Excellence through excellence
We Were Puny, They Were Vapid by Frank Key
The brand-new pamphlet from Frank Key, of Hooting Yard on Resonance FM, is out at Lulu.com. I’m delighted to say that I provided some of the illustrations for the story The Book of Gnats.
The blurb from the book reads thus:
“Read separately, each story makes a perfect bedtime story for the lumbering neurasthenic orphan hidden in your attic Taken together, the tales shed an eerie half-light on that realm where gnats and phlogiston and fences collide.”
There’s something sinister about this photo, but I can’t work out what it is. It seems to herald a confluence of painful events, what with the manholes, and the coffee, and the car bumper, and the weird dark thing floating above the girl’s head.
Here I am all dressed up as a U-boat captain for the Blitz party in London’s vibrant East End, with my girlfriend dressed up as a wartime nurse. Not sure under what circumstances we would have met, maybe if she were working on a bends ward. The pipe is my own.
A German TV channel was filming there and were very interested in my costume… maybe they were doing a piece about the English obsession with World War 2.
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I can’t imagine what nightmare parallel universe Zuccato’s woefully misguided “Z-kids” come from, but they’re obviously way too cool for school.
I can’t begin to describe how many things are wrong with this advert (at the rear entrance of the Finchley Road O2 Centre) but simply glancing at it I can feel my “hate hump” (link contains swears) filling to bursting point.
The eyeless girl seems to be flipping some kind of meaningless gang sign, while the eyeless boy’s mouth looks like it was once a smile until the corners were thickened and turned down to give him a sullen, adversarial air. The tagline claims that the new Z-kids menu is “scrumdiddlyyum”, a rip-off of the Willy Wonka “Scrumdiddlyumptious” name parsed through 1950s street slang, like the kids are about to recommend a “hotdogerooni” or a “shake-ola”.
I’ve just checked out the Z-kids website at etruscarestaurants.com and it looks like I was right. The kids look more benign on the website – the boys mouth is smiling and the girl is holding a lollipop, and the introductory text offers “A big, warm, happy WELCOME to the new Z-kids site.”
So why the decision to gangsta them up? I plan to ask Etrusca Restaurants to explain their marketing strategy via their handy online feedback form…
3 dogs I saw on my morning bike ride on the Heath. The dog on the left is returning with a yellow ball.
Sullen hand-waggling grime princess Lady Sovereign asks:
“Doesn’t it feel much better, when you’ve had a better day than yesterday?
Doesn’t it feel much better, when you’ve had a better day than yesterday?
Doesn’t it feel much better, when you’ve had a better day than yesterday?
Doesn’t it feel much better, when you’ve had a better day than yesterday?”
OF COURSE IT FUCKING DOES! That’s why it’s a better day!
Keep this up, Lady Sovereign, and I might have to reconsider your claim to be an “educated example of intelligence”…
Apparently Dean Gaffney once tore a horse in half. Lengthways.
This is a lie. Obvious, you might think…
But I’ve been a bit perturbed recently by the amount of people who tell me that they can never tell when I’m being serious or not. So I thought I’d offer a handy list of things I say which are usually lies:
1. “Dean Gaffney once tore a horse in half… lengthways.” There you are, you know that one already. Incidentally, it doesn’t have to be Dean Gaffney – anyone will do. Minor celebrities are best, and the lie works well if you lean towards the person and lower your voice, conspiratorially.
2. “Dean Gaffney died by choking on a magnet.” Dean Gaffney, at the time of writing this, isn’t dead, so this is obviously falsehood. But if it were someone in the distant past, you might be sucked in, so beware. Sometimes I will add, with a sad shake of the head, “if only he’d had two… or been nearer to the fridge.”
3. “Dean Gaffney once caused a goat to burst, just by speaking its name.” Come to think of it… this one is completely true.
If you watch the digital channel G.O.L.D. (formerly UK Gold) you can hear my voice trailing the channel’s “Extravaganza Bonanza” lasting all of January, with double episodes of various classic sit-coms back-to-back from 9pm!
I would have titled this post “G.O.L.D.man Sachs” but for the fact that it doesn’t have anything to do with banking.
Charlie and Lola scooped two Baftas yesterday, in the Best Animation and Best Preschool Animation categories, against very stiff competition! Well done everyone! You can see pics from the ceremony here.
I just found this video online of me alongside Matt Lucas in their BBC show Rock Profiles… I make a very short appearance at about 2:18 as a studio engineer. Matt Lucas was a lovely bloke to work with, and I remember thinking the show was very well written.
