These days

as I hurtle headlong towards death and life foreshortens before me, I find that truly stupid drinking is often beyond my capabilities. Luckily the odd pirate-themed, eleven hour H(alfway House)a(ssembly)l(ogie Bairds)l(ast Drop)o(z bar)w(histle Binkies)e(nsign Ewart)e(spionage)n(icol Edwards) 4-binge pub crawl comes along to reassure me that when absolutely required, I can still handle my liquor.

I imagine I'll be avoiding such things for the forseeable future, given that I am still too tired to think.

Apologies for brevity, but the combination of a mostly uneventful week and enough rum to fell an elephant has left me incapable of forming any more meaningful joined-up sentences. Here's to some non-drinking related fun stuff happening soon...!

Update: Now up, Josh's photos of the day's piracy.

It begins:

Josh now has also a blog.

Birthday bash v2.

Both Neil's and Devon's birthdays (happy birthday, guys!) fell on or near this last weekend, and so a combined bash to end all bashes was planned for Saturday night.

Of course, before we could approach such an endeavour with the (specific) gravity demanded of us, we had to warm up. On Friday night, then, the chief protagonists - a Mafia hardcore - went out for a gentle night's boozing.

Neil's summary the next morning: "7 pints, 3 bottles, 3 shots, a bottle of champagne: not too little, not too much". Ice cubes had been thrown/inserted. Neil had been inverted and had a lovely chat while upside down with a concerned passer-by.

On Saturday night, after a gleeful stag party of Irish farmers had vacated it, we turned up at the Brass Monkey and took up station in the back room. After a couple of hours, a thronging mass of Mafia and archaeology types, plus Neil's Glasgow crew, had filled the place entirely. It truly was a sight to behold, but as is my wont, I vanished off to the chippy at midnight to try to salvage the last vestiges of sobriety, and surfaced only at noon the next day. Ah well...

TM records.

We had a somewhat depleted practise on Sunday through at the Brill Building in Glasgow. With Dom and Dave both off on holiday, Mart, Doug and I were standing around in the middle of cavernous Room 2. Doug, fiddling with the mixing desk and his MP3 player, said "I'm going to try recording some stuff tonight."

Gulp. Really?

Oh yes. We played Reasons (née MonkeyOne) and Sister Isabel a couple of times, with a wobbly wall mic capturing it all for posterity. Some farting about with web pages later, the recordings turned up yesterday afternoon.

They're both hilarious and brilliant at the same time. The playing is actually relatively compentent, which is a relief: I'd be worried if, after a year of trying to play the bass, I still couldn't pull off a 4-chorder like Reasons with a degree of composure.

By the time we got to the second run through Sister Isabel, a few cans of Stella on an empty stomach had worked their magic on me. The intro is supposed to begin with some picked guitar and low-key bass, and then everyone comes in for the first verse. On the recording, everything starts off quite reasonably but then on the change to the verse I go apeshit, pounding away like mad to compensate for the absence of rhythm guitar and vocals. The poor bass amp is bludgeoned into submission, farting away with a hideous destroyed-cone noise while we batter our way to the next quiet bit.

A lot of fun.

Comments

have again changed. Haloscan seems to have become a bit flaky of late, so hopefully for the last time, I've changed the comments to Blogger's own system. At least this way the comments will only ever be unavailable if the entire blog is down, rather than relying on an external provider.

Update: It's not immediately apparent from the 'Comment Sign In' page shown when you click to add a comment, but you do not have to be registered with Blogger. Just click the 'Or Post Anonymously' link - if you want to sign your comment, you can do so in the comment itself.

Went to a party

on Friday night with Josh and Vanessa. Jeff's cousin Hana, newly installed in a flat with some other colonials, threw a C-themed party. The idea was to come dressed as something beginning with C, to eat stuff beginning with C and, although I didn't know it at the the time, fend off the advances of a drunk Canadian girl who was coming on to me rather enthusiastically.

The first dress idea to cross my mind - 'cretin', which wouldn't have involved actually dressing up at all - was quashed by Josh in favour of 'CIA'. Yup. Black suits and earpieces again. It's becoming something of a well worn trademark.

Vanessa était un chat.

It was all fairly sedate (apart from having some dreadful tequila squirted into my gob from a water pistol) until a load of young, voluble backpackers turned up around midnight or so and some drinking games began. We left about 1 or so; I don't think we were quite in full-on party mode. Also I was getting increasingly fearful of having my unwilling bones jumped by the aforementioned Canadian. We made like a banana...

...and split.

Birthday bash.

Friday: another birthday for me. Having felt a bit dodgy for a few days during the week (although mercifully not a repeat of last year), I was back to normal for the evening's festivities. The 8^th had been designated as a Hat Night for some time, so I was happy to subvert it to my own birthday ends again.

HN has traditionally been a chaps only event (frankly, I think we should get all and sundry to come along, but hey: why should hen nights get all the bad press?) so I went for a few quick pints with Kate before the main event kicked off. This was a mistake. Not because of the sparkling chat, nor the pleasingly autumnal setting of the Outhouse's beer garden, but because I was healthily on my way before even the hats were distributed.

My recollection of the evening goes something like this:

Once we were all assembled in the flat and a few rounds of - <blackness> - wait. When did we get to Medina? Why is it 3 am?

Fortunately, there is photographic evidence of the night's entertainment. Until Josh gets round to posting it, though, here is some of what I/we apparently did:

• We played Semtex Master. Not to be confused with Freeze Master or Thumb Master, Semtex Master involves the current Semtex Master shouting "Semtex!" at which point the participants must get under the nearest table. Last one to do so is the new Semtex Master. This earned us some dirty looks in the Phoenix.
  
• I tried to chat up a 19 year old barmaid with the line (repeated ad nauseum, I'm reliably informed): "You should come to our flat and play poker! So we can take your money! Poker! Play poker with us!" Smooth. Also, Jez stood on tables. Both of these things attracted dirty looks in the Blind Poet.
  
• There was a bit of playful combat between Jeff and I. Josh tried to separate us, at which point his brother Sam shouted gleefully "Pile on!" and proceeded to do so. This got us some dirty looks in Doctors.
  

And that brings us pretty much up to date. Good night, I'm told.

INT. BANANA ROW, EDINBURGH - NIGHT

TINY MONKEY are standing around in their accustomed positions. They are discussing what to play.

DAVE
I've written some lyrics and a vocal melody for MonkeyOne.

The world briefly wobbles on its axis. One or two bandmembers clutch nearby chairs/music stands for support. Mouths are agape.

ALL
What?

DAVE
Well, I listened to the MP3 a few times and worked out a melody and some words to go with it. It's called 'Reasons' now. How about we try it?

ALL
Right then.

They play MonkeyOne, complete with two guitars, bass, drums and vocals. It's a REAL SONG. It sounds really, really good.

Seriously, I thought I was going to pass out. We've written a song. It's Teenage Fanclub meets Travis meets Snow Patrol meets pop music in general. Maybe it's the musical equivalent of the face that only a mother could love, but my God: it sounds fantastic to me.

1. INT. CORE STUDIOS, GLASGOW - DAY

TINY MONKEY are standing around in their accustomed positions. They are joined by DAVE, who is 'trying out' as a vocalist.

KEITH
What shall we do then?

DAVE
Let's do 'Run'.

ALL
'kay then.

They play. DAVE sings. They finish.

KEITH
That was fucking great.

ALL make general sounds of relief.

CUT TO:

2. INT. 13TH NOTE, GLASGOW - NIGHT

ALL are wrestling with the fact that they've come directly from a rehearsal, laden with gear, to Glasgow's archetypal music pub and thus are in danger of disappearing up their own arses.

KEITH
So have you played in a band before, Dave?

DAVE
Yeah, I played keyboards and did backing vocals for a band a while back. You guys are much better though.

ALL
You're in.

And so TM takes another step towards transforming into a giant killer robot by dint of acquiring a vocalist. Nothing can stop us now.

Friday, 6.30 pm.

The Phoenix.

"Pint of Stella and a packet of peanuts, please," I say.
"That your tea, is it?"
"I hope not! Cheers."

Some considerably pintage later, my phone rings: Kate. "I've left my jumper in the Phoenix. Can you grab it and take it home when you leave?"
Me, utterly slaughtered: "Yes. What does it look like?"
"It's a black V-neck."
"Okay."

An hour later: I call back on the way home.
"Got your jumper. Black round neck, yeah?"
"Argh. No. V-neck."
"Hang on -" <checks label> "- oh yeah. This is a mens' jumper."
"D'oh."

At least that's what I remember happening. Perhaps this tale is actually one of my workmates trying to wrestle a jumper away from me as I stumble, minging, out of the Phoenix with my ill-gotten booty.

Nice jumper, mind you.