According to Karen Chu, British Gas have been inspired by Little Big Planet for their latest set of adverts. Unfortunately this wasn’t mentioned as an inspiration by the advertising in the away day that we recently held (as part of my role in a well known British based Gas company). That doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t an inspiration, just that advertising man didn’t want to incriminate himself.

In his defence, the British Gas doesn’t totally steal from LBP. Whilst parts of it evoke the feel of the game, it doesn’t look exactly like it. It also doesn’t have an annoyingly floaty jump.

CSL sofas don’t really have the ‘inspired by’ defence.  It’s entirely stolen from the first level of Mirror’s Edge that made everyone fall in love with it (and then fall out with it because the combat was not intuitive).

The problem is I don’t see how a distopian future on the roofs of high rise buildings makes you think ‘Sofas’.  If anyone can answer this for me I would be most appreciative.

I was in Nottingham today going to see my Grandma, and to waste some time I went to Lee Rosy’s to see if the FME and DHK approved waitress was as hott as I was led to believe.

Unfortunately as I got there before 10am, it was shut and I felt it would have been rude to stare through the window so just glanced in and saw a dark-haired girl. I had no idea if she was hott, but the place did look very nice.

And all the time I was walking around I knew I was in Nottingham. Which sounds silly, but everyone else says all high streets are the same due to homogenised shops and health ‘n’ safety* causing anything original to be removed.

But even if Selectadisc closed**, and the Brian Clough statue was removed I’d know exactly where I was. And if I was dumped in York, Mansfield, Manchester, Swinging London or Scarborough I would know immediately where I was. And then run towards the Police Station to inform them I had been kidnapped.

Because the high street is more than the shops that it contains. It’s the buildings that they’re in, with the clocks that have been outside them for ages. It’s the little hill you have to go up before seeing that Lee Rosy’s is shut. It’s the little alleyways and snickets you know you can cut through before you get to Cube hairdressers. It’s that they’re not all set in blocks like in America (or at least, what I think of America – please inform me if I’m wrong former colonialists!). It’s the trams in Manchester going towards Altringham.

Although the fact that they all seem to have big wheels is very silly.

* The a and n were removed in case a kid fell and bumped their head on them

** Which it is. I bought my Olivia Tremor Control album there, along with the cool see through Sleater-Kinney single (I think it was You’re No Rock And Roll Fun). Bye bye Selectadisc, you were a girl record store

As befits someone who recently got married I have let myself go a bit.  Whereas I was previously a slim, weak man with a bit of a pot belly I am now a slim, weak man with a bit of a pot belly and a beard.  This obviously makes a huge difference to my lifestyle, which consists of sitting around playing videogames and eating chicken goujons with reggae reggae sauce.

I think my body works fine from the waist down as I walk to work (excluding the 25 minute train I catch in between walking to and from the stations) and don’t get out of breath.  Sometimes I do get a little sweaty, but that’s mostly due to me wearing a big coat in anticipation of cold weather & the Sun deciding to boil me slightly.

No, it’s always been my arms & belly that require the most work.  My belly seems to attract all the spare weight I have, but my arms get thinner and thinner in comparison.

So I got the Wii Fit board out of storage and decided to give it a go.  After being gently chided for not going on it for over 100 days I started playing the put-the-balls-in-the-holes game as a warm up.

Then I did some squat thrusts which weren’t too bad, so I decided to do some jacknifes to work on my belly.  Easy peasy.  At least for the first few jacks, then for some weird reason my lardy belly thought that it didn’t like doing this & it started to hurt.  Lots.  The worst thing was that the gym trainer lady was late for the session due to sleeping in too late and seemed to be taking it out on me.  “Keep at it.  I may be hungover, but seeing you in pain is making me feel lots better.”

I hate that woman.  She never cuts you any slack.  Much like a trainer in a real gym.

I decided to finish with a press up session.  Now I really hate the Wii Fit press ups.  Not only do they make you do it really slowly, but they also make you move onto one arm in an attempt to prolong the agony.  So I gave up.

The woman gave me some grief, but I didn’t really care as I could see her do the press ups and noticed that her top was really scary.  You could see her cleavage, but it was perfectly covered by her top.  Not like it was a lycra top, but more like it was painted over like those women they occasionally have in Sports Illustrated issues.

The gym lady scares me.  I would choose the man, but he is also scarier and I worry about what I will see when I do the squat thrusts.

I need a car.  Actually scratch that, I need a method of transportation that’s cheap and doesn’t require two weeks of planning before I can use it.  Which essentially means a car.

It doesn’t matter that I haven’t been behind a wheel since I passed my test* in 2002, a car would be really useful.  It would mean that I wouldn’t have to get a first class ticket to travel down at 7am to see my Grandma** as there were no cheaper tickets that would get me there before 12.

We could also go and visit Freya’s relatives who live too far away for us to decide to see at a short notice and therefore hardly see as much as she would like.  The last time we saw her Father & Step-Mother was at our wedding and nine months*** is too long to have not seen your parents.

I’d quite look forward to being able to drive around Yorkshire and see places that don’t have a train station near them.  I hear there’s some rather nice village pubs nearby and as I’m (sob) nearly 30 I reckon I should be going towards that direction.

Also going by car would remove the most hateful thing about getting public transport.  Which is the public.  They are such whining, childish hatemongerers .  Honestly, while I’ve not been blogging I’ve been storing up anecdotes about the idiotic things my fellow commuters have done.  And the really annoying thing is I’m sure I’ve done exactly the same thing to them.

* Other than when I revved my Mum’s car so that my Dad’s car got jump started.

** Although I’m actually interested in seeing how good first class is.

*** Erk.  I’ve been married for nine months.  We’ve already lasted longer than Peaches Geldof.  In your face!

Right, I realise I haven’t really blogged on here.  And I haven’t filled in the ‘about’ sections that I appear to have.

But humour me for a moment.  I’m trying to work out if what I’ve written makes sense.

Momopeche twittered ‘crap, i have to write my SXSW bio and have no idea to write it in first person or third‘.  My reply was ‘He always prefers to write in the second person‘.

Does this make sense from any viewpoint?  I’m really unsure if it does or not.

It appears to be working.  Expect more fun tomorrow!

Slow Club:

You thought you were bad
in fact you were rather good
but crap whistlers

Tilly and the wall:

One of you can’t sing
can’t play bass but can tap dance
you’ll go a long way

I realise it’s been ten years, but I still miss them. Kenickie are my favourite band ever. They just sang with feeling. And a mackem accent.

I’ve liked bands before and since, but I’ve never felt the same joy when I hear any other band. Plus they sounded like they were having fun too.

They split just as I started Uni at Loughborough and I could’ve seen them on their final tour at Rock City, but I never found anyone to go with. It’s something I regret to this day. Although perhaps seeing them in their dying throes will have soured my memory of them.

I even liked how their first unofficial mailing list was one sent out by someone (Lee?) who bcc’d everyone in so you got a load of messages in one go.

The best bit is I have no idea where I started to like Kenickie from. It might have been C-Monster, who mentioned it in his e-mail about AP. Or J Nash when I asked him about music he liked. Or maybe it was when I got a promo leaflet through the post.

So thanks for everything Johnny X (anything to do with http://www.whoisjohnny-x.com/ ), Emmy-Kate Montrose (writer of the Best Kenickie Song ever), Lauren Laverne (who should just stick to radio rather than sorting out Twiggy’s frocks) and Marie du Santiago (the one I fancied, sorry Marie).

I did actually see Kenickie live twice, both times were at Reading Festival. Rather surprisingly BFBS played part of their 1996EDIT: 1997** set on their radio station. I managed to record it onto tape. Now I have converted it into mp3s* for everyone to enjoy. If anyone knows of any reason why these shouldn’t be on here, let me know.

Cheers.

• The whole gig as a .rar file
• 01 – Dodgy BFBS Intro
• 02 – How I Was Made
• 03 – I Never Complain
• 04 – Millionaire Sweeper
• 05 – I Would Fix You
• 06 – Classy
• 07 – People We Want
• 08 – PVC
• 09 – In Your Car

* Via Minidisc, then audacity.
** I knew I went to Reading 1998 as this was before I went to Uni, but I could have sworn I missed the one before that. However, I am wrong. Simon, the person Simon was speaking to, and the First Matt were right. Everyone must now change the ID3 tags in the MP3s accordingly.

Rose from The Pipettes
She wanted to dance/hand jive
Was stuck by keyboard

Film School were loud
And also repetitive
They were also loud

British Sea Power
Very good foliage but
Need Turtle Power

Nice to see the Guardian pays attention to its own words…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/oct/07/little.britain

Don’t hold your breath for a British series called The Mentalist.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2008/oct/03/channelfive.television

Channel Five’s new US import The Mentalist