Bought this today, in a bargain bucket DVD set of 10, for the princely sum of £7.49. Some of the other "classic" titles: Teenagers From Outer Space! Cocaine Fiends! Bride Of The Monster! The Wasp Woman! When a film has the tag line "a beautiful woman by day - a lusting queen wasp by night" you know you're on to a winner. Also in the set, for some bizarre reason, is the 1925 silent classic The Lost World - thank you oh cheap book shop of hidden delights, you've just made my weekend... 

Puppy Love

I'm in love.
The object of my affections has big brown eyes, an adorably sad face, and loves to cuddle.
In fact, he's the cutest little trainee guide dog you could ever hope to meet. Almost worth poking my eyes out with a red hot poker, although I wouldn't be able to see my favourite golden lab puppy any more...

On the "would you rather lose your sight or your hearing" debate (well, I've debated it in my head), I vote for blindness over deafness. Slightly ironic given as I'm a silent film fan and would thus miss out on them, but a world without music would be a sad one. Imagine if you had some monstrosity of a tune stuck in your head and couldn't listen to something else to get rid of it - you could be stuck with it forever. I'm a bit of a radio fan, and I love a bit of radio drama (though not The Archers, can't quite get into it, sorry), and I think I'd rather have the option of creating visuals in my head to match the sounds than trying to imagine sounds to go with images. I also tend to rely on talk radio (though not the similarly-named station, I hasten to add) to lull me to sleep, struggling to drift off if left with silence. My ever-present insomnia would be in danger of taking over in a state of deafness.
Hopefully I'll never be in a position to test the veracity of this conjecture: I'd rather hang on to all five senses, although I seem to be lacking on the sixth one.

Song of the day: The Decemberists - Red Right Ankle. Bee-yootiful, so it is. And there's new stuff on the way soon! Yay!

what a poet.... (what? a poet?!?)

That Was The Week That Was

Worst idea of the year so far: 'Taxi Driver' sequel discussed by Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. Don't do it guys! Please!

Though it may not be as bad an idea as the one this guy had. High libido giving you problems? (fail to see how that could be a problem myself, but never mind...) Self-castration's the answer, apparently. Yes, that's a good idea, isn't it? And if you want to know how to go about it properly, pay a visit to Tom the eunuch, for all your non-genital needs. A fascinating site.

In Celebrity Big Brother (get all the latest news from BBGossip), the evil Lisa was evicted - go and spout some sub-psychological hippy nonsense about that while throwing your considerable weight around somewhere else dear. Bez to win!

And in other-wordly news, it seems there's methane rain on Titan. And there was me thinking all the methane was found at Uranus...

Song to play at 4am while washing dishes: Hole - Violet. Or at least it was, until my decade old (oh my god, shoot me, I'm a pensioner...) tape decided to become warped beyond recognition. Insert jokes about Courtney Love's dulcet tones here __________

I blame Bob Geldof

BBC NEWS | UK | 'I don't like Monday 24 January'

Snow!!!! That is all...

Invisibilia

This is strangely poignant and beautiful, but then the whole site is one of the best things on yon interweb thingummyjig, I reckon.

Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned. And I was doing so well too. Tut tut.

Reasons not to meet the extended family...

Isn't it delightful to know you can find your relatives on the internet?

A follow-up

So, I hear you ask, is there any new material on the way from Monica Queen? I'm happy to report that it would appear so. Jolly good!

And the winner is....

Scottish listings magazine The List has been running a poll to name the Best Ever Scottish Band. The votes are in, they've been checked and verified, and the winner is... Belle and Sebastian. Yay! Nice to see B&S fans carrying on the vote-rigging that won them their Brit Award (though I'm sure of course that no-one would dream of voting more than once, let alone multiple times like a Busted (r.i.p hahaha) fan in a Record of the Year poll).
The complete list makes interesting reading, with some strange placings: Idlewild number three? I like 'em, but let's face it, they're not that good. Still, if Travis can be number two then anything is possible. There are other surprises, with Mull Historical Society placing higher than current flavour of the moment Franz Ferdinand, The Trashcan Sinatras at number 22 (I've got a couple of their albums lurking somewhere, I might have to hunt them out to remind myself what they're like again), and Bis beating Deacon Blue - ha!
Unfortunately a distinct lack of taste in some voters is also apparent, with The Blue Nile only making number 40 (have people never heard Paul Buchanan sing? Do they not appreciate greatness?), and The Associates stalling at number 36 (have people never heard Billy Mackenzie sing? etc etc etc..). I'd have liked the wonderful Delgados to be rather higher up the list as well, but then I would, wouldn't I? I'm no great fan of The Cocteau Twins (Liz Fraser's voice just irritates me, sorry), but I would have thought they were popular enough to make it higher than number 44.
Apparently Spare Snare have lots of friends and relatives, thus winning a place on the list (can't think of any other reason for their inclusion), and I'm willing to bet that the Vaselines only made it in there due to being a favourite with a certain Mr Cobain. But hurrah for the inclusion of the Fire Engines and the Rezillos (the latter I first discovered in the late-ish 80s when I spent some of my hard-earned pocket money on a mystery pack of old singles at a record store which was closing down, and in amongst the inevitable dross was Can't Stand My Baby. Sometimes you strike it lucky)
So what, I hear you ask, would be your top ten then Betsie? Well seeing as you asked so nicely, in No Particular Order:
Belle and Sebastian
The Blue Nile
The Associates
Teenage Fanclub
Aztec Camera
Orange Juice
The Delgados
The Beta Band
The Proclaimers
and, mainly for the fabulous voice of Monica Queen, Thrum.
So there you have it.
And in the lower places, we'll have honourable mentions for some not mentioned in the poll: The Yummy Fur, Urusei Yatsura, The Bluebells, Love and Money, Lungleg and Danny Wilson.

I've seen the future, and it mutters

The first in a (hopefully) short series:

You know you spend too much time on your own when....
you have "comedy" conversations with yourself, possibly involving the use of "funny" voices. It is especially bad when you happen to do this while dog walking, failing to notice until slightly too late the people walking behind you. Some things are hard to pass off as "just talking to the animal". Still, it could be worse, it could have been one of the hilarious songs: today's ones all to the tune of "alouette, gentille alouette".
So now I know what my future holds: a sad decline into mad, cat-acquiring spinsterhood, accompanied by wandering the streets muttering indistinctly to myself. Maybe I should buy an ill-fitting wig now in preparation...

Annoyance of the day - chatty taxi drivers. If I wanted to tell you my life story, I'd write you a book, just take me where I want to go and mind your own business.

Song of the day (excluding French nursery rhymes) - The New Pornographers: Graceland. Perfect for putting a spring in your step as you saunter down the High Street.

Foodstuff of the day - Greggs sausage rolls. Mmmmm...

Go Germaine!

So Celebrity Big Brother is back, and after a monumental amount of last-minute line-up changes and rumours, the group actually entering the house seem to have great potential.
While there are of course the usual selection of ex-soap actors and models (that's you bland pretty-boy Jeremy Edwards and vacuous Caprice) to keep the tabloids in pictures, some of the other choices show a vague hint of inspiration.

We have deerstalker-clad racing pundit John McCririck as the irritant factor, already winding up the other housemates with his outspoken sexism and general offensiveness (and causing anyone unlucky enough to see him semi-naked to retch in horror). The Great British Public is seemingly becoming more vindictive towards our celebrity chums, as hysterical phobic Natalie Slapperton could no doubt verify, so if he keeps annoying them, he may just last a while.

We also have the promise of general insanity (and of course nudity) from Brigitte Neilson, although it has to be said that so far she actually seems to be reasonably well-balanced. It can't possibly last, I'm sure she'll unleash her own unique brand of nutterdom within a few days.

For the ageing music lovers, we have Dodgily-Dancing Icon of a Generation, Bez, a man unfortunate enough to have Shaun Ryder and mad Rowetta from X Factor as his friends. How he'll last two weeks without chemical assistance is anyone's guess.

And for the more intelligent viewer, we have the wonderful, bolshy, outspoken icon that is Germaine Greer. Quite why she's doing this is anyone's guess (this may be the only time when someone could genuinely say they're in Big Brother just for the experience), but I for one am really glad that she is. I've always been an admirer, she's an example to women everywhere (and men, for that matter) of what they can be, running to her own agenda regardless of what society may expect of her.

Let me see, who else is there?
Kenzie - small child from Blazin Squad, seems quite sweet so far, a youngster in a world of scary adults, but coping quite well.
Lisa I'Anson - is that the sound of a barrel being scraped? I'm old enough to remember her being incompetent on radio one, and she seems to have spent the intervening years mainly eating cakes. I assume she was a last minute booking, it's not like she'd have had anything else on after all.

My predicted winner - Jeremy Edwards: safe, inoffensive, easy on the eye, boring - a winning formula in this kind of show unfortunately.
Go Germaine!

Migraine + flueyness (I'm ill, I'll make up words if I want to) + run out of meds = oh dear. Three days of grottiness and counting.

There are things in life I enjoy, but washing rolled in shit off a dog's back is not one of them. That is all.

who let it snow?

Honestly, you sleep half the day, and someone has the cheek to make it snow. The swines.

I want to be a tortoise. Or a bear. No-one complains when they sleep the winter away. They don't get nagged by their mothers telling them that "you're missing the best part of the day! You'll never get anything done!" Well, dear mother, that's kind of the point. Who wants a long, long day of cold, dark drabness? And why the constant need to fill every moment with activity? I've never really understood that one, doing nothing is in most cases far more enjoyable than doing something.
And it's good for the soul too, if you're constantly on the move, when do you find the time to think? Contemplation and stillness are fine ways to fill a day.

Or possibly I'm just a lazy, indolent slob.

And I look like this 

Ooh 'ello...

Well well, just what the world was needing, another blog.
Calm yourselves at the back there, if you get too excited now, how will you cope if, perchance, I should actually write something of interest? It's not likely, but you never can tell...

So who am I then, I hear you cry? (if I tune out the deafening silence, that is). Well, I believe it is generally considered that I am, in actual fact, a human being. The scientists were puzzled for years, but new medical breakthroughs have proved it once and for all. I'm very glad, things were getting cramped in the kennel.

Things I like:
Sarcasm, self-deprecation, silent films, and sausages. You can't beat a good sausage, add some ketchup and I'm in heaven.

Things I hate:
Egotism, exercise, early mornings, and eggs. Just remember, every time you eat an egg you're killing a cute fluffy chick.

And that's all I have to say for now, so why don't you bugger off here instead?