For years I’ve been seeing Alabama 3 at least once a year, although it has now been a while. The gigs can sometimes be brilliant, although often they are just a rambling mess. Anyway today I heard a track playing in the news agents when I got my milk and set about listening to all the albums I have through the day. There isn’t much new about the more recent ones, but they’re still pretty cool. I’m feeling truly mellow now and fancy a film tonight, but I don’t know who I’d ask out. Might just go on my tod. Might just have an uncharacteristic early night instead though. Still a bit shaky from a silly amount of Jamiesons last night.
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Loving Alabama 3
February 4, 2012 by admin
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Patagonia
February 2, 2012 by admin
Don’t get me wrong.
I haven’t suddenly gone all strange and business like on you.
However I have started reading what could, just about, be called a business book.
Let My People Go Surfing, by Yvon Chouinard is the biography and philosophy of the guy who set up Patagonia the highly ethical clothing company, more or less by chance, and much more out of self interest than any desire to be a successful business man.
It’s cool. Turns out he was a fiendish climber, and started off just making the poky bits of metal that they ram into the rock to take the weight. Then other folk wanted to buy them, and gradually he started employing his mates, then other people. That’s as far as I’ve got so far, but it’s well written and if it has a message I reckon it’ll be something I feel strongly about anyway, and that’s about authenticity.
Mind, I’d be crap at running a business. I’m more interested in finishing weight at the end of the day and having a drink. Or ten.
But if there was only something that I cared enough about it might just make the difference. Actually that’s the story of my life. Bit deep this, but I really just don’t give enough of a stuff about anything to bust a gut. Maybe admitting that is teh first stage to doing something about it?
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Motorcade III
February 1, 2012 by admin
Ah The Carlton. It wasn’t sexy, but I loved it. Washed it every week. The occasional polish even (can’t pretend I’ve done that in a long time). It only didn’t start once, on a super cold day, but was fine next day. I probably would have kept it longer but the opportunity for a company car came along and the first, and so far only, time I’ve had a brand spanking new car.
It was 1996 and I ordered a Golf 1.9 TDi. And I was so excited. I didn’t really care what price I got for the Carlton, but actually did OK losing just a grand over two years and quite a lot of miles.
The Golf was a mad acid green and had COM as its reg letters which was cool as I worked in coms back then. I’d spec’d CD player and air con, both of which were extras back then, and a black interior. The colour upset many folk, but I loved it, and I bombed around doing a massive amount of miles in the two years I had it.
If I ever took it easy, which was very rare it would deliver a brilliant 60+ mpg, which given the Carlton struggled to top 30 mpg was just astounding, and in fact I’ve never managed anything like that again since.
I handed it back after 112 thousand miles in just over two years. A bit like the Carlton, it only skipped a beat once. Can’t really remember what happened, but I know it just stopped once while driving. Fortunately I was going slowly and starting again I had no further problems.
It wasn’t a sexy car either, but probably the best servant to date. If it’s still going it could have done a million miles by now.
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Scrubber
January 28, 2012 by admin
Yesterday’s little kitchen adventure had more consequences than I imagined.
A bit later the bundle of the tea towel and oven glove started smouldering again and when I opened it the flames were right back. Sheeeet!
And cleaning the hob took a heck of an effort. Burnt on plastic seems rather more sticky that the odd bit of food or boiled over liquid. After calling mum I attacked it with a blade, actually scraping it away, there doesn’t seem to be any lasting scratches on the hob, so I may have got away with it. At one point I was thinking an insurance claim might be in order, and I could get a hob that wasn’t dangerously set up.
All this isn’t exactly what I had in mind for my Saturday morning, but it seems I’m back clean and safe.
Bit of a scare though.
Going up the road in search of coffee that someone will make for me and a decent bacon sandwich.
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House fire!
January 27, 2012 by admin
Bloody hell I just set fire to my bloody flat!
The hob here is fooking stupid in that the knobs are in the wrong place and defy any human logic.
I regularly turn on the wrong ring, but usually the only problem is waiting longer for my food and a bit of wasted power.
Not this time though.
I’ve taken to using an old fashioned expresso machine again, pretty little thing from IKEA actually, and it has the advantage of making loads of noise when it’s ready. So I put it on, go into the study type room next door, and do a bit of work with an ear out for the coffee.
This I did today but had my usual issue with the ring and turned the front left on instead of the front right. Little did I know the danger I’d caused until something fell onto the floor in the kitchen, I wasn’t even going to bother looking, but something made me want to see what had happened.
And then it hit me as I walked into the main room.
Thick acrid smoke, and through it, bloody great flames!
There was a carton of butter on the other ring which had melted and caught fire, with flames licking around the extractor hood.
I was paralysed for a moment, but then grabbed a tea towel and threw it on the flames beating them out, but then didn’t removed it, so a few seconds later that flared up too. Whoa! Next on goes the oven glove and I throw the fire into the sink and turn on the pathetic pressured tap.
Calm restored. Just couldn’t breath in the kitchen for a while and the hob’ll need some serious elbow grease.
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Bit of online gaming anyone?
January 26, 2012 by admin
I’ll occasionally go to a casino with mates at the end of an evening when we don’t want to go home, but also don’t want to go from the relative calm of a pub, to any kind of a late night venue like a club. But really I just can’t be bothered.
When we were at uni I used to think it was fun because there’d be the not very good sandwiches and free tea going around, but even if that happens now we still avoid it.
What I do like is a bit of online gaming as its now called, gambling being something of a dirty word. When everyone had left last night and we demolished the curry and a slab of Stellas the Evans logged on to my favourite online casino and had a flutter or six. OK, so i might have got through a few quid, but it’s strangely fun.
So this morning I woke feeling a bit guilty about that. With a bad head from the beers, and worse, Jamie brought a bottle of Jamieson as is his wont. And the place stinks of curry. And men. Great!
Left the windows open when i left for work, hoping no bugger decides to climb in, but also that the stink climbs out.
Sweet eh?
Taking it easy in every department tonight I promise.
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Cooking up a great curry!
January 25, 2012 by admin
Look. Really I don’t cook.
Even at uni when all the Swedish guys were turning out lovely food to guarantee their shag I couldn’t be bothered.
Since then I’ve dabbled with a few chilies, and scrambled egg, toast even. In fact quite a lot of toast. But never anything you’d actually call cooking. No sauces, no roast even, actually especially no roast, that looks really hard getting all those bits to be ready at the same time. No wonder most of our grans turn out mushy veg.
But what I do like is cooking up a great curry.
I have every spice I need, and none that I don’t.
I line them up and gradually add a bit of each to the oil before I throw in the onions. I even use those little pod things that seem to go into anything Indian whether savoury or sweet. And fresh chilies, always too many. Then I like using chicken or beef. Although I love lamb in a curry house I never do a very good job of it at home.
And then beer. Lots of beer.
Tonight there’ll be six of us and the flat is already smelling gorgeous.
Though it won’t seem so clever come tomorrow morning!
I don’t do breads or rice, I just get one of the gang to stop off at the Raj down the road on their way here.
Perfect. Just not for girls.
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Micro light flying
January 24, 2012 by admin
Last night I watched the maddest programme. It had the potential of being boring, but then so did the whole TV schedule last night. I ended up watch The Real Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines. A silly little programme patched together about a few guys flying micro lights and the madness of the round Britain rally they hold every year.
I didn’t care for the so called adventure of it all, but I was transfixed by the nature of the things they were flying in, or on as the case maybe. Someone referred to them as deck chairs with a lawnmower engine strapped on, and that’s about it. Some looked a bit like proper planes, but most were hang gliders with some sort of engine. Utterly mad, and actually looked like it could be good fun.
Shame they actually travel so slowly – like slower than a car in general. It would be a great option for getting to mates if you lived near an airstrip, ah but then they’d need to as well. OK, crap idea.
Off to Leeds at the weekend to meet some friends to go to a music bar they’re always on about and then on to Agra’s for a good curry I hope. I’ve just been onto City Visitor to book a haircut on Saturday morning, just looked for hairdressers in Leeds and ’twas all there. Easy! There’s two reasons. One is that it gets us to town, rather than just going to the lovely pub in Headingley where they want to go every day if they could. And it’s booked for half ten so I’ll have to get up rather than just lying in bed moaning like a student.
Ah yes – and the fact that I need a haircut.
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Taschen
January 23, 2012 by admin
The Evans Shag Machine is not a man given to long bouts of arduous reading. The only time I’ve taken on the classics has been when there has been a sexy bird to be pursued who was a bit of a reader and needed to be impressed. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the stuff I read when I actually did so, just that I don’t know where people find the time.
However i do love what folk seem to refer to as coffee table books.
Odd that. What the fook is a coffee table anyway?
That little dig aside. Yeah, you know? The big fellows with fab pictures and just enough words to let you know what’s going on. They might be about architecture, or fashion, or National Geographic or whatever.
Anyway, yesterday I paid attention and realised that the ones I love seem to be published by Phaildon or Taschen. So last night I spent a bit of time browsing the Taschen site. And ordering all sorts!
They are bloody expensive, even though I was in the slightly damaged section – I liked that, it felt a bit like me!
So now I sit and await the ring of the heavily laden postman, bringing me books aplenty.
Then I just need to get some people around to see what a clever boy the Evans aspires to be!
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Senna!
January 20, 2012 by admin
Last night some friends invited me to their rather random film society in the basement of a bar on Shoreditch High Street. Sounds like something from school, or university, and actually it was just as much fun.
You could get a drink from the bar. You sat on hard plastic old school chairs, and their were Krispy Creme donuts!
I didn’t care what we watched, just the set up had me enchanted. That and the girl running things, who probably casted for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. You who? Weird. Slightly scary looking. And damn sexy.
But then the film?
It was something I wanted to see but didn’t want to waste on the small screen. Senna.
Wow!
The whole thing was made with original footage, starting with him coming to Europe to race in karts, then the joy of getting his first F1 race. His genius in the wet, and his first Monaco GP where he lapped all but one car (then crashed out). There was this amazing bit of on board camera film where he comes up behind another two drivers as if they were stopped, and flies past.
And of course it all ends in tragedy and controversy.
Such a waste, and such circumstances that still make the blood boil of anyone who knows the story.
Go see it.
And go to a cinema society. It was the best fun.
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