Oh yeah… Me.
I opened the Character Hatch, I wanted to find the bell tower. How much harm could it do? It’ll be fine. Right?
Category: Grim
Ian vs Crush Songs
Ian: Hello?
Crush Songs: Hello Ian.
Ian: Hello Crush Songs by Karen O. I’ve wanted to listen to you for a while; sorry it’s taken me so long.
Crush Songs: Oh think nothing of it. Now, are you ready?
Ian: I am, yes.
Crush Songs: Are you ready for fourteen songs that all sound the same with the same wibbly wobbly vocals that have been fed through a cereal box and sound as though they were written in five minutes?
Ian: Erm no, I was hoping for a bit of variety.
Crush Songs: Oh.
Ian: Is there something the matter?
Crush Songs: Nothing! Nothing! No it doesn’t matter.
Ian: What is it you’re hiding there?
Crush Songs: Well it’s nothing really…
Ian: So you are fourteen songs that all sound the same with the same wibby wobbly vocals that have been fed through a cereal box and sound as though they were written in five minutes.
Crush Songs: In short, yes.
Ian: I feel as though I should be brutally honest here. That’s very disappointing.
Crush Songs: Would it help if I told you I’m only 25 minutes long?
Ian: No it wouldn’t.
Crush Songs: Would it help if I told you there was a Doors cover on me?
Ian: That just makes it worse.
Crush Songs: Actually ACTUALLY I’ve got fifteen songs on me. The last one is hidden right at the very end like a lyrical treat…
Ian: Right.
Crush Songs: … actually that might still be the last song with a bit of a gap in the middle…
Ian: Look I can see we’re not really getting anywhere here. You’ve not really thought this through. I think you should go back and have a big long ponder about what to do.
Crush Songs: If you insist, okay. I’ll come back shortly with some much better ideas. You watch; I will blow your mind!
Ian: I’m sure you will. I’m just going to put you in this pile with that Good Charlotte CD I found in the street and those duplicate DVDs I don’t need anymore.
Crush Songs: Is it a special pile?
Ian: … sure it is!
A small but gratifying observation
It has been said, somewhat unkindly, that the EP recently released by The Rapples does not represent the pinnacle of rap music and that, in fact, The Rapples may have tossed it off without much attention paid to either lyrical content (cf. Quick Go), ability to rap (cf. Crash and Burn) or, indeed, bothering to rap at all (cf. Toot Toot Beep Beep).
But these criticisms surely all come to nothing when you realise that one of the songs considered vital to the establishment of rap as a musical form is Rapture by Blondie. The nonsensical, barely rhythmic chatter in that song, masquerading as rap, about an alien that eats cars, is apparently not just legitimate rap but is a classic of the genre.
The Rapples can surely rest easy knowing that, at the absolute minimum, everything on “Space for an Ace” is vastly superior to that.
Older
Older, yes. I reach the end of this week battered and bruised by the harsh mistress of ageing. My face is lined, my hair grey and thinning, my walking stick arriving in the post tomorrow. The ravages of time leave me enfeebled.
But what has my additional age gained me? Insight, perhaps. I have thought Ian particularly odd since last October, his habits inexplicable, his voice barely intelligible, his strange looks, mannerisms and alarming physical spasms highly distracting. But now that I, too, am 31 all of this is clear. It all makes sense. I won’t try to explain it here but from the other side of 30, from the perspective of an age ending in a one, these things take on meaning.
Has it gained me wisdom? No. I ate pizza on Wednesday night and had it again on Thursday morning, a car crash of poor meal planning that could have been entirely avoided. So much for ageing.
My secret tragedy
I haven’t told you about this before, but it’s about time I did. When Kev visited a couple of weeks ago we ended up talking about it and my terrible sadness was impossible to disguise. I can’t live this lie any longer.
A while ago now, I was engaged to be married. We were so happy together, so perfect for each other. I couldn’t imagine anything could come between us. I was her man and she was my bear. (She was a grizzly bear, you see.) But on the day of our wedding, just minutes before the ceremony started, she left me, running away down the street in her bridal dress. I was distraught.
You may find this hard to believe, but thankfully Kev has stepped in and provided the following sketch of that fateful moment, so you don’t have to think very hard to imagine it. In those days, as you can see, I looked a bit like Jeremy Beadle, so all in all this is a chapter of my life I’d rather forget.
Unusual Superheroes: The Car Man
I have a mild infatuation with comics and Kevin’s favourite, the graphic novel, but I have to admit that I was completely bamboozled by the superhero commonly known as ‘Car Man’.
From what I can gather his special powers appear to consist of being handsome, oozing broodiness and the ability to seduce both men and women. He likes to walk around without a shirt on on hot summer days and stir up trouble. I expect he’s one of those troubled superheroes that keeps cropping up, with a tragic back story that is only hinted at rather than fully explained. That’s why he keeps dancing. Why does he keep dancing? He’s troubled. You see, it makes perfect sense.
His misfortunes continue when he struggles to hold his drink down, a bit like me after a pint and a half of cheeky dragon, and fails when trying to emulate his hero, Tyler Durden, from the popular book and film ‘Fight Club’ during his own fight club. The Car Man cannot live with himself knowing he sucks at the one thing that should ultimately prove him as the manliest man alive and thus gets shot by some bint on a staircase. In his final moments, the Car Man wishes he had better super powers because broodiness cannot stop a bullet. That’s why I always walk around with a pan lid strapped to my chest.
I don’t think that children will ever want to be the Car Man because he’s not fun like Spiderman or has gadgets like Batman. Ultimately he will struggle for mass appeal which is why you won’t see me with his confused, sweaty face on my lunchbox.
The end (probably) of #TapSaga
That’s it. It’s over. For now at least anyway.
If anyone ever suggests to you that changing the taps in the bathroom is a quick and easy way to ‘refresh’ your room, my advice is to punch them swiftly in the face.
Let me give you a summary of what has gone on so far in #TapSaga in abbreviated bullet list format:
Tap Saga
Coming soon to a multi cineplexical screen near you…
“In a world where bathrooms are neglected, in a world where taps are taken for granted, in a world where washing your hands is no longer a common practice… he appeared!”
I’m going to go shopping for taps!
“It started off as a regular Sunday afternoon of bathroom fittings shopping with his lunatic wife, but fate had a different plan in store for Kevindo Menendez…”
In B & Q, the excitement is building! Tapgasm!
“His last minute substitution for taps and need for unnecessary DIY was about to send him on a journey he wasn’t prepared for, nor wanted to go on…”
FUCKING ARSE BOLLOCKS (sound of a breaking sink) WHO FUCKING FIXES IN A TAP WITH RESIN???
“… and so Kevindo Menendez was faced with a broken sink, a ruined finger and a thirst for adventure. This March feel the excitement, feel the magic, feel the tapgasm of the Tap Saga!”
A pox on Parcel Force!
“Sinking into cinemas March 27th.”