I had a dream that I'd written Lord of the Rings, but then I realised that I was just Tolkien in my sleep



Hi everyone,
Funny....I've seen the sign for Stokenchurch loads of times, yet I'd never noticed that it has "Ken Chu" in the middle of it.  I am a fule.  But maybe I might redeem myself from my foolishness by pointing out that if Mr Walton were to move to the Channel Islands then we might be in for a dose of SarkAsm.

As Archel said, I had to leave the Brighton sinister meet-up early to return to London for Strange Fruit.  This meant that I missed Mark C's Frank Spencer meets King Canute moment.  I did however witness a spectacular fall from a guy in Paddington Station the day before, tho.  He fell speradeagled on the floor in front of me .   I looked to see what he'd fallen over.  It turned out it was one of those yellow plastic cones which have a picture of a falling man and "Caution Wet Floor" on them which had ITSELF fallen over!  This struck me as the ultimate irony.  My interest in these signs had previosuly been limited to being tempted to say, "Look here, wet floor.  I've told you once..........."

Not to be outdone, I tripped over a car jack in my parents' road and went flying through the air direectly into the path of a climbing plant (which may have been ivy) and poked myself in the eye.  Ow!  Oh dear, this is beginning to sound like an episode of "You've Been Framed".

Strange Fruit was one of the best I've been to.  I arrived right at the end of Capratone's set, so was unable to make a judgement about them, but Norwich band Kaito, who followed, were superb.  They were very loud and punky, reminding me of Sleater Kinney at times but that doesn't really do them justice.  I first heard of Kaito when Matt Tullett, with whom I shared a chalet at last year's All Tomorrow's Parties, raved about them.  Lots of great tunes followed including Hot Topic by Le Tigre which I first heard on Andrea Kittenmouse's radio show (or rather a cd of it).  We haven't heard anything from Andrea lately, have we?  Verity played Gentle Waves' "Sisterwoman" and I found it IMPOSSIBLE to dance to.  Other people seemed to be managing, however.

There were at least three other sinister types at SF, Mell Street's Matt, Martin and Rich, but they didn't stay until the end, which was a shame, as at three o'clock Paul  Haswell played "Lazy Line Painter Jane" and another DJ (don't know his name....shirt and tie, lanky, bleached blond hair) invited us all up onto the now-cleared stage where we sang and clapped along whilst photos were taken by Verity.  It was absolutely brilliant and made my evening.  Someone had been taking photos of individual people earlier on too.  I have no way of knowing whether this was for the SF website or purely for their own amusement, but if its the former I might end up on the site for the SECOND time, as my picture at the long defunct Oxford SF was on there until recently.  In the (admittedly unlikely) event that you might want to check to see if I my mugshot has made it, then make sure you include the dash in the url (http://www.strange-fruit.co.uk) as http://www.strangefruit.co.uk is somethin!
g very, very odd indeed.............

Next day was the first SUSSED in its new location.  Being Oxford, they couldn't possibly call it a club.  Oh no, the Cellar is a Music Orientated Drinking Establishment!  Steve demonstrated his new webby bootlegs which kept Emma amused guessing how many songs had gone into the mix.  I was back in the Cellar the following night for Medieval Matt and ColaCube Cay's band Endless City Lights and for the first time in my life I have acquired a set list at a gig.  YAY!  Or maybe it should be <whispers>yay</whispers> because unlike super furries in Toronto (set list snatched from under my nose) and Stereolab here in Oxford (set list written on a paper plate is thrown and goes whizzing past my ear), ECL's set list was simply left on our table where I picked it up, which is not quite the same somehow........

Anyway, considering it was their first gig, Endless City Lights were really good - I particularly liked their opening number "Summertime".  James Tramping Flatpack was telling me about his time in Poland visiting Maja, which reminded me that I hadn't thanked Maja for the two cds she sent me.  Luckily he was able to give me her e-mail address so I put that right as soon as I could and incidentally one of the cds has been gracing my stereo for quite a few days now.  Myslovitz is a fine band and worth seeking out.

Robster, I have to say that I think a sinister meet-up in Southsea would be a fine idea indeed!  I went there on a school trip on the way back from the Isle Of Wight...it has a fort with cannons as I recall (ok, so the memory's pretty sketchy).  Also I need more opportunities to practice DDR, although I'll never be nearly as good as Ken.  No DDR machines in Oxford y'see - maybe it's got something to do with its distance from the sea?

I may have made you think in my last post that its all doom & gloom in my workplace as a result of the in-fighting upstairs.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Their are regular duels with rubber-band guns and G. must regret the time he got up from his desk to talk to a manager whilst he was working on our esteemed publication "The Journal of Sexual Dysfunction".  No sooner had he done so when J. had saved a colour pic of a flaccid willy as wallpaper on G's pc......as you can imagine he was not impressed!

better parse some xml....

Mark.


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