Sunday 29 June 2008

Women

I think I know the ways of women, but sometimes I have doubts, so dear readers of the blog, atoms of the graph, denizens of the spreadsheet, I ask you this...

Occasionally I ask a girl out for coffee or the cinema or dinner. Many girls, not at the same time, but regularly, about once every month and a half, the oscillating wave of my self-esteem reaches an apex where the ability to ask is open to me.

The answer is consistent. A polite no, "would love to but I'm busy," followed by "maybe later in the week, I'll let you know."

Its taken fiften years, maybe even sixteen, I doubt seventeen, but that wold be the limit, its taken fifteen years for me to realise what this means. The girl never calls back later in the week. I think this means I should never call again, in fact to be on the safe side, I should avoid ever seeing the girl again, if necessary, move house, change jobs, leave the country. It has been done.

But I have my doubts.

Maybe I'm wrong, and I could call later in the week, and try again, rather than wait for the girl to do so. Its not that the ball is in her court, cos we're not actually playing tennis.

Maybe calling later in the week isn't even the solution, maybe it should be an immediate response after the initial knock back, "Friday then, I'll meet you at eight".

Readers, what do you think?

And whilst there's only a few of you, a dozen at most, and your opinions may be flawed, how can I pose this as a single line question for a poll on my other site, for the ones there who see me as dark, isolated and lonely. Unless the caveat is that they want me to stay that way.

dy by dx

Its like that old dy/dx thing, the rate of change, as long as its not negative, then everything's just dandy.

Well, I keep telling myself that anyway.

Graph ii

A lot of it is about making sure the graph keeps going upwards, its a sign of success, it drives me. By fair means or foul, by cheating, begging or lying, the line must go up. At any point if it goes down, I must identify why.

What has caused this failure?

What did I do wrong?

How can I stop that happening again, to ensure the line keeps going upwards.

Sometimes the line goes up at too steep an angle, just a spike. But not to worry, the line will fall back to its previous trajectory, maybe a little higher, just as long as it still drifts upwards.

What am I talking about?

Bah.

Graph

There's a weird thing about the lines on the graph. Its always about lines of the graph for me, even if ther egraph doesn't really exist, if its just hypothetical like my MacGuffin, the girl I still dream about. Purely an instrument to guide me.

Anyway, the graph of website stats, visit to this site. Its mostly the same people. On the graph, returning visitors are in orange and the orange proportion is about 90%.

I can break it down to IP addresses. Some of them I label, deduction and detective work to figure out who they are, or who they are likely to be, these folk who check several times a day. NHS in Nottingham, someone in Liverpool, the handful of people in east London, Glasgow and the central belt.

But generally, traffic is increasing, both the same people checking more often, and new people checking more regularly.

Last week, was both bad and good. I lost a couple of days just freaking out in front of my puter, all day at work, ranting and raving and swearing. No use to anyone. But the lines on the graph still went up.

Still criplingly lonely. Dark, isolated and lonely.

I gotta get out more, but already I go out too much.

I'm wondering what the hell happened last Sunday, how the gig at The Windmill felt so oppressive and the gig at The Enterprise felt so life-enriching. Folk at each that I'd known for just as long. Folk I'd known from the same places, but the vibe so different. Folk I love at both shows and folk I hate at both shows, but still one gig was great and the other crushed me.

The line goes up.

On the other graph, the imaginary on, the line trundles on near the axis, sometimes rising a few units, before sinking back to the axis.

Who are you and why are you so quiet?

Saturday 28 June 2008

Sec

This wonderful video



Poses the following questions...

Who is CW 7166 and can we get him fired now?

And CW 1610 get him slung out of whatever these chaps are at..

Cos well, we pay the taxes and pay for them, and we sure as hell don't want this society to actually be one where the police can demand to see your id cos you're using a digital camera.

The only thing that makes volunteer offices do this is themselves, no law or legislation or policy, purely CW 7166 being unfit for the job he's employed by the state to do

Thursday 26 June 2008

Revie

Oh god, I've been reviewed


Its all quite positive, not sure if its accurate. Mum's going to be so proud. Kind of puts pay to me writing any ex-girlfriend/fuck buddy-based erotic literature tonight. Instead I'm going to take a cold shower and try to stop sobbing.

Oh god, what have I done.

How did it all end up like this?

Damn you MacGuffin!

Wednesday 25 June 2008

Phot

Crikey, I'd forgotten Rosie took my photie

I need a haircut.

I'm going to have to reshuffle my top five favourite photographer girl spreadsheet

Disc

At the Blondon Loggers meetup last night there were a couple of speakers talking about how to encourage comments and search engine optimisation, interesting stuff. I've had a mixed experience of blogging myself and I ought to scrawl something about it here.

I've had several blogs in the past few years, I can vaguely remember drinking in the Crnrvn in Glasgow and Idles explaining this blogging thing. I'll try to list the blogs in chronological order...
  • manc_ill_kid
  • Glasgow Indie Eyespy
  • Glasgow Indie Eyespy blog
  • Hot chicks from obscure indie bands
  • National Novel Writing Day
  • Last Night From Glasgow
  • Ivan Lendil Music
  • Last Night From Glasgow Indie Eyespy
  • In Lieu of Bowlie
  • Naked Chicks on Post-it Notes
  • Ill Theatre
  • Londonly
  • Naked Pigeons on Post-it Notes
Its a a small minded bag of titles using a combination of noun, adjective, location, that's my signature.

Of all of those blogs, the naked chicks site is the most popular, well, I mean it gets the most hits, as opposed to people saying, hey that's really nice, in which case Last Night From Glasgow is the most popular, it had videos of bands playing gigs in my bedroom. Great idea, not very successful.

For each of the sites, its very specific about what it is, personal blog, music video blog, gig review blog, etc, and in terms of traffic they all follow the same trend. It starts off as s ecret, no hits for the first few days, then bumpy spikes, and after three months its reached a plateau, with occasional spikes of a hundred times as many hits as usual, before dropping back to a fractionally higher plateau.

For traffic, its a mixed bag
  • personal blogs, they get around 500 hits a month if I've been particularly evil,
  • music blogs, they get 1000 hits a month, no one really gives a crap about crap bands unless I make up lies about them,
  • naked chicks blog, it gets around 60,000 hits a month

The other week there was this petition promoted by the UK centre-right political blogs, about ten sites posted about it for a couple of days, and after a week the petition had mustered 25,000 signatures according to the 10Downingstreet website. I tracked it and did a wee graph showing how interest waned. If you read this blog often, you'll know that about a week later BoingBoing covered one of my videos. BoingBoing is the fifth most popular blog online according to technorati. My video got about 25,000 hits from them.

If you want to promote something, coverage on BoingBoing is equal to the massed ranks of the UK centreright political blogs. By way of contrast and scale, a video on my naked chicks site is worth 300 hits.

Woo, 25,000 hits for a video, impressive? No, not really. Last year I did an animated video that got about 250,000 hits in a day and 500,000 hits in a week. Thats halfway along the third row of the chessboard. The thing is, it didn't count. 500,000 of those hits don't compare to the 25,000 political signatures in the UK, cos that half a million was half a million of porn hits from all over the world.

Quality and relevance counts, and I don't mean in terms of search engine optimisation. That always seems like selling out, smacks of desperation that dilute the signal to noise ratio, like cheating. What kind of traffic do you want on your site. The folk who find my personal blog find it from searching for my name, not because they were searching for something I was writing about*, people who find my music review sites find it cos they are looking for those bands, not because there are other sites writing about those bands, but because there's only me, no one else at the gig is writing about it, SEO is irrelevant if there's no competition.

So what about naked chicks on post-it notes. Whilst I've lost count of how many naked women on draw post-it notes sites there are out there**, mine is the most dedicated to its specific niche. Over the months I've pleaded, begged, bribed and bullied my way to integrity and links. It is an unstoppable mission to get as much traffic as possible, just to demonstrate I can, by my own means.

Remember the other year there was a book called "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" and it kicked off this whole genre of grammar books and people moaning about wee niggly things. That was a women who just decided to write a book and it caught the zeitgeist and got its own section of Waterstones. Likewise, the whole MisLit genre of books, some moany former child abuse victim wrote his book, months later it had taken off and now its a section of Waterstones. How much disbelief do you need to suspend for me to have my own naked image on post-it note section? Just next to the check outs, but before the novelty book section.

So what now? I think I've reached the edges of what's possible online. The next step is getting offline, and thats a variety of possibilities including, but not limited to, freesheet coverage, Sunday supplement coverage, quirky website slot on BBC radio, exhibition in Shoreditch. And all the time me staring wide eyed at the screen thinking "oh dear god, she's going to see this and kill me, or worse, never speak to me again. Oh dear god, what have I done".

There's this bit in one of the first Terry Pratchett books where they do a change the world spell, which grows and grows and alters the world in a small way to make the narative work. Whilst magic isn't real, or if it is that it's merely technology folk don't understand. What I need to do is make the media more accepting of pictures of naked women. Thats not difficult, it just takes a couple of prods. Is naked chicks on post it notes so different to covering The London Naked Bike Ride, or Dr Sketchy's, or the naughty page on ShinyShiny?

*Lie!! if you search for Facebook IQ test, you get it
**You doubt me? Here, here, here, here, here, here

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Sweat

I'm so tired, but I have so much to do, its like running twice as fast just to stay where I am.

Plimptons got played on Radio Six again

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/tom_robinson/tracklisting.shtml?y=2008&d=20080620

'listen again' and it's 1h 37m in after the Beatles cover.

Its like all our stock's rising, in tangible ways. This hollowness I have inside is just imaginary, but it gnaws, and gnaws.

Monday 23 June 2008

Unexpected

Exhaustion overcame me and I succumed to sleep around 10pm the earliest I've hit the sack in years, by 11:30pm the irrepressable draw of the internet had me back at the keyboard. My googlemail inbox strangely full of folk wanting to buy post-it note pictures. I can only assume that being really pissed off, incompetent and unnecessarily cruel has paid off, I just never imagined it would be so quick.

I think I might run over some school children on my way to work. There's a school for the blind nearby, its an easy target but I think it still counts.

Q

The question that's at the forefront on my mind whilst I sit on blogger, is do I use the naked chick army, fifteen thousand strong, to ruthlessly tear apart someone's relationship, purely out of spite and anger, and not giving a shit about the consequences. Cos like I have been here before, and you know, fuck it, why not just go for broke? I sure as hell can't think of any decent reason not to.

What's the point of world domination if you can't use it for evil?

Vinegar

Rather pissed off again, and this time I have a valid and tangible target for my anger.

How many times have you checked this blog today? Really, don't you have owt better to do with your life? I know I know it takes five seconds and if I've written anything, then its jolly entertaining. But don't you feel a bit creepy? I think you should.

Saturday 21 June 2008

blood

Inevitable

Strangely inevitably, I didn't even get as far as HDIF before my curse befell me.

For a brief moment I forgot to fuck that shit.

Still its like a sorbet, to clear the palate, and the night is still young.

Ooh, is "Suit yourself" the best put down ever?

Boing

I just got a video covered on BoingBoing. I'm pretty sure it won't last long, someone's going to realise where the 'thanks Chris' hyperlink leads and then it'll be dropped like a rock.

But right now, right now, I'm right there at the top of the 5th most popular blog on the internet. Me, using my own talents and abilities, and a faint wiff of integrity.

But I can feel it, the ground is starting to tremble, that crushing feeling of anti-climax, of failure, of defeat. Of reaching the top, but still not getting the girl.

Still wandering to HDIF on my own, sitting in a corner surrounded by friends, on my own, drinking until I can drink no more, being prodded out to the dancefloor, doing the same as I've done for the past fifteen years, and then staggering home on my own.

This is why I even bother.

Friday 20 June 2008

Busy

Really busy at work, kind of stressful, just lots of things to do. Wee nagging thing that my space bar does work properly unless I really press it, I live most of my life on my 'puter so this is a real pain.

Been having not so much dizzy spells, but just constant dizziness for the past few days, even when I'm sitting still, and all yesterday I had this metallic bloody taste in my mouth.

The weekend beckons with HDIF on Saturday and gigs spread evenly across London on Sunday, I think I might take an early night tonight, but there's always a nagging suspicion that I'm missing something important. Something I should have done, something I wasn't invited to, but should have gone to anyway. Something blindingly obvious that would make my life so much better, but for some reason its hidden under my blindspot.

No matter what I do, I'm damned because of it.

Is this what I have to look forward to for the next eighty years?

Wednesday 18 June 2008

New Fire

Have downloaded Firefox3, but without backing up old firefox2. Whilst I beleive the folk who say Firefox3 is great, there are a few niggly annoying issues which I could do without.

In the old days I'd type "goo" and press the down cursor to get me to google, now I get google maps. In the old days I'd type "blogg" andpress the down cursor to get me to the blogger homepage, now I get some random publishing last week's blog entry. I typed "na" and would get naked chicks on post-it notes, now I get recent pageload activity.

Too tedious right now.

Auth


Eeep, my Technorati authority has reached the heady heights of 67, which means my nuddy website is one of the top 100,000 most popular blogs on the internet. My mum is going to be so proud.

Now, if only I could translate this success into both money and losing my singularity...

Ladies, apply below

Hunger

There is nothing in my tummy. I'm running out of money. My limitless talents are of no help. I wasalmost talked into lending a friend £500 that I don't have, because she was a girl in need and the closest thing I have to a buddy at the moment.

I got home yesterday to find a big old parcel, could it be the Bowlie Round 19 mixCD at long last?
IMG_4381

No, it was even better
IMG_4382

A friend from the internet's sexblogger community had sent me a load of goodies. Much skipping round the house and making 'eep'noises.

Managed to send off one Just Joans CD, at long last. Only another five to do, then the overwealming waves of guilt will begin to subside.

Ooh, memories of talking to people at a gig the other day. I could do with chatting to people I don't know more often than I do.

I've branched out, inspired by the parcel, I wrote a bit of erotic writing over on the nuddy site. Most of my traffic comes from non-English speaking countries so it could be a bit of a waste, but it was worth a try. Have a strange urge to exorcise daemons by writing more of that sort of thing, but again feel doubt that making up for a lack of social/sex life with fiction can only be wrong wrong wrong.

Tuesday 17 June 2008

Haulage

For ten years I've been slaving away at this manufacturing engineering lark, ten years. Turning heaps of metal, pcbs and components into the best sounding, award winning hi-fi equipment in the world, none better, and fucking drivers are demanding more pay than me?

Can Shell no just sack the lot of them and employ some haulage companies from Europe?

Traffic warden
£15,000 to £17,000

School teacher
£20,000 to £30,000

Army Private
£25,000

Train Driver
£25,000 to £40,000

Tanker driver
£32,000 to £40,000

Pilot
£25,000 to £75,000

Doctor
£20,000 to £77,000

Space

The space bar on my laptop isplaying up,it used towork all the timeandnowitdoesn't, only when it feelslikeobeying my demands forspacedoesit doits thing.

Am too skint topurchaseanew computer.Ihada goat pingingthekeys offandhaving a cleanout of crumbs but it didn'tmakemuch ofa difference. I wantan EEEPC, butthey'realittleout of my pricerange right now.

So instead I'm going to buy some Dr Who DVDs andwish I knewpeopleI couldinvite round towatch themwith.

Slightly distressing giglast night. Edwyn Collinscovers night with a load ofbandseachplaying onesong beforea twenty minute change overtothenextband. I gotchatting to folkfromPocketbookswho seemed strangely enthusiasticto my plansforworlddonimation. Well, theplan fora 'Your Place or Mine' London/Glasgow/Cardiff gig swapthing, couldI havePocketbooks,The School andTheJust Joansorarethey tooobvious? Also my idea foranewversion of therockabilly covers bandThe Deep Fried Wolfknuckles, butthistimecalled The Southside Wolfknuckles. Ijust needtofindan Alan Otto Wolfknucklesorta driving forcebehinditsoIcanlurk intheshadows ratherthan take any responsibility.

Monday 16 June 2008

Disavowed

My post-it notes site has been removed from the YouPorn sexblog agreggator, its almost like the internet is dead to me. Traffic to my site has almost died.

A bit of a shame now the authority is so high.

I almost made it into the top 100,000, but now there's no chance. Unless from somewhere I can rustle up another fifty or so links, that might do it.

In other news...
I found out what went wrong on Sunday. Damn it.

Sunday 15 June 2008

Cafe

I was in Camden, in the Oh Bar, where I usually go on quiet days to read a Sunday paper or a book and drink coffee, brandy and some times chips if the kitchen's open. The sun shone brightly outside, Friday night had been fun and Saturday had been interesting.

Something has afflicted me, is that even the right word? I wandered into three supermarkets, a nagging feeling in the back of my head that I hadn't eaten in a little longer than is healthy and that I ought to buy food. But in each supermarket, nothing struck me as appetising, I'd half reach out to pick up something, then think the better of it. Frustration at my inability to feed myself lead me to give up.

The angry, jealousy and frustration of last week reclaimed me, I could no longer read, my mind racing as I listlessly turned the pages. Rejoining in my head a previous conversation with Fiona, its not the approach of thirty or getting older that is killing me, its the singularity, its glancing up everywhere and seeing couples, folk together, maybe not having the best of times, maybe gazing into each other's eyes, maybe cheating on their loved ones, who knows, but they are not alone.

I look back at my paper, remembering previous weeks in the same place, doing the same thing, to no end, just on my own.

It wasn't always like this.

Wasn't it?

I think back and just remember the same thing, different country, same paper, same drink, same bar.

It wasn't always like this. I think back to relationships wot I have been in.

'Ages ago' and now long gone, moved on without me.

Is it the sitting in the Bar Oh/13th Note/Night and Day, reading my paper/book/comic whilst drinking coffee/brandy/Guinness/orange juice which makes me so alone, or is it being alone that brings me to this place?

Hmph, faulty understanding of cause and effect there.

I'm just damned.

And it makes me choke.

Sometimes.

Sometimes it makes me channel creative energies, drop whatever I'm doing and travel hundreds of miles to say hi, or log on to some online shop and buy random stuff, to do things and stuff.

I've run out of money.

Ascent

Thanks to jumping on the Sugasm blog newsletter thing last week my nuddy site has reached the heady heights of having a technorati authority of 62, so its just outside being in the top 100,000 blogs in the world. Hey, I'm proud of it.

I got myself a new post-it pad yesterday and have been churning out the pics like a man obsessed.

The Doctor Whoish story arch of Darren Hayman gigs over the gig review site was stangely satisfying, if meaningless. I have a problem next Sunday, Ken Chu's gig in Brixton at exactly the same time as the Just Joans gig in Camden. My loyalties are partially divided, I like the Red Bulldozers and Ken's cool, but the Just Joans are on the ascent, and I want to be on board. It might sell out mind, in which case I can head south. Alternatively if Brixton starts early with a barbeque, I could start there and do both.

There's wee nagging turmoil at the back og my head, I got my car MOT'd up and paid my road tax, but I suspect that my insurance is due soon, and I've still got to sort out the addresses on some of my documents. This shit is easy, but it's in a heap just to my right and my hand waivers when I reach that way.

That naked bike ride thing in town yesterday, I took some photoies, and they're getting a frighteningly high number of views on flickr. Kind of annoying, I wish my drawings or you know slightly more sophisticated pic got views. Nope, lowest common denominator, every time.

Still need to find me a bird, it appears everyone is out of the country right now. Flatmates are discussing which church would be the best one to go to to find a husband. These people terrify me sometimes.

Tomorrow night, the Edwin Collins tribute night at The Social, its going to be a busy one.

Saturday 14 June 2008

How come...

Such a high profile blog as No Rock and Roll Fun covers The Pop Cop's first birthday?

Aye, its a higher profile site than my Last Night From Glasgow Indie Eyespy, but it is a bit shit.

How come The Pop Shop get so many links and technorati authority compared to LNFGIES.

Is LNFGIES shit? and doing something wrong? Maybe I should just be chasing PR and only going to mainstream shows.

Maybe I should capitalise on unexpected successes like The culture Show thing the other week, the podcast thing the other day, The Plimp's Lonely Old Man video success and thems getting played on Radio Six last night. Do I need to unilaterally demand links from the sites I seek them from, and beat them with sticks like I did with Reverse Cowgirl?

Enough ranting, naked bicycle ride in London this afternoon, could be interesting and I need to purchase post-it notes, the public demands.

Thursday 12 June 2008

Frust

Unable to verbalise the anger and frustration I feel, and not sure what to draw to express it that way. I just have this urge to swear at people on MSN Messenger, but have so far only managed to make pleasant small talk and come over as all mysterious and busy.

Made a fine choice of gig to go to last night, got a BBC microphone shoved in my face again, but hopefully didn't say anything usable, unless of course they were doing a documentary on unrecruited love, mood swings and serial killers. The review's here, doesn't give much away, this post on Bowlie does

Slight concern over the rush of hits to this blog last night and someone spending twenty minutes going through all of illtheatre, its not good enough to sustain that much interest.

Wednesday 11 June 2008

NHS

Someone in Nottingham who works for the NHS? Who could that be?
advert001-150advert001-150advert001-150
At work, I suddenly was overcome with memories of going on holiday with friends and being close to people.

Ate four bars of chocolate to sort my head. Its a quick fix, but its all I can do.

Lone

Went to a gig last night, only fifteen or so people there. It made me sad, that that is what I do, I go to gigs that notmany other people go to. I stay at the back, on my own, talk very little to people I know.

I stumble home and scribble things on the internet, check webstats, wonder who these people are and whether I'd talk to them and them to me. Wondering why technorati authority and thousands of hits do nothing for my feeling of isolation.

Its all in my head and nothing physical or practical that I can do will help.

Tuesday 10 June 2008

Vid

Well chaps, its another rock n roll day today.

Weather outside blazing, slowly figuring out who mysterious vistors to my blog empire actually are, and nursing fears about their levels of obsession, like checking this blog more than ten times a day, that can only mean true love, can't it?

In other news, the Plimptons video from t'other day is surfing levels of success which I'd like to describe as phenomenal, http://youtube.com/watch?v=EvFUY72LGl0


Dunno where I went wrong with them all this time.

Right, this evening lures me to the MJ Hibbett show at The Lamb, I think I will drink beer and enjoy brief moments of sunshine.

Have discovered I have a large belly, need to fix it. Currently doubting that sitting in front of my 'puter 18 hours a day will not diminish it.

Monday 9 June 2008

Graffiti

Some readers of this blog live in Glasgow, can someone check if the graffiti about me is still on the toilet door in Nice n Sleazys, and if its still there, take a photie, and if they take a photie, sling it online somewhere.

Its been months and months since I had an update.

Cheers


Chris

Roy Orbison - I drove all night

I have a cold, maybe its hayfever, but I'm betting its a cold, brought on by chronic sleep deprivation.

Friday night:- scribbled and scrawled on the internet, made 'squee' noises at digital human interaction and the thought that I can influence people's action. And then I got in my car and drove north.

My tactic is to drive until I going to fall asleep and then park up in a service station car park. Its not the safest tactic, and one day it will kill me, but not yet. I'll come up with a better strategy when the playing field changes, but right now if I'm driving four hundred miles and want to spend quality time at my destination, it the only strategy that works.

Have I been over this before on my blog? A old friend was having an exhibition in Glasgow, invitations sent out on Facebook, whilst chronically unable to reach out to interact with people myself, any invitation gives me a warm fuzzy feeling which I embrace with all of my resources. Ooh, maybe thats why I got so pissed off with the olf Spiral Scratch thing of being invited to the same thing on many different social networks, it became spam, rather than something that looked like a personal invite.

Time passed, arrangements were made, time booked off work, friends in Glasgow liaised with for coffee, dinner and potential for ill-advised sleeping arrangements. Then followed the cancellation of the exhibition, and the unravelling of plans. RosieRabbit said I should go anyway, it'd be great fun. In her ditzy wee head she could see ticker tape parades for my return to Glasgow, girls throwing themselves at my feet and quality beer flowing freely. I was minded just to stay in London, but felt the irrepressible draw of The Plimptons.

My car reached Glasgow around 2pm on Saturday, I was stinking and knackered. I left my car outside Natalie's and headed off to meet the ex-wife at a pub in Woodlands. There was an old flatmate at the pub, I still can't remember her name. We chatted and hung out, the weather was blazing, plans for world domination were made and unravelled.

Robbie arrived on his bike and beer wa drank. The ex-wife's friends slipped away and she joined me and the Robster in heading up to Cheribini's for coffee with Colin. They chatted about bikes which was nice and gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside that introducing people who only know each other through me talkinga bout them all the time kind of went okay.

She slipped away at the cafe, leaving just three boys talking about trains.

Time passed and I slipped away myself, reappearing at Mono. Tara on the bar, familiar faces all around, free wifi.

Time passed once more and I arranged to meet Natalie, other side of town, with her new boyfriend too.

As I approched BeanScene, I spied the ex-wife with her new boyfriend too, I blanched and ran away before they saw me. Sometimes its lucky I have better eyesight than the ladies.

Watched Dr Who at Nat's and ate some of her mousaka. It was well nice, like shepherds pie with aubergenes and sweet potato.

Plimptons gig, reviewed here

We staggered back to her place afterwards, at first just the three of us, then roping in Adam Plimp and Gill the artist, so they could sample the delights of the mousaka. Nat had demanded I invited them into her flat rather than ask them herself, not sure if thats a breach of etiquette, but hey ho.

Have already ranted about them trying to get me to stay there, sleep on the couch, rather than drive home that night.

Like Idles taught me to say... Fuck that shit

Sunday 8 June 2008

Fuel stats

Got some good clear runs up the road, now gotta do maths on the numbers

112.4 miles since last fill up - mostly driving to and from work
Filled up with 8.86 litres at a cost of £10.80

This works out to
£1.22 per litre - damn the government
9.6p per mile - crikey
8.86 litres = 1.949 gallons (Imperial)
57.67 miles per gallon (Imperial) for city driving
48.02 miles per gallon (US)

Figures for the drive north
First blob 138.5 miles
Second blob 241.1 miles
Third blob 332 miles
392.3 miles when filled up
Filled up with 24.86 litres at a cost of £28.56

This works out to
£1.15 per litre - damn the government
7.3p per mile - bit of an improvement
24.86 litres = 5.468 gallons (Imperial)
71.74 miles per gallon (Imperial) for motorway driving
59.74 miles per gallon (US)

Figures for return journey south
First blob 145.5 miles
Second blob 240.1 miles
Third blob 342.2 miles

Extrapolated miles per gallon for return journey
73.94 miles per gallon (Imperial)
61.56 miles per gallon (US)
Trying to bully me into staying the night?

Whilst I'd love to sleep on a cat-hair infested couch, listened to the sounds of an ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend, I really don't want to spend all of the hottest day of the year in my car stuck in traffic. Luckily I only spent half of the hottest day of the year in my car.

Now I'm home, stinking and online

Thursday 5 June 2008

Glasgoing

Going to Glasgow this weekend, not staying long. Up overnight on Friday, having coffee in the 'Note, picking up junk from storage, going to Plimptons show at the 'Note, then driving home.

Who is it checking my blog every hour? This is getting weird, even if I haven't updated owt. I'd say obsessive, which is kind of neat, it reassures me about my own obsessions.

650 hits on the nuddy site today already, by this time yesterday I was breaching 2,000. Easy come, easy go. One day a publisher will email me saying they want to do a wee dirty post-it note book, and foister vast amounts of money on me.

Needy Twitter

This is my Twittercloud, it checks word frequencies in twitter. Looks like I'm just a needy kind of guy.

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Culture

I was on telly, maybe for as long as four seconds, according to my brother I spoke fourteen words.

The other week I wandered along to a Gresham Flyers gig and there was a film crew there to record The Scaremongers. Between bands Trev Lost, the promoter, grabbed me, the filmer crew were looking for folk to interview, all those years of going to too many gigs must have paid off.

They interviewed about half a dozen folk, and whilst I wittered on for about fifteen minutes, they edited it down to four seconds and then another five seconds of Nat, the other promoter/DJ.

YouTube clip


Or if you wanna watch the whole piece, try The Culture Show on iplayer here, but its only up for a week.

After watching the show, several things strike me, most significantly the sneaking suspicion that the gig and 'The Scaremongers' is a shameless marketing ploy, a publicity stunt to punt Armitage's new book.

This suspicion is founded on the way The Scaremongers have only done one gig, the wee snatch of the bass player saying they've only had one rehearsal, despite the fact that the chattering indie web has been talking about them for months, they've got half a dozen songs and videos up on YouTube, several appearances on Mark Radcliffe's radio show, and dozens of gig promoters screaming at them to play more.

I've been a shy rock star fantasist myself, I had a gig in London once, and there was more than one rehearsal, heck there was half a dozen practise sessions at acoustic open mics and subsequent support shows with mate's bands. With Simon Armitage and The Scaremongers, too all appearances, there's been none of that, and even when he was on stage, he was singing from a lyric sheet. This is despite most of the songs doing the rounds for six months previously.

There's something that stinks about it, that can't just be explained by nerves.

File under Peaches Geldof and Rodnik.

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Rain rain go away

I don't know about you, but am thrilled to have gone up another two Technorati authority points. I blame London blogger Krista and Shanna from Year of the Books

Ooh, I could be on TV tonight, on The Culture Show, where Trev got me interviewed. I, for one, am filled with terror and anticipation. If a successful career as a talking head on the more sophisticated of the BBC's output doesn't get me the girl, I don't know what will.

Still no idea who these people reading my blog are, but they're getting a tad obsessive, may I recommend using a RSS feed reader, rather than actually visiting the site several times a day. Try this feed and this feed. Or try asking me to come over for a coffee and to watch Dr Who.

Monday 2 June 2008

Who would?

Its a little flattering and at the same time scary, people searching google for Chris Gilmour's diary and then finding it. Wouldn't be so worrying if people left comments saying things like "Hey its's Shiva/Lisa/Arlene/etc, was wondering what happened to you, we should go for coffee, email me at shiva/lisa/arlene/etc@hotmail/google/yahoomail.com/co.uk" or whatever. Or add yersel to my Twitter feed. But nope. Just this feeling of a goldfish bowl like existance, living in the matrix, doing party tricks to keep folk entertained.

So.. here goes

One of the most important lessons learnt from ex-girlfriends was from the ex-wife, I think her phrase was "I don't care what the fucking spreadsheet says, we're not going to start going out again."

Which is a shame cos I did the coolest spreadsheet ever this morning.

Other cool spreadsheets and graphs include the one I sprung today when a coworker said "All you ever talk about is...".

Actually no, I talk obsessively about several things and if you look carefully at this pie chart, there are things I talk about far more. Messageboards for instance, I'll accept that at 25% of the time I'm 'always' talking about messageboards.

Oh woes

My nuddy site got sod all hits last night, usually it pushes a thousand over night, but in the past nine hours it barely broke triple digits.

Its kind of stalled, I've lost interest in the graphical representation of the female form, porn just ain't doing it for me any more.

Needs more interaction, needs more traffic from other blogs. Maybe I missed the passing of the blogosphere. Apart from the obligatory London Bloggers, none of my friends have updated blogs any more. So instead I have to rely on random traffic, at some point it rolls and I get links. Well, its not really reliance, the reliance thing is more on other sex bloggers and photography, which I find a little intimidating, but its kind of cool, dangerous and exciting.

No comments about yesterday's post on dating yet, apart from from the chap sat next to me who'd also told me to sign up to Soulmates a few weeks back.

Who are you people reading my blog? Do I know you? And how well, like are you friends of friends off of the internet, or girl I knew several years ago? You're not Arlene are you? That would be weird and cool. Or Shiva, I haven't seen or heard from Shiva for years. Lisa?

In other news, the wee contest I was having with Mehrdad about who's site could get more traffic to my one handedorigami videos. http://youtube.com/user/LastNightFromGlasgow Looks like the nuddy chick army gave me a resounding victory. Momentary warm fuzzy feeling, slipping into melancholy.

Sunday 1 June 2008

On dating

Recently a friend suggested I try the Guardian's Soulmates webiste, I knocked back the idea outright. Its not for me.

And here's why.

I don't struggle at meeting new people. In the course of my extra-curricular activities, both online and in real life, I'm surrounded. Thousands of people check out my websites, hundreds of people read my posts on message boards, dozens of people go to the same gigs as me. At any point I can turn the girl next to me and say "Hey, how's it going, what did you think of that last one.".

I'll accept that starting off the conversation terrifies me, but after that, its plain sailing, I can be rounded and charming enough to carry it off.

So, what is the problem?

Even when out with friends, I sit at the side, or stand at the back keeping quiet, gazing into the distance, or into my pint, sometimes my mind travels in time. It takes a cattle prod to get me communicating.

I'm not sure how Soulmates will help there.

Since I discovered my cock some time in the mid-nineties, I've have about six relationships that lasted over four months, none more than seven. It worries me, there's something very wrong. I mention it to friends on MSN, my worries. And then every so often in response to me saying something outragous, the friends on MSN will say something like "I can see why it only lasts six months".

I find it patronising and condescending, and it makes me think they're fools. They know nothing of context. I take it too seriously.

Yesterday, I was at Dr Sketchy's, the burlesque life-drawing thing. Keeping quiet at the back with my post-it pad and biro, between drawing tasks, I scrawled a wee list of those lucky lucky 4-7 month relationships and how they ended. And drew a pie chart too. The reasons they ended are diverse, only two reasons non-unique. The most popular reason for splitting up, with 2.5 hits, is 'moved to London'. This shouldn't reoccur, I've implemented corrective action. The second non-unique reason, is my refusal to come back after being dumped and then begged back.

Me saying something outrageous, has never had any bearing on the end of a relationship.

Looking at the list, the other terrifying thing is what could be called the Good Luck Chuck factor. More than half the girlfriends got engaged shortly after we broke up. Never seen the film, but I understand to break the curse I have to hump Jessica Alba. Alas she never returns my calls.

What to do?

Fuck knows.

If I don't shut anything down, or close off any of my options, the possibilities for the future are limitless.

So carry on reviewing gigs, carry on going to geeky internet meetups, carry on drawing pictures, carry on as usual with brief psychotic episodes of frustration, jealousy and anger.

Then again, the friend was also signing up to Guardian's Soulmates herself, so it could have been a round about way of asking me out. But I very much doubt it.