The Changing Face of Ireland (parts 1 and 2)

The Changing Face of Ireland pt. 1

Alas, the dark peat has covered the land,
The bog, the flax dam,
Like my father, poised, upon a roof
His shovel held high,
Fell, like a descending leaf,
A graceful descent, above the bog
Eaten by a bear.

His spade, now, lies rusty and old,
I stoop, to pick my pen,
From the wet peat.
The slap of sod onto the earth,
The taste of potatoes,
The bottle of elderly gin on my windowsill.

I turn and write. To set the ground
Shaking. a comet passes. But I do not see.

Tonight, I shall go to the Bee Hive.
No longer a place for honey,
But a pub. We shall drink there tonight.

Although I am broke. And must scrounge drinks
From my kindly friends. Surely one day
Someone shall give me a job. But for now, I turn
Take up the spade, and dig.

The Changing Face of Ireland pt. 2

Phone Mast Dave
amidst a waterfall of dreadlocks
parted the rapids
and reached for a lighter

Dublin accent
With a twang of canadian
For this
We have hip-hop to blame

Cyclops like
He took Ulysses from my bookshelf
A handy flat surface
To roll some jazz

Stately, Plump
I hoped he didn’t roach the cover.

teenage and frantic

andybourg 1977
Originally uploaded by bumpoowilly.

On Tuesday Afternoon, Tommy spent approximately seven hours, twenty pounds, eight cake tins, an entire jar of marmalade, and other exciting objects he may have found in our kitchen. The kitchen surfaces gained a new blue sugary coating. By twenty past eight me and Anna were sitting in the Hand in Hand, sipping ale and wondering whether anyone else was going to turn up. They didn't. We wandered on down to the Hanbury Ballrooms, where various musicians were Sound Checking on the stage, Dave the Machine was attempting to operate a mixing desk and play the flute at the same time, and Andy was running around preparing for his big "Two Nine". Surprise guests from out of town included Nicky "model-handsome good looks and perfect pop song structure" P and Ollie "the face of the teenage heartthrob is about to change" Gimp. As people arrived, Tim (with band) began performing, with Andy's grotesque selection of photographs displayed on the projector behind him. The effect must have been mildly disconcerting for poor Tim, as the crowd reaction didn't seem to match his MC-ing and Poet-ing. "Oooh, look, there's Chris with butter spilling out of his mouth! Oooh, there's Dave the Machine killing Lee Harvey Oswald!". Next, the Bobby Mc Gees began their 'domestic violence with ukuleles' twee-core, interspersed with Jimmy shouting at the audience to shut up, followed by a distorted-ukulele-twee-punk-butterflies with a flurry of plastic Figurines.

Next, it's the live debut (and first rehearsal, I guess) of Pukulele and The Meatles. Now Pukulele is me and Tom's redneck country tweemo band, featuring me on harmonica and slide whistle, and Tom on ukulele and casiotone. We sing a song about how the animals we used to live in harmony with have turned on us. We attempt to do a cover of 4st 7lb by the Manic Street Preachers but Andy comes up on stage and tells us that we can't play any more because time is short and The Meatles have to get on the stage. So The Meatles, the world's first meat-themed Beatles covers band take to the stage, featuring John Lenin, Ringo Stalin, Senator Paul Mc Carthy and Mark Chapman. Ringo Stalin bumbles around at the back of the stage and occasionally trips over a cymbal and sings some Beatles songs. But it's all good, and The Meatles serenade the audience with Strawberry Veal Forever and have them all singing along, waving lighters in the air to the rousing chorus of Let It Beef.

Old Uncle Flute-thing then began playing, with MC Emmental delivering some less than cheesy lines, and Dave the Machine fluting it up like the Pied Piper of Hanover.

AND THEN

At this point, things began going a bit strange. The aforementioned cake was brought onto the stage, and everyone serenaded Andy with a fine chorus of Happy Birthday. I had a grotesque acceptance speech flashback as he attempted to thank everyone his eyes rested upon. And then the cutting of the cake. Oh god.

So Daniel Taylor is a chef. And has a massive £90ish two foot long razor sharp chef's knife. And of all the knives in the kitchen, which knife did Tommy choose to bring as a cake cutting impliment?

Tom, on his knees, on the stage, arms stretched out above his head, plate and cake above him, as Andy stumbles about on the stage with a massive knife, jabbing at the massive mound of cake. Within about five minutes, the situation can only be known as cake tragedy. There is cake everywhere. At one point the knife sticks point-down into the ground and quivers there. Daniel shudders. Andy knocks Nicky P's pint out of his hand and broken glass and beer mix with the cake. The knife is confiscated by the Hanbury Ballrooms; "It's not a Hanbury Ballrooms thing. No venue lets you take a knife like that in!". Phone Mast Dave pirhouettes in the cake and glass on his tiptoes, dreadlocks swirling around him. The net full of balloons bursts open. The balloons are full of strawberry fondant. They shower everyone in strawberry-ice-cream as they burst.

And then they asked us to leave.

We gradually make our way back to Andy, Tommy, Dave the Machine and Victoria's house, popping in at Alex's to see the most incredible iron-leaf bathroom. Then a renegade taxi driver takes us to The Fridge House. Me and Rosanne have a good old fashioned singalong to the Moldy Peaches, just like the old days. People come in from time to time, comment on how dreadful a band they are, and then leave. I cook up some curried banana (very nice. A bit sweet. Perhaps needed some garam masala rather than lasagne sheets) Phone Mast Dave drinks Tommy's plum brandy and mutters for a bit. I lose the entire contents of my pockets and worry for a bit. And then I have a most uncomfortable night's sleep in the hall, with Dave the Machine stepping over me to go to work.

We go out for breakfast in Cafe Motu, and go to the pub for a bit. Andy and everyone go bowling the next evening. Me and Anna babysit Alice and Ed's wee baby so we don't go. I still haven't managed to go bowling with Andy. Maybe one day.

Mad "Alan" Two Parties

kangaroo boots fall #4
Originally uploaded by bumpoowilly.

so remember the day when alan went to Ozzfest and bought a load of those herbal 'highs' tablets and took one and it didn't work and so he just took all of them at once and then he broke his face in the mosh pit at raging speedhorn and then disappeared and ended up wandering around a car park at six in the morning in milton keynes and then came camping with us the next morning and just spent the whole day sitting behind a tent smoking cigarettes and painting 'tool' on the back of the tent?

This is me lying at the foot of the stairwell which leads to our flat.

Alice and Maya and Anna made Tommy a cake in the shape of a moustache. We went to the Great Eastern. We met two random drunk people. We took them to Alicats. I don't have any money and so I smuggled in a big bottle of cloudy cider. I fall asleep in Alicats.

On Saturday Tommy had his birthday party. Me and Anna were working so when we left the pub at one in the morning, and strolled up to Tommy's house (it's got a fridge outside), there was already no end of party clutter all mingling on. Glasses of whisky and ginger with chunks of ginger floating in them. Andy has taken all the furniture out of his room except for an anglepoise lamp. It either needs a mattress to make it all Heroin Chic, or a pot-plant to add that 'documentary' aura to it. Upon this floor, lit by the anglepoise, Tom writhes, clawing at invisible shapes in the air. Tom used to be such a sweet innocent boy. Now, as he meanders his way about the place, past this group of people I don't know, one of them points at him; "There's the guy who put an e pill up his ass for a bet." Oh dear god. Tom. Dude.

Me and Alex Poof sit on this chair in Dave the Machine's room, and Jimmy Mc Gee is there at Tommy's house. Jimmy is a twee scotsman with an Ukelele. Now I was going to have a boxing match with Jimmy at some point, but it turns out that he used to box for Scotland. He's going to kick my ass. Dude. He performs a number of magic tricks, making coins appear and disappear. "Oh look. There it is. It's under your watch!". I think the magic is lost on Tom. "Where? What coin? Did you have a coin? Hello?"

So then at one point, me and Tom are standing in the hall, just up on the first step of the stairwell. Sam comes running past, heading for the door. Alas, he doesn't get to the door in time. Me and Tom get sprayed with boke. It's quite shocking. A bit like a wet, bokey version of being shot. Sam does a bit of a Phil Kirk on the door, scrambling for the handle and boking up. Eventually he gets out and bokes up outside. Poor Sam. I go upstairs to wash the boke off and borrow a shirt from Tommy. Tom, I think, means to do the same, but actually finds a pink t-shirt and puts it on over his existing clothes. Then we climb into the attic and Tom manages to aquire some grey and pink trousers and a long fur coat.

At one point we're sitting in Andy's documentary room and Andy just comes in muttering and just spits beer out into the corner of his room. "That's my spitting corner.". O god. Please don't let Andy have a spitting corner. Rosanne and Tom react to this by spitting in the other corner of Andy's room. Jesus Christ.

Downstairs some kids are playing some kind of pounding techno music and dancing. I find a big old blanket on top of the wardrobe in the hall, and go upstairs to Tommy's room and go to sleep.

Apparently my other three housemates all came up to Tommy's room also and there was a point when the four of us were all curled up together in a big Clifton Place sleep heap. However by the time I wake up they've all gone downstairs and Anna is there instead. We go downstairs and everyone else is in the front room. Maya is outside the back climbing a tree. I almost expect her to attach a swing to it like in Junk, but she doesn't. Rosanne has gone to the shop and bought lots of breakfast and a big packet of Beef Jerky, which she devours, singing shake hands with beef as she does with a glint in her eye. Breakfast. The Sound of Music. Coffee. A glass of whisky. We manage to stroll into town without buying any more pets. The Battle of Trafalgar. Feminist Noisecore.