The best stuff is in the Volvo

True story. I don't watch much TV, in fact I hardly watch any at all. I have been taking the opportunity of being proactively unemployed to watch the Jeremy Kyle Show, but beyond this guilty pleasure I mainly listen to music for my entertainment. Not so this past week however. I noticed on Thursday there was a brand new episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm on More 4. I planned my night around it. I waited patiently for it to begin. Within two minute of it starting I got the first text off Kate which resulted in a back and forth text conversation that lasted the entire episode and finished exactly as the credits rolled. Roll on Friday, I decided to have 'TV night', mainly to ensure myself that I wasn't actually missing anything by not watching TV, also cos I was at a low ebb and was a little bit down and couldn't be bothered to do owt else except stare at the idiot lantern. I watched TWO SOLID HOURS of the X Factor repeats. I felt dirty and shameful by the end, but not once did I hear a peep from my phone. I noticed a Peter Kay show was on later, something that I'd not seen. I like Peter Kay and his spoofs, so I set the reminder on the TV to turn over when it started. It duly did and within two minutes of it beginning Archer called me for the first time in a year to ask if I wanted to go and see Alice Cooper with him. I had to spend ten minutes explaining why I hate Alice Cooper and why I would rather pull my own eyes out and stamp on the stalks than watch him prance about pretending to be Satan when he is a fucking Born Again Christian. He slags of Black Metal bands, by saying they are 'only out to shock', talk about bare faced hypocrisy, as 'shock rock' is what his entire career is based on. Fucking Douche Bag.

Alice Cooper; hypocritical Born Again Christian, Golfer and complete cunt

I politely declined Archer's kind offer and tried to get him off the phone as quick and as pleasantly as possible to watch the rest of one of the few programs I was looking forward to. Peter Kay finished and there was a double episode of Family Guy about an hour later. I duly set the reminder and began watching an hour of laughter filled fun. Not for long as the phone went again, this time it was a half cut Bob. She was wanting to escape Brighton, fleeing from an unfortunate snogging episode that had gone terribly, terribly wrong she was heading north and was coming past Rotherham on Saturday. She half mentioned seeing her Grandparents in Whitby, so I jumped on that and suggested we carry on from Rotherham and head to the coast and stay over. By this stage I was also worst for wear as well having a sunk a few bottles over the course of the evening. In our inebriated states it seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do. Drive for miles, arrive after dark, find an expensive place to stay and drive home the next morning. The Road trip was on!

Whitby: Bracing

So this is how I found myself at Charlotte's house in Northallerton surrounded by several drunks, several empty bottles of wine and cheap Tesco Cava, listening to Fleetwood Mac and Dire Straits whilst being told 'the best stuff was in the Volvo'. We had decided on the journey up that it would be better to stay at Bob's parents place at Northallerton rather than pressing on to Whitby. This was mainly due to Bob's lack of Navigational skills, my lack of noticing motorway exits and the round about way we were slowly heading north. I awoke this morning in Bob's parents spare room feeling like a cat had shat in my mouth and not relishing the drive back home.

Clear your heads with another extract from Singapore...

Sunday, June 03, 2007

We dug all the anomalies that the array had brought up on area 2 and not one turned out to be ordnance. Not a sniff. Nada. Zip. Which is a good thing, as I don't really fancy having my arms blown off. This means that we have now finished the second area that we have to scan and dig. This is also the biggest, so as scanning goes we are nearly half way to finishing. Area three may pose a problem, as we have already found a load of bombs. We dug them up yesterday whilst waiting (again) for Mr's Wong and Sing to finish bashing the jungle. One of the anomalies turned out to be a massive shit pit packed full of what appeared to be aircraft parts. There was Japanese stuff in there as well. Or that's what Ang told us. His word is his bond, I guess. We pulled about 2,500 British Bullets out of the ground along with about one hundred small aeroplane bombs. None of the bombs went off, even when Ang was shaking them out of his machine bucket about ten foot off the concrete floor. Whilst he was doing it, I started running off, he panicked and was shouting 'No running!! No!!' Oh, how I laughed.

I met up with Ariff (From Ironfist) and his mate on Friday evening. We had a few drinks and chatted shit. Ariff works just round the corner from where I live, he's a car-park attendant by day. The lads were telling me that in order to buy a house in Singapore you have to be either married or over 35 years old and even then you will not be at the top of the list. So I guess I am lucky I have this apartment to myself. The lads left, Ariff had a date with the guitarist out of Tormentress, he has done the rounds with the whole band, it seems. I headed back home after some dinner. I went down to St James' Power Station again last night, I didn't stay long. I'd had enough by about 1am. But before I left I went to the toilet and found myself in the Malaysian part of the Night Club. The place is divided into three separate clubs. One bit is mainly Chinese, another Malay and the last big one is a mix of people. The Malaysian one was an eye opener. There was a band on, but not the same band that played the Flamenco shit and was fronted by a Spanish Brian Ferry looky-likey. This was a Malaysian band, fronted by this guy who was a complete throwback to 1987. He had aviator glasses on for Christ's sake. The Malaysians are like the Singaporeans little brothers, desperately trying to fit in and look cool, but failing miserably. Mind you give em their due, they got the crowd going well enough. I wonder if Chumbawamba were aware that their song 'Tubthumping' would become such a hit that it was covered by a crappy Malaysian Night Club band? The mind boggles.