kirsten

Just the best, a total inspiration. This year both sucks and blows.

I wondered about this at the last referendum. Despite voting yes, I did worry about having to re-apply for EU membership because I figured Spain (and the rUK!) would veto it. I think it'd be harder for them to justify vetoing it now, though. If we'd have gone independent last time, I get the impression that Spain would have vetoed to prove a point to Catalonia, but this time, if we do vote yes, we do so because the UK has voted to go independent from the EU and we feel there is no choice. I wonder if that sort of double negative would prevent Spain from vetoing. Like, to them in 2014, Scotland becoming independent would have seemed unnecessary and dangerous, but now it is legitimised. I am not good at phrasing things.

I genuinely still don't have faith that Scotland would vote to go independent, despite how much I want it to.

Ughhh, it's the worst! The keyboard on my old android phone was terrible, so I downloaded a better one (Swiftkey, dead good), which would always inevitably update when I was in the middle of typing a long text or writing out another solid gold post on Aberdeen-Music. So I'd shut everything off and wait for it, then once it had updated, it'd default back to the keyboard that came with the phone and I'd have to set it back to the good keyboard EVERY TIME. I'm enjoying having an iPhone again, even though autocorrect is a billion times more ridiculous than I remember.

Kate Jackson formerly from the Long Blondes has released a solo album. I am glad. I am listening to it right now. It seems good. Review ends.

Poland-music.com

I look forward to John W running for the Scottish Greens next election...

They've just announced a date in Toronto too. I am probably going to cry. Can't fucking wait. Especially as I only caught the last song at Primavera last year.

Agreed, there are too many comedians interviewing comedians podcasts now and it's a bit boring. I think the problem is that too many of the hosts of these things are arseholes with too high an opinion of themselves. I am decidedly a Marc Maron Unenthusiast.

Well, seeing as this thread is back, anyone got any decent new comedy podcast recommendations? I've been doing a lot of walking and mainly listening to This American Life, Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People, Adam Buxton's Podcast and especially THE DEAD AUTHORS PODCAST. Anyone else listen to it? I know it's pretty old now, but I've just gone back to it after not listening in ages and now I BALLY LOVE IT! I always had this irrational dislike of Paul F. Tompkins (I think it's because he has such a strong look that it feels too try-hard), but this podcast MAKES ME LOVE HIM! Or at least him with an English accent, pretending to be HG Wells. If anybody hasn't heard it, the idea is that author of The Time Machine has stumbled upon an actual time machine and invites dead authors along to present day to be interviewed for a podcast. It's finished now but I full recommend listening to all of them from the start, it's a nice way of discovering American comedians you might not have heard of. I started listening ages ago but have only really begun binge-listening recently so I can't remember what it was that I found so funny about them, but I particularly enjoyed the episodes with Arthur Conan Doyle and PG Wodehouse if you're looking for a non-chronological start point.

Uh... has Prince died? Fuck!

To my absolute delight, I quit my job last week and so my adventures with my AGFW were over before they really began! I’ve asked my pal in the office to keep me updated her unfathomable stupidity so I can report back on here. I sent him a link to this thread because I thought he’d enjoy everyone else’s AGFW stories. I’ll try and encourage him to sign up as a member... Here is my final collection from my draft email folder ‘OH GOD OH GOD, SHUT UP, YOU ARE THE ABSOLUTE WORST.’ “I’m waiting on a mirage of emails.” She held up her finger to show me a cut, “I papercutted myself. Well, it wasn’t on paper, it was on a tin last night.” “Ugh, I didn’t think this report would take so long to do! Pluck a duck. That’s what I say to that: pluck a duck.” What? On my last day, I decided that I’d challenge her on more of the dumb stuff she comes out with rather than just ignore her. Mainly for the amusement of aforementioned office-mate, but also because usually she says this stuff and people just want her to shut up, so don’t respond and she probably thinks she’s mega clever. Someone mentioned something about the Clangers and she butted in, “Have you seen the new Thunderbirds? It’s rubbish, it’s all CGI!” she kept asking if we’d seen updated versions of old kids’ TV shows. After “Have you seen the new Postman Pat?”, I gave up trying to ignore her and said, “No, I haven’t seen any of these. I am an adult without children.” (She is also an adult without children) “But Postman Pat’s gone all PC!” “Oh, how? Does he no longer spout racial slurs?” “No, Postman Pat never used to swear! But he’s got a kid now! And there’s an Asian family and an Indian family in the square now.” (it's a village, not a square, you idiot.) “What's wrong with that? That’s just reflecting diversity within society.” “But... but he’s got a kid now! It’s gone political correct!” “How is having a kid politically correct?” No answer. When I repeated this story later on it was later pointed out to me, by my dad of all people, that there were always families of different ethnicities in Postman Pat. Also, he always had a son - Julian! Fuck up, AGFW, you don't know what you're talking about! Her catchphrase is “Does that make sense?” and it usually follows something that is not in any way difficult to comprehend. She uses it like punctuation, it’s mental. It’s so frequent that I know there are better examples of it than this, but the only one I can remember from a couple of weeks ago occurred when a colleague was doing a report about some work carried out on a school, “Is St ____’s Primary School the same thing as St ____’s RC School?” I said that I thought so just as it’d be odd for there to be a ‘Saint’ something school and it not be a Catholic School. We resolved it very quickly, basically, but 30 seconds later she said, “I think it is the same school... Does that make sense?” I hate it SO MUCH. We kept saying we’d take a tally of how many times a day she says it but we'd always lose count. For a period of time, because we were sure she’s not aware of saying it, we started responding every single time rather than leaving it as a rhetorical question. “Does that make sense?” “Perfect sense.” “Does that make sense?” “Absolutely.” “Does that make sense?” “Crystal clear.” She still hasn’t realised. As touched upon previously, she thinks she knows everything and has to have her say on every single thing. She never acknowledges when she’s wrong, even when she’s said something with complete conviction that turns out to be bullshit. We’ve got a number of Polish speakers at work, as well as Czech and Slovak, so a while ago (before AGFW started) one of the easier words ‘dobra’ sort of entered everybody’s vocabulary and it began to be commonly used by us all instead of ‘good’ or ‘okay’. One of the fluent Polish speakers was in our office on the phone, acting as translator for a client, and said the word a few times. When she hung up, I said “I’d forgotten about dobra. Great word!” and my colleague asked what it meant. AGFW butts in, “It means thanks.” in such a matter-of-fact tone. IT DOESN'T - STOP SAYING WORDS, YOU DON'T ALWAYS NEED TO SAY WORDS! Apparently she used to work on cruise ships, something she would bring up at least twice a day. A guy at our work goes to Goa for a month every January to escape the depressing Scottish winter and someone in the office mentioned it. "I've been to Goa." she said. We all politely ignored this. She said it again a few minutes later and someone humoured her, "Did you enjoy it?" To which she replied, "Well, I was only there for four hours." THAT ISN'T THE SAME AS SOMEONE GOING TO GOA FOR A MONTH EVERY YEAR FOR THE LAST TWENTY YEARS! Then she went to great lengths to explain that she, having worked on ships, has "been round the world twice", implying that she has visited every country. She phrased it exactly like that about four times in one (largely one-sided) conversation. Since then, she has also mentioned a number of places that she hasn't been, thus contradicting the statement. When she learned that I am moving to Canada soon, she HAD to relate it to herself in some way by saying, "I've not been to Canada before, but I've been to America..." then started talking about America. I think a list of places she hasn't been needs to be compiled so that at some point in the future when she says she's been around the world, someone can say, "Oh, how was Canada? Tell me about your adventures in Syria." Again, another time when I mentioned that I was going to New York on holiday, my friend in the office started recommending things he'd done when there because we have very similar interests in a lot of things. AGFW then recommended a bar that she and her workmates on the cruise ships would go to when they went to New York, "There's a great Irish bar that you should go to. I can't remember the name of it, but it's just off Broadway." You know, Broadway, that tiny tiny street... If she wasn't actually an idiot, I'd just think she was a very clever parody of one. My pal from work (MPFW) has been texting me updates of things she says while I'm gone. "Abu Dhabi is nice... I've only been to the airport in Abu Dhabi." Someone else in the building apparently came into our office and asked AGFW how to transfer something from her laptop to another machine using her memory stick. According to MPFW: "She was basking in the glory of being in the limelight. 'It's like riding a bike - once you've done it a few times, it becomes second nature'." USING A MEMORY STICK IS LIKE RIDING A BIKE Christ.

Does anybody know where I can watch/download that Towers Of London documentary series made for Bravo a few years ago? I re-watched the Donny Tourette episode of Nevermind The Buzzcocks recently and realised I'd never seen it. I want to because that one clip they showed ("I fucking DICK on the fucking Sex Pistols!") was hilarious. I Googled it and a thread from here came up on the second page of results.

‘A Book For Her’ by Bridget Christie I bloody love Bridget Christie and am pleased that she is now the comedian ambassador for all women. This book is great, but I’d already heard a lot of it from her Fringe show over the last few years. She has important things to say, though, and can do this in a very accessible way. Her chapters on FGM are particularly harrowing for being in a book found in the comedy section. ‘The Little Friend’ by Donna Tartt Ughhh... I previously tried to read this book twice and just couldn’t get into it. I was a little more patient this time around and tackled it but it still took about 350 pages before I properly started being interested in it. The blurb says it’s about a 12 year old girl trying to find out who killed her older brother when she was just a year old and I guess that’s the catalyst for the rest of the book, but it gets pushed to the background a little to make way for a history of some shady locals. It’s bleak and unsettling and I won’t be in a rush to read it again. Sorry, Donna Tartt. I loved the Secret History, though, and am looking forward to reading the Goldfinch. ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl’ by Wendy Jones A biography of Grayson Perry’s childhood, as told to one of his best friends. Not very gripping, although he did have a very eventful upbringing. It stops pretty abruptly. I think it would have been better had it focused more on his time at art school, rather than his childhood, but I guess that’s where the cross-dressing thing started and more people are probably most interested in. ‘Please Kill Me’ by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain I know most of you punx will have already read it and I think I’ve already spoken of my love of it in this thread, but here’s some more: this is my favourite non-fiction book ever and the only one I ever re-read. I bloody love oral history books, especially when they're about music. Every time I read it, I find bits I missed or didn’t pay attention to the times before and I end up loving a new musician each time. Last time it cemented my love of David Johansen, but this time it was Dee-Dee Ramone. The punk scene in the late 60s-early 70s just seems hilarious, when people were just Chuckle Brother slapstick drug addicts and before everybody started dying from heroin overdoses. Thoroughly recommended. ‘The Dylanologists’ by David Kinney I don't know much about Bob Dylan, but was recommended this book as an overview of his most loyal and/or obsessive fans. It tells the story of fans whose enthusiasm comes in many different forms: either by spending significant amounts of money on buying old Dylan artefacts and property with links to him, following him on tour and queuing to get to the front of shows from 4am, chronicling every tiny instance where he has plagiarised someone else, etc. Every obsession seems to be covered. It's really really fascinating and was a nice way to learn a little more about Dylan as the timeline of fan activity was often given context of what he was also up to at the time. It could be a psychological study, just great. 'Brooklyn Noir' edited (poorly) by Tim McLoughlin I bought this collection of short stories set in Brooklyn to read in preparation for a holiday to New York, but Christ, I couldn't wait for it to end! As it's just short stories, I figured it'd be best to persevere with it in case a good one would eventually present itself to me, but that didn't happen often. The majority of these are so poorly written that it's as if a fifteen year old who has just learned about plot twists came up with about 90% of them. Predictable, unmemorable shite. No stars.

I just quit my job so every day is the weekend. Woooooo! I'm on a train to ABZ now to enjoy a meal with pals and then the fun dance party at the Tunnels tonight. Tomorrow I am going to ruthlessly throw out lots of my old crap from my parents' house several years too late. Should be going to see my granny, the mighty Dons and some other pals on Sunday. What a time to be alive.

Ooft, was not expecting Ronnie to be a unique pick! C'mon, Sally Jessy...

Oh man, Ronnie has been on my list for years. 2016: The Year Of Persistence Paying Off.

Shandling is one of those people I never thought would die. Crappy.

Good work. She is the worst.

Former party-mayor Rob Ford has died. I'm moving to Toronto soon, was looking forward to getting a mandatory selfie with him on one of his nights out.

Hey buddy, fuck you!

He's blocked everyone he has stolen jokes from on there. Even people who aren't comedians.

Any recommends from the last month or so? I pretty much just had Sunflower Bean on repeat so am looking for something new!

My current pet hate is Aberdeen Music on a mobile because I must have tried to quote MattJimF in January on this thread but never actually posted a reply. I tried to quote Teabags now and it wouldn't delete the old quote box from months ago. Why? Argh! Actual post to follow.