Balls to Xmas

Right, that's Xmas over with.

All fairly uneventful: the usual blend of eating and drinking punctuated with being humiliated at scrabble by schoolgirls. And hardly any TV. Got a bit of reading in though: I'm halfway through Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road', a bleak but highly readable account of a father and son travelling across the scrorched earth of a post apocalyptic USA. Mind you, I'm not looking forward to reaching the end - from the first page you know it can't possibly finish anything but badly. Also dipping into Claire Tomalin's 'Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man', very readable too, as well as ploughing on with the Brothers Karamazov, which I suspect I'll still be reading this time next year.

Predictably, the festive season has seen a hike in blood sugar readings. Unlike on previous holidays everything stayed under control while we were in Marrakesh - thanks mainly to scarcity of booze, a lot of walking and redistributing any white bread I was offered back to people in the street. In Blighty though things took a rather different turn and I registered a scary 15.7 the day after Boxing Day. That's what comes from sitting about on my arse boozing and feasting, it would seem. So back in London now and back on the bike but still some way to go to get back to base camp 6.0


On a lighter and more peurile note, here's some testicles in Yves Saint Laurent's Majorelle Gardens in Marrakesh that rather amusingly resemble cactuses.

Marrakeshmas

Back from a week in Marrakech - possibly the most extraordinary city I've ever been to. We thought we might struggle to entertain ourselves over 6 days in a comparatively small place but the Medina is a constant source of amazing sights and the main square, Jmaa el Fna (which translates as 'Assembly of the Dead') is full of all sorts of weird and wonderful goings on - often involving music and chickens, but also snake charming, boxing and fishing for large coca cola bottles. The whole haggling for prices thing becomes a tad wearisome after a while as all too late you realise you've become obssessed with trying to buy a lamp for 10p cheaper than in the last place you saw one. The charm of the stall holders speaking English seemingly acquired from repeated viewings of 'Only Fools and Horses' also wears thin rather quickly, and if I never see another tagine again in this life or the next it will be too soon. But despite all that the place still has quite an atmosphere, and you can't help expecting to see Peter Lorre come scuttling around the next corner. In any case it was worth visiting for the chance to take a picture of Shelly with a chicken on her head.



Merry Christmas one and all

Blix and Budo

Last 'Hello Goodbye' show of the year today, and we left 2006 in style with spirited sessions from Hans Blix & The Inspectors as well as Chik Budo, both excellent outfits well worth checking out and very nice chaps to boot. HB does a nice line in sardonic post modern country blues while CB's twin-saxophone, guitarless instrumental jazz punk is very stirring stuff indeed.

Off to Marrakesh on Monday to buy everyone a fez for christmas.

World's tallest man saves dolphins

Fantastic headline.

Three cheers for the lanky Chinaman!

Mule variations

Following Ed's splendid solo session on Saturday's show, Shelly and I sploshed through the rain to the Spitz last night to see the Mules, and it was well worth braving the elements for. I'm a sucker for a band with a singing drummer and these fellows are very very good live - to these ears occasionally reminiscent of the Violent Femmes, Kurt Weil, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Sparks, Adam and the Ants and, according to Shelly, Devo. That probably says more about our reference points than theirs though. As a tribute to another band they are sometimes compared to they included a storming version of Talking Heads' 'Life During Wartime' in their live set. Their own songs are just as strong though: seek out their excellent 'Save Your Face' album, it's terrific stuff.

Mules, Hinnies and Broccoli

Representatives of 3 of London's finest bands graced the show today. Ed from the excellent Mules played 3 solo songs and donated a copy of their album to the first listener to correctly identify a mule as the offspring of a donkey stallion (called a jack apparently) and a horse mare - the other way round produces a hinny, so he tells me. Melinda of the Bronsteins also played a trio of rather lovely solo songs and deXter Bentley's wayward adopted nephews the Xerox Teens lavished very loud and very live renditions of both sides of their new single upon the airwaves.

My Friday night, by contrast, included a rather banal visit to Tesco where I was served a young male cashier who was unable to identify all of my shopping. At one point he picked up an item and asked me what it was called. It was broccoli.

Merry Cropsmas

To the Garrison for the Crops annual festive works outing on Monday night. After deciding that it would this year be a 'No Wives' affair, David turned up with Steph in tow. She was very nervous about breaking the men only embargo, but Jon reassured her that we didn't really consider her as female, which made her feel much better, no doubt. Much ingestion of booze and poor quality vegetarian food ensued, with cocktails at the Village East. We finished off the night at the Rose, by which point I was on the diet cokes, it being a school night and all. Jon and David more than made up for my abstinence, with David several sheets to the wind and Jon ending up spending the night at her majesty's pleasure after apparently doing a runner from a minicab. Next year we'll invite the wives again.

Milton Arms

Spent Sunday evening at the Milton Arms in Bow, home to Rich of the Xerox Teens. It was closed down after someone was murdered there last year and is now awaiting demolition, but in the mean time they have the run of the place, which is surely every man's dream. Not the bit about living at a murder scene, obviously, but the having a bar for a living room part. Foolishly, I drove there so couldn't take full advantage of the facilities, but they did make us a very nice cup of tea, bless 'em. Not only that, but the deXter Bentley acoustic male menopause show seemed to go down rather well with the young people too.

Lot Lizards

London's finest Italian-Japanese garage punk twosome Lot LIzards played live on the show on Saturday, with Meg and GG keeping the noise and energy levels admirably high for a Saturday lunchtime. Peterborough's favourite daughter Lianne Hall provided a more mellow counterpoint in the control room with us. Spent a very worthwhile hour in the cafe afterwards teaching Chester the underlying principles of the knock knock joke, perhaps the finest art form known to humankind.

Get thee behind me Santa

Forgot to take my camera to the Crops gig at the Windmill last night so here's Shelly's Santa instead - the full extent of our Christmas decorations this year. Ho ho ho. Funny old gig: it was someone's birthday party so no-one was really paying attention to us. Which was a shame, cos we were good.