Feeling guilty?

Another night of Children In Need. Upsetting, uncomfortable and difficult to watch. Three ways to describe Alan Sugar’s attempts at humorous acting and Ian Beale in a tight pink jumper and skirt, pushing a hoover around his living room to the tune of Queen’s “I want to break free”. All this uncomfortable viewing between the many short sad films about the kids of the UK that need the help and the money.
DVD Andy has always suspected me of being guilty of spending my weekly Thursday’s off just like Freddie, with the hoover, as Thursday is usually housework day. This week, however, I was waiting on plumbers coming round to give us a quotation for the installation of Gas central heating. Unfortunately, after being given the quote, we’re not sure we’ll bother. Two and a half grand they want for putting central heating into our wee one bedroom flat. A normal house costs between three and four so I think we may just stick with what we’ve got.
The good old electric.
We’d only be installing the gas heating to help sell as it seems to be the only complaint from possible buyers who’ve come round to view. Look’s like we’ll just have to wait on a non energy biased buyer.
We barely use the electric anyway. The guys in work, asked me how we usually keep warm if we don’t use it. We never need it, though with the winter just around the corner Ka and myself could, quite soon, be finding ourselves walking around with double helpings of dressing gowns. At the moment it would seem all Ka needs is Michael Buble. The wife was up dancing around the living room in her pyjamas on Thursday night as the singer started his contribution to the Children In Need Rocks Manchester concert.
Last night we had a little heat from one large solitary candle standing lit in the middle of our coffee table. We had just finished a curry for dinner though so I suspect that was lit by Ka merely to try and get rid of the stench of Indian food which was now lingering throughout the living room and kitchen. Our second curry in a week.
The first was last Saturday when we went through to Tom and Linda’s in Barassie, Troon. As my Uncle Tom is in the middle of rebuilding his kitchen, we had hit upon the idea, a while back, at my cousin’s son’s baptism, of a curry night. So after arriving early evening on Saturday, just after the sun had set on the cold, Firth of Clyde horizon, Tom and Linda informed us that they were taking us along to their favourite curry house, the Maharani. The maharani was a small, but cosy, Indian restaurant just a short walk from the front on West Portland Street where we ate some fantastic food, mine being a giant portion of Chicken Tikka Tandoori, which arrived sizzling on a long black plate perched on a pile of hot, flavoured onions. Tom had also ordered a Tandoori, a ginger chicken, but refrained from eating all of his massive portion, instead opting to keep some for Sally and Jake, the dogs back home. For a brief few moments I also considered politely putting some of my chicken aside for the dogs’ supper but only for a brief few moments. I then thought better of it and demolished the rest of my plate. Feeling rather full afterwards, and slightly guilty about the hungry dogs back at the house, we then ambled over to the Lido bar where we joined Troon’s Saturday night elite for a few drinks.
Lido is a stylish café like bar, owned by the same bar and restaurant outfit that runs the harbour restaurant in the same town, Scott’s and Elliots in Prestwick. The brasserie sits on the quiet street, among the other, older bars and seaside shops, it’s modern face a little out of place. With polished dark wood furniture and decorated cushion seats and walls inside, circling a decorative bar and open kitchen, it’s obviously drawing inspiration from some of the swankier places in town making it a great alternative for the folks of Troon, to some of the other, more traditional settings. It was busy, lively and comfortable and just as we were leaving to head back to the house the DJ was setting up his decks on the large, rectangular table alongside us, casting some smokers’ drinks and scarves to the side. These smokers had thought it acceptable to keep their interior seats whilst they sat out at the tables in the outside front, framed by neatly trimmed hedges. As long at their scarves were still slung over their inside chairs and their glasses of water were still in place on the table they considered themselves able to come back and forth whenever they pleased. They left their inside table to head outside for a cigarette and made themselves comfortable on one of the round tables outside, safe in the knowledge their table inside was guarded by the scarves and water. For at least forty minutes, they lounged around outside, before frowning through the window as the DJ turned up with his various laptops and control panels, quickly casting their scarves aside after asking if they had belonged to us.
Why should smokers’ unattended tables be kept for them in a busy bar area? If they decide to leave their table empty, in order to feed their nicotine cravings then giving up the comfy indoors table should be a sacrafice they should be willing to take. Why should others, in a busy bar, be made to stand, by a scarf slung over the back of a chair?
Ka and myself have actually nicked smokers’ tables before. One of the last times being in the Theatre Royal Bar in Edinburgh when we innocently nabbed what we thought was an empty table, considering the one jacket left over one of the chairs to have been long abandoned, and made ourselves comfortable with a few glasses of wine before the david Byrne gig next door. After a good half an hour of sitting enjoying ourselves the smoking couple (they weren’t that good looking) turned up looking for their place. As it turned out they were actually very nice about it and pulled up another chair on the opposite side of the table and started chatting away. They were an older couple, the bearded bloke perhaps around forty odd in age, the woman looking a bit older. Before we knew it they were spitting at the ground with the sheer mention of trams, telling us where they lived, how they’d met and about when they’d last seen the Talking heads in concert. When the time came to go and take our places in the theatre next door, Ka and myself apologised once more for taking up half of their table uninvited and left them in the lively bar.
Upon entering the Playhouse, Ka and myself split up for a quick toilet visit and as I was standing at the male trough doing my business somebody ambled up and took the place next to me.
“Oh, hello again!” the bearded man smiled from my side. After another short conversation, very short, as conversation over urinals are always a bit awkward, I headed out and found Ka through the busy throng of the Edinburgh Playhouse. Upon meeting each other we decided to get a wee drink from the bar, rolling out the barrel, as it were, as it’s not every week you go to the theatre or a gig. So as I joined the bustling crowd at the ridiculously small theatre bar I slowly made my way to the front of the crowd as slowly but surely the people before me obtained their various beverages from the choice of two bottles beers at triple the usual price or three kinds of wine, white, red, or rose. Upon finally reaching the bar I planted my elbows down on to the bar and turned to find the bearded smoker standing at my side again. I think he gave me the same look I gave him. The ‘not you again’ look. The pleasant surprise and nod of the ‘how are you’ look followed by the ‘look away at something, anything, that’ll enable me to not make conversation’ look. After getting my drinks I half expected Ka and myself to get into the theatre and find the two smokers sitting in the next seats along from us.
I get the ‘look away at something, anything, that’ll enable me to not make conversation’ look quite a lot. There was a girl in high school that I used to fancy who used to find lamp posts or brick walls extraordinarily interesting to look at whenever I approached.
During the week I was wondering up Cadzow Street in the morning, on my way to work, when the Head honcho woman from our Estate Agents, (let’s call them ‘Your Maneuver’ again), seen me walking up towards her as she made her way to the ‘Your Maneuver’ office. I’d spoke to her for around an hour, not more than four or five weeks ago, and I know she recognised me, but, for whatever reason, decided to suddenly give the passing shop windows at her side and the passing pavestones under her feet, her full, uninterrupted, attention.
Guilt at having failed to sell our beautiful flat. That's what I reckon it was.
Guilt. Terrible thing.
That’s probably what makes Children in Need such uncomfortable viewing. If you don’t donate you must, and should, feel guilty.
It doesn’t take a lot to make me feel guilty.
Hopefully Sally and Jake will forgive me for eating all my Tandoori.

The good, the bad and the funky

“Who are they then?” Dave frowned, turning in his chair in the new workplace, the stiflingly hot office with broken down air conditioning.
“Who the hell are the Tom, Tom, Club?” Mum frowned over her spectacles, as she put her book down in the conservatory yesterday.
“Whose the Tom Tom Club then?” Colin frowned, after opening his birthday presents which included a Miles Kane album and a remote controlled Dalek. “Jillian said they something about a bunch of councillors or something?”
“Let’s go see the Tom Tom Club th’night guys” a wee ned laughed, as he passed the O2 ABC on Sauchiehall Street. “Whoever they ur!”
Nobody knows who the Tom Tom Club are. Except from the mixed, happy crowd that occupied Glasgow’s ABC2 club on Wednesday night.
Ka and myself were among them, bopping away to the good, the bad and the funky beats.
The Tom Tom Club are the band formed in 1981 by Talking Heads’ bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer husband Chris Frantz, originally formed as a side project for the two of them which, when Talking Heads split in the late eighties, then became their main project. They were and are an original, new wave, electro pop, rock outfit and very rarely make live appearances in Britain, never mind Scotland, so, being a Talking Heads fan, I bought the tickets a few weeks ago out of sheer curiosity. It was a good gig, more rock than rap.
Cheers went up in the small ABC2 as Billy Sloan walked out on to the stage bringing the DJ’s set to a close around nine, introducing the band on to stage. The band performed till late playing their hits along with their three famous cover versions and one or two surprises from the Talking Heads catalogue, including a fantastic ‘Psycho Killer’ to finish off, making a lot of the gathered fans very happy, some exceptionally so. One lassie headbanged her way through the gig, making me suspect she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and was actually supposed to be in the SECC, watching Iron Maiden and was just too drunk to realise. Her sweaty hair swung and spun around her head into surrounding members of the audience before us, one of which was a pretty tall guy in a red T-shirt. This guy was not popular either as he kept letting off the most horrendous smelling farts, ruining the following five minutes of the gig for us standing behind him with his offending gases. Gawd knows what he’d been eating.
On my way up to the ABC to get the tickets, before the gig, leaving Ka sitting outside Bar Bhudda in the dying sunshine, I passed by the Tom Tom Club as they ambled down Sauchiehall Street together, presumably for a bite to eat. As I was running I’d already past the small motley crew before I realised that it was actually them and it was with considerable excitement that I arrived back down at the bar, tickets in pockets, to hurriedly ask Ka if she’d seen them.
“Seen who?” Ka frowned.
“The Tom Tom Club!” I gesticulated urgently, people frowning, looking up from their drinks from surrounding tables. “They must have passed right by!”
“Oh, is that who they were?” Ka nodded in realisation, recognising the description I gave her. A couple from Newcastle, sitting at the table alongside us, nodded knowingly.
“We’re going too” the rather boring looking couple nodded. Following a brief conversation with the couple from Newcastle (who originated from Glasgow, according to Ka, but had been living down south for nine years) a bird sh*t on me. The second ‘sh*tty’ situation in a week and the second bird poo I have received on Sauchiehall Street.
Anyway, following the gig, some members of the Tom Tom Club came out to mingle with the crowd.
As Ka and myself left we passed Victoria Clamp, the singer who accompanies Tina on vocal duties. I interrupted the conversation she was having with two other blokes to thank her for the show which she politely nodded and thanked me for, looking a little disturbed at the same time as she seemed to have been accosted by a strange, shivery looking bloke who apparently didn’t have anywhere to stay for the night.
Before the show had started I’d also shook Frankie Boyle’s hand. Ka had been in the loo when I suddenly noticed a familiar, heavily bearded, bespectacled, face minding his own business, supping a pint with his bespectacled wife in the quiet, but steadily busying crowd before the stage. As Ka eventually emerged from the loo I led her up towards the bar but took a slight detour by the controversial, Scottish comedian. Ka sighed and rolled her eyes, again not realising, wondering who it was I’d met now. It was not until after my cheery ‘pleased to meet you’ and friendly handshake that Ka’s eyes recognised the bearded man before her.
Boyle had seemed happy enough, and polite enough, to acknowledge the recognition, shifting his pint to his other hand for the handshake which he greeted with a smile and a nod.
You hear horror stories of people meeting celebrities in the street and being given unfriendly replies to hellos or, if you’ve really got the balls, autograph requests. For instance there was more than a few stories of innocent, excited bystanders greeting Billy Connelly and being given a rude and rather severe “f**k off!” in return.
I’ll never understand that myself. Being rich and famous is surely a privilege and being recognised in the street is surely expected to come hand in hand with such a chosen career, so why be rude in such a fashion to the people that keep you in the job? Okay, you might be having a bad day, but there’s no need for bad language surely? If you were to see someone famous in the street and start slinging insults at them, their work or their latest movies, I’m sure a “f**k off!” would be justified, but if you’re simply saying hello, surely a simple nod would suffice.
Boyle obviously understands this and is quite willing to shake the hands of a passing concert goers, happy after a few pints. Either that or he is now treasuring any pleasantries he can get after the criticism he got for slagging off Jordan’s kid.

Frankie’s wife frowned as the strange, smiling bloke walked off to the bar, towing his own wife behind.
“Who was that then?”
Frankie looked round at her and shrugged.
“No f***in’ idea” he hummed with a slight shake of the head taking another sip from his pint. “Just another to**er”.
His wife sighed with a nod as she took another drink from her vodka and coke.
“So” she frowned again, as she looked round towards the stage. “What’s this band called again?”

Everything that happens live

We were in Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall last night for a brilliant night watching Mr David Byrne and his excellent band. When I say excellent, of course, I mean excellent, as Byrne played the majority of his latest album and Eno collaboration 'Everything That Happens Will Happen Today' proving that all the tracks lose nothing, if not sound better, live and onstage. There were also a select number of tracks from the Talking heads days including the brilliant, and one of my own personal favourites, Heaven. Byrne rebelled against the usual few folk shouting for Psycho Killer and played more than a few more obscure and brilliant Heads songs including I Zimbra, Born Under Punches and Houses in Motion. All the while Byrne was accompanied by his great band and, the majority of the time, by three professional ballet dancers who spun, shimmied and acted around him as he sang, the male dancer at one point jumping over the lead singer, leaping Byrne's full height like it was a walk in the park. Life During Wartime, Once in a Lifetime and Burning Down the House were the big Heads hits sung on the lead up to the finally which was the slow but beautiful title track to the latest album. On entering, at the beginning of the gig, Byrne received a standing ovation to which he smiled 'that's what we came for, may as well go home now', the trouble was, even after the lights came back up 2 hours later, nobody did want to go home.

Tomorrow in the Park

Well, tomorrow morning Ka and myself will be setting off to T in the Park in the wee red clio. Watch out balado, here we come! Camping for the weekend too which should be interesting considering Ka has never camped before in her life! There's a great line up of music - looking forward to Rage Against the Machine, Primal Scream, Vampire Weekend and REM especially. Really curious about Vampire Weekend as they sound very Talking Heads like. But there's just loads. Probably won't manage to see everyone I've got half an interest in. Hopefully the weather holds out to some extent and we don't get completely soaked, even if Gareth in the work wishes it. He seems to think I've went out and bought a shit tent. He obviously has no faith in my tent buying skills. It was a proper £25 quid tent we bought so hopefully we'll be well sheltered from the stormy nights! None of your £10 Somerfield specials here thank you very much. We've got our wellies, rainjackets, torches, alcohol and mallets at the ready so bring it on!!