Thats it. I feel festive. I tried to resist as long as possible but a number of events yesterday have firmly secured that I feel all a bit Christmassy. This is probably appropriate around now especially as today is officially St Nicholas Day, which is when said saint goes round leaving little presents in children’s shoes around Poland, Sweden and Belgium. It sounds a bit like something I’ve blamed my cats for before. Turns out it was a holy man all along and if that is the case I can’t really class them as presents. Seriously though, I can’t work out why he’d choose to leave actual presents in shoes. I can think of nothing less appetizing than some chocolate coins that have been left to sit in my trainers overnight. Cheese was never a filling for a fondant. Not only that but by limiting presents to the size of the inside of a shoe, you are never going to get anything that good are you? You can’t even fit a DVD in a shoe. This may of course be where the phrase, ‘you know what they say about men with big shoes’ comes from. The answer being ‘they get bigger presents from St Nick’.
I didn’t get any presents in shoes today. No my festiveness is largely down to me and Layla buying a tree yesterday while on a quick trip to look at shops in Stoke Newington we can’t afford to shop at. We had a potter round hoping to buy some small gifts for people, but instead I bought myself a mug with monkeys on it, that I had absolutely no need to buy, and got nothing for anyone else. I can’t help but feel I may have missed the point of present buying somehow, although at the same time, maybe I’ve just discovered the best way to do it. Just buy things for yourself and then if everyone did that we wouldn’t have to stress about buying each other stuff. I swear I’m a genius. Then after successfully buying myself things, Layla decided we should get a tree. I was pleased with this, but we had previously talked about whether to get one or not, as two years ago our tree was destroyed by two tiny kittens with a tendancy to smash all the boubles and generally ruin Christmas. I can only assume they were tiny emissaries of the devil. Last year we didn’t get a tree out of fear it would happen again, but we decided yesterday that our life and festive enjoyment can no longer be ruled by these furballs of hellishness and so we got a little tree. So far the cats have attacked it about 15 times. However the tree is still very much intact. We purposefully bought boubles that are spiky stars and that works as some sort of defence system against them. I’m tempted to treat our mini-fir as a version of the computer game ‘Tower Defence’ and slowly build up more and more dangerous boubles and decorations until the cats cannot get within 6 ft of it before being pinged in the eye with a nerf dart.
Comedy 4 Kids was much fun yesterday despite my entire lack of new material. A small girl who was declared the princess of Rochester, told me she wanted a dancing duck for Christmas. That is the best answer I have ever heard. Maybe that’s also what I want for Christmas. I mean, who wouldn’t? I bet all the shops have already sold out of them though, they are probably the must have gift.
Oh and the Thick of It is the best show on telly. FACT. Last night’s episode was amazing.
I remembered this track yesterday and spent ages looking for it using the lyrics that I mistyped constantly, before finding it and going on a two hour google spiral finding several other tunes I used to like including Todd Terry vs Pulp Fiction of which it is only possible to find a two minute clip online. Why would anyone do that? Put the whole thing up, I will pay for it. Don’t just give away a free two minute clip. That’d be like giving away a cinema ticket to watch half a film but never releasing the full thing. Or letting me only have a few chips before throwing the rest in the bin. That last one is unforgivable. Anyway here’s the track I originally looked for. Warning, this is not really Sunday music anyway:
And here’s the two minutes of the Pulp Fiction track. If you weren’t in your teens in the mid-90s and into the speed garage scene I suggest you ignore this as you’ll quite likely absolutely hate it. If you were, its still possible you regret your earlier taste in music and will also hate it. I however, think its awesome:
http://www.crugga-records.com/soundclips/220106/Todd%20Terry%20vs%20Pulp%20Fiction%20-%20Old%20skool%20-%20Listen/Todd%20Terry%20vs%20Pulp%20Fiction%20-%20Old%20skool%20-%20Listen.MP3
Last thing for today is this track:
This is quite possibly one of the oddest collaborations since the Texas/Wu-Tang single, egg and bacon ice cream or that time I did a gig in a golf club. I can’t work out if I hate it or love it. Tom Waits shouldn’t be in a hip hop track. Or should he? His voice should really be everywhere. I often think that if Tom Waits voice was played on street corners, kids may no longer go round commiting crime for fear that the Waits may talk to them in his growly wisdom. He should definitely do all tube train and airport announcements, all fire alarms and anything else that people may not otherwise pay enough attention to. So a hip hop track? Well, why not I guess. Lets hope he continues to collaborate with all sorts of genres we wouldn’t normally associate him with until they are forced to do a Tom Waits night on X-Factor and all the contestants leave with nodes on their vocal chords unable to sing again.
