Oct 23, 2005

Overheard conversation... #4

Two chaps walking out of Piccadilly train station, one animatedly trying to express himself: "I can't really describe it... it goes nice with meat balls."

But what was he talking about? Sauce? Parsley? Ikea?

Oct 22, 2005

Anski updateski onski myski campaignski

My 'Save Takuma Sato!' campaign seems to have paid off.

Midland, the mysterious Russian mafia that have taken over and re-painted the Jordan F1 team, have revealed the hapless Janapese to have signed a contract a month ago. I launched the Save Takuma Sato! campaign 26 days ago. Coincidence, methinkNO!

Midland boss Colin Kolles is nicknamed Chavski because he thinks Burberry looks good and he has the manners of, erm, a chav. He also likes confusing his sporting analogies when talking about F1. He says of the contract: "'The ball is in [Sato's] court. If he wants to sign it, he could be a Midland driver next year - we're waiting to hear."

This is a resounding success for the Save Takuma Sato! campaign. Running this campaign has been a lot of hard work; the past 26 says have consisted of:

- thinking about saving Takuma Sato;
- eating crisps;
- reading articles about Takuma Sato;
- wondering what Japan is like;
- watching Dr Who reruns on UK Gold;
- licking pavements;
- thinking about saving Takuma Sato.

So as you see, I have put tremendous effort into the campaign. Takuma is currently prostituting himself in Hapan for corporate whores (ie doing PR work), whereafter he will go on holiday happy in the knowledge that the campaign continues for as long as crisps are 3 for 2 at my local newsagent.

Oct 13, 2005

I only have pies for you

Cockeyed.com is one man's obsessive quest to find out everything about everything.

Sometimes it is informative, such as his recent re-posting of his trip to New Orleans during a hurricane alert a few years ago. Most of the time it is just silly. He replaces menus in restaurants with carefully designed parodies, and devotes pages and pages of his site to finding out how much is inside stuff (eg, how much toothpaste inside a tube, how much tree is in a Christmas tree).

However, and this (sadly) is my reason for my post, the site author's recent turn of genius is a pie chart based on a survey he conducted. He asked people's favourite TV channel - and he came up with this, the best pie chart in the world. No, really. It's complicated, messy and fantastic, and how all pie charts should look.

His pie chart is far more interesting than this one, far less yellowy than this one, and less scary than this one.

This is INTERESTING, dammit!

Oct 2, 2005

Screw Mr Scruff, get yerself some electric toys and heroin Britney instead

Yours truly and a few chummies stumbled upon a couple of bands at the In The City festival last night. We had tried to get into Mr Scruff, but with just one doorman and a queue to rival Ikea on 'Two Square Bits Of Wood For The Price Of One' Day, we took a wander and ended up at Dry Bar.

The band we saw were not entirely non-undisimilar to the Zutons, only more stoner and with a person 'Bez' dancing while adorned in a suit made of hands. They are Misty's Big Adventure and they were massive fun. They describe themselves as "hip hop, scratching, screwy beats, pop and electric toys". One of their toys flashed. Ooo.

The second is a scuzzy garage rock band called M.A.S.S.. Their show was compelling mainly thanks to lead singer Justine, a frenzied 'Britney on heroin' (thanks Dan for that description). I actually recognised one of their songs from the wireless, Hey Gravity, which Justine sang while standing on the bar at the other end of the venue from the stage, holding the microphone with one hand and smashing the hell out of the venue's piping with the other hand. If the piping had burst, spewing effluent on the crowd, it would have been one of the less eventful moments in an a startlingly exuberant performance. Apparently the Libertines love 'em as much as Docherty loves his Class As.

I must make a note to check out more In The City gigs next year. I'm off to find a piece of paper.