i-want-more

Your high-heeled jams and your rock n roll! Your mother is a bitch called rock n roll!

I’m in a peaceful office. Barely anyone is speaking, there’s just the occasional clack of a keyboard. For the next two days my main aim will be to wind down in preparation for the break. I might squeeze some work in, if I feel like it.

Since I last posted, not a huge amount has happened aside from I had some early Xmas/belated birthday drinks in Trader Vic’s. It was a lovely evening, with plenty of people dropping in for some booze. My bar bill was enormous, as expected, but it was worth it. I had two different cocktails, the Scorpion (a bit tart) and a couple of Peachtree Punches (sweet and creamy). I won’t list the attendees, but hasten to add that I was pleased to see my nearest and dearest.

What’s next is a jaunt to Devon for Xmas, for family time spent mucking about with the kids, eating some great food and sleeping a lot. It may be a short while before I appear on the internet again.

In true December style, it’s list time.


2008 – in short

The main event
I left my terrible City job in March. This was the boldest, scariest thing I had done for years, yet at the same time, it was the easiest decision I’ve ever made. It proved to me that I wasn’t dead inside, which I had suspected for some prior to handing in my resignation. Also proof, if it were needed, that money does not equal happiness: I now earn considerably less and am generally happier and healthier than I have been in years.

Music
It’s been a bit of a funny year for this. I just couldn’t settle to new things this year. I have been reading the top ten lists in all the magazines, and don’t recognise any of the albums. Oh dear. However, I enjoyed the MGMT record lots, because it is ludicrously overblown*. It includes some of the most delightful and off-kilter chord sequences/modulations that any pop album has had for years and years. This is not the cool choice. But fuck cool, I like it.

Films
As above, I didn’t go to the pictures much this year. I enjoyed Juno. And Kung Fu Panda. Again, not cool.

TV
The IT Crowd. Each season improves upon the last, they are surely the Anti-Boosh. [Having said that, I loved the Mighty Boosh documentary on BBC3 this year.]
Heroes Season 3, first half. Which is a good thing, considering that Season 2 was so bad.
Flight of the Conchords. I was a very late convert to this, but it’s up there with the best. Looking forward to the next season.
The Big Bang Theory. A better than average traditional US sitcom.
Pulling. This extremely funny and near the knuckle sitcom has not been re-commissioned. For shame, BBC3!
Spooks
Summer Heights High
Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe
While we’re on the subject, I wish I could say Dead Set, but I watched forty minutes and it scared me shitless, so I had to switch it off. Sorry, Charlie.

Untimely departure
Nick “Sandy” Sanderson of Earl Brutus
“Will you talk to me for a fiver, cos I’m English, and you hate me?”

Timely departure
Bush/Cheney. See you, lads!

Gig of the year
I haven’t been to many this year: probably a cross between Dengue Fever and My Bloody Valentine. Notable: Fucked Up (twice).

Letdowns of the year
Fujiya and Miyagi live. So boring, I began to feel like wallpaper.
Yellow Magic Orchestra live. I fell asleep.

Following the herd...
Facebook. I’m managing a football team on there, which is pointless in the extreme. I’ve also gained an insight into other people’s tedious minutiae. As if my own tedious minutiae wasn’t enough!

Teenage crush of the year
Recently usurping the multi-talented, brooding Yorkshireman Julian Barratt, the fruitily-voiced Matt Berry. In contrast to these gentlemen, I have recently been finding Zachary Quinto’s buff, unibrow/vest acting in Heroes unusually stirring.

Obligatory comment about The Wire
While I’d love to devote weeks of my life to watching The Wire, essential viewing though it is, I just can’t. To be honest, I have too much other stuff to be getting on with.

Happy rest of 2008, see you in 2009. xxx


* I've always had a fondness for over-produced albums (one of my favourites? Cupid and Psyche 85 by Scritti Politti, an album that glitters like a cubic zirconia in a tin mount).

Labels: charlie brooker, dengue fever, earl brutus, flight of the conchords, fucked up, it crowd, julian barratt, matt berry, mgmt, my bloody valentine, the wire, trader vics, zachary quinto

posted by deafdisco @ 2:21 pm