Well...
I hope it's been really sunny and hot where you are, because let me tell you, it's been fucking scorching in Edinburgh and Fife.
If the person in charge of the weather is reading, please let it continue up to - and including - Monday. That'd be grand.
What do you call Fab Photo Friday when you're probably not allowed to use that title?
Find out here...
Yes folks!
Nobody's favourite blog, Avenues and Alleyways, is now celebrating three years of uselessness.
Thank you to all those who can still be arsed coming back here time and again! I'm confident that you will continue to be as underwhelmed by this whole venture as I am.
Cheers!
If we put aside the stop/start Hollywood career and the (alleged) Courtney Love shagging, it's been a while since we had anything of substance from Steve Coogan.
Coogan's last main comic venture, Saxondale didn't exactly set the world alight (although I really liked it), and it's been about a decade and a half since we had any Paul/Pauline Calf video diaries. But let's face it, his most popular, enduring and hilarious character is, without doubt, Alan Partridge. And the great news is that the long-mooted film based on Norwich's finest DJ and one-time chat show host has been confirmed! Yee-hah!
I'd never heard of On The Hour, or the original radio version of Knowing Me, Knowing You (although I've since acquired them on CD and cassette, respectively), so my first real taste of Partridge was on BBC's The Day Today in 1994 and then later on the TV version of KMKYWAP. And I fucking loved him.
At first, I wasn't all that sure about I'm Alan Partridge when it debuted in 1997, but it's certainly one of those programmes which just gets funnier every time you see it. Both series are quite simply amongst the best comedies ever produced and they are jam packed with immensely quotable lines.
So, to celebrate the world of Partridge and the news about the film, why not submit your all-time favourite Alan quotes in the comments section below (just like one of those tedious conversations you hear students having in pubs)? Let's be having you...
It's been nearly two years since I left Corrieblog.
You may remember this post where I explained why I had kind of fell out of love with Coronation Street and - two years on - this other recent post might also suggest to you that there's still very little chance of a reconciliation.
Well... I recently received a kind invite from my old Corrieblog pal/boss, Flaming Nora, to be an occasional contributor to her excellent Coronation Street Blog. And, although my Coronation Street mojo has been well and truly down for ages, I have gratefully accepted.
So, my first post is here. You'll see I've kept it short and simple - just like me.
I'm away to Edinburgh tonight to go and see White Lies at the Picture House.
They were included in the BBC's top tips for 2009 at the end of last year and their debut album was released to a flurry of anticipation in January. They've since gone on to release a number of further singles, but the fever seems to have subsided somewhat. Anyway, I really like the "icy" and "sweeping" sound of their music and so I'm expecting a fair bit of dry ice tonight (takes me back!).
Having only just realised that it's been years since I've attended a gig, I've come to the conclusion that I'm really quite looking forward to it.
Hello.
I'm just back from a week's work in the Lake District. Very knackering, but also very enjoyable.
Last night's Question Time was a bit of a corker wasn't it?
And while I'm on, I've just got time for another quick moan...
T-Mobile's not-so-spontaneous flashmob adverts are seriously getting on my fucking wick. Peopled by no-one but utterly smug show-offs, these pish-casts have been tainting our tele-boxes for fucking months now. The new Trafalgar Square (ahem) singalong ones are just the encrusted and spunked-up icing on a shite-filled cake.
Aye... leaves a bad taste. What is it with these twats?
[Post script: As ever, feel free to usurp this post with the usual tide of indifference. Ta.]
I thought I'd break my self-imposed silence (brought about by a significant lack of blogging inspiration) just to say how much...
...I fucking hate it when people insist on beginning every other sentence with the words, "Do you know what?"
It's all the rage with folks on the telly and that.
I've always admired Ms Lumley for a number of reasons (not to mention decades)*, but how she totally kicked Phil Woolas's arse and led him by the nose in front of the UK press over the government's handling of the Gurkha affair was nothing short of inspirational.
I didn't realise you could embed BBC iPlayer clips... until now. So, get ready for my first ever lazy BBC iPlayer embed.
Yep, you'll all be fucking-well using that catchy phrase in your own blogs. Just give it time.
[* Absolutely Fabulous was a blip.]
If you'd asked me a couple of years back, I would never have said that I favoured EastEnders over Coronation Street. But these days - and I never thought I'd hear myself say this - EastEnders certainly seems to have the edge.
Sure, all this I'm-gonna-leave-the-Square/Walford pish, recycled car accident death storylines and unrelenting Max Branning tear-stained misery has been done to death over the past couple of years, but fuck me, the writers have been adding a fair bit of inspired humour to proceedings of late.
How about Ian Beale's ill-advised arse tattoo (which he bared to the rest of the Vic under duress), or Jane Beale's lingerie-clad, living-room based pole dancing (hilariously interrupted - and witnessed - by one Dot Branning)? Or what about Heather and Shirley's recent George Michael-stalking wall scaling? Shit, in the past seven days alone, we've had Heather's (unintentionally) side-splitting Sir Digby Chicken Caesar-style asthma attack and AlcoholicPhil's marker pen make-up. On balance, things are looking brighter in Walford.
The introduction of the Masoods - coupled with the re-introduction of "classic" characters such as "Nasty" Nick Cotton, Les Dawson look-a-like Ricky Butcher, Bianca Jackson/Butcher/Jackson, Janine Butcher (mk 3) and (in the near future) Sam Mitchell (mk 1) - seems to have given the show a further shot in the arm.
EastEnders more watchable than Coronation Street? Never thought I'd see the day.
Today, I managed to combine four of my least favourite things into one, handy, bite-sized lump of disappointment.
I fucking hate Bank Holidays. I hate how lots of shops and business are shut and how those that are open are way too busy. I hate that there's no rhyme or reason over what's open and what's not. I hate how the buses run Saturday services. I hate how the telly schedules change. And I hate how you can never tell whether it's a national or local Bank Holiday (even some of the banks are open on Bank Holidays). I think you get the picture.
I'm not at work today, but it's got nothing to do with the Bank Holiday - it's just my rota day off, so it's just down to coincidence. The schools are shut though, so that means I get the chance to spend an extra day with the kids.
Being the kind of dad who likes to treat his two daughters, I decided I'd put aside my utter contempt for Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana and all the shite music that goes with her shite show on the shite Disney Channel (a rolling 24 hour service for insomniac Camp Rock, Suite Life Of Zack and Cody, HSM and Cyrus fans - I'm going to put a fucking block on that channel, I fucking-well swear) and take them to see Hannah Montana: The Movie* which they've been looking forward to for some time.
Anyway, getting there involves a journey on Stagecoach Fife's least pleasant service, the 19A which, running between the arse end of Rosyth and Ballingry, services such salubrious locations as Cowdenbeath, Lochgelly and Lochore en route. This inevitably means that all human life can be found therein. Without wishing to sound like some kind of snob when I say this, I just have to question the mentality which makes some people think it's okay to:
The bottom line is that these people have a clear choice not to act this way, but still do. So, that makes me despise them. Anyway... Stagecoach (the fucking robbing, monopolising bastards) continue to simultaneously reduce their service and hike up their prices. So I hate them too. It's lose-lose all the way.
At Fife Leisure Park, you'll find the soulless husk that is The Odeon (Fanatical About Film? My fucking arse. More like, fanatical about fleecing the bovine hordes who walk, trance-like, through their doors, troughing on cardboard popcorn and extreme-pish-inducing buckets of Coke. Ugh.). I might have put aside my Cyrus/Montana hatred for the sake of my children, but I had to draw a line at the queues which stretched around the foyer and out into the car park. Seriously. Even the kids felt that it was a bit excessive and so, by mutual consent and a promise that I would certainly bring them back another time, we diverted off to Dobbies to look at the fish and then catch another 19A back into town. Although I hate to feel I've let them down, they were - to my surprise - nowhere near heartbroken. Bless.
Anyway, every cloud... as they say. Back home just in time to catch today's Countdown.
[*Isn't it really helpful when things are subtitled in this way? I mean, there's a real likelihood of turning up at the cinema and watching Hannah Montana: The T-Shirt in error, isn't there? Happens all the time. If it wasn't for really specific titles such as 24: The Game or Batman: The Animated Series, all us stupid folk would be well-fucked! Roland Rat: The Series? Well, I wouldn't expect to be watching Roland Rat: The Yogurt Drink on the telly, would I? Fuck's sake.]
Make sure you've got your Tena Lady on folks. Yes, the original - and best - lazy YouTube embed (credit where it's fucking-well due, - you know I first coined that phrase, you charlatans) is back!
For this can't-be-arsed-to-write, easy, sleazy attempt at generating fuck-all comments, I have (ahem) travelled back to 1982 to select what tedious music commentators might describe as a "slice" (???!!!) of perfect '80s pop (that doesn't mean I don't think it's perfect, its just that I hate cliched music journalism). What better for a Sunday night than ABC's, Trevor Horn-produced classic, All Of My Heart? Heartache, heartbreak, sweeping strings and a silken vocal performance - it's all in there.
1982 was a particularly fruitful year for this kind of well-crafted, soaring and romantic tunesmithery. And if you don't fucking believe me, then read this and this. Like me, you probably rarely play lazy YouTube embeds in folk's blogs, so it's unlikely you'll play this one - but you really, really should. Your choice.
