My attempt at a Blues song...

"Sleeping in the station with a Daily Record for a pillow" by Limpin' Lightnin' Carter

I woke up this morning with a crick in my neck
I woke up this morning with a crick in my neck
Newsprint on my face and nothing left on my disability check

There ain't no room in this world for this ol' lame armadillo
and I'm sleeping in the station with a Daily Record for a pillow

My woman went and left me just like every other.
She jumped into my truck and shacked up with my brother.
She took my car, my house, my money...but god I still love her.

But there ain't no way of getting her back, oh no no no no
'cause I'm sleeping in a station with a Daily Record for a pillow.

I stole to make my way in life, I got caught by the man.
So he handed me a pack and rifle and shipped me out to Vietnam.
I fought my way through marsh and jungle to kill a guy name Charlie
One shot later I was shipped back home to the streets of Tennessee.

I dream of a different life, a house, a home, but for now though
I'm sleeping in the station with a Daily Record for a pillow.

That could possibly be my first ever attempt at writing a song. I'll be the first to point out there are some glaring problems with it. Firstly I would question why a gentleman who has clearly based himself in America (Vietnam, the streets of Tennessee) uses a Daily Record for a pillow. And I'll happily admit to using a rhyming dictionary for most (all) of it.

Now I just need someone to write some damn music for it.

Sleeping in the station with a Daily Record for a pillow

A work colleague mentioned the title of this post in a conversation related to getting stuck in Kings Cross Station overnight. I thought it sounded like a title for an excellent Blues number and that gives me a perfect chance to post this gem...

HOW TO WRITE A BLUES SONG
1. Most Blues begin “woke up this morning.”

2. “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in right away:
I got a good woman—with the meanest face in town.

3. Blues are simple. After you have the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes. Sort of.
I got a good woman—with the meanest face in town.
I got a good woman—with the meanest face in town.
She got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and she weighs 500 pounds.

4. The Blues are not about limitless choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch; ain't no way out.

5. Blues cars are Chevies, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Other acceptable Blues transportation modes include Greyhound buses and southbound trains. Walkin’ plays a major part in the Blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or SUVs. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running.

6. Adults sing the Blues. Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. In the Blues, "adulthood" means old enough to get the electric chair when you shoot that man in Memphis.

7. You can have the Blues in New York City, but not in Brooklyn or Queens. Hard times in Vermont, Tucson, or North Dakota are just depression. The best places to have the Blues are still Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City. You cannot have the blues in any place that don't get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg while skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg when your broken-down pickup truck rolled over on it is.

9. The following colors do not belong in the Blues: violet, beige, mauve (unless you’re truly desperate for a rhyme).

9. You can’t have the Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is just plain wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places to have the Blues: the highway, a jailhouse, an empty bed, the bottom of a whiskey glass. Bad places to have the Blues: ashrams, gallery openings, weekends in the Hamptons, golf courses, Tiffany's, and Ivy League institutions.

11. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old black man—and it’s an old black suit.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues?
Answer “Yes” if:
a. your first name is a southern state—like Georgia
b. you’re blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis.
d. you can’t be satisfied.
e. you're older than dirt
Answer “No” if:
a. you once were blind but now can see.
b. you’re deaf
c. the man in Memphis lived.
d. you have a trust fund or an IRA.
e. you have all your teeth
f. you were once blind but now can see

13. Blues is not about color, it's about bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues; Gary Coleman could. Ugly old white people got a leg up on the blues. Julio Iglesias and Barbra Streisand will never sing the Blues.

14. If you ask for water and baby gives you gasoline, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are: wine, whiskey, muddy water, beer, black coffee. Blues beverages are NOT: mixed drinks, kosher wine, sparkling water, Snapple, Starbucks Frappuccino, or Slim Fast. Although Rubber Biscuits and the Wish Sandwich are famous blues snacks, better stick to common blues grub like Greasy Bar-b-que, Fatback and beans, and Government cheeze. Blues food is never: Club sandwich, Sushi, or Crème brule.

15. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is a Blues death. So is substance abuse, the electric chair, or being denied treatment in an emergency room. It is not a Blues death to die during liposuction or from tennis elbow.

16. Excellent names for female Blues singers: Sadie, Big Momma, Bessie, or Fat River Dumpling. Excellent names for male Blues singers: Willie, Joe, Little Willie, Lightning, or Big Willie. Singers with names like Muffy, Sierra, Auburn, Alexis, Gwenyth, Sequoiz, Brittany or Rainbow are not permitted to sing the Blues, no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

17. The Build Your Own Blues Singer Name Starter Kit:
a. Name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, Asthmatic)
b. First name (from above lists) or name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi)
c. Last name of a U. S. president (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
Examples: Blind Lime Jefferson, Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Okay, maybe not "Kiwi"…)

18. I don't care how tragic your life; if you own a computer, you cannot sing the Blues.
You'd best destroy it. Fire, a spilled bottle of Mad Dog, or shotgun.
Maybe your big ass woman just done sit on it. I don't care

19. Hey there, you can READ! This too be a big ol' problem. Most folks singin' the
Blues ain't never had much a chance for education. In the Blues… the three R's stand
for Railroads, Runnin' and Rehab.

20. It gots to be dark to sing the blues, preferably after midnight. Singin' da blues at noon is forbidden.

21. If none of the above works, try one last, pathetic stab at authenticity: name your guitar. Remember, Lucille is taken.

22. Epitaph on a blues musician's tombstone: "I didn't wake up this morning"

I somehow found myself in Shetland last week. Which was nice. Closest I'll likely get to a "summer holiday" this year.

Of course travelling up to Shetland at (relatively) short notice means that, unless I want to sell a kidney or some other vital organ, I'm travelling by boat. 12 or so lovely hours sailing across the North Sea putting up with lukewarm, overly expensive food and whatever weather the North Sea wants to throw at us. There is a good bar on the boat though, as well as selling the beers from the Valhalla Brewrey on Unst it has Dark Island on tap. A perfect beer to chew on for a couple of hours.

Now, for those of you not in the know, Shetland has a decent tourist trade and a fair selection of these tourists will travel up on these bus tours things. Now, I've never had the pleasure of reading any of these brochures advertising such bus tours but I can only imagine they describe the ferry crossing as -

"a leisurely evening sail up the east coast of Scotland to the Shetland Islands"

Ok so, on a nice evening I guess it can be called a leisurely sail. They don't mention what it's like in a Force 8 gale. When the weather gets like that, the best route to survival is to lie still and try not to move around too much. I do remember once, being unable to sleep one morning after a particularly rough night, going for a wander at about 6am to find a rather green looking bus tour sitting with their bags looking not unlike a group of people who are about to be evacuated from a warzone.

Also, on the boat you get a flashback to primary school. Remember when some poor kid would chunder over the floor, and the Jannie would appear and throw some sawdust on it? Yep, that's what happens!

One of the main reasons for me heading up that way was to attend Big Ro's birthday bash, which so happened to be the most Northerly Birthday Party in the UK. The following morning, I may or may not have had the most northerly hangover in the UK the following morning. I also set a personal record of making 6 trips on the Vomit Comet. A colleague did suggest it wasn't called "Punch" for nothing...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Ok, brief review of the newest Indy film. You probably shouldn't read further if you haven't seen it...or if you don't like sweary words.

The Good

• Indy - lets face it, this could have been a film about Indy suffering back pain and Harrison Ford would have still made it watchable.
• Mutt - I thought he was pretty decent as a character. Not sure of the plan to branch out of the Indy films using him as the lead role though.
• Russians - because they are cool.
• The University car/bike chase - very cool, along with the nod towards Marcus Brody.
• "You just brought a knife to a gun fight"
  

The Bad

• Swinging through the trees with the monkeys
• Fucking Aliens - I was ok with the plot until the aliens showed up at the end.
• The snake scene - Snakes are an Indy staple, the ongoing joke deserved alot better than this
• No Henry Jones Sr. - Denied.
• Mac - You're not Sallah, and you never will be.

Overall, I'd give it a generous 2 out of 4. It's not a patch on Raiders or Crusade, and Temple of Doom, despite being my least favourite of the 3 films, still comfortably kicks it in the arse.

**EDIT**

http://www.the-editing-room.com/indianajones4.html

My favourite part -

To illustrate this, SHIA LEBEOUF flies up into the FUCKING JUNGLE and swings like FUCKING TARZAN along the FUCKING VINES with a FUCKING ARMY of CGI FUCKING MONKEYS. That actually FUCKING HAPPENS.

Thanks to baxter for pointing me to this website

Ok so

Right, so my upkeep of this blog has been nothing short of abysmal. I now realise I was completely stupid to think I would update it every single day. However I did think I'd manage to post something in the space of...3 weeks...

Anyway, I was away up North for a couple of days at the weekend. A nice sunny weekend in Elgin/Inverness/Aviemore (those words can't be placed together too often surely).

I worked in Elgin for 18 months before moving back to civilisation. It's a decent town...or Cathedral City if I'm being proper and correct. I enjoyed staying there initially as it wasn't Shetland and I didn't have to get on a boat to go to the Cinema or a Football match. But then I realised that driving for 40ish miles just to go to decent cinema was actually a pain in the hole. Add into the fact that I knew nobody there, it was time to shift south...thats where Edinburgh, the Tree House and the Shed came into my life.

Inverness shouldn't really have been included on my list as I did only spend about 2 hours there, and I'm sure you don't want to hear about me sitting in a coffee shop for 2 hours waiting for a train.

Aviemore is a place I've never "properly" been. I used "properly" as I've passed through it more times than I care to remember. But it slotted into my criteria of having a railway station and a Youth Hostel so it seemed good enough destination to escape from the Shed for a couple of days. It's a strange town, perhaps the closest Scotland has to a "Tourist Town" given that it's within touching distance of a couple of winter sports areas. The population is around 2500 but I would guess there are enough hotels and guest houses to easily double that during some winters.

I went up the Cairngorm Furnicular on Saturday morning, and given the financial state that place is apparently in, I'm glad I did before anything happens to it. For having little money, the place is still in good nick. You aren't allowed out onto the mountain at the top during the summer, but the viewpoint gives some cracking views out over Moray and the Highlands.

The rest of the day was spent lying on the grass in the sun reading books and newspapers. I could have very well done this in Edinburgh, but where is the fun in that?

FAIL!

Ok, so my intention to update this piece of nonsense daily has clearly died on it's arse. I am sure, however, that this is simply a minor blip.

G is off to Munich for a few days, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't mad jealous. Germany has always interested me for one reason or another, mainly because I like sausages and beer.

I have to say that Western Mainland Europe (Blighty aside) hasn't featured much in my travel history apart from a trip to Italy when I was about a year old (which doesn't count) and a 2 hour stopover in Amsterdam (which, again, doesn't count...although I did knock myself out...). Prague would be the Westernmost place I've had the pleasure of visiting, which was in 1999 on a School exchange thing and just before it became really popular with tourists. I'd love to go back to Prague, the city is amazing, and it would be good to go back so I could (legally) enjoy some of the beers. I'm not sure just how "touristy" Prague is now, given it's a capital city you can't expect it to be all Cathedrals and Castles with no Starbucks.

When I were a lad, I can remember feeling really jealous towards most of my classmates at school when everyone was talking about their Summer holidays. Whilst they were talking about going to Tenerife, Lanzarote and Disneyland, I was going to Gairloch, Lochinver and Orkney. To an 8 year old kid, you can guess what the more attractive destination was there. However, we did go on one "Summer Sun" holiday to Cyprus when I was 12 or so. Whilst we all enjoyed the holiday, it did get pretty boring just sitting around by the pool all day. After than I came to realise that I would never be one for beach holidays and that, despite my previous pangs of jealousy or whatever, I wouldn't have swapped those holidays in Gairloch, Lochinver and Orkney for anything...well, maybe the Gairloch one, I got the shits.

The Dr. Lapdance Theorem

Do you think that pub quiz team name sounds like a late 80's American Prog-Rock band? or is it just me?

Tonight was one of the better pub quizzes I've attended. The only real point of contention was the entire pub picking Bob Barker as the answer to "Who presents the American version of 'The Price is Right'?" and then being told that it is now hosted by Drew Carey. You may ask why a pub full of students knew who the host of that program was?..

"The Price is Wrong, bitch"

Anyway, the whole thing finished ridiculously close with 6 teams being spread over 1 point. The Dr. Lapdance Theorem finished joint 3rd, and won a box of Cadbury's fingers for their troubles. It's not quite as good as winning Spiderman masks, but very little is.