It's a town full of losers, I'm pulling out of here to win

Yay! I finally figured out how to do all the stuff on Blogger I could do before but then couldn't do...if you see what I mean. I'm not very computer literate I'm afraid. Thanks to all you kind folks who offered suggestions as to the cause of my problems. All I had to do was click Blogger's new thing-a-me-jig. Hurrah!

Anyway, where were we? Aah yes, turning forty. I'll be celebrating my fortieth birthday in less than six months' time, and I'm dreading it already. I can never understand these people who want to celebrate their fortieths. I hate the fact I'm getting older. I suppose if I had kid I'd treat it differently. But how can you have kids when your a big kid yourself? My greatest dilemma in life is to try and choose between Sugar Puffs and Ricicles. See? I even eat kiddies's cereals. I suppose I should be eating Shredded Wheat, but they're so chuffing boring.
And when does it become unacceptable to wear t-shirts with the names of bands on? I'm writing this in a khaki Metallica t-shirt with the band logo on the front and the legend 'Death Magnetic' on the back. Is this type of garment the preserve of the fourteen year-old and not the forty year-old? Likewise, when do you stop wearing Converse sneakers? It's a bloody minefield. I mean, I want to stay 'down wi' kids' but by the same token I don't want to look like Tommy Saxondale (though I wouldn't mind a bit of his hair).

Staying on the subject of having kids, I'm reading Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern at the minute. It's based on this Justin's Twitter feed, the title's pretty self explanatory. If I was a dad (some chance!) I hope I'd be like Halpern Snr. He doesn't suffer fools gladly and treats his kids like adults. I don't mean like those awful liberal parents who nip down to the shop to buy their kids fags and believe they've got as much to learn from their kids as they have from them. He's the sort of dad who tells it like it is. No bullshit. What particularly struck a chord with me was when Justin took him a Lego model as a child and his dad told him it was crap. You see even as a kid I could never understand parents who put their kids' artwork up on the wall and tell them how great it was. It really used to annoy me on Blue Peter when they'd get the viewers to design the Christmas stamps. The winner of the first class letter stamp would always be a red splodge with a white splodge on top which was supposed to represent Father Christmas. On the display behind the presenters they'd display the other entrants and you wanted them to pick the really detailed thing done by some art A level students. Can you imagine these Christmas cards being delivered from abroad and the kind of message it sent out about Britain? I always wanted to shout at Simon Groom or Lesley Judd to go back and rethink what they think should have won. I always remember some party on a park in London (don't ask me which one, London parks after Hyde, Regent's and St James's all blur into one for me. You go there looking for two things, to get stabbed or jerked off) when I was about eight or nine in honour of the Queen or something. This must have been quite an important party because it was broadcast live during the school holidays. This party boasted the world's longest poster - painted by bloody kids of course - and at the very end of this poster was The Queen. Her Maj was duly escorted to her part of the poster where a youth worker had let the kids paint Our Lovely Queen Gawd Bless Yer Ma'am black. I seem to remember finding this absolutely hysterical and going to find Mum to show her. She turned around and walked straight out as soon as she saw it was Geoffrey off of Rainbow who was guiding The Queen around because she hated both him and everything to do with Rainbow.
Anyway, just thought I'd tell you that...

Right I'm off on my hols for massive chunks of the next month so there'll be no more posting, Faceberk, Twatter or whatever. I need a break from all this intertwat madness every once in awhile. I'm going to do what 70s rock stars used to do and get my head together in the country. In fact I'll be a bit like Yes when they recorded Tales From Topographic Oceans; they couldn't decide whether to record in the country or the city so they bought in straw bales and stuffed sheep to the recording studio in London. So I'll be going to both the country and the city. Best off both worlds, eh? Whichever, I'm jumping on a freedom moped out of this town.
I'll leave you with something nice and summery and one of only two songs I like by Springsteen, who doesn't like to see the girls in their summer clothes? Pip pip, have a good summer and I'll see you around. You'll have to click here to see it as Broooce doesn't want no Limey, Chevvy-hatin', blue-collar-anthem-deridin' dude embedding it.

I'm going to ring-rang-a-dong for a holiday

This is going to be my last blog post for a while as, thanks to my employer's policy of making us all have two weeks off when holidays are at their most expensive, I'm going away at the weekend and, along with the fact I'm going to be away for a chunk of August, I'll have limited internet time over the summer. So I thought I'd do a what-I've-been-watching-on-TV round-up.

Let's start with Guesstimation, a dreadful new Saturday night vehicle for Nick Knowles. It won't surprise you to learn that I hate Knowles. He comes across as the kind of idiot who stands at the bar in pubs spraffing off to his pathetic mates about how great he is while mentally undressing every woman who walks into the bar. To compound my hatred I heard him being interviewed on Radio Nottingham last week while trying to promote Guesstimation. While he was at it he thought he'd slip in that he's doing a new reality show. The woman interviewing him stopped him and reminded him that in the past he's slated reality television (while conveniently forgetting that he made his name on DIY SOS, and appeared on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy), well of course he went off on one defending what he'd said and his show. Like I said, an idiot. And have you ever noticed that, apart from DIY SOS, his shows never get past a couple of series before being canned? Why is he still employed by a major terrestrial broadcaster, anyone else would be on QVC by now. Oh, and that permanent 'designer stubble' winds me up a treat an'all.
Anyway, getting back to Guesstimation, it's crap. It surely has to be the dullest game show format ever devised. the aim of the game is, get this, to guess stuff. Well that's not very interesting for the viewer is it? There's no conferring so we have to wonder what two teams of twats are actually thinking. There's nothing for the viewer at home, well, apart from throwing crisps at the telly when one woman guessed that Tokyo was 350 miles away from London. That's the distance form London to Edinburgh.

At the weekend I watched a film on BBC4 called The Mother, it was shown as part of BBC4's season about old codgers. The film's plot revolved around a widow (Anne Reid) having an affair with her daughter's boyfriend (Daniel Craig). I don't know why, but the sight of Ken Barlow's first wife being taken up the Gary Glitter by James Bond has traumatised me and left having nightmares.
The film didn't really go anywhere and at the end I was left feeling worthless and empty. No doubt Reid and Craig had similar feelings when they watched it back. Having said that though, Anne Reid does have nice knockers for her age.

What about Wallander? Have you seen that? I'm not talking about those Kenny Branagh ones from last year, I'm talking about the Swedish ones currently running on BBC4. I've only seen the one, but they're very good. I have to watch them in bursts of a bout thirty minutes at a time though because of the subtitles. Normally when you watch a film with subtitles it's usually French and the action's punctuated with bits of rumpy-pumpy so you have time to give your brain a rest. Wallander's relentless though, the plots moving on constantly so you don't even have time to think that they all sound like the chef off of The Muppets.
Apparently Wallander says an awful lot about modern Sweden. Shame that, I've always fancied going to Sweden, but I don't fancy getting blown up in a bank.

Don't get me started on On Thin Ice, a show where Ben Fogle and James Cracknell try and race other teams to the South Pole. I watch it because I find polar exploration fascinating, but I find the whole thing rather pointless. If you're going there for scientific purposes, fair enough, but to go and race? You need your head looking at. And they're so miserable doing it, especially when Cracknell's foot looks as though it's going to drop off and he wakes every morning to a massive coughing fit. Factor in the fact that you're constantly trying not to get frostbite in your winkle every time you go for a leak, and a happy time is not being had by all. I find it oddly enjoyable though.

Also good to see the return of Only Connect. The contestants are usually overgrown students, but I enjoy it, not least for Victoria Coren. I'd marry her, I would. The problem is she's a shark at poker and I have trouble remembering the rules to snap. Never mind, we can but dream.

While I'm away this blog will celebrate its 1st birthday (a week tomorrow), which is something of a feat for me as my blogs don't normally make it that far. So happy birthday Modern Gutnish! You'll never know how much trouble I had naming you.

Right, that's me then, I'll leave you with my favouritest summer song in the history of the world. Have a good summer and I'll see you in a few weeks. Bye!

Reel to reel warping

Hey, remember the summer? No, not much to write home about, was it? Well I got in my car today for the first time in ages, and look what I found. At some point over the summer, it must have been warm enough to do that to one of my groovey compilation tapes (it's been photograghed while resting on my denim-clad thigh - calm down, ladies). Ain't Mother Nature er-mazing sometimes?

As you can see I don't go in for writing on those little stickers to put on the tape, I love the mystery when you put it in the 'deck'. I wonder what's on it? Probably a weird mix of this, this, this and this.