Pic of the day.

Originally uploaded by LIFE OF REILLY.

Another doomed advertising campaign for Tennant's Super.

Fishy business

Originally uploaded by LIFE OF REILLY.

Now I like fishing. Any type of fishing. But since I've been here, I think my fishing missions will be few and far between. This is why. A: I live in central London B: The Thames looks toxic. (And if i did catch anything in the Thames, I don't think I'd tuck into hypodermics, shopping trundlers and old boots). C: I didn't bring any fishing gear from New Zealand. D: Nobody I know over here has a boat. E: I don't have any fishing buddies (yet). These 5 points pretty much puts fishing way out of reach. That combined with constant pining after a good piece of fresh fish. I saw fillet of shark on a menu the other day. Please.... Shark where I come from is what dodgy fish and chip shops advertise as Terahki (dunno the english name for this wonderful fish ). And as for fish in the supermarket, I'd do the salmon, it looks ok. The red snapper looks a week old and is very undersized and the haddock looks like a running shoe odour-eater. Bleeergh. Even the tuna is rank. I haven't found and decent green lipped mussels (yum) but I hear you can get them, but alas it seems a well guarded secret among my Kiwi mates. Prawns are ok, but they seem to fully over cook them. And lobster is only for very special times where I want to impress a chick. Anyway I'm starting to drool here. (Note to self: Don't write about food before lunch). Back to fishing. I'd like to see full centrefolds in fishing magazines. Like Playboy, but except, sparking full size snapper. Not that kind of snapper. The fishy kind. Oh dear. I mean the kind that live in the ocean. I can see it all over England. Anglers rushing down to the newsagents, and sneakily buying their usual monthly fish magazine and then in the privacy of their own homes, flicking to the middle and opening Ms. July. A saucy looking bass. I can hear it now "Ohhh look at the gills on that baby." It would keep the hankering for a fish at bay. No more holding hands out and telling exaggerated fishing stories in the pub. Just pull out a well thumbed copy of "Fish Only" and show all your mates. They will love it. Imagine fish shops with the centrefolds pinups on the wall. "Ms. November is looking good. George, she's a good looking Halibut. Ill take two." It would rock. Next stop: Hard core prawn movies.

NB: However I've recently found an excellent Tapas restaurant called Meson Los Barilles (55/63 Goswell Road London EC1). Which has excellent fish, and I'm on my way to becoming fat as a house if I don't curb my visits soon.

Late at night

Howdy y'all. Check out this dope video. It's from a band called Futureshock, and it's a bit of late night action. Don't bother trying to see it on a dial-up, it's 14megs of visuals.

A proposal to Tennents Lager.

Originally uploaded by LIFE OF REILLY.

Lets face it. In London there are lots of homeless people. It sucks. I hate it when people fall through the gaps in society. When I found out about the story behind the magazine “The Big Issue” I thought, what a good idea to give homeless people a break. Mind you when I buy a copy I always look to see if there is a can in the back pocket. I usually resist to give my change to a person who is just going to spend it on Tennents Super. I’d rather give them a sandwich. But it irks me all the same that this really strong booze is available anywhere and its pretty cheap, and lethal. It’s not really helping homeless people in the slightest. Now I always look to see what homeless people who are alkies drink. Mostly Tennents Super, Carlsberg Special, and Diamond White cider. ( I’ve had a night on Diamond White when I first got to the country by accident. I like cider and bought the first thing I saw. Fuck its strong. I quite liked it, but I pretty much turned into a Mutant, so now I give it the big body swerve.) Ok then, back to the idea in hand. I then came across a book by Bill Drummond. The multi-talented co founder of the KLF. The guys who burned a million quid. (Now that’s art!) The book is called ‘45.’ I read it in two days.It’s a brilliant piece of writing and I totally recommend it to anyone. There is a story, and while I’m not going to give away its contents, it involved a cube made of of 6,250 cans of Tennents Super. Here’s the quote from that story that stuck in my craw.

“He took it in himself to see if Tennents would be interested in getting involved in some way. Maybe they would like to offer some sponsorship in exchange for upping the media profile of their superior strong lager, the way Becks or Absolut have used the sponsorship of art in an attempt to up their hipness. Tennents declined. They stated that Tennents Super is primarily drunk by ‘street drinkers*’ and Afro-Caribbeans, and that neither of these niche markets could be reached through advertising and sponsorship.”

*This is Tennents description of whose people that buy their strong booze.

The fact that Tennents admits that it’s core market for T.Super is homeless people, yet feels no moral obligation to the people who are probably out on the streets because of it. It’s enough to make me puke. (Or T.Super, which I haven’t tried, which will probably also make me puke.) Then I bought a little book, by another social commentator that I have a lot of respect for. Bansky. He’s an amazing stencil artist, who in my eyes, is right on the money when pictures do say 1,000 words. His work is everywhere. He also had a quote in one of his books, that went like this.

“Isn’t it ironic that homeless people drink Tennents.”

Tenants of the street drink Tennents. How fucking ironic. The people who most need a tenancy consuming Tennents, to block out their shitty life on the streets. These two quotes stewed around in my brain for a wee while until today. I was walking to the bus, and I saw the same group of homeless people that I see everyday. They reminded me of the buskers in the tube with their little patch of space sponsored by Carling. Then a light went on in my head. Why don’t Tennents such sponsor homeless people’s begging spots. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning the promotion of alcoholism, but I’ve done my homework on this one. Only roughly 10% of people who go through a 12-step type of rehab stay sober for a year and out of that 10%, 2% stay sober. Pretty frightening stuff really. So I’m coming from a more harm prevention kinda angle.) Tennents should give them little tents, and a sleeping bag and some food. Like a loyalty scheme. Say 10 barcodes gets you some staple, non-perishable food. 20 barcodes gets you a sleeping bag. 50 barcodes gets you a one man tent. 100 barcodes gets you a key to a large box, which doubles as 4 mini Tennents billboards, which is actually a little self contained, soundproof home. It would provide a solution to house homeless alkies. Give them food, warmth and shelter. The Tennents Tenants would then get a visit from a rep to ask them if they wanted to go on a job scheme sponsored by you guessed it...Tennents. They could get jobs as delivery men (provided they were not blind drunk). Or maybe building other Tennents Homes for future tenants. Maybe these incentives might just make make a difference and give them enough dignity and self worth to make something out of their lives, and get off the streets. Somehow I think Tennents might not go for this idea, but I might email to them and see what happens.

Million pound idea.

Originally uploaded by LIFE OF REILLY.

I get asthma. I also smoke sometimes, usually coinciding with drinking. The amount of times that i have had to put down a ciggie to get a puff on the ol' blue lifesaver. It's pathetic I know, but I don't really care, because I enjoy a smoke. People say "it takes ten years of your life" but it's the shit 10 years at the end. And who needs those 10 years. Maybe the truckload of prescription painkillers that I will do my best to get in those ten years before I die, might be enough to warrant giving up smoking now. I mean who wants to be some old fart in a home hanging out with other old farts playing scrabble and waiting to die. I want to be off-my-head-all-the-time. But lets not get too far ahead of ourselves here. So anyway in my infinite wisdom, I thought of combining to two and making a lighter that looks like an inhaler. It would be brilliant, and a nasty trick on anyone else you hate with asthma. Knowing me I'd get pissed and do some seriously insane damage on my throat. You could maybe put a little gauze on the end of it, just to make sure you don't stick it in your mouth. With a few easy modifications it becomes a handy pipe. Bonus. I haven't figured out the name of this little invention yet, so get cracking readers, and I'll split the millions that we will make from this new lighter. The potential market is enormous.

Monday Madness

I went out last night with 2 of my favourite chikie-babes. Ms. Smacked Face and Ms. G. Being a school night, and being on a extreme budget, it was going to be a reasonably "sensible" night. First bonus of the night was handing over my last 20£ over to get in, and getting 27£ back. Second bonus we saw a band that blew my socks off. The New Telepathics. I saw the band set up with 2 1/2 drum kits, 2 bass players, a guitarist, sax, keyboard, some kiddies mouth organ thingys, old vegetable oil cans, and to top it off was my friend Sandy Mill right in the middle of all this jumble sale of musical instruments. My first impressions was "How the hell are they gonna pull this off". Pull it off they did. I can't even describe how incredible is sounded. And Sandy's voice! I'm sure she eats angels for breakfast, because she sure has the voice of one. At times they looked like it was going to collapse into some Bonzo Dog Band type of musical noodling, as all the band members were looking at each other with furtive glances of the "Do I come in now? or now? or now....or right....NOW!" variety. But lose it they didn't. Amazing. Meanwhile in the crowd, we we're losing it. I was actually dancing. Which is as a rare as a dodo in my back pocket. I usually follow the Bill Hicks ethos of "Real man don't dance, they just curse and sweat" attitude, but goddammit I set the dodo free and my ass sure followed. After the set we had a few more beers, and Ms. Smacked Face went all doe-eyed or should I say sMITTen? Her alter-ego came out, McSmacked Face-Hen-Ye-Ken? Classic. I was in stitches. We left on a high note. I was left at the bus stop, with to be honest, not a fucking clue to get home. I decoded the squiggles and numbers and figured out I had to go to bus stop C. I asked a lady next to me if this was C. She said yes. 20 minutes later, there is a whole new set of people apart from yours truly. Something was wrong. I asked another lady is this C? No its K. Right...... I had to go find C. Not so easy for the night bus newbie that I am. After being accosted by gangs of turkish taxi drivers I figured out where the buses might leave from. By this time its 1am. I'm getting cold. I looked for signs but couldn't find any. They were painted on the road. What the fuck? It's like they thought when designing Liverpool St Station, "We've got 6,567 signs already... shit, none left in the budget, lets just paint them on the road, it's not like it's important information or anything." So happy that I had finally found my stop, I decided to have a mini-celebratory smoke. This of course made me a little paranoid. (I never learn) So then I decided to go across the road to check the map again. Then I went up to a bus driver having a break and also asked him if stop C was for me. He told me I needed to go to stop E. But alas he didn't know where it was. This started to unhinge some what. Someone must have me noticed me starting to flap a bit and the most unlikely hero came to my rescue. He was a 5ft extremely barrel like Ronnie Corbet lookalike with a Casey Jones train driver hat on and milk bottle glasses. And he wheezed when he didn't speak. But beneath that freakish exterior he was the god of night buses. He informed me that I had to get the 271, get off at Highbury corner and then catch the 19 which takes me pretty close to home. Soon enough the 271 came along and I was happily on my way home. Got off where I was supposed to. Walked to the other bus stop. I noticed the temperature had plummeted. I was freezing (I'm such a pussie in the cold). It dawned on me I might have to wait for half an hour for the next bus, when I spotted a flashing sign. It was a kebab shop. Now I haven't had a kebab yet in London, and I was trying to set a personal record to see how long I'd succumb to the rotating alter of sizzling mystery meat. I succumbed. It was delicious. To my surprise it didn't taste like ground up pigeons at all. Finished the kebab just as the 19 showed up. Choice. I got home just after 2am. I went to bed thinking "I wonder if that's how people end up on the streets? They can't find bus stops home." Moral of the story is: Listen to the freaks, they might just show you the way home.

Question of the day.

Originally uploaded by LIFE OF REILLY.

The mernimbler is actually very cute-looking until stroked by an adult, when it turns into this monster. Adult mernimblers eat everything and die of chronic indigestion. Who invented this monster? First prize is last weeks corned beef, which wasn't claimed.

Vacuous Impressionable Peacocks.

I went to a friend’s birthday on Saturday night. It was at a rather swanky spot call café de Paris. Now to be honest, I usually love clubbing, but maybe I’m getting a little more jaded, but it seems that the whole nightclub world has changed gears on me. Without me noticing. More to the point, maybe it’s because I’m now not hitting clubs loaded to the gills and I’m only just realising what clubbing means in 2004. It’s not for me anymore. Now usually I wouldn’t even bother entering a club with big guys in tuxedos, all six foot between the eyes and secret service walkie talkies dangling out their ears. Let alone having to go through a red velvet rope. Thank god I was on the guest list, because my night would have ended there. Now when I used to go clubbing, it was jeans, t-shirts and sneakers. Not the case now. I think I was about the most underdressed person in the place. Don’t get me wrong but I like to dress up, maybe to dinner, but to go to some dark, smoky place and get all messy? Knowing me I’d ruin any decent clobber, by getting quite clobbered myself. Any way, I can deal with looking a bit shabby. Easily solved. Just hit the bar, and act like you have a wedge of money. I did have a little wedge, so I was looking forward to a bit of vodka action. Got my first drink. A nice vodka and tonic. Plain old Smirnoff and a slice of lime. 7£. My wedge was going to turn into a slice, pronto. I figured out after a few more voddies, that they had to charge these ridiculous prices because of the 40 or more staff that seemed to work here. I got to figure them out after a while. Most of them are dressed in black. Svelte women just standing by the bar doing nothing. Seriously, I watched a lady for 1/2 an hour and saw her move once. What the fuck did she do? Look pretty? Look important? God only knows. Then there’s a whole gang of people who go around playing sleight of hand with ashtrays. Usually while you are having a cigarette. Most annoying. Then there are the other monkeys who like to take your drink away when you put it down to chase the lady who took away your ashtray. Bastards. I even told the barman, my drink wasn’t even finished only to be met with a smug what-the-fuck-you-gonna-do look. I resisted telling him exactly what I thought. Well you cant cut the booze line off in the middle of a session can you? So what do you do? You shell out another 7£ for a drink and hold onto it for dear life. Or do what I do. Drink quicker. Which brings me to my next interesting observation. When exactly did they start to have huge guys guarding aftershave, moisturiser, chupa-chups, chewing gum and watch you have a piss. I’ve been in a few toilet cubicles in my clubbing life all over the world, and yet in this town you have a guy that will hand you paper towels, turn taps on for you and give you a squirt of smellies. I wonder if he’d wipe my arse, if I couldn’t quite manage it. Are we that useless as males? That we need some other guy to make sure we wash our hands after a pee-pee. I’m sure they don’t have a women stationed inside the ladies, with blush and lippie on hand, and a hairdryer? Surely not. It makes for a very strange time when you want a nice quiet time and relieve yourself, when there is some guy right behind you towel and soap in hand. The word stagefright comes to mind. What I end up doing is just fucking forget about the task in hand and get out. After a third attempt of walking into the loo and seeing the cubicle occupied, and not want the peeping tom routine, so quickly doing a u-turn and coming back 5 minutes later, I managed to secure the cubicle and have a well-deserved piss, Next thing I was accused by the bog bouncer that I must be doing drugs in the cubicle. Again I had to restrain myself from telling this bozo exactly what I thought. Well just like the bar man earlier, you cant cut off the booze line off in the middle of a session can you? Sheesh. Then there is the pinnacle of going to a club. Hanging out in the VIP room. Zzzzzzzzzzz. How boring. A room full of peacocks trying to be ubercool. VIP now stands for vacuous impressionable peacocks in my book. Also just to let you know, drinks taste exactly the same in the VIP room as they do in the main room. It was then to my amazement when I went to get a drink after 3am. I was told they were not serving booze anymore. Excuse me? Am I hearing this right? It was then I thought the VIP room might have some saving grace and actually still be serving. How wrong I was. I was curtly told that I could get a soft drink. Hahahaha. Yeah right. Just the very opposite of what I needed, which is a hard drink. Then I noticed there was a VIP room for the VIP room. What the fuck? VVIP room? Very vacuous impressionable peacocks? This must be the last bastion for a drink. Thank god. Then I realised that you only basically got into this room if you spent 150£ on a bottle of champers. I didn’t have 150£. I wish I did. Only so I could go in and swig straight from the bottle and belch. That would have been a brilliant and rather fitting end to a night, and most probably got me banned from ever going back there again. Which probably isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Art?

Originally uploaded by LIFE OF REILLY.

On the telly last night, on the news to be exact, there was a piece on the Frieze Art Fair. I heard the reporter say some thing about "if you have cash to burn." I immediately pricked up my ears. The reporter then waffled about the contemporary modern art scene and the flicked through a few "artworks". Then this little stunner came on the screen. I hunted to find a pic of it, but eventually made one myself (took about 5 minutes). Anyway, its a can of beans with a hotdog on a motor that goes up and down in an out of the beans. Can't remember the name of the artist, or the name of the piece, but at least the name was something equally retarded as the offending piece ot "art". The price of this fine piece of shite is £35,000. Yes thats right! £35,000. Has art finally gone up its own arsehole? For fucks sake, who the hell is going to pay for a can of baked beans with a mechanical hotdog? Point those idiots in my direction, ill sell them some thing that will take an hour to produce, and 2 seconds to explain. Don't get me wrong here I love art, had a ball last time I went to the Saatchi Gallery. Loved the room full of oil, the big rat ball and the wishbone spiral thing. But the art by that stupid cow who's contribution is a skanky unmade bed with a pile of rubbish next to it? Come on... Phuleez! Its a pile of trash. Maybe shes the clever one to get some fool to pay for it, but she cant seriously think its art? Maybe shes a looney? Or just grubby. I've got a nice piece for the Frieze Art Fair. It consists of a few kilos of semtex, placed throughout the building, and a piece of very long fuse and a detonator. I'd then simply blow the whole fucking lot up. Hell, I'd even just do it for the cost of the materials. Fuck art.....Lets rumble.

The Orange dilemma.

Originally uploaded by LIFE OF REILLY.

What came first? The colour or the fruit? Confused? I sure as hell am. This little problem has been annoying me for quite a long time. Say back in the day when things were being named, would you go up to a tree and and say Look at that fruit, it happens to have the same colour as orange. Shall we name that fruit an orange, because it's colour is orange? Or shall we name this colour orange after this fruit called an orange? Which happens to be orange. Back to square one. What came first? The colour or the fruit? It's not like you call a banana a yellow, or a apple a red, or a green. But still a orange is orange. Or did an orange drop out of a tree (it might have not been called and orange) and land on someone's lap, and left a stain, which happened to have a colour which was then noticed and promptly called orange? Or named the colour of the stain after the fruit which was called an orange? Back to square one. What came first? The colour or the fruit? Yes, what a dilemma indeed.

Reverend Spooner's Tips of the Slung

Rear Deeders, how your beds. Let us salute the eponymous master of the verbal somersault, the Rev. William Archibald Spooner. He left us all a legacy of laughter. He also gave the dictionary a new entry: spoonerism. The very word brings a smile. It refers to the linguistic flip-flops that turn "a well-oiled bicycle" into "a well-boiled icicle" and other ludicrous ways speakers of English get their mix all talked up.

know your blows
go and shake a tower
tease my ears
nicking your pose
you have very mad banners
lack of pies
it's roaring with pain
sealing the hick
go help me sod
pit nicking
bowel feast
I'm a damp stealer
wave the sails
chipping the flannel on TV
mad bunny
I'm shout of the hour
this is the pun fart
I hit my bunny phone
flutter by
bedding wells
I must mend the sail
cop porn
it crawls through the fax
my zips are lipped
bat flattery
would you like a nasal hut?
belly jeans
eye ball
fight in your race
ready as a stock
no tails
hiss and lear
soul of ballad

Nicked off the net.

Pic of the day

Originally uploaded by LIFE OF REILLY.

What am I?
First prize is a tin of corned beef!

Football and meat with a key.

I went to the England vs Azerbaijan game last night. I don't really follow football at all, but since my short time in this town, I have been party to a few conversations about football. Apart from glazing over in about 2 minutes, I'm slowly accepting the fact that being male and supporting football are joined at the hip. So I'm trying to learn a little about the names, teams and the world cup. My first dumb question was "Are we in the white or the red." Silly me. The next salvo was "Who the fuck is Azerbaijan? And where is it?" I was informed that it was a Russian knockoff near the Caspian sea. At least my geography skills are expanding. What a bonus. At this point I decided the best course of action was to drink Guiness. Yum. Fast forward 6 pints later and the game is over. England 1 Azerbaijan 0. Now this got me thinking a wee bit. A population of 60,000,000 vs 8,500,000. If this country with such a huge pool of people can only muster 11 blokes, that are supposed to be the best of the best, and only manage to score one goal against a little blip on the Caspian sea. I can only conclude that the England football team are shit and doomed to fail. I almost blurted out words in the pub to this effect, and I'm glad I didn't. I would have probably collected a glass in the face or a nice big fist on my chops. Wise move methinks. Fast forward to getting home and feeling a little drunk. (I think this was due to my open throat skulling beer trick, I showed my mate, as we left the pub.) Anyway I was feeling very hungry and started to look around for fodder. In the cupboard, right at the back was a little treasure tin. Its crap, totally processed and its my secret supermarket fetish food. Corned Beef. I don't know if its the packaging, with the cool little key. C'mon folks what other meat product do you need a key to unlock? It must be special! Maybe Corned Beef's cheap cousin Spam? Haven't gone down that road yet, so I must investigate spiced ham one day. Anyway back to beef. Folks here's a tip. Microwaving this little parcel will melt all the fat into the meaty goodness. Two taste explosions for one low price of 79p. You cant beat it. Or if you were like me last night, and drunk, you can eat it straight out of the tin. No washing up! Lovely. Suffice to say I went to bed full and happy.

Supermarket Soup

I'm going through a bit of a soup phase at the moment. Partly because I'm not used to the cold ( I'm told constantly "Cold? This ain't even winter yet mate.") Great. Just what I need to hear. Anyhoo back to the soup. Attempting to save a bit of money and venture into the day-glo world of supermarkets (which I detest) and get a decent made soup. Been a sucker for advertising (my chosen profession also, which makes me the ultimate sucker.) I went for Lyod Grossmans Chicken & Vegetable soup. Don't make the same mistake I did. You sure you live up to your name Mr. Gross-man. Want some taste you cant quite put your finger on? Something not quite right? This package of slop is the the ticket. The worst thing is I'm still forcing myself to eat it. What a moron I am. Will I ever learn? Gag. Note to self: Never trust fancy packaging again. Oh well, I'm forced to go out and blow more cash on some designer soup from round the corner. Where's my mum when I need her for my favourite comfort food. Bah.

Ramble On

Yesterday I decided to start a blog, and for the rest of the time since, all I’ve been thinking is what the hell do I actually put in this? I suppose anything I want to, right? Who am I talking to? Me? But here's where things start to confuse me a wee bit. If its for me, why do I need to put it out there, I mean here, so you can read what I write... Right? A good friend of mine has a blog, and to be honest, i'm fascinated by the whole concept of it. Its like a reality show of someone else’s life, that you can basically fill in the visuals. Unless there is pictures, and then you fill in a little less. (I can’t even take any photos at the moment because I dropped my lovely cybershot dsct-1 down the loo, at a recent party. And actually to the shock of my self, peed on it. Its now well and truly fucked.) Ironically the party was at none other than the friend who introduced me here. And now that I think about it a bit more, I don’t really want to show pictures of the mad shit that might cross my path in the times ahead. I usually cringe when someone shows me a photo of a mad night. God do I look that spastic? Yes you do. No-o-o-o I can’t look that bad, I don’t feel that bad? I suppose that’s why it’s called a mad night? Because you look really mad. But i'm digressing as usual. Back to the question in hand. What the hell do I put in here! Its obvious now. This kind of rambling bollocks. Eh?

Ban me from Amsterdam for life.

This is a quick synopis of my first time in the Dam.

Picked up at 4.30am / drive to Luton / Guiness / Bacon Sandwich / Plane / beer / beer / beer / beer at airport / coffeeshop / hit by a big green freight train / dazed for a few hours trying to get a grip / wandered around for a bit / powder / talked shit in bars / attempted to play pool / coffeeshop / powder / talked shit in bars / got hit on by middle aged women? / got invited to eat steak tartar with a middle aged gaggle of women? (bizarre but true) / went to hotel room with the lads / pills / powder / red light district / attempting to deal with my catholic schoolboy morals / coffeeshop / dragged into strip shows / felt like a dumb stupid male / coffeeshop / back to hotel / smashfest / back to town / beer / beer / beer / beer / pills / powder / made the fatal mistake of telling the boys that i'd never really been with one of "those ladys" before / get pushed behind a curtain / felt very strange / started laughing at the situation and spacing out and generally freaking out the poor lady behind the curtain / kept the pants on / asked if she wanted some powder / got booted out / beer / got shit from the boys / got lost for an hour / was found again / beer / coffeeshop / back to hotel / mushrooms (bad idea at 5am) / sketching out / everything went VERY pear shaped / contemplated (if this was actually possible at this stage of the game) will they let us on the plane / went to the airport / got lost / got found / beer / searched / got on the plane / zoned out / landed / beer / bacon sandwich / beer / beer / beer / beer / missed train / got another one / crawled home / hid.

A monster is born...

Damn, I got a mental block on my very first post.