15 May 2009

What Difference Does I Make?

You owe me. Big style. Really, really big.

I have reformed The Smiths.

Oh yes! Now you feel humble, don't you? I have reformed The Smiths.

Frankly, I got fed up of all the "will they?/won't they?" BS that has been going on, so I intervened. I have acted. And decisively.

Obviously it won't feature Morrissey, because... well a) he's feeling a bit poorly and c) if it was going to feature Morrissey then I wouldn't have had to intervene, would I? You ARE paying attention aren't you?

So. anyway, I sought a replacement on vocals.

'Ersatz daff wielder wanted - apply within'.

Having sifted the applications I whittled it down to three.

The notes read; "Hadley - right period; wrong genre, too desperate. André - more desperate. All wrong. Astley - right period, close enough with the hair, man's voice. In."


Johnny Marr is not strictly joining in either, citing 'total indifference'.

He will be replaced by Billy Bragg just as soon as Mr Bragg's agent returns my emails. This does mean The Smiths will be a bit clangier than before, and that they will do some Billy Bragg songs.

That should broaden the fan base.

And of course Rourke and Joyce will not be allowed in The Smiths because a) they never actually have been and d) Morrissey can't get on with either of them.

I have approached Lou from the Red Guitars - below, first, centre - and the drummer from Bogshed - below, second (maybe) one of them - with a view to getting them all to rehearsals next Thursday.



I have done the world a favour, you'll agree. And the world will listen.

14 May 2009

Sticking point

We were swapping very poor old jokes over chicken and vegetable pie this evening. I went for the one about the man who goes into a bar with his giraffe, and begins buying rounds for the both of them, to the amazement of the bar staff. After eight pints the giraffe collapses in a heap on the floor. The man has two more pints and makes to leave. "Oi", yells the landlord gesturing towards the comatose animal, "you can't leave that lying there".

"It isn't a lion; it's a giraffe", says the man.

In the midst of this, the elder steppy proved once again what a towering intellect we have amongst us. "Here's an old one," said Mrs. Graph, "what's brown and sticky?" "Ooh, ooh. I, like, know this", yells elder steppy in order to prove she can actually remember something. "It's... it's... it's... a TWIG!!"

Words fail.




I thought it was the position of the Prime Minister...

10 May 2009

In bloom?


Last Saturday was "World Naked Gardening Day".

http://wngd.org/

It's good to know somebody's paying attention...

http://pseudograph-pseudography.blogspot.com/2009/04/days-ed-and-confused.html

6 May 2009

Rocket launcher

It amazes me that people aren't aware of the link between motor racing and salad.

Only this evening I had to explain again to Mrs Graph (who had chided me for buying wild rocket rather than taking it from that bunch which she is growing in the garden) that wild rocket is not the same as domestic rocket. By definition; it's wild. Which means it has to be caught. And - as I would have assumed most right-thinking folk would have spotted from its name - it moves pretty bloody quickly!

Anyway, as a direct result of the extraordinary speed it exhibits in its native environment, we now have motor racing.

In the farming regions around Torino (called in English Turin, but actually more accurately translated as Tureen) it was regarded as the finest of leaves with which to flavour the locally produced soups - 'Zuppa Torino' identifying the local pot in which a variety of zuppe were concocted.

As demand for the zuppe grew, so too did the voracious requirement for greater and greater harvests of wild rocket (Rucola). The more that needed to be harvested, the fewer and further between seemed the 'Rocket Men' (Uomini Ruchetta) who were paid to capture the Eruca sativa.

One of those whose livelihood depended upon the successful chase was Ferrucio Lamborghini, born in 1876. His small farm, high in the hills of the Appenini at Renazzo, Cento, (ironically in the region of Ferrara) was insufficient to support his sizeable Catholic family. For that reason he began marauding further and further afield, reaching far west to the outskirts of Torino; netting wild rocket across that vast hinterland.

Greedy for the rewards the peppery brassica could bring, in 1891 (at the age of just 17) Ferrucio designed and built two rapid, narrow, single-seater vehicles equipped with a wide blade across the front for the sole purpose of hacking down the flying rocket plant. As he and his 15 year-old brother Miura raced across the Italian 'Steppi', the world was first introduced to the sport named later after the wild rocket itself, which was at that time so desired as to be referred to as"Principal in the Recipe" - in Italian 'Uno di Formule' - Formula One.

4 May 2009

Mein Dreck

Sebastian Deisler retired from football at the age of 27, through injury and depression.



"Guten Morgen Herr Doktor.

"Ja, here mit mich ist schtill nicht zo gut. In denen nachts am Ich vakink mit der zound of Der Great Eskape drillink shrew mein earen, und zen iss startink ze veepink, ven Ich bin seeink again fur meinzelf ze miss I am makink in scoreline schtill at ein ein.

"Funfen - Ein. Funfen gebassted - Ein.

"Und schtill heare Ich den ge-zingink aus den Englische crauden, mit der "Caaaaarsten Jancker - ist ein striker, ist ein striker.."

"Und in mein meind bin Ich zeeink ze faces aus ze Mikkel Erven, Escherlei Kohl, and - wurst of alles - den vizzedge aus Erven Hargreeaven vitch vass ein freunden mit mein, aber in den dreemink ist he mit ze gloatink, gloatink, gloatink..

"Ich wudder nicht bin gemeindink, aber er didde nicht kommt on bis den siebentich-achtische minuten".