My mate Bill, the notorious sausage artist, is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. Springsteen supported Spinal Tap at Glastonbury yesterday, but Bill told me he had no intention of going, because standing around in a muddy field with a bunch of unwashed youths isn't his idea of a good time.
Yeah right, Bill: not going to see the Boss at Glastonbury, huh? So who was it in the crowd last night waving a sodding huge flag saying "I ♥ SAUSAGE"?
Screen capture not clear enough, you reckon? Well, go and watch this video and fast-forward to 6 minutes and 9 seconds.
You've been well and truly sussed, Bill.
Michael Jackson: a great talent, who touched many of his young fans; the self-styled King of Pop; the boy who never grew up. Jen summed him up rather well last night:
I can't believe Micheal Jackson was 50. For some reason, I always assumed he was younger than me… Mind you, most of him probably was.
Stuff, as they say, came out of my nose.
The thing is, I would sooooooo like to be the person who arranges Michael Jackson's funeral. Just imagine: the pall-bearers (who I assume would be the remaining Jackson Four) do a moonwalk up to the side of the grave, they place the coffin on the ground, the lid slowly opens, and out leaps a red-suited Jacko look-alike to perform Thriller as zombies and stuff climb out of the grave.
Seriously. He was a great showman. It's what he would have wanted.
(It'll be interesting to see if La Toya turns up at the funeral. That should scotch a few rumours—or, more likely, start a whole pile more.)
I am such a jammy bastard at times.
The other week, I was smurfing the internet (as one does), when I came across a discussion about my favourite tipple: Laphroaig whisky. To be honest, I can't remember how I chanced upon the discussion, but someone was asking people to recall their first Laphroaig moment, and to say whether they loved it or hated it. I responded: 'Hated it because it tasted like seaweed. Now love it (because it tastes like seaweed)'.
A couple of days later, a nice lady from Laphroaig contacted me to say that I was joint winner in their competition. I honestly had not idea that it had been a competition, otherwise I would have considered my response more carefully, and would no doubt have failed to win a thing.
I picked up my prize at Hebden Bridge Post Office this morning: a limited edition bottle of Laphroaig Feis Ile Càirdeas 12 year old, cask strength malt (57.5% vol).
Admit it, you hate me.
Jen and I bought ourselves a new hi-fi on Friday. I won't bore you with the details, but, suffice to say, it is totally awesome. So awesome, in fact, that the chap who sold it to us won't let us install it ourselves. He insists on coming to the house to fit it in person. We would do it wrong, apparently. Very Spinal. The kit is now on order and should be here in about a week. I am ridiculously excited.
Get this, though: our new hi-fi doesn't include a CD player. CDs are very Twentieth Century, apparently. We did intend to buy a CD player, because our current one was bought in 1987 and physically shudders when you open the drawer. But when we heard a comparison between the (very high quality) CD player we hoped to buy, and the new-fangled Digital Stream (DS) player we also hoped to buy, the DS player won hands down. We realised that we would never listen to a CD player again, so why buy one? Then, the wiley chap in the hi-fi shop pointed out that, if we combined the money we had budgeted for the CD and DS players, we could get an even better DS player, which would sound an order of magnitude better again. Which it did. So we did.
Then there was the not-so-small matter of the speakers and cables, and a RAID Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive to hold all of our soon-to-be-digitised music. For any of my geeky colleagues who happen to be reading this, the answer to the question you will no doubt be asking me on Monday is 6TB. That's right, six terabitesbytes. No doubt you'll be able to get that much on a data stick by a week next Tuesday, but, at the moment, it sounds like an awful lot. The chap in the shop reckoned about 5,000 uncompressed CDs worth. That should do us for a while.
Oh, and if any ladies happen to be reading this, in answer to the question you will no doubt be asking, the new hi-fi is black. None more black.
Like I said, I am very excited.
By way of a mini celebration, therefore, here is John Fogery singing Born on the Bayou:
(If I were you, I'd expect a few more music-related posts on Gruts in the near future.)
I was minding my own business, taking a lunchtime stroll around the Albert Dock in Liverpool on Friday, when a car screeched to a halt beside me and a young woman leapt out:
"Are you the Real Radio Renegade?" she gasped, excitedly.
"I beg your pardon."
"Are you the Real Radio Renegade?"
"Do you know, I think that might just be the oddest question anyone has ever asked me."
"But are you the Real Radio Renegade?"
"Erm… No."
The young woman leapt back into her car and tore off.
Five minutes later, as I was passing the Liverpool Tate Gallery, another young woman hurried up to me:
"Are you the Real Radio Renegade?" she asked.
"Do you know, you're not the first person to ask me that," I said.
It's an easy enough mistake to make, I suppose. After all, I do look rather renegade-ish.
Just as I was leaving the Albert Dock a few minutes later, yet another young woman approached me. This one seemed a bit more shy.
"Before you ask," I said, "no, I'm not."
It turns out this chap on the left is the one they were after:
Ginger! How very dare you!
C O M E O N Y O U T O F F E E S !Honestly, you've known a chap for years, you think you know what he stands for, and then you find out something about him which calls into question your faith in humanity.
My mate Bill is a straight-up, regular bloke: he enjoys a beer, has an awesome music collection, and likes to watch sport. An all-round, down-to-earth chap.
Yesterday evening, however, at a barbecue in his garden, Bill revealed himself to be a closet sausage artist:
[sausage grease and charcoal on paper plate]
What else aren't you telling us, Bill?
BBC: Wind farm 'kills Taiwanese goats'
A large number of goats in Taiwan may have died of exhaustion because of noise from a wind farm.
A farmer on an outlying island told the BBC he had lost more than 400 animals after eight giant wind turbines were installed close to his grazing land.
The Ministry of Agriculture says it suspects that noise may have caused the goats' demise through lack of sleep.
The power company, Taipower, has offered to pay for part of the costs of building a new farmhouse elsewhere.
Meanwhile, in other news, the total number of Taiwanese goats killed by nuclear powerstations remains at zero.
Sesame Street™ has been brought to you today by the letters N, S, F and W:
(Can't believe I've put two sweary videos up just before my dad gets his first computer tomorrow.)
The image to the right was spotted on a collection enveloped from a local Roman Catholic church last weekend. It appears to depict a werewolf holding a lamb.
Can't help feeling that, if an atheist had drawn this picture, there would be a bit of an outcry.
…courtesy of Half Man Half Biscuit:
The house 100 yards down the hill has just come on to the market:
Going for a song, apparently.
Yesterday saw the annual forced rhubarb harvest at Chateau Carter. Jen made rhubarb fool.
Top scran!
…courtesy of Mr Mark E Smith in today's Observer:
If I could change one law I would reverse the smoking ban immediately. I was in a pub last Saturday night, just having a quiet pint, and this fella gets his baby out and changes its nappy on the table next to me. That would have never happened before the smoking ban.
He has a point you know, anti-smoking killjoys.
Who the bloody hell do these so-called pop stars think they are?
First it was Sir Bob Geldof telling us to feed the world. Then it was Sir Bonio from out of U2 trying to sort out pretty much everything else. Now Sir Roger Bloody Daltrey and his cronies are sticking their noses in:
Stick to the fish farming, Daltrey. You know nothing about immunology. You're out of your depth.
…but they're having more difficulty recalling a memory loss pill.
