Category: Remembering is fun

Avatar Letter to the RSPB

Way back, many moons ago, there was a suggestion from myself that Chis and I had written to the RSPB to complain about the lack of dinosaurs. The conversation can be found in the comments below the post An Admission of Sorts, a summary is included here:

“It is a letter that needs to be sent. I imagine that much like the one me and Chris wrote to the RSPB about the lack of dinosaurs at Fairburn Inngs, it will be ignored, but it must be sent nonetheless….”

Kev

“Two things are needed here… The second is more information about the letter to Fairburn Ings, which I have no memory of.”

Chris

“Is the letter mentioned on here, Kev?”

Ian

“I’ll have a chumble[sic], it feels like it should be.”

Kev

It wasnt. There was no mention of it which led to comments such as…

“Maybe the right thing to do now is ask whether it happened at all, or whether it’s some sort of weird dream.”

Chris

Well today, I have BIG NEWS. I found it. Just the letter mind, sadly the enclosed drawing must have been a one off and is lost to the mists of time. It’s a doozy let me tell you.

Sadly Mr. Steven James never received a reply to the RSPB, it’s almost as if they didn’t take us seriously.

Clicken for Big.
RSPB.docDownload

In a side note, the little bit in the comments below the throw away bit about a letter that might not exist, is an excellent little ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ riff from Chris and Ian. Well done chaps, it made me lols all over again.

Avatar Nostalgia – Young Me (and him)

Look at you. How old are you? You’re very old. You have done lots of things in your life and more often than not someone will have been there to make a note of it or possibly take a photo.

Nostalgia is what sells lots of old crap in that you remember how it was “back in the day” and then you want to get that feeling back by, I don’t know, buying your first car again, playing that Atari you had up in your uncle’s loft or investing in Microsoft shares. When I was looking for a photo for my brother I found a few photo albums, most of which were filled with sentimental (i.e. pointless) photos of my bedroom when I was 9 and other guff. I did, however, stumble upon several re-discovered gems of what used to happen when Kev and I, and sometimes Tom, would get whammed.

Now don’t get your hopes up, dear people. If you’re looking for sordid, filthy accounts of unscrupulous behaviour then you’re really on the wrong website (you took a wrong turn at boobpedia.com). What I’m talking are polaroids (easy now) of us all looking young surrounded by drinks bottles and cans. If you ever wanted to know what Kevin looked like with a bog roll on his head, holding one of those plastic separators you get with cans of lager, then you’ve come to the right place. If you were “desperate” to see a photo of me fake passed out on the floor then go no further.

I don’t remember ever looking that young but I know it happened. Here’s the proof:

Avatar Ode to the North

We’re all trapped indoors these days, since the prime minister lost everybody’s house keys and we all found that the front door wouldn’t open any more. I’m sure that’ll all be sorted out soon, of course, and I’ll be able to take the bins out, but for the time being I’m not getting around much and neither is anyone else.

While I’m being kept inside, like a neglected dog, I find myself missing the north. I usually go north regularly and now I can’t, and it’s only when I can’t go that I suddenly find how important it is to me to immerse myself, on a regular basis, in its rich culture and its even richer gravies.

So, as a consolation in these difficult times, I’ve created this moving ode to the north. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and that your cockles are warmed.

Thank you, or as they say in the north, ta.

Avatar Crab out of control

If you’re like me, and you sometimes remember things, and you find that remembering things is fun, then you might remember that about five years ago I took a crab mug in to work and announced this tremendous news with the blog post crab in control, which to this day is often quoted by students of the language as one of the greatest works of literature composed so far this century.

Last month I brought the crab home for a deep clean, because the kitchen at work is minging. Its annual overhaul revealed the crab mug to be in a dreadful state. Its current situation is illustrated in these three damning pictures.

  1. Around the brim, repeated cleaning with a scouring pad has worn away the glaze, leaving the top half of the mug, both outside and inside, duller and with a matte texture.
  2. A severe chip to the base or “arse” of the mug.
  3. Further scouring of the inside, particularly around the circular corner that surrounds the base and connects it to the mug wall, where the rougher surface has indelibly absorbed brownness from tea and coffee.

Given this irreversible damage, the crab has now regrettably been retired from active service and is now at the back of the mug cupboard here in Royksopp.

In its place, I have procured four new yellow mugs that I can use interchangeably and bring home more often to clean, on the basis that this is more hygienic, scouring pads will be unnecessary and I like yellow things.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the crab for five years of diligent and faithful service, and wish it well in its retirement, by which I mean an extended period in the cupboard where it doesnt get used much because it’s gone all brown inside. Thank you.

Avatar Pointless purchase of the month: Chris edition

Normally when we take a look at pointless purchases, it’s Ian who’s been pointlessly purchasing things, and I’m one of the smug onlookers who gets to decide whether to just feel superior or whether to mix the feeling of superiority with a bit of heckling. Today’s different. Today it’s me that’s spent my hard-earned London pounds on something useless.

Here we are, then. Thanks to the fan club mailing list, I offloaded some cash to pre-order this highly collectible limited edition picture disc vinyl of Flood, They Might Be Giants’ biggest album, which has been released to mark its 30th anniversary. It turned up in the post this week.

The B-side has frames from the music video for “Birdhouse in Your Soul” on it, so when you play the record it animates.

This purchase is particularly pointless because I do not have a record player. I cannot play this record. Nor do I need to; I’ve got Flood in my iTunes library and have had it for years. This is just for me to look at. I might even frame it.

Also, it’s yellow. I like yellow things.

Avatar Five

It’s here! Many years late and all the more welcome for it, we now present The Official Book of London 2014, “#Chris30”. It is of course from the fateful time Kev and Ian came to see me in London for my birthday, and Kev wasn’t very well, but we still played dinosaur golf anyway.

It’s a rollercoaster of long-forgotten birthday emotion, featuring:

  • The invention of Smidge Manly
  • The David Craig Face Clock
  • Book #selfies
  • Tit tetris (titris)
  • Chris’s chunky ass
  • Sadsack’s sick sack

You can read it right now on the Books page or, if you don’t want to go via the Books page, you can read it by clicking exactly here.

Avatar An Admission of Sorts

As I pulled into the car park, locked the car and headed into Asda I knew I was in a rush. I grabbed the beer I was looking for, paid and made my way back to the car. Asda Radio has a habit of playing a bizarre mix of music no matter what time of day you are there. Running late to a friend’s house the unmistakable tune of ‘Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit’ by Gina G was audible over the hubbub of other patrons of the supermarket. It took me back to 1996 when this was our entry in the Eurovision Song Contest…

Now we’ve all seen how much of a shambles Eurovision is, perhaps some more than others. As a young impressionable 13 year old I had a lot of free time on my hands. I do remember watching the whole thing because I was convinced that this song, this catchy piece of fluff, created in someone’s studio by faceless music executives and sung by an Australian, not even a native Brit, was going to win. I had a lot of faith at 13; I wonder where it went? I expect it also had a lot to do with the fact that I found Gina G insanely attractive (I was going through a red-head phase, something that has continued to this day). Still, it wasn’t enough for me to actually go out and buy the damn single when it was released, not that it mattered because it went straight to #1 anyway.

Does anyone remember what position the UK got in the 1996 Eurovision song contest? Nope, me neither. I had to look it up but I did know that we didn’t win. The lovely Ireland claimed the crown that year. In my confused teenage rage I drew a picture of a person, possibly me (?), kicking an Irish elephant in the groin. Now this does raise a few questions, the main ones for me are:

  1. Why didn’t I draw an animal that was native to Ireland in the first place?
  2. Was I convinced that elephants came from Ireland or was it the first animal that came to mind?
  3. I can’t draw elephants now; how on earth did I manage to draw one from memory without the aid of Google?

I can still see that elephant now, hands clutching where it’s penis should be, in extreme pain because of my kick to the cohonies. It is as if it’s been etched to the back of my mind, ready to haunt me when the time is right. Yes, I believe the elephant also had hands. Perhaps this is a rare instance of British pride where I wanted to believe that we were good at something and to share that with the rest of Europe.

By the way, have you ever read the lyrics to ‘Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit’? My favourite line is:

“I’ll give you love you can’t ignore.”

What kind of love is that? The one where you send bits of yourself through the post? The one where you set yourself on fire and jump off a building? It seems a bit full on for what is essentially a song about having a shag with someone.

Avatar God Damn Lips

It’s here! The #mysteryweekend Newcastle 2019 Book is now online! Of course, you might know it by its proper title: The Time that Three Friends Went Away for a Spiffing Adventure. And Everything Was Fine.

You can read it, along with all the other silly books, on the Books page.

Highlights of this particular literary work include:

  • Words?
  • Ian blowing vape ships outside my nightclub
  • Kev’s Wemslip Bib
  • Filthbraham Bacon
  • Sugar Pillows
  • The Legend of Stabby McKenzie
  • A drawing of a raaeeeeeeuurgh