Midway through season four of my annual Buffyfest and it appears I am not alone.
This from today's Guardian.
Gotta love that first paragraph.
So …
Play amongst yourselves, I'm heading back to Sunnydale.
"Deprimere ille bubula linter!"
"Er … Debase the beef canoe? Why does that strike me as not right?"
… etc.
Showing posts with label Buffy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buffy. Show all posts
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
New Baby
Shitty biscuits! I didn't realise how dusty my lamp was until I looked at the photo. Now it's all nice and gleaming and shiny again.
My many Macs have been misbehaving while I've been at work and I got home yesterday to find they had produced a new baby. A teeny-tiny sooper-cute ickle MacBook Pro. How sweet is that?
Apologies for the mess all over my desk. And yes, that's the Big Box of Buffy (again). Yesterday was the one-hundredth anniversary of the death of Bram Stoker, which gave me the excuse (as if one were needed) to start my annual non-stop seven series Buffy-fest; one of the greatest pleasures of not having a life.
Anyhoo … There are now eight boxes of Apples in my house. I SO need a girlfriend to nag me and shriek "YOU CAN'T AFFORD THAT!" and "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU NEED ANOTHER COMPUTER FOR?"
Yeah, right …
In the meantime I'm off to play with the new baby. It really does demand my attention …
My many Macs have been misbehaving while I've been at work and I got home yesterday to find they had produced a new baby. A teeny-tiny sooper-cute ickle MacBook Pro. How sweet is that?
Apologies for the mess all over my desk. And yes, that's the Big Box of Buffy (again). Yesterday was the one-hundredth anniversary of the death of Bram Stoker, which gave me the excuse (as if one were needed) to start my annual non-stop seven series Buffy-fest; one of the greatest pleasures of not having a life.
Anyhoo … There are now eight boxes of Apples in my house. I SO need a girlfriend to nag me and shriek "YOU CAN'T AFFORD THAT!" and "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU NEED ANOTHER COMPUTER FOR?"
Yeah, right …
In the meantime I'm off to play with the new baby. It really does demand my attention …
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Know Your Chicken
Wow!
Kate, our champion Buffster suffered a temporary memory-fritz and actually had to Google for the answer to the way too easy quiz in the previous, worthless filler post … though she compensated with some gloriously bitchy trivia notes of her own.
Time for some answers, then.
Time to put the Buffsters out of their collective misery and for the rest of you to go "Yeah … Whatever … I couldn't give a shit."
In answer to the questions:
"Where, doing what, and wearing what colour lipstick did John and Yoko's sprog, Sean Lennon appear as himself in Buffy The Vampire Slayer?", I refer you to the opening episode of Series 2 … Whaddya mean you don't have it on DVD? Go out and buy it now!
Let's set the scene:
For the unBuffsters among you (Hi, Robyn and Lynn and Katherine), Buffy is set in the fictional Southern California town of Sunnydale, down at the scuzzier end of which is a nightclub and occasional vampire hangout called The Bronze.
Rather than just have some crappy DJ and backing track, those lovely, cuddly Buffy production folk decided to support live music and especially up-coming and cool bands; the upshot being that every scene set in the nightclub has totally groovy acts up on stage.
Even cooler; the acts were never mentioned in the credits; you had to search out posters in the background or dotted around the town/school/college to discover who they were, then look 'em up and try out their stuff.
So … Series two; episode one:
There on stage at The Bronze, doing his regular day-job playing bass for one of the grooviest bands ever to hit this planet was young Sean Lennon.
The band was - of course - the sadly defunct but weird, wacky and wonderful Cibo Matto, fronted by oddball Japanese girls Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda (the latter of whom young Lennon was dating at the time).
They performed the strange, dancey "Spoon" and the languorously sexy and gorgeous "Sugar Water", while Buffy (in full-on slut mode as Kate points out) and Xander practiced foreplay on the dance-floor.
For reasons best known to himself, Sean was wearing icky blue lipstick (see the screengrabs below for the full awfulness).
If you don't already have all their stuff, you should check out Cibo Matto.
They're what happens when Japanese girlie-pop weirdness crashes into the New York Art Rock crowd and starts dancing.
If I mention that such awesome luminaries as guitarist Marc Ribot and Medeski and Martin from MMW acted as their sidemen, our musicians - or Vic at least - will start drooling.
The music on Buffy (like the scripts and the acting) was frankly, pretty fucking astonishing for a TV show.
With the exception of Oz the werewolf's band "Dingoes Ate My Baby", every act on the show was for real.
Even the Dingoes were pretty good (they played real songs by LA band Four Star Mary, who also played the Bronze as themselves).
Veruca's band were in reality trip-hop duo T.H.C. posing as Sunnydale locals.
Occasionally, a fairly major mainstream artist would play at The Bronze, such as Aimee Mann or Michelle Branch (Sarah Mc.Lachlan provided the music for the Buffy/Angel luurve thang), but mostly it was just great and groovy indie bands, the likes of Sprung Monkey, Dashboard Prophets, Curve, Darling Violetta and of course, the über-groovy Cibo Matto themselves.
Outside of The Bronze there was music in other parts of town; the gloriously monickered punky songstress Bif Naked played a few songs with her band at a U.C.Sunnydale frat party.
And of course - as Kate and I both know and love - spiffy English librarian and "watcher" Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head; the Gold Blend coffee man of our youth and Prime Minister of Little Britain), played and sang an utterly hilarious and cringe-inducing version of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" at the downtown coffee bar (Pump), plus - thankfully in the privacy of his own house - a chortlesome cover of Freebird on acoustic guitar and, best of all, a wonderfully camp, Meatloaf-esque, cod-metal "Epiphany", live at The Bronze, backed by Four Star Mary and the show's main orchestral music composer, Christophe Beck.
So many tongues lodged so deeply in so many cheeks.
Watch him and wince.
Other bands that the production staff thought were cool didn't actually get to appear at The Bronze but in snatches of music coming from various places. However, there was always a poster up somewhere or a sticker on someone's locker to inform you of who was making that cool sound; probably the best being Boulder's bluegrass/zydeco funsters "Leftover Salmon", whose posters adorn Sunnydale in series four.
Weirldy, the orchestral music for series 5 and 6 was provided by someone calling himself Thomas Wanker.
Ahem …
Oh, and Nerf Herder played the glorious Buffy theme tune (covered brilliantly by Kim Deal's post-Pixies, girlie thrashfest "The Breeders" - available on the CD "Radio Springfield").
And I've not even started on Christophe Beck's incidental music or indeed the fabulous, all singing, all dancing "musical" episode "Once More, With Feeling" (which - on my DVD's special features, has a "Karaoke" version, which puts up subtitles of the lyrics so you can have a singalong party)! Come on over, Kate!
Or - come to that - Buffy's "yummy sushi pyjamas" … not a musical item but a scene that will forever make me twitch in all the right places.
Get a life?
Who needs it?
I have Buffy.
Quiz answers: On stage at The Bronze …
… playing bass with Cibo Matto …
… and wearing icky blue lipstick.
Giles plays The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" at Coffee Pump
Anya, Willow, Xander and Tara watch in horror.
Kate, our champion Buffster suffered a temporary memory-fritz and actually had to Google for the answer to the way too easy quiz in the previous, worthless filler post … though she compensated with some gloriously bitchy trivia notes of her own.
Time for some answers, then.
Time to put the Buffsters out of their collective misery and for the rest of you to go "Yeah … Whatever … I couldn't give a shit."
In answer to the questions:
"Where, doing what, and wearing what colour lipstick did John and Yoko's sprog, Sean Lennon appear as himself in Buffy The Vampire Slayer?", I refer you to the opening episode of Series 2 … Whaddya mean you don't have it on DVD? Go out and buy it now!
Let's set the scene:
For the unBuffsters among you (Hi, Robyn and Lynn and Katherine), Buffy is set in the fictional Southern California town of Sunnydale, down at the scuzzier end of which is a nightclub and occasional vampire hangout called The Bronze.
Rather than just have some crappy DJ and backing track, those lovely, cuddly Buffy production folk decided to support live music and especially up-coming and cool bands; the upshot being that every scene set in the nightclub has totally groovy acts up on stage.
Even cooler; the acts were never mentioned in the credits; you had to search out posters in the background or dotted around the town/school/college to discover who they were, then look 'em up and try out their stuff.
So … Series two; episode one:
There on stage at The Bronze, doing his regular day-job playing bass for one of the grooviest bands ever to hit this planet was young Sean Lennon.
The band was - of course - the sadly defunct but weird, wacky and wonderful Cibo Matto, fronted by oddball Japanese girls Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda (the latter of whom young Lennon was dating at the time).
They performed the strange, dancey "Spoon" and the languorously sexy and gorgeous "Sugar Water", while Buffy (in full-on slut mode as Kate points out) and Xander practiced foreplay on the dance-floor.
For reasons best known to himself, Sean was wearing icky blue lipstick (see the screengrabs below for the full awfulness).
If you don't already have all their stuff, you should check out Cibo Matto.
They're what happens when Japanese girlie-pop weirdness crashes into the New York Art Rock crowd and starts dancing.
If I mention that such awesome luminaries as guitarist Marc Ribot and Medeski and Martin from MMW acted as their sidemen, our musicians - or Vic at least - will start drooling.
The music on Buffy (like the scripts and the acting) was frankly, pretty fucking astonishing for a TV show.
With the exception of Oz the werewolf's band "Dingoes Ate My Baby", every act on the show was for real.
Even the Dingoes were pretty good (they played real songs by LA band Four Star Mary, who also played the Bronze as themselves).
Veruca's band were in reality trip-hop duo T.H.C. posing as Sunnydale locals.
Occasionally, a fairly major mainstream artist would play at The Bronze, such as Aimee Mann or Michelle Branch (Sarah Mc.Lachlan provided the music for the Buffy/Angel luurve thang), but mostly it was just great and groovy indie bands, the likes of Sprung Monkey, Dashboard Prophets, Curve, Darling Violetta and of course, the über-groovy Cibo Matto themselves.
Outside of The Bronze there was music in other parts of town; the gloriously monickered punky songstress Bif Naked played a few songs with her band at a U.C.Sunnydale frat party.
And of course - as Kate and I both know and love - spiffy English librarian and "watcher" Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head; the Gold Blend coffee man of our youth and Prime Minister of Little Britain), played and sang an utterly hilarious and cringe-inducing version of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" at the downtown coffee bar (Pump), plus - thankfully in the privacy of his own house - a chortlesome cover of Freebird on acoustic guitar and, best of all, a wonderfully camp, Meatloaf-esque, cod-metal "Epiphany", live at The Bronze, backed by Four Star Mary and the show's main orchestral music composer, Christophe Beck.
So many tongues lodged so deeply in so many cheeks.
Watch him and wince.
Other bands that the production staff thought were cool didn't actually get to appear at The Bronze but in snatches of music coming from various places. However, there was always a poster up somewhere or a sticker on someone's locker to inform you of who was making that cool sound; probably the best being Boulder's bluegrass/zydeco funsters "Leftover Salmon", whose posters adorn Sunnydale in series four.
Weirldy, the orchestral music for series 5 and 6 was provided by someone calling himself Thomas Wanker.
Ahem …
Oh, and Nerf Herder played the glorious Buffy theme tune (covered brilliantly by Kim Deal's post-Pixies, girlie thrashfest "The Breeders" - available on the CD "Radio Springfield").
And I've not even started on Christophe Beck's incidental music or indeed the fabulous, all singing, all dancing "musical" episode "Once More, With Feeling" (which - on my DVD's special features, has a "Karaoke" version, which puts up subtitles of the lyrics so you can have a singalong party)! Come on over, Kate!
Or - come to that - Buffy's "yummy sushi pyjamas" … not a musical item but a scene that will forever make me twitch in all the right places.
Get a life?
Who needs it?
I have Buffy.
Quiz answers: On stage at The Bronze …
… playing bass with Cibo Matto …
… and wearing icky blue lipstick.
Giles plays The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" at Coffee Pump
Anya, Willow, Xander and Tara watch in horror.So there you have it. Yet more boring Buff-Stuff.
Oh, and the post title "Know Your Chicken" is a Cibo Matto song …
Most of their songs are about food or sex - usually both.
Which is as it should be.
(the poster for Oz's band that Willow had up on her wall)
Most of their songs are about food or sex - usually both.
Which is as it should be.
(the poster for Oz's band that Willow had up on her wall)Your Time Starts … Now
Pop quiz …
Hokay.
One question (in three parts) …
… and don't Google this; a wrong but silly answer still gets points.
"Where and doing what (and wearing what colour lipstick) did John and Yoko's "Beautiful Boy" Sean Lennon make a cameo appearance in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, playing … er … John and Yoko's "Beautiful Boy" Sean Lennon?"
Answer (with screengrabs) in the next post.
Apologies to the un-Buffsters for yet more Buffy, but that's what you get when I re-watch the whole seven series, and I have a busy day ahead and may not have time to post anything worth reading.
Apologies to Kate for this being too easy.
Hokay.
One question (in three parts) …
… and don't Google this; a wrong but silly answer still gets points.
"Where and doing what (and wearing what colour lipstick) did John and Yoko's "Beautiful Boy" Sean Lennon make a cameo appearance in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, playing … er … John and Yoko's "Beautiful Boy" Sean Lennon?"
Answer (with screengrabs) in the next post.
Apologies to the un-Buffsters for yet more Buffy, but that's what you get when I re-watch the whole seven series, and I have a busy day ahead and may not have time to post anything worth reading.
Apologies to Kate for this being too easy.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Yet Another Buffy Obsession Post
"Aww Crap!" shout Robyn and Lynn, the un-Buffsters.
Sorry, but when I watch episode one I have to watch all seven series and I get kinda fixated on silly little things in the background, like the stickers in Willow's locker or the obscure band references … or this:
I've known for ages how the nerds who made Buffy vied to out-cool one another with obscure little easter eggs (hidden in-jokes, people … keep up) scattered throughout the programme and I just found another one.
I'm in series four at the moment. Probably the only slightly weak series (though Kate put it a little stronger) but it does have its redeeming moments such as Anya's hilarious seduction of Xander and the cranberry cum-shot; the Spike and Willow "vampire impotence" skit ("I swear this kind of thing's never happened to me before"). Plus some lesbian witches but hey, that's just my own particular thang going on there.
Anyhoo, I was just watching the episode where Oz (for Robyn and Lynn: he's a werewolf) gets the hots for Veruca the lady werewolf and the Scoobies are sitting around at the Bronze and Oz is wearing this teeshirt with 大変 written on it.
Now that's just asking for trouble with Old Dive …
大 is no problem … As any fule kno it is pronounced "おおきい", and it means "BIG".
I thought at first glance that Oz's teeshirt might read "BIG LOVE", but "LOVE" (as in love for the opposite sex) is 恋, which has the same top radical, but with the radical for "HEART" underneath (Awwwww).
変 really got to me, so I did a Giles and hit my Japanese textbooks …
Those sneaky bastards at Buffy Central had me stumped for a good half hour until I finally tracked it down.
It's a pretty obscure kanji with the おん reading of "へん" and the くん reading of "か", usually as the verb "かわる", which means "UNDERGO CHANGE, BE ALTERED or BE TRANSFORMED"
How fucking cool is that for a werewolf to wear on his teeshirt?
Undergo change/be altered/be transformed … BIG TIME!
So … two nerd points to Old Dive and a hundred cool points to those tricksy Buffy backroom folk. Their attention to detail leaves me in awe.
I know I'm sad; you don't have to tell me.
Sorry, but when I watch episode one I have to watch all seven series and I get kinda fixated on silly little things in the background, like the stickers in Willow's locker or the obscure band references … or this:
I've known for ages how the nerds who made Buffy vied to out-cool one another with obscure little easter eggs (hidden in-jokes, people … keep up) scattered throughout the programme and I just found another one.
I'm in series four at the moment. Probably the only slightly weak series (though Kate put it a little stronger) but it does have its redeeming moments such as Anya's hilarious seduction of Xander and the cranberry cum-shot; the Spike and Willow "vampire impotence" skit ("I swear this kind of thing's never happened to me before"). Plus some lesbian witches but hey, that's just my own particular thang going on there.
Anyhoo, I was just watching the episode where Oz (for Robyn and Lynn: he's a werewolf) gets the hots for Veruca the lady werewolf and the Scoobies are sitting around at the Bronze and Oz is wearing this teeshirt with 大変 written on it.
Now that's just asking for trouble with Old Dive …
大 is no problem … As any fule kno it is pronounced "おおきい", and it means "BIG".
I thought at first glance that Oz's teeshirt might read "BIG LOVE", but "LOVE" (as in love for the opposite sex) is 恋, which has the same top radical, but with the radical for "HEART" underneath (Awwwww).
変 really got to me, so I did a Giles and hit my Japanese textbooks …
Those sneaky bastards at Buffy Central had me stumped for a good half hour until I finally tracked it down.
It's a pretty obscure kanji with the おん reading of "へん" and the くん reading of "か", usually as the verb "かわる", which means "UNDERGO CHANGE, BE ALTERED or BE TRANSFORMED"
How fucking cool is that for a werewolf to wear on his teeshirt?
Undergo change/be altered/be transformed … BIG TIME!
大変
So … two nerd points to Old Dive and a hundred cool points to those tricksy Buffy backroom folk. Their attention to detail leaves me in awe.
I know I'm sad; you don't have to tell me.
Spike Lite
Yeah, I know … Why is the man who hates TV posting about a TV programme?
You know me; I try to steer well clear the idiot box, but I do keep in my dusty vaults television's only worthwhile spewings (DVD sets of The Big Box of Buffy, Frasier and The Simpsons) and am currently re-watching Buffy on my big new Mac.
This post is for fellow Buffster Kate, to let her know that when this series arrives on Aussie TV she can watch without fear.
Someone at the office told me this week that the incomparable James Marsters - our beloved Spike from Buffy - has turned up in in the BBC's teen-kiddie, Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood.
I'd actually caught a couple of the first series, which was only made watchable by the weirdly sexy Burn Gorman (who stole the show as Guppy in the Beeb's adaptation of Bleak House), the openly gay, ham-acting Captain Jack and a token sexy Japanese girl.
Spike … Cool as fuck
So this morning, after breakfast in the city, I switch on the Mac, open the Beeb's iPlayer and watch last week's Torchwood.
I almost daren't look.
Spike in a Brit teen show?
Could this ruin him forever?
I needn't have worried … the scriptwriters are very obviously Buffy fanatics.
Hokay: Big flash of light and here he comes; he walks the Spike walk, he talks the Spike talk, but he's now a brunette with an Adam Ant pirate jacket and silly guns … oh, and he's no longer a vampire but some kind of time traveller addicted to sex (men, women, even a poodle), booze, drugs and murder … Kinda like Doctor Who should have been.
So far, so watchable …
Within seconds he's dropped some bloke off the top of a multi-story car park and hits the first Buffy tribute line: "Thirsty now."
Not to spoil things for Kate too much, there follows an hilarious "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope" piss-take, worthy of Buffy; a full on snog-fest with gay Captain Jack (well, several actually), and some chortle-inducing bitching and posturing.
After that is was, rather disappointingly Spike Lite, played for laughs and never quite evil enough (this is British teen TV after all).
Gay fun with Jack and John
So … our Spike survives the transition. He's still kinda residual-cool, bitchily funny and so much more camp than everything else on TV … but it ain't Buffy.
This has been a public service announcement for my fellow Buffsters.
The rest of you can just go watch all seven series of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and discover that - in an ideal world - television can actually be genuinely cool, sexy and funny.
It's just not an ideal world any more.
You know me; I try to steer well clear the idiot box, but I do keep in my dusty vaults television's only worthwhile spewings (DVD sets of The Big Box of Buffy, Frasier and The Simpsons) and am currently re-watching Buffy on my big new Mac.
This post is for fellow Buffster Kate, to let her know that when this series arrives on Aussie TV she can watch without fear.
Someone at the office told me this week that the incomparable James Marsters - our beloved Spike from Buffy - has turned up in in the BBC's teen-kiddie, Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood.
I'd actually caught a couple of the first series, which was only made watchable by the weirdly sexy Burn Gorman (who stole the show as Guppy in the Beeb's adaptation of Bleak House), the openly gay, ham-acting Captain Jack and a token sexy Japanese girl.
Spike … Cool as fuckSo this morning, after breakfast in the city, I switch on the Mac, open the Beeb's iPlayer and watch last week's Torchwood.
I almost daren't look.
Spike in a Brit teen show?
Could this ruin him forever?
I needn't have worried … the scriptwriters are very obviously Buffy fanatics.
Hokay: Big flash of light and here he comes; he walks the Spike walk, he talks the Spike talk, but he's now a brunette with an Adam Ant pirate jacket and silly guns … oh, and he's no longer a vampire but some kind of time traveller addicted to sex (men, women, even a poodle), booze, drugs and murder … Kinda like Doctor Who should have been.
So far, so watchable …
Within seconds he's dropped some bloke off the top of a multi-story car park and hits the first Buffy tribute line: "Thirsty now."
Not to spoil things for Kate too much, there follows an hilarious "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope" piss-take, worthy of Buffy; a full on snog-fest with gay Captain Jack (well, several actually), and some chortle-inducing bitching and posturing.
After that is was, rather disappointingly Spike Lite, played for laughs and never quite evil enough (this is British teen TV after all).
Gay fun with Jack and JohnSo … our Spike survives the transition. He's still kinda residual-cool, bitchily funny and so much more camp than everything else on TV … but it ain't Buffy.
This has been a public service announcement for my fellow Buffsters.
The rest of you can just go watch all seven series of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and discover that - in an ideal world - television can actually be genuinely cool, sexy and funny.
It's just not an ideal world any more.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Obsessive Stupidity
In the absence of any time to write a meaningful, coherent or even a simply abusive blog post (I am insanely busy at the moment), here are five stupid little things that are currently obsessing me:
1 - Keeping meticulous records of train delays every day for years and sending my own records to the rail ombudsman to mock the official punctuality figures.
One Railway claims a 96.8% punctuality record on my line, but - in the three years since they took over and wrecked the franchise - I have been on three trains that have arrived on time (I count "on time" the same way as Japan Rail … to the second … whereas One counts it as "within ten minutes of the stated time" … Huh?) and in that same period of time I have been on five trains that have caught fire, including two that have had their windows smashed by flailing broken overhead electricity lines, three trains that have squished and smeared stupid fucking jumpers all along the tracks, seventy-two that have broken down and countless trains that have been between one and six hours late.
96.8% punctuality, my arse.
2 - The so far fruitless search for a coffee shop that sells me both a perfect coffee and a perfect croissant (on the same day).
I have become convinced that, due to some weird anomaly with the physics of the universe, the perfect coffee and the perfect croissant are mutually exclusive and cannot exist in the same universe at the same time.
My impossible quest continues.
3 - Writing my site meeting notes phonetically in hiragana (ひらがな).
A bit stupid, this one. Even though it is great practice for hiragana (and easy, as hiragana is a syllabary rather than an alphabet and is almost as quick as shorthand), the upshot is that nobody but myself can read the damned things.
4 - Always parking in exactly the same spot, whether it is at the station, at college or in Norwich on a Saturday morning.
If there's somebody in "my" space it gets me really grouchy.
How stupid is that?
5 - The stickers on the inside of Willow Rosenberg's school locker (they change 'em every series).
I'm currently watching all 39 DVDs in my Big Box of Buffy (yet again) and have been a slave to the freeze frame ever since I noticed a Luv Show sticker inside the locker door of my favourite witch.
The Luv Show was a strange concept/fake TV show/album by kooky performance artist/singer/movie actress Ann Magnuson after Bongwater split up.
Being one of approximately three Bongwater obsessives on the planet I was somewhat gobsmacked to see it in there as I was convinced that only myself and Ann Magnuson's mum own a copy of that album.
Apparently the staff on Buffy had a bit of a pissing contest to see who could out-cool the others with the most obscure references and bands (like the Luv Show and Japanese girlie weirdos Cibo Matto - who, by coincidence, I was listening to on my train journey this morning … forty-nine minutes late in case you wondered).
And now I'm hooked, too.
So … What are your current stupid little obsessions?
1 - Keeping meticulous records of train delays every day for years and sending my own records to the rail ombudsman to mock the official punctuality figures.
One Railway claims a 96.8% punctuality record on my line, but - in the three years since they took over and wrecked the franchise - I have been on three trains that have arrived on time (I count "on time" the same way as Japan Rail … to the second … whereas One counts it as "within ten minutes of the stated time" … Huh?) and in that same period of time I have been on five trains that have caught fire, including two that have had their windows smashed by flailing broken overhead electricity lines, three trains that have squished and smeared stupid fucking jumpers all along the tracks, seventy-two that have broken down and countless trains that have been between one and six hours late.
96.8% punctuality, my arse.
2 - The so far fruitless search for a coffee shop that sells me both a perfect coffee and a perfect croissant (on the same day).
I have become convinced that, due to some weird anomaly with the physics of the universe, the perfect coffee and the perfect croissant are mutually exclusive and cannot exist in the same universe at the same time.
My impossible quest continues.
3 - Writing my site meeting notes phonetically in hiragana (ひらがな).
A bit stupid, this one. Even though it is great practice for hiragana (and easy, as hiragana is a syllabary rather than an alphabet and is almost as quick as shorthand), the upshot is that nobody but myself can read the damned things.
4 - Always parking in exactly the same spot, whether it is at the station, at college or in Norwich on a Saturday morning.
If there's somebody in "my" space it gets me really grouchy.
How stupid is that?
5 - The stickers on the inside of Willow Rosenberg's school locker (they change 'em every series).
I'm currently watching all 39 DVDs in my Big Box of Buffy (yet again) and have been a slave to the freeze frame ever since I noticed a Luv Show sticker inside the locker door of my favourite witch.
The Luv Show was a strange concept/fake TV show/album by kooky performance artist/singer/movie actress Ann Magnuson after Bongwater split up.
Being one of approximately three Bongwater obsessives on the planet I was somewhat gobsmacked to see it in there as I was convinced that only myself and Ann Magnuson's mum own a copy of that album.
Apparently the staff on Buffy had a bit of a pissing contest to see who could out-cool the others with the most obscure references and bands (like the Luv Show and Japanese girlie weirdos Cibo Matto - who, by coincidence, I was listening to on my train journey this morning … forty-nine minutes late in case you wondered).
And now I'm hooked, too.
So … What are your current stupid little obsessions?
Friday, October 27, 2006
Hello Ian
It's around this time of year that old Dive gets a touch of the lonelies.
I don't know what it is about witches but they seem to cast a spell over me (sorry). Come All Hallow's Eve, and I'm filled with irresistible cravings:
• baked apples with loads of cinnamon;
• all kinds of squash (sorry, Robyn);
• sweet chestnuts straight off the tree;
• gleefully kicking leaves all over the garden instead of raking them;
• shouting at small children who buy their costumes instead of making them;
• shouting at small children, period …
… but most of all, that old annual ennui, the deep, deep longing for the woman in black …
Be it Willow Rosenberg, Jill Thompson's wonderful Scary Godmother (above), Connie Booth with a root vegetable over her nose in Python's Holy Grail … there's just something about a witch that's, well … bewitching.
They're just a little bit kooky and a little bit spooky, and I like that in a girl.
That said; from where I have breakfast on a saturday morning*, I can see what they call the "alternative lifestyle" section of Otto's bookshop (where they keep the books on Wiccan practices). Sadly, the modern witch seems to be a dumpy woman in her late thirties who has forgotten to have children and daren't come out as gay.
The decline in standards seems to me symptomatic of the modern world. A witch who pigs junk food and watches reality TV when she should be dancing naked round a yew tree or setting fire to Edward Woodward in a big old basket.
A plea, then: (I've always thought advertising yourself was for pathetic losers, but if Sassy can do online dating, then I can do online pleading) …
If there are any of the stripey-tights brigade still out there who are as skinny as death and as weird-looking and spooky as the Corpse Bride, you know where to find me.
*The coffee shop upstairs at what used to be Ottakar's but is now the new Waterstone's bookshop, Norwich; nine a.m. every saturday.
No pointing and laughing!
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