The DMS

This post was going to be a complete slagging of The Delicious Miss Dahl, which I watched for the first time last night. I gather the poor lass has got a big enough kicking for it as it is (look what happens when you let Jamie Oliver run his own production company), so I'll just leave you with a few random thoughts:

• Ruined rhubarb by putting it in Eton Mess
• Shepherd's pie made with those awful puy lentils?
• Poetry readings?
• Incredibly stodgy-looking blinis
• I hate smoked salmon so she wouldn't be dishing that up to me in the hope it would bring me onside
• Notice she didn't cook on the immaculate Aga - that's because everything would take days to cook and she's only got half an hour
• Dicking around in a second hand bookshop
• Dicking around in a railway station
• I still would though - and look at who she married, there's clearly no accounting for taste

Anyway, I heard this song on the radio today. I remember it getting loads of play in our house when we were kids because Mum had it on a country compilation album called, you guessed it, Country Life. I reckon she loved it because she knew all the words. Hearing it today, for the first time in years, made me realise that it's clearly about al fresco shagging. I hope she didn't love it so much because it brought back happy memories of her callow youth. Still, it's a great song.

'Lusty'

I've just received this newsletter from Airfix (yeah, I get Airfix newsletters, what are you going to do about it?) on their latest kit: "HMS Illustrious is an impressive 209m long, with a beam of 36m and a displacement of 22,000 tonnes. She has 1400 compartments and 15 lifts, and is powered by four Gas Turbine Olympus engines (a marinised version of Concorde's), giving her a top speed in excess of 30 knots. When fully operational she has a full complement of over 1000 people, and can operate with a range of both rotary and fixed wing aircraft from the Harrier GR9 to troop- carrying Chinooks. This collection comes with extra unique information supplied exclusively by the Royal Navy. (This Gift set includes paints, brushes and glue)"

That's a bloody big model kit, isn't it? It sounds like 1:1 scale to me. How will I get it on my kitchen table to construct it? Or will I need to make it in sections to be put together outside? I don't have a slipway handy either.

Edward the Caresser

I watched that documentary about Edward VII that was on recently earlier tonight. I'm nowhere near a monarchist but I do feel that if we have to have a monarch they should all be like old Eddie.

Let's start with his mother. I love the fact that she had a face like an old boot and was about three feet tall but still had a voracious sexual appetite and made damn sure she married a bloke with an enormous Johnson.

Moving onto Eddie, he behaved exactly like I believe the first in line to the throne should behave - he spent as much time as possible in Parisian knocking shops sitting in bathfuls of champagne while entertaining at least one French tart. He also used to go to these country house weekends where it all used to descend into mass orgies that would have made Caligula blush. His earlier life is peppered with tales of comely young actresses and music hall stars being snuck into university parlours and army mess rooms.

Of course, when he came to the throne everyone thought he'd be an unmitigated disaster - especially as his mother didn't trust him to take any of her responsibilities in her old age so he was completely clueless - guess what? He was a rip-roaring success, with a common touch! Hurrah for Edward VII!

I reckon they're still up to those tricks now, I mean even someone as lowly as Prince Edward has had a go on Ulrika Jonsson (mind you, who hasn't? By my reckoning, at the rate she gets through blokes, my turn's due in September 2018). And Prince Charles was knocking off that Kanga woman and Camilla at the same time. He did make sure they'd both produced sons by their husbands first though. He has some standards, clearly...

Thing is, if I found myself in the same position I'd be exactly the same - it'd be Party Central, oh yes. Take people like Keith Moon or John Bonham, is it any wonder they acted the way they did with all that put in their path? If it were me I'd be driving Rolls Royces into swimming pools while off my tits on some kind of stimulant, or taking blow jobs just prior to stepping into a top fuel dragster. Looks like I'd better get my head down with the drums then...

Escape from the cinema

Hey, remember that film Escape to Victory? Yeah, terrible, isn't it? Well they're only going to remake it. The ringleader? One Mr Vinnie Jones. Oh dear. Why remake something that bad? The original starred footballing greats like Pele, Bobby Moore and, er, John Wark. Who does Mr Jones want to put in the Bobby Moore role? Yes, that's right, David Beckham aka The World's Most Overrated Footballer. Three cheers for Becks! Not.
He'd love that, Beckham, wouldn't he? He can really mix it up with his mates in La-La Land if he's made a fil-m. Perhaps his big buddy Tom Cruise could give him some acting tips. Or then again, maybe not.

Another irritation this week:

• The new Jacob's Creek ad. The very idea of dinner parties fills me with dread at the best of time, but this ad is set at a dinner party with a bunch of wise-cracking Australians. In my head I shoot the fucking lot with an AK47.


• Those pricks who sat behind me at Forest last night. For their information that 'little Scottish twat' is the same 'little Scottish twat' who got our team to third in the table. Oh, and to the woman who shouted out "I'm missing Holby City for this!", why didn't you stay at home then? Although someone's retort of "Who are they playing?!" was inspired. Sometimes the things people shout out are hilarious (there's nothing more life-affirming than hearing a nine year-old boy, in full view of his parents ,shout "The ref-er-ree's a wanker!"), not that crew, they were just full of bullshit from the first whistle. Even when we were coasting to a win. What makes it worse is that they were clearly season ticket holders. Groo!

Non-irritations this week:

• Alison Steadman and David Troughton in Alan Bennett's Enjoy at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham. Good to see quality actors actually at work. And who'd have thought Bennett would have put blow job gags in one of his plays? Steadman looked absolutely knackered during the curtain calls though.


• Alice in Wonderland. I got caught up in the whole 3D gimmick with this. The 3D doesn't actually make that much difference apart from a few spears being thrust towards the screen, but thoroughly enjoyable nevertheless. I reckon it's only the second Tim Burton film I've seen too.


• Drums. My man got me to do some hard stuff this week. I need to practise, so it's good I've bought my own drum kit, int'it?


• Forest manager Billy Davies's match programme notes; I'd love to hear them read aloud by a five year-old.

Anyway, if you don't like this then you don't like music:

O baterista

The drums then. Well it all went rather swimmingly, especially as I was having my doubts approaching the rehearsal studio where the lesson took place; it was at some industrial units at a farm just out of town. Very dark and very lonely during the evening.

I introduced myself to the teacher and after we exchanged pleasantries he sat me behind the drums straight away and we were in. I don't like blowing smoke up my own trumpet but he said that he couldn't believe that I'd never played the drums before as I was picking it up straight away and had bags of 'natural rhythm', oo-er. Or do you think that was a ploy to give me confidence and go back? After twenty minutes I was playing a basic rock drum pattern which he said can be heard, most famously, on AC/DC's Back in Black. Which is handy as that's the ringtone on my mobile.
He then stood there and said "We'll have you playing Rush fills in no time." the word 'fills' means nothing to me, it must be something technical, but I smiled to make out I knew what he was on about. In fact, we spent half the lesson talking about which bands we liked in common.

The upshot is that he says I need to practise, practise, practise. So to that end I'm in the process of buying an electronic drum kit. I'd love an acoustic drum kit but space is at a premium and there are other people to consider. If I get good at it I'll have an acoustic kit though. So my teacher is coming with me tomorrow afternoon to demo a drum kit I've seen and tell me if it's any good or not.
I'll bugger off before I turn into a drum bore. Next lesson on Monday. Can't wait.

Genius:

De slagwerker

Would you say I've got something wrong with me? I ask this because over the course of the last couple of weeks, three different people have said I've 'got problems'. All this stems from me constantly spraffing off about people on the telly/radio/in the public eye generally.
First up my gaffer insists on listening to Chris Moyles in his office, every time I go in there he says I moan about the guests he has on. He claims I 'have a problem'.
Secondly, I was at Forest last weekend and moaned to my mate about Gary Lineker appearing in the match programme promoting the Nottingham Sport Relief Mile. I think my words to him were "Why is this jug-eared Leicester c**t in my Forest programme?" to which he, quite rightly I suppose, replied "Jesus, it's for charity, calm down."
Thirdly I spent some time at my sister's house at the weekend when that Redknapp Thomas Cook ad came on the telly. That really got me riled up, to which she said "Are you all right? It's not worth getting stroppy about." Again, I guess she's right.
I think I can make a list of the people I've moaned about either on the internet or to other people in my day-to-day life over the past couple of weeks:

1. Larry Lamb


2. George Lamb


3. Anvil


4. Judas Priest


5. Burke Shelley


6. The entire cast of Married Single Other


7. Graham Norton


8. Jonathan Ross


9. Alan Carr


10. Fearne Rotten


11. John Terry


12. Frank Lampard


13. Robbie Savage


14. Nigel Clough


15. Wogan


16. Mark Owen


17. Sue Perkins


18. Kerry Katona


19. Steve Claridge


20. Martin Samuel


21. Patrick Barclay


22. Lady GaGa


23. Florence off of Florence and The Machine


24. Louise and Jamie Redknapp


25. David Beckham


26. Cheryl Cole


27. Simon Cowell


28. Amanda Holden


29. Totimoshi


30. Tom O'Connor


31. Mike Dilger


32. Jay Rayner


33. James Martin


34. That other prick off of Saturday Kitchen


35. Lesley Joseph


36. Lee Westwood


37. Marcus Brigstocke

And they're just the ones I can remember. Perhaps I ought to stop wasting my time thinking about people I don't like and start concentrating on the people I do like. The people I do like are the sort of people who like Mastercrafts. I love Mastercrafts, have you seen it? It's not a very rock 'n' roll TV show I'm afraid, but it does feature Monty Don. A few years ago Monty Don might have appeared in that list above. That was until I saw him in a series where he let the local smackheads come and work on his smallholding, on the condition that they didn't bring any of The H with them. My opinion of him immediately changed from 'huh, another TV gardener' to 'hmm, what a patient and tolerant gentleman.' Anyway, Mastercrafts is a programme where three people each get the chance to try out different crafts each week, like carpentry, stonemasoning (?) or farriering (?). That's ordinary people, not so-called celebrities. And there's no grand prize, the prize is that you get your work exhibited somewhere, or you get six months work experience. This week's was particularly good on weaving. A bit of a dry subject, eh? But made a bit less dry by the fact that I totally fell in love with one of the ladies doing it, the improbably-named Holly Berry. She reminded me of a girl I used to go out with: made her own clothes in the way that art students do, always looked like she'd just got out of bed, a bit whey-faced, very good with her hands (she, me ex, knitted Van Gogh's Sunflowers for an end of year exhibition at college, it was very good), likes Tracey Chapman etc. Mastercrafts is a bit like a long soak in the bath - not much happens but it's extremely satisfying. It's nice people doing nice things.

And, in the spirit of Mastercrafts, I'm trying something new tonight when I go for my first drumming lesson. Some have already scoffed at the idea of drum lessons. Let them scoff is all I can say. I don't have much in life to look forward to or get excited about at the moment, so I thought I'd try something new to get enthusiastic about, and I'm very enthusiastic about this. What's wrong with self-improvement and picking up a new skill? I'll report back later in the week after I've find out if I'm going to be the next Buddy Rich or the next Meg White.

Wassocks

What gives with Larry Lamb, the actor? I don't really like him as he always reminds me of the kind of guy who runs an amateur porn business - as featured about ten years ago on Channel 4's excellent Boogie Nights in Suburbia documentary.

Aside for the fact that he looks like a rubbish version of Larry Flynt he also made a complete arse of himself on a thing last night called Famous, Rich and Jobless. The premise being that four 'celebrities' are out in the real world to find out what it's like to be unemployed. They're all given cash equal to four days worth of benefits to live on and a roof over their head. Then they're supposed to look for work. Old Larry thought it'd be a jolly wheeze not to bother looking for work but to go to Asda and buy the cheapest food possible ("Look at this, eighty two tea bags for twenty eight pence!") and toss it off the rest of the time. While he was in Asda he was recognised and loved playing up to the crowd, waving and asking people if they watched Eastenders and so on. What a dick. But he did pick up an application to work in Asda. He never filled it in claiming that he didn't have a pen with which to do it. Larry was seen filling it in later though - on behalf of the woman whose flat he was living in.

His son gets my goat too. I had the misfortune to see a little bit of the Baftas red carpet programme which George Lamb was presenting. As well as having the dullest voice on the planet, he then proceeded to ask almost everyone he interviewed about how great an actor his dad was, like he was Brando or De Niro or something. That's Larry Lamb who appeared in Triangle. What a pair of cocks.

Anyway, someone else who lives in a bit of a bubble is the hapless, but strangely loveable, Jeremy Vine. On his radio show this lunchtime they had some old dear on who was trying out the internet for the first time. She was being given instructions down the phone about how to go about connecting to the internet and doing a basic search with the aid of Martha Lane Fox:

Old Dear: "I've got a big white Google page."

Martha Lane Fox: "Okay, now, type into the box something you'd like to know about. What are you interested in?"

Old Dear: "I love craft work."

Jeremy Vine: "The German band...?"

Old Dear: "Eh?"

Jesus wept...