Band of Mothers

I was in a junk shop the other day and came across a US Serviceman's diary from the Second World War. Here is an extract:

'May '45, back in the Sherman; Howlin' Nancy. Been a few months since I was back in control of this baby, ever since that last 'disturbance'. We had that big heartless bastard from Upstate New York Rodriguez on the gear sticks, Chester Beaty on the radio; Brooklyn born, Brooklyn raised. The only one not from Eastside was Jimmy Spoons on the .50cal and big Bertha. Little Jimmy comes from Shithole, Idaho. The boy had never seen anythin' bigger than his barn, so the buildin's of Paris put the zap right on that little son-of-a-bitch's head.

We was in Southern Austria and we was on point. God-damn Helluva place to be, what with the war windin' down and all. Top Brass knew o' reports of some secret Nazi trainin' camp in the area and we had been told to find and destroy 'em. Always at the shitty end of the stick, me and the boys in Howlin' Nancy.

The shit kicks off early one mornin' as we were approachin' Wüsterbürsterbürg or some other damn Kraut shithole. All Kraut names sound the god-damn same to me. We hear a rattlin' against the side of Nancy and guess we are takin' fire from a Hitler's Saw. Why they are firing 7.92mm at a fucken tank? Fucken dumb Nazis.

Jimmy sees it first, at the end of the main square, the friggin' trainin' camp! It's fenced off and we can see the concreted trainin' ground out front where dem poor Nazi bastards practice their goosesteppin'. A big sign over the entrance says Grundschule, Rodriguez has a bit of German picked up from them whores in Innsbruck and he assures me it says 'Nazi Training Camp'. It's what we was lookin' for so I order the first rounds to be loaded up. Jimmy is a s quick as ever; bang, bang, bang! In seconds we get the roof blazin' with incendiary, then turn the attention to the windows. Dust and shit is flyin' everywhere, we're makin' a real mess o' the place when the Nazi bastards wake up and start pouring out o' the front door. 

All uniformed and obviously out for our blood, they come screamin' at us like fuken' devils, I tell ya. Jimmy gets on the bow .50cal and I jump up on the cupola cannon. I'm shootin' and shootin', so is Jimmy. We musta cleared off three thousand rounds at least. The smoke clears and they ain't no sound comin' from any of the Krauts so we clear out of the God-damn place as fast as the Nancy'll take us. 

 
We were all hauled over the fucken' coals on that one.The rattlin' wasn't from no Kraut machine-gun, it was a busted exhaust on the Nance. Well, anyone can make that fucken' mistake. Mind you, that wasn't the worst of the whole story. We though that the Nazis looked a little young, but by that stage them fucken' crazy bastards were throwin' anyone into the fight. What did we know? We was just some dumb boys in a tank. Anyway, turns out none of them girls was older than eight or nine years old.'

TK Max

I just got back from Waltham Gunpowder Mills where I was working for Easter. A while back I got an email from Dr David Kenyon asking me if I'd like to spend my Easter weekend dressed up as a Stormtrooper. I thought it over for a full three seconds before replying 'YES OF COURSE I FUCKING WOULD!' So as you all sat eating your Easter Eggs in celebration of the mythical Iron Age necromancing zombie warlock I was chasing kids around an ex-secret nuclear facility dressed as the Galaxy's finest. What could be better? Probably only doing the same dressed as a member of SS Wiking...

The Gunpowder Mills were playing host to a Space themed weekend and as with last year Dr David was asked to play Darth Vader because he is as tall as Everest, give or take a few metres.

He wanted some assistants, hired in two Stormtrooper costumes and asked Douche Bag and I if we were in. Mostly so he could get us both semi naked in his office...

Gerrem off ya!

Anyhoo, this was the first time I had ever dressed as something from a Sci-Fi film, so I decided to use this weekend as an education. What did I learn? I learned that children are totally fascinated by Darth Vader yet completely frightened stiff of having their photo taken with him. The amount of hiding behind daddy's legs was hilarious.

Not that scary...

As the Stormtroopers  are supposed to be the elite of the Emperor's military we decided to make a study of what they can and cannot do and the results may surprise you:

What a Stormtrooper can do:

• Look fucking cool:

What a Stormtrooper can't do:

• Sit down on a chair
• go up stairs
• go down stairs
• step down a single doorstep without looking ungainly
• have peripheral vision
• lookup
• look down
• wear glasses under the helmet
• walk quietly
• do anything quietly

Basically, if you are ever in a situation where you are faced with an army of Stormtroopers, not only will you hear the fuckers coming from about a million miles away, but you will just have to come at them from ANY direction other than the one they are looking in for a successful attack. If all goes to rat shit, simply run down or up a flight of stairs. Or indeed, a doorstep.

I make this look easy, but believe me, it wasn't...

As we were wandering about having our photos taken with various kids one of them asked me 'Are you a clone?' I answered 'I'm not, but' indicating Danny 'he is.'

The Clown Wars

Animal Farm

This weekend was filled with me writing an essay and going to see The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! Go and see it, it is great! Aaaaaaar! I also watched Casablanca for the first time ever, that is also great. But the other thing I did this weekend was go to Sam and Matt's house warming party. I had been invited by Sam approximately three weeks ago. Bare that in mind. Three weeks notice. On Saturday, about five o'clock she rang me to ask if I was still coming. I said yes, I was looking forward to it, in fact. Then she said 'I don't remember if I told you or not...' 'Yeeeeees?' I enquired uneasily. 'But it's fancy dress!' She replied.

what kinda fucking party is this?

No. No she hadn't told me it was fancy dress and had left it until the last minute when all the shops would be closed to tell me it was a fancy dress party. It was fancy dress with an animal theme. Given that their house is a menagerie (dog and snake) I guess that's where the idea came from. I told her I had very little time to prepare, you know, three weeks previously would have been ample time to sort something out, but two hours? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!! I mentioned that my costume may only stretch as far as a Wolves in the Throne Room t-shirt, but suddenly realised that I could dust off the old bear skin rug and go in that!

Come on, Yogi, we have a party to attend...

So I did. The thing was, I only knew a couple of people at the party and the door was answered on me by a complete stranger who looked askance at me draped with a dead bear. I was, thankfully, at the right address and saw all the old faces, mainly Jimmy and Claire, whom I have not seen either of since I worked for Humber Archaeology back in about 2006. Jimmy is still eating curry and Claire is still a farmer's wife. I also met some new people, who's names I knew but had never come across before and watched Matt dance like he was on fire to Rammstein.

I was cordially invited back to their place on Tuesday night for dinner, so took the offer. Free food is always enough to draw me to any event! I texted Sam on Tuesday evening to inquire that we were still on for the evening and she replied in the affirmative. I was slightly worried due to the forgetting the whole 'fancy dress party' thing, so I thought I'd better jut check. I set off around seven and as I was hitting the Hull road I got two missed calls from Sam. Pulling over (safety first), I called her back wondering why she could have been so desperate to call me as I was on my way.

She asked if I could do her a massive favour and my first thought was that she'd forgotten to buy food for the dinner and could I pick up a chicken on my way. But no, it was a different problem. Matt had earlier taken the dog out for a walk, the first time daddy had been allowed out with Chester alone, but in his fuss to get Chester's harness on had dropped his car key and locked himself and the dog out of the car. In the rain. I was asked by Sam if I could pick up his spare key from Matt's folk's house, which, fortunately, was on the way to Beverley. I arrived with said key, to find Sam still in her work clothes and mild panic about the dog being locked out of the car. Not Matt, mind. The dog. Another night, another adventure with the Sam and Matt show.

Anyway dinner was lovely, and I got to play with Matt's snake for the rest of the night. Fnar fnar.

Hungry Hungry Hippos

First of all, read a brand new interview with Abwehrschlacht conducted by Crucifixion 'Zine HERE.

He-who-cannot-be-named showed up at my house on Sunday morning and set fire to it. I ran out into the street with only the clothes on my back and everything else perishing in the fire. He stood there in front of me as I wept on the pavement and said 'You might as well come to and see a film with me, now that you're out of the house.' Being in an unstable state of mind I agreed and he dragged me bodily across York to the cinema to see The Hunger Games. He dumped my battered, charred and bruised body in the worst seat in the cinema and proceeded to masturbate throughout the film despite my protestations. I guess the sight of children killing each other is enough to get him going. He was quickly ejected by security as it became very apparent early on that two mid thirty year old men was not the demographic the film wished to reach. This is the first time I have been surrounded by adolescent girls since I was at school. I sank low in my chair just in case the Police decided to do a quick sweep of the theatre and my name ended up on their fucking register. Again.

Shoot the dirty old man!

The film is actually pretty good and explores some very adult themes for what is essentially a teeny movie marketed like Twiglet. The characters are fleshed out; in particular Woody Harrelson, as the former Humger Games winner and mentor of the new combatant kids. He starts off as a drunken oaf and as HWCBN pointed out, so would you be if you'd just had to kill 23 other children then spend the rest of your career teaching other children to do the same to other children. I'm not sure how much of the dystopian future, reality TV satire was recognised by the target audience, but it had two hunks competing for the beautiful heroine, so I guess they still went home happy. Over all I enjoyed it and would recommend that you see it if you were already considering going but don't break the doors of the cinema down to see it. Anyway, here is my in depth review:

Ratchet Formangler (Joe Bonomo) is an American First World War pilot flying for the Escadrille Layfayette in France in 1917. As a high scoring Ace, Formangler leads his squadron into a fray with the legendary Flying Circus of the Red Baron, he is separated from his flight during an unfair fight against 17 enemy machines. As he twists and turns above the French countryside, firing at the occasional Fokker that gets in his path, his plane is suddenly struck by lightening. Formangler is knocked unconscious by the strike and when he comes to he finds he is flying over a desert landscape unknown to him. He puts his battered SE5A down on a strip of land near an oasis and begins to drink from the pond. As he does so, he is approached by a beautiful woman (Yareli Arizmendi) dressed only in animal furs carrying a wooden spear. Initially cautious Formangler tries to make nice and discovers the woman only speaks in a primitive language unknown to him. She refers to herself as Ugg. Suddenly four men appear, dressed in furs and carrying clubs. One bashes Formangler unconscious and they drag Ugg off by her hair kicking and screaming. The hours pass and Formangler wakes to find Ugg gone but tracks leading off into the distance. He follows the trail, pistol at the ready and eventually comes across a cave dwelling where the four men and a tribe of others are gathered around a large fire dancing a sacred dance and banging drums made from human skulls. In the middle of the gathering is a large totem pole to which Ugg is bound. As Formangler watches, and formulates a plan of rescue, a Tyrannosaurus Rex appears above the mountain tops and advances on the congregation. Formangler suddenly realises that he was sent back in time during the dogfight! The crowd scatter leaving the struggling Ugg tied to the pole as a sacrifice prompting Formangler to run back to his plane. Quickly synthesising petrol from a nearby tar pit he starts the engine and takes to sky to do battle once again but this time against a dinosaur! As he presses home the attack on the T. Rex, a Pterosaur swoops down from the clouds and tries to bring the plane down. Quickly dispatching the flying menace, Formangler makes short work of the T. Rex with his remaining ammunition. Landing the plane again, he frees Ugg and plants a huge kiss on her. As this is a modern construct she has no idea what he is doing, but likes it. With the T. Rex dead the tribe return to their cave home and begin worshipping Formangler like a God, sacrificing the four men in his honour. Formangler marries Ugg in a primitive ceremony and lives out a long and fruitful life teaching the cave people the wonders of interpretive dance.

7 on 10

Fuck Yeah!!

I Adoor You

I have just dropped the car off at the garage. The problem? Well, on Saturday night as I pulled the car up outside the Charter's Arms in Rotherham to see Goat Leaf and 6Needles play, I went to lock the driver's door. The handle froze in the upright position and try as I might I couldn't get it unlocked again. Helpfully I had the back door unlocked as I had given Rhys a lift and he'd left it open he wasn't aware that the car wasn't blessed with central locking. I decided to leave the back door unlocked so I could at least gain access. You might be thinking I could have got in the passenger side door. Well, I could, had that door been working. It hasn't worked properly since I've had the car and only opens from within, as long as someone isn't pulling on the handle from outside, which is everyone's instinctual reaction to getting into a car and leads to me gesticulating wildly from inside for them to step away from the handle. Along with this, the passenger side back door has never worked either. So I was down to one door.

 And your exits are... well, nowhere, really.

I left the car unlocked as described before and went to the gig, which was wonderful. Surprisingly nothing was taken from the car as it sat outside unlocked in Rotherham. I got the car home eventually and thought of dealing with it in the morning. Problem was, when morning rolled around, to gain access to the mechanism that I needed to unlock the door entailed me taking the door panel off. The door panel would not come off with the door shut and I couldn't open the door with the door locked. You see my predicament? I gave it up as a bad job and I spent some part of Sunday morning cleaning the interior as it had been pointed out to me that my car was in quite a state, not that I think there's anything wrong with have a foot-well full of my finger nail clippings. I mean, it's not like they're someone else's, is it? But, apparently this does not constitute clean. I gained access to the vehicle as I had left the rear passenger door open overnight and cleaned the car. I thought, as I was out and about (I was using a vacuum at the local garage to clean the car through one open door and the windows...), I'd get on with some shopping and drove to Morrison's. The passenger door appeared to be working when I unlocked it from outside now, so I was confident that I'd be able to get back in again after buying my post-nuclear fallout supplies ready for when the balloon finally goes up and locked all the doors as I don't really trust the clientele of Morrison's. After buying my tinned foodstuffs I tried to unlock the door. Would you know? The fucking door wouldn't open now I was in the middle of a busy car-park on a Sunday afternoon.

 What I needed, but not what I got...

Mild panic set in as it appeared that I was now locked out of the car with two bags of shopping. This panic was replaced with delirium as I then realised that I could get into the boot to open the doors from within. So I opened the boot, took the parcel shelf out and lowered the back seat to facilitate ingress. I crawled into the boot (remember, in Morrison's Car Park on a busy Sunday afternoon), over the back seat and as I couldn't reach the front door handle, wound the window down of the rear passenger side door. I then clambered back out and thrust my hand through the front window and tugged like a demon at the door handle. This door handle is particularly tricky to open even from sitting in the driver's seat, so it was like a puzzle on the fucking Crystal Maze having to open it from the back window. All that was missing was some middle aged investment banker in a jump suit shouting 'Get the Crystal! Get out! Get Out!' at me

You are now entering the 'Car Zone'

Further to this, my boot is full of archaeological tools and hasn't been cleaned for a while. There was muddy Wellington boots, muddy low ankle boots, a muddy shovel, a muddy drawing board and a muddy waterproof coat. This mud gave me a khaki coating of dust and mud as I scrambled around in the boot. So there I was, in the middle of a busy car-park on a Sunday afternoon, covered in shit and tugging away at a door handle through the rear window. I managed to get in the car and away before the Police arrested me for TWOCing.

Mars Bars

I just went to see John Carter at the cinema. I haven't been to the flicks for a while so I thought I'd take myself off and have a look-see what was going on. As it's a Science-Fiction movie the cinema was empty except for a group of about ten Role Playing Sci-Fi nerds. How could I tell they were Role Players? They all appeared to be single, middle aged and fat. When they sat down the entire seating row groaned under their combined weight (which was to be added to by the copious amounts of popcorn and fizzy drinks they had) and they got with debating the heated issues of the day, mainly does Ewan McGregor play a better Obi Wan Kenobi than Alec Guinness? 

This adds nothing to this blog post

Anyway, here is my review of John Carter:

Set in a textile factory in Northern China in 1924, John Carter (Duke R. Lee) is a lowly stitcher with a young family of forty three living a hard but happy life. His story is told in dramatic flashbacks cutting between his happy family life and the tragedy that is to befall them. Tibetan Monks invade from the north capturing the factory and destroying the village of the workers. As John is away on a company business, selling patchwork quilts to hapless Japanese tourists, he survives the massacre but returns to see his family home burned down and the charred remains of his family buried in the rubble. Erecting a hastily built tomb of marble blocks, John swears vengeance on his family by going after the evil Dalai Lama (三船 敏郎). Whilst travelling into Tibet he hooks up with a hitchhiking student from Germany, Mittle Braun (Xenia Seeberg). The two soon fall in love, but greater issues are pressing when they are captured post-coital in their tent by the Lama's henchmen. 

 Neither does this

Taken to his Holiness' Great Golden Temple in the Eastern hills of Kathmandu. Carter and Braun are separated, Braun being treated to a life of sumptuous living in the Lama's harem, where she is prepared to marry his Holiness, whilst Carter is thrown into a rat infested well. It doesn't take long for our plucky hero to find a way out of his prison (I won't spoil the surprise for you, but watch out for one death defying moment involving a fez wearing, cigarette smoking chimpanzee!) and he gains access to the Lama's wedding ceremony disguised as a badger. Just as the (un)happy couple are about to exchange vows, Carter throws off his disguise, runs the evil Lama through with a flaming spear and escapes with Braun under his arm. With the Great Golden Temple burning and slowly melting behind them Carter and Braun make their getaway back to Northern China. With his ex-family now long forgotten Carter makes a new life as the boss of the regenerated textile factory and soon becomes President of Earth by rigging the vote. 

2 on 10

The cuts caused by the recession hit Disney's promotional team hard

Old School? New School? Shit, I didn't even go to school!

I haven't been writing this Blog for the past few weeks as much as before, as I have been putting my energies into other stuff, like reading books on the First World War so that I can write a fucking essay, so please, fucking excuuuuuuuuuuse me! I was actually going through the old Blog posts and found one I was going to write a while back and decided as it's Friday night, then I might as well write it now, since my life is one long unemotional roller coaster ride and all that.

Do I really have to write another blog post? I don't even get paid for this...

I have a pair of shoes that I have had for quite a while now and they are my 'best' shoes in that they are not the ones covered in concrete which I wear to work, nor are they a pair of wedding shoes that make me walk like a dandy when I wear them, neither are they a pair of sandals that still have the dust of Greece upon them and finally nor are they a pair of running shoes that have been untouched since my Dublin days. No, they are none of these, they are in fact a pair of Airwalk skater shoes. In black. I like skater shoes as they are comfortable and have a slight resemblance to the footwear one sees in Judge Dredd. I can imagine I'm wandering the mean streets of Mega City One in my Airwalks, as I prance around the quaint cobbled byways of Olde Yorke. 

 'Drokk!'

Problem is, in recent weeks the insides of the shoes have shattered. Something in the soles is made of plastic (I don't know what so don't ask me what, do I look like a fucking shoe scientist? Go and ask Mr Clarks, Jesus) and these have been turned into shards through the action of me walking. And these shards in turn have been cutting into my feet making me hobble through the streets of Olde Yorke rather than prance. It is the same sensation as having a small bed of nails in each shoe. Like I'm walking on broken glass. I have not had a chance recently to go shoe shopping and as you know how much I hate that, I needn't go into details here. Needless to say, my feet hurt and I still have to face the unbearable prospect of buying new shoes...

Just back from the garage to buy some milk...

And this Blog post would not be complete without an exchange between He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named and I:

Him: happy valentine's day alex, i hope you got me something nice this year, since you obviously forgot last year, you jerk.

Me: Was it you that sent me that envelope stuffed with ginger pubes? Not cool, dude. Not cool.

Him: No that wasn't me. I sent you the baby bottle filled with a mixture of my blood and semen. Did you get it?

Me: Yeah. I drunk it thinking it was ribena.

Him: Who do you love most, damien rice or james blunt? and you can't say both!

Me: I like rice's whining, but blunt's rugged good looks. Oh! I can't decide! It's too hard!

Him: Your face is like a bag of shit that's been set on fire and stamped out by a gorilla.

Me: Your face is that gorilla, you brute.

Him: I hope you realise that the only reason i allow you to live is in case i need to harvest your organs one day.

Me: Don't bother, they're all fucked.

Him: Well, i wish you'd take more care of my property.

Him: Do you remember how during our degree i used to steal your lunch money and punch you in the back of the head in lectures? I still smile about that.

Me: I don't remember that at all. I do remember getting together with Julian Richards and Steve Roskams and flushing your head down the toilet. what larks ay?

Him: I do remember that. I wasn't laughing then and I'm not laughing now.

Me: I was and still am. So are those two, in fact, we all laughed like drains on Friday when I saw them. Julian was doing impressions of you.

Him: Julian can go fuck himself. He always picked on me. On our first dig he used me as a wheelbarrow for two days.

Me: It was for three weeks not two days. You're thinking of the time you had to clean the portaloo with your tongue.

Him: Thanks for opening up these old wounds. Now I'm walking home and i can't stop crying. people are looking at me with pity and disgust.

Me: Nothing new there then. I think my best memory of university is when Julian and I ran you over in that bus. I don't remember why Steve wasn't there. He must have been ill or something.

Him: You'll be fucking sorry when Ross turns up.

Me: Remember that seminar when Steve was stamping on your neck and shouting 'shit worm! shit worm!' over and over? How we all laughed. 

Except you, who couldn't breathe. 

I don't know what it had to do with the early Christianisation of Britain. Fucking funny, anyway.

Him: In a way you were hurting yourselves more than you were hurting me.

Me: No were weren't

Him: Shouldn't you be working?

Me: Shouldn't you be shutting your fucking sewer mouth?

Fin.