Gig 71. St. Patrick and dangerous animals.

A great LLC last night, possibly the best ever. Loads of people turned up to watch, and we had a packed gig and every act was magic. Occassionally we have a good crowd but a patchy show, and far too often we have great acts but noone to see them, so it was great to have both. And I was very pleased with my bit. Over the past week I've been trying to write another song to end my Edinburgh show on. I did, and I tried it and it was magic. Chuffed.

In the song, about dangerous animals, I briefly mention St. Patrick and how he drove the snakes from Ireland. This makes him sound pretty cool and St.ly. I can imagine him on the beach, forcing the wicked poisonous serpents into the sea, thousands of little ribbons cutting through the water trying to make it back to the warmer lands of europe. 'Away wit yez, or 'al bust ye wit me holy shelele!'

But Ireland is also completely free of moles. Did St. Patrick banish them too? That just seems harsh. There's nothing St.ly about a St. Patrick who forces tiny, velvet-black mamals into the sea. At least we can imagine the snakes swimming away. But just picture thousands of moles, sadly nosing their way into the surf, only to be washed back with every wave.

Wow Timmy, Why?

I do like my rock, me. But I'm not always happy with the lyrics. You may remember my problem with the Who's 'Pinball Wizard' lyrics, and the reason why 'Whole Lotta Love' is now ruined for me. (Search the blog if you don't) But sometimes it's simply that I can't quite catch the lyrics. But there's a compulsion to sing along with a good rock tune, even when you don't know the words. So the other day I was driving home and Steppenwolf (How's that for a rock band name!) were singing 'born to be wild' feeling good I was singing along, but I couldn't quite remember the words, so I just did my best. And this came out of my mouth...

Get ya motor runnin'
Head out on the highway.
Looking for a French Shirt
and a dickie bow tie yeah!

In my weird spontaneous version Steppenwolf are going shoping with their mum. To buy some smart clothes for the school photograph. I had a check to see if anyone's made a similar mistake, and found www.kissthisguy.com- an archive of misheard lyrics. The site name comes from the moment in purple haze where Hendrix sings 'Excuse me while I kiss the sky'- although he could actually be saying that, there's no way of telling. There are some 'born to be wild' misquotes and by far the best one is the icelandic teenager who interpreted the song's title as 'Wow Timmy, why?' I'll let him explain himself...


"Well I am from iceland and I were not very good in english when i was 14. When i heard the song and not very clear, i sang very low... wow Timmy why... in front of my friends and they stood still for a moment and then just laughed at me. I thought that the story behind the song were that this Timmy guy had done something wrong, like shooting somebody and that the singer sung about it. So it sounded perfectly to my ears."

gig 69,70 and killer cars.

Gig's 69 and 70 were two trips to Scotland, to play the Stand's at Edinburgh and Glasgow. A 5 hour round trip on each day to be onstage for 5 minutes. It is crazy, and it's difficult to explain to people why it's actually worth it (sort of). But it was nice, an OK gig in Edinburgh, than a quick trim and a much better gig in Glasgow- even though I was first and they weren't really warmed up.

The Edinburgh drive took even longer because the front wheel started to come off, this is something I wish I could work out myself. But it was just an odd knocking sound coming from somewhere. It was only when the guy from green flag called to confirm my position (after I'd already been waiting an hour) that he said 'have you looked at the wheel nuts?' I hadn't. I'd looked at the tyres, but they weren't flat. But after his prompt I did manage to pull off the hub cap and found there were only two nuts holding the wheel on. Ho hum.

I think cars are conspiring against us anyway, at least some are. Following the trend of the transformers, half have chosen to protect mankind and half are going to destroy us. We all know cars are evil polluting machines. Some companies are now stressing that their evil polluting machines aren't half as bad as some other evil polluting machines. The ads have greenery, waterfalls, trees and talk about low emissions, while rabbits shoot heart shaped arrows into the sky, to celebrate their chum, the hybrid engine. But deep down we all know cars are wrong, and we should really be buying bikes instead of slightly cleaner cars, we have to admit it. But admiting it and repentantly trying to change isn't the only option. Some other companies are exploiting it the other way. 'We all know cars are evil polluting machines- so why not drive the biggest, baddest evil polluting machine in the world!' They are actually marketing cars now on how evil they are.

There's the Nissan truck that turns into a robot spider, crocodile and snake- EVIL. The one that uses the solgan 'It gets respect!' - Which the owners interpret as 'Stop at zebra crossings? Not us, we're EVIL.' And I have just watched an ad for Golf which actually says 'When was the last time you just went for a drive?' and tries to encourage people to drive round at night FOR NO REASON AT ALL. Je. Sus. Wept.

I'm having showers instead of baths to do my bit and these dicks are driving round in circles all night. EVIL.

Churchill- LLC special Tue 10th July.

Progress on the Churchill special continues. We hope we'll be informative as well as funny and people should leave knowing a great deal more than they did about the great man. But there is one dark secret we've uncovered which we'd better just face up to.

Churchill was ginger. Yup, a copper top. A strawberry blonde. In short a ginga. But because all the photos were black and white, the British public was spared this dreadful knowledge. And it was probably for the best. Hitler managed to convince a nation that he (a short arsed, dark-haired weirdo) was the rightful leader of a race of arian supermen. But a Ginger Prime minister? That's just taking the piss.

In an address to his old school, he told the boys there... "Never, give in! Never give in! Never! Never! Never! Never! Never! Never!" Inspiring stuff, but the boys were so determined never to give in that in the following term 15 of them died from Chinese burns.

It was hardly surprising that he was stirring up defiance among the boys in this way, he had hated the school, were he was frequently beaten; according to one biography, 'until his bottom was a mass of blood.' He was once punished because in latin class he didn't understand the Vocative form of the word for 'table' - His teacher said 'It means O table! You would use it in addressing a table!' But I never do sir! replied Churchill. It's no wonder he wasn't scared of Hitler. If you grew up being beaten to a pulp for not knowing how to talk to tables, then a genocidal maniac is pretty much par for the course.

The most famous photo of churchill, with his scowling bulldog look, was produced when the photographer snatched his cigar out of his mouth just before taking the photo. Which is rather like finding out that the look of steely defiance on Che Guevarra's face is becuase the photographer's just called him a poof.

Rather touchingly, on his 90th Birthday, a young girl from Mexico sent him a birthday card by simply writing- 'To the greatest man in the world' on the envelope. Who would that reach today?