Jonola14

The last thing I needed at 8.15 this morning, whilst doing 80mph in the fast lane of the M4, was to have my car suddenly start shuddering and make funny thumping noises. I muted the music and listened to the engine briefly before deciding something was wrong and that I had to pull over to the hard shoulder. Once I had come to a halt, I revved the engine once more and the sound had cleared. "I wonder if I've got a flat tyre" I said to myself, stepping out of the car into the pissing rain and sure enough there was a limp tyre, gently billowing smoke from the rim and beginning to smoulder. Only it wasn't a puncture, the air hadn't slowly hissed out of the tyre, the tyre had actually burst and 26psi (or whatever the pressure is) had come flooding out at 80mph on a wet fast lane. Brilliant.

So I knelt by the side of the road, switching the injured alloy for the spare wheel in the boot, jacking the car up, wrangling with the crank and all the while not only getting rained on but getting sprayed by passing lorries. No surprise that I turned up half an hour late for my meeting, dirty, wet and slightly flustered, and took a load of abuse from the field team.

Still, it could have been worse - it could have happened on the way to Wibbler's paintballing party on Saturday morning when my alcohol levels from the previous night's debauchery would have done well to keep me below the legal limit and when, frankly, I would hardly have noticed a blown tyre. Actually, thinking about it, I did go through a few pot-holes quite hard that day - particularly the drivers side where the tyre blew so maybe that is a contributing factor... But anyway, at least I am physically ok - which is more than can be said for Wibbler who, having had a bad back that limited his ability to participate, having been forced to wear a t-shirt with a target on the front and 'shoot me, it's my birthday' on the back, having had people shoot him repeatedly even after he had been eliminated (under our instruction!) and having had to take part in an 'everyone against the birthday boy' round at the end of the day for everyone with paintballs remaining, now has numerous red welts on his back and is, by his own admission, in sheer agony. The highlight being one chap at the end of the day who approached him, shook him by the hand and thanked him for being a good sport - 'so you shoot the shit out of me then THANK me for it?' How very British.

So after the blown tyre incident I thought my day would improve. Wrong. I returned to the office to a barrage of questions and complaints, as well as loads of emails and voicemails. Such was my mood at 5.15pm I announced "right, I'm going home" and marched out the door.

I needed to pack you see, because I'm off to meet Debs in Los Angeles tomorrow and I hadn't done any preparation. No packing, no lists, no laundry, nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. I walked in the door and decided I needed a haircut - I might as well make the effort as I'm seeing Debs for the first time in almost four months, so I quickly changed and headed out to the local hairdressers for a trim.

My track record with hairdressers is not particularly good and this occasion just adds to the history. "Grade 2 at the back and sides please and cut it shorter on the top" I requested as I sat down in the chair and raised my chin for the hairdresser to attach the gown. Things were going quite well until he started jamming the clippers into my head and grating against my scalp like someone trying to rub out heavy pencil etchings from a drawing. Once he had had his fill of trying to erode my head, he grabbed the Sweeney Todd razor and began jabbing it at the top of my neck. Consequently I have very short hair around the sides and absolutely none at all at the back. But he wasn't finished yet, oh no. Having thinned the hair on top (like it needs that..), he then decided to blow dry my hair upwards and make me look like an early nineties Vanilla Ice. Then he started laughing. Bear in mind that this is North Harrow and the guy was Asian, so was his colleague and so were the three other customers all in the hairdressers. His colleague also started laughing. Neither of them would make eye contact with me so I knew they were laughing at me. At what I don't know. My Vanilla Ice cut? A freshly carved bald spot on the back of my head? Thankfully he grabbed a pot of gel and pushed it through my hair to give it some sort of styling but frankly it was too late by then, I wanted out. Quickly. I vowed never to go there again, but I know that I'm lying to myself - the hairdressers is a mere thirty second walk and it's the only one locally. Plus I think, having got used to it in the hour since it happened, that it looks quite good, although Alex has just described me as looking "very American".

Hello Jac,
This comment is not a real one in fact as you'll see (sorry for the inconvenience to put that message here , but i could not find any email addy for you , so here it is :( but you can "properly " delete this message when you get it , of course , i do not want to 'pollute' your comments area :):) BTW , i send the same information to Wibbler , but do not take it bad , neither for a crappy spam ! but yes please , delete this disturbing message , please Jac ! thanks in advance ....

As an intensive reader of your blog and website i do appreciate for a long time, and knowing that your interest in the musical domain is quite important if not vital :) , i thought it was not a so bad idea to let you know that some very good friends who are playing pop'n roll and indie rock music (The Dude and also 13th Hole ) here in France, have been programmed to have some gigs in England in november.
As you seem to be in the London area for now , i thought it could nice to offer you and your friends the ability to be on the guest list for example, on the 18th November at The Café ¤e Paris , if you are interested and if it suits you of course ! :):)
(see the info and links below)

http://www.limerecords.com/gigs.html
11th Nov Oxford Jericho Tavern
13th Nov Brighton Engine Rooms
15th Nov Cheltenham The Hub
16th Nov Southampton Joiners
17th Nov Bath Moles Club
18th Nov London Cafe de Paris

(Iain Moffat from playlouder.com wrote on them "Lastly, just 'cos we've been kind of on the missing side when it comes to cracking continental glamour lately, we head off to a converted railway station called Le Fleche d'Or in Paris for the evening. Our excuse? Oh, it's not a bad one, readers. See, there's a double-header tour coming somewhere near you next month called Vive La Revolution!, and we thought it'd be hardly one of our worst ideas if we checked out the bands in question on their home turf. And when we see The Dude, we conclude we were right. They're a mental proposition, to be honest: in spite of the name, there's a lady - and she is very much a lady - on board, there's much instrument-and-general-responsibility-swapping to be had, and, while there's a good deal of Hiveswear on show, they've tempered much of their spitty pop'n'roll with unlikely rifferama copped from our side of the Channel, such as Elastica and - caramba! - even a touch of Butler-vintage Suede. All of which is before we even get to the gloriously garrulous frontman Alex, who looks like Andrew W.K.'s even cheerier bigger brother and dances like both Jarvis and Jagger. Like, WHOA!, Dude!"
http://www.playlouder.com/

some pictures are available on here on my personal account :
http://spaces.msn.com/members/derceville/PersonalSpace.aspx?_c11_PhotoAlbum_spaHandler=TWljcm9zb2Z0LlNwYWNlcy5XZWIuUGFydHMuUGhvdG9BbGJ1bS5GdWxsTW9kZUNvbnRyb2xsZXI%24&_c11_PhotoAlbum_spaFolderID=cns!1pkGNeHalMrVxylvTpRxB6bw!328&_c=PhotoAlbum

Well, let me know (by email ) if this proposition could be ok for you and/or some of your friends (and of course for any of the planned dates , i only mentioned above the London gigs but naturally for it could be for the other locations too :)

Sincerely,

Stephane

Well , that the end of this message , Blimey :):)

October 25, 2005

THAT'S BLOWN IT