecuador, the Faeroe Islands, Japan, Venezuela, Macau SAR China and a whole rake of other places leave me stumped to who is actually reading this. Do I know you, or am I being monitored by Venezuelan Death Squads in case I say something untoward about Chavez? If it's you, please let me know by leaving a comment below. Something I find difficult to picture is a group of peasants sitting on an collectivised farm in Novosibirsk the middle of Russia reading my blog, but according to my records it appears to have happened, at least once...

Sergei! come quick! There's a new post about how Tim has fucked up another register! ЛОЛ!

I don't think there's much more I can say about my blog visitors (except you must be crazy to keep coming back to read this shit...) so I've come to the end of my navel gazing (thank God, I hear you collectively sigh...), thanks for getting this far. For once this post was about you and not me so I will again ask you to leave a comment, anything, even if just to slag what you just read. Let me know you are here and reading...

Farewell Pt 3 (Back to the UK and Beyond)

It was after six months of office work (I'm not cut out for inside work. I was like a caged animal..) I moved back to the UK for a job with Cotswold Archaeology. I was supposed to go to Worcester, but instead they threw me into Wales unaware of my Anti-Wales stance. To Four Crosses I was bound for Cedric's Guesthouse;

You can see the site which was under the houses on the right of the picture, the road that runs through the middle of the picture was on the edge of Offa's Dyke. Unfortunately I was on the Welsh side of it, Cedric was a bastard, The faulty kettle he gave me nearly burnt my house down and I couldn't get to Birmingham for a party and ended up getting stuck in Welshpool one weekend, this again probably points towards why I hate Wales so much. Besides that, the crew were brilliant and we cleaned the local pub out of beer every week at the pub quiz. Then Cotswold sent myself and the crew out to Worcester, to this place;

This was in the middle of nowhere and each weekend my housemates would leave to go back to their real lives and leave me alone there. With a twenty minute walk up the drive to the bus stop where there was only two buses to Worcester on Saturday it was almost true isolation. I remember one Saturday morning walking up the driveway to catch the only bus in the morning to Worcester City for the day. There still a five minute or so walk to the top of the drive when I saw the bus go past. It was heartbreaking. Then in an even smarter move Cotswold Archaeology moved me back to Wales, to Trimsaran, near Llanelli

You will note how fucking far away from the main road this place was. I know how far it was cos I had to walk it every time I wanted to get a bus out to the bright lights of Llanelli or Carmarthen. There was a bit of a theme developing with Cotswold Archaeology putting me in places with really long drives. God I hated that place. The only good thing about it was Sam, which turned out to be a bad thing after all. This place definitely tipped me over the edge of unbridled Welsh Hate if nothing else did.

This job was the straw that broke the camels back, I left Cotswold and moved back up north to York, where I spent six glorious months in what I still think was the best place I ever lived, Osbaldwick Village;

Yes, this house was lovely, my housemates were the best and York is where I am generally happiest. It was also in this house that the concept of Ninja Metal was born. The only black spot on this other wise halcyon existence was the couple of months I worked for Network Archaeology on the the big pipeline project that finally broke me as a field archaeologist, and here is where we were housed in Ingleton;

I know what you're thinking "That's just another field. Were you living in tents again?" No, we were living in houses which obviously were not built at the time this photograph was taken.

I went back to Osbaldwick but the joy was not to last however and I was forced to move back to Whiston due to circumstances beyond my control. I was always planning to move out again and then I got a job in Singapore, we all know how that ended, but my time there was spent in Yishun in this block of flats;

The Singapore adventure came to an end and I moved back to my parent's house again, I soon picked up work at the Barbican in York and removed myself to Sarah's bedsit on Holgate road;

I was only there for a short while until I took Craig's room at Precentor's Court;

You will see from this picture, how fucking close the house was to York Minister. The bells woke me up every Saturday morning. I used to hang out of the window screaming 'Shut up you Bastards!!' They never did. Craig was moving out and I moved in with the Violent Alcoholic John Clay. He had this practise he called the 'thirty minute Hate' where would beat me with a broomhandle every evening until he broke it over my head one night. He would then use his fists to pummel me into a bloody mess. He has a different account of it and it can be found here.

I escaped the brutal regime of Clay to Lichfield for an away job for Onsite Archaeology;

This was Pauline's Bed and Breakfast. I never knew madness until I had a breakfast time conversation with Pauline. She would tell us about the ghost cat that haunted the place, you could tell it was a ghost because it's tail 'bent the other way'. I still suffer from sleepless nights trying to figure out what this even means. She once introduced one of the other guests to us as 'Ahmed, he's a dentist.' When she was out of earshot 'Ahmed' told us his name was Daniel and he worked in the Prison Service. Utter, unadulterated madness.

There was another place we staying in Lichfield, but it was only for a short period of time and I couldn't find it on Google Maps so it will have to fade into obscurity. After Lichfield wrapped up I was back up North again to York to help finish off at the Barbican. I moved into Ross's place which he had got after moving out of Precentor's Court;

It was on Broadway in Fulford (Ross always said he was destined to be on Broadway). It was above the Thresher Wine Shop and I was awoken every Saturday morning by the delivery of thousands of bottles of booze for the thirsty denizens of York. It was like the ringing of the Minister bells, but more alcohol related. Ross also had an aversion to putting the heating on and it was a constant battle to get him to turn the hot water on. He used to tell me it would make me a stronger man. I used to tell him to fuck off and turn the radiators on. Sneakily I would put the hot water on when he was out.

Work came up in France for three months on the Finding the Fallen TV series, so I moved back to Whiston in between bouts of filming and again I fell into the easy trap of staying put at my parents house. Picking up work locally made it all too easy to stay there until this present job came up in Iceland, which I took, for better or for worse and ended up living here;

Where I am presently writing this post. Over the next couple of weeks, I shall be moving into this place here;

Which, you may or may not notice is about two minutes down the road from the previous address. Well, there you have it, my life in three posts. I found writing this post pretty interesting and looking for the old houses also stirred up a lot of old memories, good and bad. Maybe you could do it to. Write in and let me know how you got on!