The Ill Man's New Year Message

I am hungover. I am tired. I am trying to watch Chewin' The Fat............... So without further ado, the final two entries in my ALBUM OF THE YEAR countdown. 2- Funeral: Arcade Fire 1- Confessions On A Dancefloor: Madonna There. Now sod off.

Someone Save Me From Hogmanay!!

I hate it. More than I hate Christmas. All that fake bonhomie, all that nostalgic pish, the dull relatives..............A few drinks then early to bed I think. Well, woke up at 9.30 this morning. Combined with the previous nights snow turning to slush and making it almost impossible to get to work, it made for the most distressing morning possible. Supervisor took it well. Can't keep doing it though. Thats three times in about two months i've been hugely late. Over at Clairwil meanwhile, one can find out some interesting things about Uzbekistan, just on the off chance you fancied a wee winter break there...... Check the comments for the wit and wisdom of David Duff too. A man of unparalled insight and intelligence I think you'll find....... ALBUM OF THE YEAR (Cont) Yes, It's still going........... 4- Elevator by Hot Hot Heat: Canadas Hot Hot Heat are more than just a tad underrated. Appearing roughly around the same time as The Strokes, they sounded a tad too much like The Cure in places, but their debut Make Up To Break Up was still the sort of thing you would stick on at a party before shouting at people for not dancing to it (the ignorant pricks). Elevator irons out the rough edges and presents a band who know they are fucking awesome but the rest of the planet are still asleep(or listening to Franz Ferdinand to put it less politely) Highlights? All of it, but Island Of The Honest Men, Running Out Of Time and Pickin' It Up should all convince you of their genius without any trouble. 3- Capture/Release by The Rakes: They sound like The Futureheads do The Rakes. No bad thing. Lyrically i'm reminded of Wire, Buzzcocks and The Jam. This short and sweet offering is highly addictive and acts as a sort of hymn to the weekly work/party/shag/drop dead routine of a million hollow eyed twenty something office scrotes across the nation. Fine stuff. Final two tomorrow folks, if you can wait that long................ aloha!

Christ It's Freezing!!

It took ten minutes for the feeling to return to my legs this morning. Not nice. Now it's started snowing. Shite! Had hoped to put some of my own photos up tonight but Blogger is playing silly bastards with me so it'll have to be another "stockshot". Sorry. My rule with snow is the same as my rule with bodies of water. Lovely to look at as long as you don't expect me to go out in the stuff. I do hope the worst has past. We've had a light dusting out here in the west end. It's a pity the private school down the road isn't back yet or I would almost certainly see some hopeless cunt in a 4x4 come a cropper at some point. These are the little things that make life worth living, don't you think? Albums Of The Year - Ok, boring stuff, but I feel I can't let the year pass without selecting six of the best. Two tonight, two on Friday and the final two on saturday if I haven't lost the will to live............... 6- Bloc Party: Silent Alarm One of those records that unravels itself slowly in front of you and leaves you wondering how you lived without it. Obtuse but distinctive guitars, a genius drummer, delicate vocals and discreet but effective backing vocals are the base elements, all cut through with a world weary sadness that seems to be utterly genuine. 5- Eugene Kelly: Man Alive Eugene Kelly has been about as long as I can remember. His band was called Captain America until someone at DC(or is it Marvel?) decided otherwise. The band became Eugenius and released a rather fine record called Oomalama. Kelly had previously been in The Vaselines, a sort of c86 indie band. Their claim to fame was having three of their songs covered by Nirvana. One would have been forgiven for assuming that the big time was beckoning, but instead Kelly rumbled through the nineties in virtual annonymity. I will admit to losing touch with the great man since Oomalama and i'm not sure what he's released in the past five to ten years but this is an unexpectedly good record. As good as the last Teenage Fanclub Album. It's certainly varied, ranging from country ballads and Dylan-esque acoustic tracks to genuinely inspired moments of poptastic genius, the lyrics both caustic and heartbroken. To Be Continued.....................

Is That All There Is?

Evening all. Normality returns, and with it my good cheer. Almost. I really must do better next year. A week in the highlands at a remote B+B, or maybe a week in Prague....(Yes!!Yes!!) Boxing day was utterly ruined by the fact I spent two hours in baltic conditions watching Partick Thistle. I was never taken to the circus as a child but thanks to our very own ringmaster Dangerous Dick Campbell I got to see what I may have missed. There were no elephants, lions or ball juggling sea lions, though there were eleven brightly clad clowns masquerading as footballers. All they needed at full time was a car for them all to pile into so that the wheels and doors could fall off................. If you have quicktime you can have a bit of a laugh here. SPIELBERGS PRAYER FOR PEACE Couldn't help noticing that Steven Spielberg has made a film about the 1972 Munich Olympics murders and the reprisals meted out by Mossad. It's been slagged a bit by Israeli critics anyway, but it would seem that one of the masterminds behind the Black September group who murdered eleven Israeli athletes, Mohammed Daoud, has stuck his boot into it as well. To be honest, his problem was more to do with not getting a call to act as a consultant than anything else. He's unrepentant about his actions, which is to be expected. He may well have made a decent contribution to the film had he been asked but this is Spielberg and Hollywood, and the outrage that would have ensued had he taken part in the making of the film would have been commercial suicide. Ironically, it would have made me want to see the film even more...............Filthy terrorist lover that I am. As it is, i'll wait for full reviews before I decide to see this one. Interesting Viewpoint. Arabic Uncle Tom or the painfull truth? Une Bonne Nuit À Vous Toute!

If You Must

Happy Christmas. Awoken rudely by my grandfather this morning on an insane mission to hand his christmas present to me personally. He got as far as tripping over my amp and considering he's a ninety year old man of limited mobility, he did a damn fine job of staying on his feet. Must be some sort of death wish. Anyway, it all trundled by with little or no excitement. Eric babbled on about everything and nothing. At one point I wondered aloud how Lennoxtown would cope in his abscence. To hear Eric, you'd think he ran the place. Maybe he does.............. Marion, my fathers step sister arrived at about four and was unbearably nice, as she always is........In the only real action of the day my father had a shouting match over the Turkey with Grandpa about personal freedom and whether or not people should be protected from their own stupidity. Both sides made salient points but ultimately I couldn't give a fuck, so I went back to annoying people by pointing my new digital camera at them and firing off random pictures. Which leaves me here, fat as a fucking cow, slightly drunk and truly hoping they ban the whole pointless charade by next year. So There..............!

Sweet Christ, I Am So Tired.............................

Continuing my inexplicable fetish for snow scenes, todays picture is of a train somewhere south of the Ayrshire town of Maybole. It's by a chap called Brian Wotherspoon and I think it's a damn fine image. Todays All-In-One Christmas shop did for me. All bar a few items were purchased in one mad dash from Glasgow Cross, along Argyll Street, up Buchanan Street and onto Sauchiehall Street. Feeling a tad weary from the night before didn't help........ Having to swim against a tide of disgusting human detritous didn't help....... Not being able to figure out what to get for my brother didn't help............ I could go on, but I have neither the energy nor inclination. Let's just say that i'd sooner kill myself than endure that ever again. Goodnight my lovelies

More Snow Scene Bollocks

A little less urban this time. This was taken somewhere in the Eiffel Mountains in Germany. Nothing as such to report tonight. Clairwils latest missive is worth a look if you give a damn about skilled and intelligent people being kicked out of a country with a declining population to satisfy the percieved pathological xenophobia of Sun and Daily Mail readers that the labour party are banking on to get them in for another term. hasta la vez próxima............

I'm A What?

Having failed to write a single Christmas card this year(And why the fuck should I?), I have decided instead to dig out some festive looking nonsense from my archive in the lead up to Christmas and New Year. Todays offering is four badly dressed Mancs wandering up a picturesque snow lined avenue somewhere in the last century. That apart, I have Thieved a quiz shamelessly from the vaults of Tampon Teabag. Too good to miss really. What Kind Of Humanist Are You? To give you all a hoot, i'm what's known as a Haymaker..... "You are one of life’s enjoyers, determined to get the most you can out of your brief spell on Earth. Probably what first attracted you to atheism was the prospect of liberation from the Ten Commandments, few of which are compatible with a life of pleasure. You play hard and work quite hard, have a strong sense of loyalty and a relaxed but consistent approach to your philosophy. You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept though you might for a friend. Something of a champagne humanist, you admire George Bernard Shaw for his cheerful agnosticism and pursuit of sensual rewards and your Hollywood hero is Marlon Brando, who was beautiful, irascible and aimed for goodness in his own tortured way. Sometimes you might be tempted to allow your own pleasures to take precedence over your ethics. But everyone is striving for that elusive balance between the good and the happy life. You’d probably open another bottle and say there’s no contest." Total bollocks and unnervingly accurate in equal measures. fino a domani

You Smooth Talkin' Devil You...................

Evenin' all............ All fuckin four of you........................ I wish i'd never installed that bloody tracker. I remember a time when I was blissfully unaware of who was or was not accessing my blog. Only kidding. I love you all. Every person that's accessed this journal of banality, outrage-by-rote and the odd nice photo. Happy Christmas to ye all....................... Someone said a bizarre thing to me the other day. I was doing what I do at work, in this case, a bit of filing. Some bloke asked me one of those cretinous questions about my haircut(very short), you know, "Does your head not get cold................?", that sort of thing. Anyway, I said something dull that doesn't bear repeating. The girl sitting opposite said bloke then says something that i'm only just getting to grips with.................... "You've got a very soothing voice" I KID YOU NOT!!!!!!!! I didn't quite know what to say or where to put myself. I mumbled something, I think I said "Oh, I know". Obviously I didn't know, but it was all my helpless brain could muster in the circumstances. I made my exit and wandered back to my seat. Needless to say I now have my sights set on a position as a Radio 3 continuity announcer. Failing that she was taking the piss................I just wish people wouldn't.

Random Stuff

I see that the attempt to impose a speed limit on Loch Lomond has fallen through. Am I missing something? You want to go up and down aimlessly on your speedboat/jetski etc? Well do it somewhere else. Try the sea. Windsurfers canoe-ists and sailors are fine, as are others who use the Loch, but it would seem that the economy of the area would die without rich, stupid cunts coming up from the Glasgow suburbs with their glorified bath toys. Why? They bring their own bloody fuel anyway.....................Can anyone inform me of what these people bring to a local economy that other loch visitors don't? In other news, I discovered today that my workmate is a bit mad. We had an interesting discussion about abortion and euthanasia. he's opposed to both. Fine. I told him I was in favour of choice. he couldn't believe what I was saying. Amused me no end that. He's not religous, not particularly moral etc, but his biggest problem was with turning off life support machines or withdrawing feeding tubes from the severely brain damaged, even at the behest of the family. He tried unsuccessfully to convince me that to do such a thing is morally repugnant. He couldn't believe I was so cold. I prefer rational to be honest. I was saved from further interrogation by a trip to the Koh I Noor curry house along the road for "Christmas Lunch". Well, it was a cheap common or garden buffet curry, but the change was welcome. Very nice interior too, which was rounded of with a fountain of all things, in the centre of the restaurant. Right I'm off to watch 24 Hour Party People, the rather fine, if utterly apocryphal biopic about Factory Records, The Hacienda and Tony Wilson. Goodnight!

Search Engines Say The FUNNIEST THINGS!!!!!!

.........Depends on what you define as "Funny". Hello. I'm changing the name of this blog. There have been some distinctly unappealing search engine entries appearing in my tracker and I want this to stop. This blog will be known in the interim as "The Ill Man". I hope this is not too big a problem for those who link to me. I'd just keep the links as they are if I were you............ On an lighter note... a big up for The Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary. I have just realised that I cannot fucking spell and probably never could. This big red beastie has been lying beside my pc for months and has aided me a great deal in my blogging, ensuring I don't end up looking like the illiterate bozo I'm beginning to realise I am. It's also a majestic read, if you take a moment to read a page or two. Gute nacht meine freunde

Give It Up Audley...................

Not being the worlds biggest boxing fan, I missed most of tonights Commonwealth title bout between Audley Harrison and DannyWilliams. To be honest, I wished I hadn't bothered. I flicked over in round eight to see two chaps lumbering about the ring, Williams making some effort to instigate a bit of a scrap, Harrison merely using his height advantage and superior reach to palm off the attentions of his opponent. It would seem that this was how the fight had been going for most of it's duration. Harrisons somnambulant approach failed to pay off and Williams had him on the deck in round ten and then looked to have taken the final round. Two of the three judges agreed that Harrison was shite and gave the decision to Williams. The point? Why the Fuck do boxing crowds get all wet in the nether regions over heavyweights? They're shite. They're unfit, sloppy, and most of all they're boring. I missed the Amir Khan bout, but by all accounts he produced some fireworks. Typical of the little guys. Khan's fight was only four rounds and was merely warm up to the real thing. The real thing turned out to be two fat old ladies swinging their handbags at each other. I have a novel idea. Make Heavyweight bouts six rounders. Theres nothing sadder than watching these bloaters dead on their feet by round ten after having done nothing more than throw a few tentative jabs at each other for half an hour. If these two are the best the UK can come up with in the heavyweight division, then surely it falls to young Mr Khan to show what entertaining boxing is all about. Heres hoping.......................

Reeves, You Workshy Fop...................

As a cursory glance at my tracker tells me, an abscence of a few days will lead to a dramatic and rather depressing drop off in visitors to this here blog. So, in the abscence of anything worth posting I shall take this opportunity to flash up a picture of Bob Mortimer as the fabulous Graham Lister. Further links to Big Night Out lore here and here. I feel like a very, very old man now...................... Goodnight.

Mainly Football I'm Afraid...................

Hello............ Oh dear. It's been a while hasn't it? I have to get my posting here into some sort of routine. I've had a few things to attend to to over the past few days but really it's no excuse. First of all, congratulations to David Cameron on winning the race for the leadership of the Tory party. I look forward to New Labour and New Tory biffing it out over that prized piece of centre right political territory that the voters of this fair isle seem to go completely crazy for. It would seem the unfortunate Paul Gascoigne has had a torrid few days. Sacked from his job at non league Kettering Town and now behind bars for an assault on a photographer. I know nothing of the situation to be honest, except what the owner of Kettering has stated to the media. On one hand it's possible that poor old Gazza simply couldnt lay off the sauce. On the other, it's entirely possible that the chairman decided Gascoigne was a bit of a lemon as far as management was concerned and realised he'd made a mistake in employing him. Gazza should console himself with the fact that better coaches have been fired for little or no reason. John McCormack and George Burley could testify to that....................... Also a big shout to Rangers for getting into the last sixteen of the Champions League(European Cup in old money) Final proof, as if any were needed, that Falkirk, Livingston and Dundee United are every bit as good as Inter Milan and the Italian superstars have some way to go before they can consider themselves the equal of the likes of the mighty Hibernian and Aberdeen. Clairwil did a rather fine piece a few days ago on the great Jose Mourinho. I must say I agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment of the man, but tonights tie against Liverpool showed the flipside of this genius. An inability to admit that one of his players couldnt tackle a fish supper and should have been sent off for a knee high, studs up tackle that on another day would have snapped his opponents leg in two. No, oor Jose "Didn't see it". Funny, he see's just about everything else............

ill man Seeks Some Consumer Advice

Hello folks. Just a short post tonight. I was wondering if any of you could recommend an MP3 player to me. I'm looking for something cheap(ish) and easy to use. About half to one Gig would be ideal. The reason I ask is that I have barely a fucking clue what to buy. I know that anything under sixty quid will be shite, but betond that............. Failing that i'll just have to stick with me trusty old Walkman. I'm quite attatched to it actually. Still works after all these years and should do for a fair few more. Anyway, that's all for now.