2009, Week 8

To misquote the seminal work of the early 21st century's portentous rock poets Sum 41, this week is 'all filler, no killer', in that bugger all happened. This was, I like to think, by choice. As we have big plans for the next few weekends Jen and I decided to laze around the house, watch films, drink wine 1 and eat Jamie Oliver's Tiramisu2.

My new keyboard turned up this week. Stupidly, I didn't consider that it would be the same width as, if not wider than an actual piano. Because of this I've struggled to find it a permanent home. It's great though, and I wish i'd of got one when I started self-teaching last year. It's got USB MIDI, which let me hook it up to Garageband in minutes and take advantage of the great instrument sets such as 'Nature Sounds', 'Comedy Noises' and the must have 'Applause and Laughter'. I am the master of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I own that bitch.

As preparation for our trip to London Village in a few weeks I got a copy of the 'Rough Guide to London'. It's amazing how little you really see in a city without a guide book. I've spent many days aimlessly walking around central London yet upon looking at the guide book I realise that I've missed so many interesting things. For example, did you know that there is a lamp post near The Strand that is powered using methane collected from the sewage system? I thought not my friend, and you thought the Houses of Parliment are impressive? You fool!

Every so often I re-discover an album that I've bought and never really got into the first time round. Oddly enough, these albums tend to go on to become the ones I really love. I think this is because music that is initially difficult to get into or challenges the listener's conceptions ultimately has a greater pay off when you finally 'get it'. In the last few years this has happened with Midlake's 'Van Occupanther' (which I now adore) and Animal Collective's 'Strawberry Jam'. The last few weeks I've really got into the second Hot Chip album 'Made in the Dark', which I've had since release. I was initially disappointed with it, I think mainly because the lead single 'Ready for the Floor' was a bit too mainstream and that stupidly put me off the album. On reflection though, the album really is a funky bitch.

I've come up with a new nick name for Jen and it's a personal fave. I'm pretty sure in every relationship there are weird nicknames used to refer to either partners, which make absolutely no sense to anyone else. What is odd with Jen and I is that the names seem to change every month. For example, here's all the ones we could think of from the last few years: Jen, Jen-Meister, Jenny, Jennifer, Jennifer Jayne, JJ, JBoss, Abraham, JJ Abrahams, Jabraham, Jabraspam, Jables, Balls, Jables Power, Gorper-chov and my new personal favourite, J-Chops.

I'll finish with some wise words imparted from my soon-to-be brother in law.

Wise man say even crouching ginger can't hide because of his carrot topped shame

1 - Man on Wire (great), Strangers (not bad, first half tense but looses its way) and Hunger (brilliant, but really hard work)
2 - Not literally his, I wouldn't mess with the mockney chef. Him and his Toploader pals would beat me to death with drumsticks and then dance on my corpse in the fucking moonlight.

CNPS: 15