// My So-Called Life
A Scary Thought
The music at the gym tends to fall into one of two categories: of the moment, cool chart pop (mainly indie) or donking thumping dance tracks. And whilst occasionally I find something of interest in the former category, the latter is one I despise utterly and so – when not with the sadist – I am to be found plugged into the JesusPhone.
Of course when I am with the sadist I have to listen to him (not that he believes for one minute I do) so I get subjected to the music from time to time.
On Thursday though, to my delight and surprise, somehow someone had sneaked Kylie’s version of “the Locomotion” into what was otherwise a painfully hip LA TV playlist.
Not only did I laugh out loud when I first heard it, but it put a grin on my face for ages.
I raised how unusual such a track was with the sadist and how I was surprised to find something so out of character blasting through the club.
“I think,” he muttered, bitterly “we just have to face the scary fact that there are probably other people out there in the world who think like you.”
And, as if he could somehow punish the world through me for this, he set me up some deadlifts.
Poor chap. He has to listen to that station on repeat all day…
Posted on February 27, 2009 | Filed Under Health and Fitness, My So-Called Life, Pop Music | 0 Comments
Rob is modelling the “Bruiser” look…
I don’t know if it was just that it was early, and maybe he hadn’t had his coffee, but I got the distinct impression that the barber wasn’t paying attention earlier.
It’s just an impression, mind. It first germinated when, following my request for a “grade two up the back and sides, and a little blending in on top”, he managed to somehow translate this into “a grade two buzzcut all over”.
If he hadn’t started this process in the middle of my head, of course, I may have been able to limit the damage somewhat; but as he did, I couldn’t.
Now all I need is an orange jumpsuit and the effect will be all but complete…
Posted on February 23, 2009 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 0 Comments
Further Gym-Related Expense
Much to my annoyance, I discovered the other day that whilst my shirt collars are looser now, I am going to have to buy a new suit.
My existing one doesn’t quite fit across the shoulders or chest in the way it used to. In fact it quite seriously inhibits my ability to move.
I may have to start taking these sorts of expenses out of the sadist’s payments.
Posted on February 20, 2009 | Filed Under Health and Fitness, My So-Called Life | 2 Comments
Che Guevara and Debussy to a Disco Beat
Naturally, despite the fact that the show itself was pretty atrocious from start to end, I am delighted that Pet Shop Boys won an award for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the Brits last night.
It’s only in recent years that I’ve come to appreciate how truly marvellous they are, and they have sort of snuck into the top spot of my list of favourite bands – even ahead of the Holy Trinity themselves, the Human League.
It’s probably shouldn’t be a surprise. As a bookish, reserved, melancholic, awkward, wannabe-intellectual gay it is somewhat inevitable that Neil Tennant should write the soundtrack to accompany my life. And my most significant relationships are echoed in so many of their songs it’s untrue. (When I was dating one for example, Jealousy and Domino Dancing chimed enormously with me, which in retrospect should have been a sign, and Nervously describes me in every single one I’ve had…)
It’s not entirely unfair that they get labelled as a gay band. It’s a frequent theme of theirs, touching on tragic gay bars (To Speak Is a Sin), failed gay utopias (Go West), the effect of Aids (the Being Boring trilogy, Dreaming of the Queen), closet homosexuals (Can You Forgive Her?, Bet She’s Not Your Girlfriend) and so on.
But to dismiss them as just a gay band is wrong as their subject matter ranges far and wide. They’ll have a pop at Morrissey (Miserabalism), fame-hungry nobodies (Shameless), Peter Mandelson (I Get Along), George W Bush (I’m With Stupid), ID Cards (Integral) and, amusingly, popstars who pronounce on politics (How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?). They’ll touch on Role-Strain, something I suffer from quite badly sometimes (Too Many People), fascism (Delusions of Grandeur), post-war difficulty (Up Against It) and deluded businessmen (Single) to name but a few.
Basically, they tackle more diverse subjects than most non-pop acts so it was about time they were recognised.
But I think what sets them apart is their bloody-minded refusal to do what people expect. It annoys people who just want them to put out another Very-esque album of disco stompers (even though that album isn’t actually that disco heavy), but it means they’ve a rich and varied catalogue which always sounds quintessentially them whilst regularly sounding like nothing you’ve heard them do before.
It also means that the claims of “a return to form” which have, bizarrely, been thrown at their last and next albums, are invariably wide of the mark. They can’t return to form, because they never actually left it, they just didn’t do what you expected.
And of course I love them because they’re not a rock act. They like dance music and they like pop music, like I do, and they manage to make both intellectually satisfying. “Depth through surface” is how they were once described, and I think that’s a fantastic result to achieve.
Here’s to more!
Posted on February 19, 2009 | Filed Under My So-Called Life, Pop Music | 6 Comments
Things You Don’t Want to Hear at a Party #3415
So there I was, at this party. Feeling a bit out of place, not really connecting with the occasion at all, slowly realising that I was one of the oldest people there, and that the majority of the attendees were younger, prettier, and more drunk than I.
It’s times like that you’re probably more easily wounded than others, isn’t it? So maybe I was being over-sensitive, and shouldn’t really be so depressed about it now, but there we are, this is me after all.
In any case what I really didn’t need to hear at that moment was one bright young thing say to another “Oh come off it, I’m closer to thirty-one than you are – and that’s really old?”
Cue Rob sloping off dejectedly and wanting to die…
Posted on February 15, 2009 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 2 Comments
Fuschia
Well, last night Daniel and I ventured out to see “Fuschia” by Matthew Westwood at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington. And a most diverting evening it proved to be – not least because the venue itself proved to be deeply surreal and Daniel was asked by some pissed-up old soak what my dowry was.
Yeah. It does seem that Daniel’s air of genteel amiability does tend to act as a magnet for nutters.
Anyway, the reason we went was because Jacqueline “Servalan” Pearce was in it, and since she’s just irrepressibly marvellous we felt we must. Plus it turned out that Gary Amers who played the rather fit boyfriend in Beautiful People was in it so I was doubly sold.
Now, I’ll be honest. There were about twenty minutes at the end where it went very mystical and spiritual, and since these are sadly not qualities I possess, I hadn’t the foggiest clue what people were talking about. But it was all terribly engaging stuff and had a very uplifting, if slightly melancholic, end.
I like my melancholia, I do. It suits my disposition.
And it was a great cast too. When Moya Brady, who played Bridget in Who’s Love and Monsters swanned on as… er… Bridget, I instantly thought “oh fantastic”, which indeed she then proved to be. Mark Dymond, Connie Hyde, James Carlton and Jamie Maclachlan then rounded off a cast of “oh, hang on, I know you”s who rather splendidly brought to life a series of neatly wrought characters.
It was Pearce and Amers who stole the show, though. You expect it from Jacqui I think, and her character is kind of exactly how I expect her to be in real life: playful, gently barking, spiritual and dazzlingly insightful. The way she played Amanda was so utterly charming, and I loved the moments when she lead other characters towards the brink of realisation whilst apparently agreeing with every wrong opinion they had. Plus there was an exquisite pleasure in seeing Chessene saying lines like “we fucked like flintstones” which had a power all its own.
Amers, however, was a shock. Talk about giving it your all. Admittedly his character’s final transformation could have been achieved with a big slap and a stern talking to, but the play probably would have been a bit too short then. It was a really quite uncomfortable performance: fantastic, mind, but as hard to watch as it was mesmerising.
And believe me, it takes a lot for me to find a fit man with his top off hard to watch, you mark my words.
So yes, all really very impressive. It runs until 22nd February and I think it’s definitely worth a look. Very funny and very harrowing by turns, which is no bad thing to be. A tour de force of writing, direction and performance. And one I’m still wrapping my brain round now.
Posted on February 4, 2009 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 1 Comment
Das War Selstam!
One of my goals for this year has been to learn German again. I did a bit of it at school because we were pretty much forced to learn a language of sorts, but I was never very good at it and had other things on my mind anyway.
But I’ve been to Berlin twice and loved it. And the more I get to know about Germany and its citizens the more I like them. They’re a very forward-looking people, and very tolerant – although this tolerance apparently doesn’t extend to Scientology, which is banned (so frankly I love them all the more).
I’ve even gone as far as watching extracts of Verbotene Liebe, the Das Erste version of Sons and Daughters. It’s gained a certain amount of international attention of late due to the gay couple Christian and Olli being amongst the hottest, sweetest and above all best acted gay couple on primetime telly. (And for a change, they get some. They’re not neutered and sexless like most TV gays.)
Admitedly it’s a good job someone’s been doing some fairly free translations for the subtitles, but I’ve been drawn into the story like you wouldn’t believe. Even to the point I want to watch whole episodes of the show from now on if I could just find them!
So I’ve been digging out the language aids. Getting some tuition podcasts, ripping Chris’ NLP German course to iTunes and flicking through my Lonely Planet phrasebook – a little book with a huge amount of humour to be had.
It contains, for example, German translations of the following phrases in its romance section:
- I’d rather not.
- Your ego is out of control
- That was weird
And my absolute favourite:
- Before this goes any further, I must be upfront. I’m an accountant.
Either the compiler of this volume has a very dry sense of humour, or they had a lousy time in Germany last time they were there…
Posted on January 25, 2009 | Filed Under Film, TV, Theatre, My So-Called Life, The World we Live In | 3 Comments
Into a Bright New Year…
I must admit that as I grow older I find myself less enamoured of the New Year’s Eve festivities. It’s like going out only more crowded, more expensive and there is an imperative placed upon you to stay up until at least 12 – something which I find myself increasingly ill-inclined to do.
I do, I must confess, need my beauty sleep. (In fact I’m obviously not getting nearly enough.)
So last night, in a slightly grumpy “oh what’s the point” frame of mind (and given the flatmate was chronically ill and would provide some company) I stayed in, with a view towards having an early night, and waking in the new year bright and refreshed and lacking in hangover.
Sadly, due to an extensive BlackAdder documentary on G.O.L.D and then the discovery of a Screenwipe special I ended up staying up until 12 anyway, but there we are.
I still went to bed, consumed a Nytol and awoke ten hours later feeling pretty damn marvellous if truth be told. So a Happy New Year to you!
Resolutions? I’m not normally prone to them, but symbolically I do appreciate the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and think what I want to achieve. So this year I would like:
- To not move house again. (If at all possible, thank you landlord and credit crunch.)
- To continue losing weight and toning up. The sadist is doing wonders so I shall keep him on as long as I can afford him.
- Drink less. It really has to stop. If nothing else I’m finding myself not wanting so much any more, which is encouraging.
- Write more. Already the cessation of quiz-related activities has left my creativity a little starved and Daniel and I have thus begun working on two new projects, as well as finalising the Vitriol script for touting around. Plus there’s the novel which really does need moving forwards. I’m feeling quite enthused by the possibilities right now.
I trust you have some aims for the new year, and I hope they will be attained in much the same way I hope mine will!
Happy 2009!
Posted on January 1, 2009 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 0 Comments
A Night of Revelry and Suspect Underwear
Well, the final quiz (or at least the final one with Rob and I in charge) went off on Tuesday and much fun it was too.
Surprisingly the place was absolutely packed which we really hadn’t expected. You’d have thought that what with people going away for Christmas and so on it’d have been a bit subdued, but no… whilst we didn’t push past our best ever number of teams, we were only one away from it.
And the booze flowed rather freely it must be said. Thank you to all those who bought us drink – even if I was struggling to drink it towards the end.
But what was most touching was that our most seasoned regulars – Team Nick Chips – who have been represented at pretty much every single one for the last 100 weeks got us presents. Which we then had to apportion out between us in a lucky-dip stylee. Thankfully I was too drunk to get too emotional but I find myself smiling in a sentimental way by it even now.
Although maybe I shouldn’t have put the prize Thong round my neck. I completely forgot about it and didn’t rediscover it until I got home.
Sadly this means that the fit guy on the tube wasn’t actually staring at me in a “cor, I’d like some of that” way after all. It was clearly a more “cor, look at that drunken idiot with the thong round his neck” kind of stare.
Never mind, eh?
And what will I be doing with my time now? Well… for one thing I’m discovering the joys of sleeping in a bit of a weekend. And for another my creative juices are being once more turned towards writing. 2009 is going to be the year Daniel and I get ourselves out there, I swear!
Posted on December 29, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 1 Comment
Bloody Typical
Only two weeks of the quiz left to do and, after about two months where creating one single round was like pulling teeth, suddenly I find I’m having trouble stopping.
I’ve written four rounds this weekend. I only needed two.
One of them’s a music round. I suddenly realised it was my last chance.
Posted on December 14, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 1 Comment