Cleansing

Well, what a weekend that was... At work on Thursday Logan Josh came to me, cap doffed and head bowed (as is his usual way) and asked if the Lord of Violence (Dr Clay) and I would care to join him and his wife as they supped al fresco in their peasant dwelling on Friday. Dr Clay's latest 'experiment', Moogdroog was also invited to the ritual of fire and meat and she duly agreed. Well, she was far too dazed and drugged to offer any form of resistance. Clay and I thought it would be wise to take along someone else we could throw at Josh and his wife should the evening take an ugly turn for the worst and we should have to hasten an escape. We were escorted by a misshapen lump of an ape to the house and the evening began in high spirits. The flowing of alcohol only worsened the situation and it wasn't long before we were paraded around in military helmets to the wild gesticulations and amusement of Josh. Meanwhile, his wife planned a trip to France from road maps of the Gallic country all to the sound track of David Allan Coe. Before the evening panned out into it's usual drunken orgy of violence that comes from a trip to Josh's abode, we made our excuses and left hotfootdly!

The neighbours hated BBQ season on Logan Josh's road...

I saw Josh again on Saturday afternoon, after dashing away from my stalker outside York Minister. He was drinking in the same pub as me, but with his OAP friends this time. I on the other hand was in the company of Kate, awaiting the arrival of Chris and Ryan. I stayed out all afternoon, drinking like the proverbial fish, before going to see Iron Man 2 with Clay and Moogdroog and Ryan. This is what it was like: AC/DC, girls, explosions, girls, fighting, AC/DC. Reasonably OK for a quick cinema fix on a Saturday night, read Dr Clay's betterer review of it HERE...

It's all just Bang, Bang, Bang...

On Sunday, the unthinkable happened, and Mr David Main arrived in York. He was here because I was to give him a lift to Manchester to see the unbelievably good Wolves In The Throne Room play. They were playing in an old Satanic Mill and I had heard rumours of their blistering performances in the past. Fuck me, they did not disappoint. It was like a ritual from beginning to end and I think it ranks as one of the best gigs I have ever been to, if not the best... They also brought a load of limited edition vinyls with them. I managed to snatch three for a future EBay date before they were all sold out, even the band themselves didn't have any copies... Lucky me, ay? What wasn't so lucky was the two and a half hour journey back home via Rotherham to drop Mainy off, leaving me to get to bed about 2.00am. On a schoolnight as well! I should coco!

Taxi for one!

After work on Tuesday, Logan Josh, The Evil Dr Clay and I called into the pub on the way home from work for ONE pint. I emerged five and half hours later, full of drink, shots, Mexican chili flavour crisps, Onion rings and chips. I'm not supposed to say this but Logan had told his wife he would only be having one pint and would be home. As it was, he was still waiting for a taxi at half ten when I left, broke and drunk. In fact the only reason I didn't stay longer was that I'd run out of money and the place wouldn't take debit cards as payment, except for food. I offered to exchange my work boots for some drink but it was to no avail. It seems bartering with clothing only works in third world countries.

Are you my taxi?

During our time there we encountered the pub's quiz, now, I love pub quizzes but this one was way beyond the pale. It was the perfect quiz for people who only spend their spare time watching soap operas or football and use the rest of the time appearing on Jeremy Kyle or sucking their own feet. Some of the questions were: Name a footballer who's surname only has three letters? Which character in Coronation Street just underwent a back street abortion? Name one of the judges on Britain's Got Talent. I shit you not, ask any of the punters about TV or Sport and bam, they've got the answers, ask them who the second man on the Moon was and they'd probably answer 'That right clever bloke in a wheelchair that talks like a robot.' Despite the shushing from the flummoxed punters, Logan Josh and I continued our high brow conversation about aeroplanes at a rather high volume. Fuck em.

Name them

Speaking of aeroplanes, a Spitfire, Hurricane and three Mustangs flew in formation over site today. It was the best thing that happened all day and it lifted me, momentarily, out of my moaning student induced funk.

Cadillacs of the sky!

I was just talking to Alex and Johnny the Ukrainian Butchers. Alex said they needed to find work on Saturday and Sunday, I said they'd be too tired from working all the time, he said if we have a holiday we'll drink Vodka. I said, if they drink Vodka, then I'll end up drinking Vodka and bang goes my weekend, so Alex said it was in my interest to find them jobs on Saturday and Sunday. Oh! How we laughed.

They're in the Fucking Walls!

The Ukrainian butchers made it to the UK on Friday night, tormented by visas and volcanic ash they finally touched English ground, Terra Britannia, if you will. Despite weeks of Lauren and I working ourselves into a frenzy about possible gang rape and robbery they are both (there's only two of them at the moment) really nice lads. They are clean, polite, funny and generous, especially with the Russian Vodka they brought over with them. They fed Steve and Lauren full of it on Friday night and then on Saturday night three of their friends came over and preceded to fill me full of freshly caught fried pike, Ukrainian sausage and the aforementioned Vodka. And whiskey. Lots of Vodka and Whiskey. So much so I couldn't see properly but I'm pretty sure the night ended up with Balalaika recitals and traditional Russian bear dancing. There may have even been some firing off of AK47s in the back garden...

The Evil Dr Clay also turned up this weekend, in his usual manner of not taking other people's feelings into account he turned up at about 6.30 AM on a Saturday. Immediately he stamped his authority on the house by knifing one of the Ukrainians. He then forced me at dagger point to go and see Four Lions with him on Sunday, it's a great film that puts the Fun back into Fundamentalism. Go see it.



Today was the first day back at Heslington working for York University, we set off in Clay's car since mine was off the road having some medicine to make its tummy all better. This is how the journey goes from the house, or how the journey should go from the house: Two minutes up Tang Hall Lane to the A1079 Hull Road, get onto the roundabout at the A64, but come all the way round back onto the A1079, turn left onto the site entrance, all in all a fifteen minute journey if the lights are against us. This is how Clay delivered us: up Tang Hall Lane onto the A1079, get onto the roundabout, get off the roundabout on the A64 on the way to FUCKING LEEDS! Travel halfway to FUCKING LEEDS before turning round and heading back to the A1079 and site about six hours after setting off. An illustrious start it was not and I shall be driving us to work from now on. On site the students were alright, not that I can tell, they all look the same to me, there were some new faces and some old ones. Including this man in this incredibly rare shot:

On your knees Nicky!

Paranormal Bollocks

On Monday Lauren and I watched Derren Brown's program about exposing Spiritual Mediums. I'm not a big fan of Brown, but it was a good to see an examination of the techniques employed by the 'psychics' to manipulate and exploit the vulnerable and grief stricken. This led onto a discussion about Lauren's friend's mum who was also claimed to be a  'medium'. Apparently her spirit guide had channelled through her to tell Lauren that there was something wrong with her car wheel and when Lauren checked the tyre was flat. HOW FUCKING FREAKY IS THAT? Now, why the spirits would make a point of telling Lauren something that she would have noticed as soon as she went to get into her car, I don't know. But that's what makes me a skeptic.

And we all know, cats are always right... 

The program also led onto a discussion at work about Ghosts and the like. Again, I am highly skeptical of the existence of things that cannot be proved by the rigorous dry reasoning of SCIENTIFIC TESTING. Things like Ghosts. Ghosts and 'spiritual guides'. Why do ghosts and spiritual guides always come as stock characters? Think about it. Lauren's friend's mum apparently has two spiritual guides, a Native American and an Ancient Greek. Now, call me skeptical again, but how can she even begin to understand what these guides are even saying? Does she speak ancient Greek or Navajo or Cree or Cherokee? Most likely not, so how can she follow the spirit's advice? The reason these 'guides' have been chosen is because they are the layman's approximation of intelligence in history. Everybody has heard how wise the Greeks were, well, along with bumming, they invented maths and that Plato fella invented psychology or physiology or something clever beginning with P and ending in ology. And we've all seen Dances With Wolves, those Indian chaps must be clever with their quiet meditative ways and their wind catchers and diminishing supplies of buffalo. Well, they couldn't out smart fucking small pox or fire water could they? But it's the same with ghosts, people always see ghosts of  18th Century Gentlemen or Nuns, little Victorian Girls or Roman soldiers (as here in York). When Ghosts are reported they are always something historically recognisable. Why do people never report seeing ghosts of 6th Century Anglo-Saxon peasants tilling the fields or a 1980's Yuppie who died from a coke overdose after a particularly hard fought merger and acquisition? Why are spirit guides never ancient Phoenicians or Cuthbert the peasant from the 13th century who worked in the local dung smithy? Why? Because the general public don't know they even existed. Since the general public's view of history is tempered by Television, most particularly BBC costume dramas and Dickens adaptations, there's no wonder people make these connections when they see a 'ghost' or call up their local Spiritual Guide.

Would you trust this man with your dead Grandmother?

Further to the other day's Road Rage, Lauren and I have noticed an alarming trend that occurs on the A59 every morning between the hours of 7am and 9am and 4pm and 6pm. It's name is enough to strike terror deep into the heart of any driver, Howard Carter had his Curse of the Pharaohs, we York commuters have the Curse of the Farmer! Yes, everyday at precisely 7am and 4pm the local farmers decide it is time to start driving tractors towing trailers packed to the brim with hay or potatoes or pig shit or anthrax infected sheep carcasses up and down one of the busiest roads to York at the busiest time of the day. The farmer drives his tractor down one lane whilst his high foreheaded, web toed, idiot son drives down the other lane in the opposite direction. They reach the roundabouts at the ends of the A59, circle them and head back on themselves at precisely 14 Miles per hour. The cars are backed up to Thirsk and Huntington full of sweating, swearing commuters desperate to get to work on time or to get home for the night. If it wasn't for these bastards we'd be home in about twenty minutes.

Get out of my fucking way you backwards animal fucking cunts!

Battlegroup Nerd

I got a letter the other day from the Job Centre, as you will no doubt know I have been having a few problems with them and their lack of professional abilities. This was the final reply of a letter of complaint I sent to them about a month ago. In it they admitted they didn't do enough for me, I was failed by their advisers in a correct job search for my profession and that they were reimburse me £25 for the inconvenience I suffered at their hands. I will scan and post it some time in the future but I don't have a scanner with me at the moment. Sometimes it pays to complain... Two other things happened which made me laugh this week. I was standing in the Co-Op buying milk the other day. Behind me stood this young woman with two kids. A young man entered the shop, obviously he knew her and the conversation, I shit you not, went like this:

Him: Alright Lindsay
Her: Alright Liam, you alright?
Him: I'm alright, how's Dave? He alright?
Her: Yeah alright.
Him: Alright

The other thing that happened occurred as I was walking into town to pay some cheques into the bank I was accosted by a Mormon. You can tell them a mile off, they are always well dressed youngsters carrying bibles and wearing name badges. This guy had already tried it on with the couple walking in front of me to no avail. I was listening to my MP3 player but I could see he was gearing up to get me on my knees for Jebus. He opened his mouth and was about to say something when I stopped him dead in his tracks: 'Sorry mate, I'm a Satanist.' I told him as I strode on. Actually if I hadn't been in a hurry I would have stopped and talked to him. I would have liked to ask him why I should believe in a God who would create something so useless as wasps (cue lecture length comment from Ashley about what good wasps actually do, besides just stinging people and being the shit bags of the insect world...)

Wasps = cunts

Anyway, I was in a hurry (ooh nice segue there) as I was due to pick Vin up and go to Elvington Air museum for their Battlegroup North militeria fair. Another day of dressing up was lined up for us. This time military re-enactment was the order of the day. Now, before you start, I don't really have much of a problem with military re-enactors,. Some of my best friends are re-enactors, but I wouldn't do it myself. But, you say, they only dress up like the much despised Goths. Well yes they do, but at least it has some basis in historical fact and by that token it has a sense of education to it. You feel they are not just indulging themselves but they are actually teaching you something about the past whilst learning themselves. Goths just indulge themselves dressing as vain vampires from a totally fictitious Victorian period. Anyway, I must stop thinking about Goths before the vein in my foreheads starts throbbing again. The problem I do have with re-enactors is their preference for the German Army of the Second World War. In particular the Waffen SS. Elvington was no different and the Germans out numbered the Allies by about three to one. It was like Unternehmen Seelöwe had been an outstanding success... It turned into a day of Swastika spotting, so here follows photos of the best we saw...

Note the tasteful arrangement of Nazi weapons and uniforms...

This was priced at twelve pounds,  all the Allied flag were ten pounds. Make of that what you will...

Special mention must be made of one of the traders, who quite literally set his stall out politically:

'Have you got any Allied stuff?'

'Nah mate, I wouldn't be interested in any of that...'

Ashtrays of the Third Reich...

Herr und Frau Himmler search out cheap bargains...

 Note the tasteful Smiley Hitler T-Shirt

And finally from Elvington, I can't even begin to tell you what is wrong with this picture:

Re-Enactors, always striving for historical accuracy...

For more pictures from Elvington see my Facebook photo album here. Saturday night saw me sitting in the balcony of the Hyde Park Picture House watching Until the Light Take Us, the new documentary about Norwegian Black Metal and the halcyonic days of church burnings and murder! It was excellent, if a little filled out with fluff. The soundtrack was great. 99% of the people reading this won't give two shits about it and that's the way it should stay, but the other 1% should try to see it wherever it's playing.

Driving Home for Christmas

You know what I hate most about this job? No, it's not the wind that shot blasts us with gravel when it picks up a bit across the site. It's not the fact that I have spent two and a half weeks putting two meter slots across two hundred meters of a 19th century field boundary and finding nothing but a belt buckle and modern drain pipe for my trouble. It's not the fact that we are watched by Chris the site foreman during his 'break' to make sure we are earning our keep. It's not the aforementioned Chris who comes and talks to me without listening to a word I say back. No, it's none of that, it's the drive home.

The drive out to work isn't so bad, we leave at seven AM, go around several roundabouts, connect onto the A59 and then the A1, off a slip road, into Tarmac's site, sign our names on a piece of paper and go round the corner to work all in time for eight AM. The journey home, however, is a different kettle of fish. We go through several picturesque villages before hitting the A1, we drop off it onto the A59. This is where the first problem begins. At Kirk Hammerton (this place always gives me a chuckle, imagine naming a village after the guitarist of Metallica. The next town over is Lars Ulricham) a feeder road drops over half of the road using travellers of North Yorkshire into my path. Bam! The traffic comes almost to a standstill for about ten minutes as we crawl along at less than walking speed. Then we're free and past Kirk Hammerton, it all gets a bit too cozy until we hit the roundabout before the one at Haxby. The traffic here gets awful bad, it's a as though everyone in England lives in Haxby, has the same job in the same office and are all released from work at the same time. Either that or there is a local sport centred around sitting in your car at round-abouts. Villagers in Devon dodge rolled flaming barrels of tar, people from Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire chase cheese down hills. The denizens of Haxby sit in their cars and attempt to go slower then the one in front. Eventually we are free of the Haxby roundabout and the road opens up again, there is hardly another car. It takes an hour to drive to work, it takes an hour and a half to drive back. Fucking Haxby cunts.

It's Election night in the UK and I won't say any more about that except that I told the Polish couple on site, Kamil and Gosia, that Lauren voted BNP. Now they hate her.

I'm tired and I can't be bothered to find some pictures or links for this post. If you don't like it, you can suck a fat one.

Fucking Students

It's Bank Holiday Monday and I'm not at work. I would actually prefer to be at work, I'm missing out on £140 by sitting here writing this. Having not worked for nearly six months I'd prefer to be out grinding at the earth like a tilling Anglo-Saxon peasant. But at least the holiday means that I don't have to get up at the crack of sparrows to drive the hour to work whilst listening to Lauren droning on and on about Heston Blumenthal's TV program from the night before. So it's not all bad, eh? I've been making good use of the extended weekend by drinking and sleeping. Mainly drinking on my own whilst watching Britain's Got Talent. I lead a full life, I tell you! I cleaned the house on Saturday and as I went around the front room I lifted the cushions off the sofa to find the detritus of the previous occupants of the house. I was amazed at the laziness of the students cunts that populated this place. The sofa was stuffed with crap they'd dropped down the cushion sides and never bothered to get out again. Spanners, decks of cards, pens, pencils, clothes pegs and various tickets/doctor's appointments were jammed under there. What the fuck are people like? How didn't they feel this lot sticking into them when they were sat down?

It came from beneath the sofa...

I did call into York centre on Saturday, ostentatiously to see if Logan Josh's claims of Stahlhelms was true. He'd informed me that The Blue Moon Trading Company was unknowingly selling reproduction German World War One helmets as World War Two items. They certainly were, but the price put me off a bit, nearly £70! I quite like the idea of sitting around watching telly and drinking whilst looking like Ernst Jünger getting ready to raid a trench, but the price was a bit too steep for me. I declined the offer and consoled myself with four AC/DC CDs and four DVDs instead.

'What's on the other side?'
'Errr... Strictly Come Dancing on Ice'

I got myself Clerks, Into The Wild, The Blue Max and Last Tango in Paris. I began watching Clerks the other day and realised a lot of time has passed since I first watched it and it's not actually as good as I'd remembered. Stilted dialogue, over acting and preposterous situations don't really make a good film I'm afraid... Last Tango in Paris was also slightly disappointing, not nearly as good as it has been made out to be, with all the controversy. I also have no idea when 'uncut, uncensored version' can legitimately be claimed as a DVD 'extra'. I haven't watched Into The Wild yet, but have heard nothing but good things about it, and the Blue Max was bought 'cos it's such a good film anyway.

It's a Pfalz, yeah you heard me, a fucking Pfalz!

Speaking of music, as I wasn't, I got hold of the new release of Jaldaboath, if you like Metal, Monty Python and Medieval shit then I can't recommend it enough. Anyone that does a cover of the Rent-A-Ghost theme gets a thumbs up from me... As does this collection of GG Allin CDs/DVD I also got this weekend, WWGGD?