Category: Awful, just awful

Avatar Giddy Strider’s Fields

I am a huge fan of the band The Long Blondes.

They only managed to release two albums in their lifetime before breaking up (if you don’t count the early singles collection of course), which is a damn fine shame. They’re on regular rotation at home and in the car.

You know when you think you know the lyrics to a song but then when you’re singing along you’re missing words out? Such was the case recently when playing one of the singles from their first album, ‘Giddy Stratospheres’. It’s a catchy song about breaking up with someone because they’re boring and dragging you down; lovely stuff.

Not wanting to appear foolish, I decided to look up the lyrics to see if I was singing the right words. Heaven forbid that someone should hear me and think I was some kind of fake fan! The horror!

Unfortunately the first effort that came up appeared to be AI giving it a go and, well, see for yourself:

If you sing it this way, it sounds as though the guy’s girlfriend won’t take him to somewhere called Giddy Striders Fields. Perhaps it’s his favourite place for a kick about with the lads? Maybe he likes riding the horses at the weekend? Who knows.

I don’t think I’ll be able to sing the right words now given the sheer lunacy of AI and their attempt.

Avatar London says no

Usually, on my way home from a day at work, I call in to a well known retailer at Waterloo station who sell Simply Food to get myself something to eat on the way home – usually a sandwich and a bag of crisps or something like that. By the time I’m there, around 8.45 in the evening, there are reduced stickers all over everything so my aim is to get an all-discount meal.

A week or two ago I went to the sarnie department and was faced with an unusual sight. Normally most of the food is gone and there are stickers on some of the remaining items, but that day there was an absolute wall of unbought stock.

It appears that Mr Mark and Mr Spencer had decided not to stock up on the usual classics – there were no BLTs, cheese and pickles or chicken caesar wraps. Instead, on the flimsy pretext that some tennis was being played, they had filled the shelves with strawberry sandwiches with pistachio cream on chocolate bread. The commuters of London had then looked at these and, collectively, said no.

I don’t blame them. For one thing these are not a meal. I don’t want fruit on novelty bread for my lunch or my dinner, I want an actual filling sandwich with grown up things inside it. And while I might have been tempted to have some novelty fruit nonsense as a little pudding afterwards, there was not a chance in hell I was going to pay £4.20 for it. Neither, it seems, was anyone else. The yellow stickers were out and the weird butties were now reduced to £3.75 but still nobody was buying.

The next day the exact same sight greeted me – a wall of the finest strawberries the UK produces, hand selected by the pickiest supermarket to meet the highest standards, turned into something nobody wanted to eat. The day after that it was full of normal sandwiches again. Hopefully these abominations won’t be back.

Avatar Death of Quirky

It had to happen sooner or later.

Here I am, sleep- deprived, lumbering around like a zombie. The heat isn’t making it any better, neither is having to be up most hours trying to make a baby go back to sleep. I have bruises up and down my legs and arms from accidentally bashing into things. My spacial awareness is at an all time low.

I remember opening up the cupboard door and watching in slow motion as the glass that hadn’t been put back properly left the safety of the shelf and collided with the kitchen floor.

I had been using it almost every day since we got them back for Old Man Kevvers 40th birthday. It’s the perfect size for refreshing juice on a hot day.

No more pint glass for me.

At least I have the memories. Does anyone want to watch me walk into the pub?

Avatar I don’t feel so good

I feel a little off today.

There’s a tightness in my chest. The room keeps spinning and I definitely have a temperature. I need to open a window, hang on.

There. That usually makes me feel better but… but not today.

What is it? What’s making me feel… oh no, I’m gonna need to… quickly someone pass a bucket!

*heaving followed by squelching noises*

Oh. Oh no. What have I done?

Avatar Perfect for all the family

Do you like sport?

Do you like families?

Do you like ball-based sports?

Then you need sport balls!

This unbeatable set includes:

  • A football, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play football
  • A basketball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play basketball
  • A tennis ball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so can be used to play tennis if you don’t mind the ball not bouncing or travelling far enough because it has the wrong weight and ballistic properties
  • A baseball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play baseball

Perfect for all the family!

Avatar Chris can’t organise a village fête

Someone had to say something.

There we are, having a good ole friendly chat at the Winston when this Chris guy starts talking about some formal occasion he’s organising. Nice one, right?

Wrong. He’s got it all wrong. What should be an easy win with an open goal turns into an own goal which smells of bad eggs and then renames all the roads in England and Wales without telling him, and they’re super silly names too that you’ll never remember.

I get the impression he’s never been to a village fête, let alone sorted one out. Here’s all the information we have so far:

What he does have:

  • A carousel
  • A big event (possibly involving cars)
  • Everyone turning up in formal dress

What he doesn’t have:

  • A craft tent full of bickering old ladies
  • A white elephant stall selling all the piddling crap people got for Christmas that were too embarrassed to drop off at a charity shop
  • A man with a laser who loves lasering names into pieces of wood, metal and any other material that’s safe for his laser
  • Whack-a-rat (sometimes known as ‘Splat the rat’)
  • A cake stall where someone has mislabelled the prices so a full fruitcake is 99p but a single scone is £4.99
  • An announcer who is so muffled by feedback nobody can tell what he or she is saying
  • Terrible weather halfway through that clears up after 8 minutes, giving all the old people something to talk about for the rest of the afternoon

As you can see, there’s a lot of work that needs doing in a very short period of time. I’m also sure I’ve missed a few obvious ones there.

I would recommend the services of Kevin “been doing this 30 years, bruh” Hill because he’s been, well, you probably get the jist. The experience and expertise he can bring will be invaluable and will ensure that Chris and his village fête are quintessentially perfect in the eyes of everyone who attends. The eyes are all that matter.

I’ll bring a bag of pennies and the overwhelming optimism of a man who hasn’t watched the news for two decades.

Avatar Am I losing my mind?

There I was, aimlessly looking at my Facebook account.

Do you remember how much you faffed about with Facebook when you first got it? Adding in all your likes, favourite bands and films, trying to find people you used to go to school with and sending them a friend request. Poking, apparently, still exists. You can still poke people even now and a lot of people I know are still poking each other (waaaaaay!) so that’s good to know. It was all pretty pointless.

I still get notifications of memories of things and a lot of them are random statuses I typed trying to be funny and failing miserably. Sometimes they’re photos of Reuben or silly things he said as a tiny baby orb. Today was slightly different.

I was linked to something I’d written circa 2008. A short script for something called ‘Cockitt and Pullit’. This was episode two so I must have been on a roll. I glanced briefly at the script before my current orb needed something and I had to switch it off, and made a note in my head to come back later on for a proper read.

I tried to look it up now and it’s gone. The memories have moved onto something else. I sifted through all the various (mostly pointless) pages trying to find where it could be hiding. I’m convinced there used to be a kind of notebook where you could write and store things. Wherever that is hiding must have my scripts for whatever this Cockitt and Pullit thing.

It was a cop drama, probably stupid as we all know the kind of humour 2008 Ian was packing. I’d completely forgotten I’d written them and for now they remain unseen by my judgemental eyes. I’m sure they’re not worth the paper they’re written on, yet if they’re part of my legacy I want them back for future generations to, well, to have.

Except… it’s not mine. If you Google it apparently it was Chris Moyles’ idea, which makes me even more confused. There are references to it in his blog from around the same time. Now I feel like I’m completely losing my mind and I made the whole thing up.

Sometimes remembering isn’t fun.

Avatar A touching tribute

Walking through London recently, I came across what would otherwise be just another shop selling tacky shite to tourists.

I nearly ignored it completely until I noticed the act of public service they were performing. The whole of the shop window was not being used to sell their tasteless wares. Instead, it had been given over entirely to display a deeply moving tribute, providing a focus for the grief and gratitude of all those passing by.

In the window was this.

Yes. It’s Queen Elizabeth II, with Marilyn Monroe’s hair.

Just how we all remember her.