A Barefaced Cheek!

There have been loads of stories, down the years, about people who suffer from stage fright. Now, I guess most singers, actors and whatnot get over these panic attacks by pouring alcohol down their throats; at least, that’s the method most people use, as far as I know. That is, until recently folks, when I read about Carly Simon and her novel approach to banishing the butterflies. According to some disreputable rag I was recently browsing through (and mentally puking over) while waiting at the checkout in Morison’s store in Stoke Newington, Carly gets her band to spank her before she goes on stage. The thing that got me was that she didn’t ask the bass player or guitarist to briskly beat her buttocks, she asked the horn section. The fxxking horn section!

I remember way, way back, in the days of school ties, outbreaks of acne, smelly socks and spunk encrusted underwear, some kid or other coming up to me and saying “ere, I’ve got the horn!” and showing me this bulge in his ill-fitting, horribly stained, cheap polyester trousers. Well, that was the expression in those days ‘though it soon changed to the more familiar ‘hard-on’ with the onset of adulthood. Mind you, this was in London and I wondered what other frothy terms, past or present, you bozos out there used to use, or maybe still use.

So come on, let’s have some fun. Spill some beans and make a horrible stain by squirting all over the Shamus blog page. There’s a prize for the best letter, but I’m not saying what it is, ‘cos I don’t want to appear to rigid, upright, bonkers or hard – OK?

Special Requests

Well, it was an interesting bunch of emails. Flann’s idea of getting you bozos to suggest song titles for the next album was a real goodie. The one that most of you requested is “F Off You Stupid Old Git”. Now, I don’t know this one, although it rings bell. Maybe someone out there could send in the sheet music, or better still, post Shamus a rough demo recording.

Another song title you liked was “Drop Dead You Sad Ugly Bastard”. This suggestion came from Doreen in Tunbridge Wells, who seemed quite upset that I haven’t already covered this one. I’m doing my best Doreen and you can help by sending in your own version, together with a bottle of Powers Irish whiskey. Something tells me that we’re going to have a beautiful relationship...

Superficially speaking...

Just been taking a look at a website that some of you bozos out there may find interesting. Well, not interesting exactly, more, how shall I put it? I hesitate to use the word educational, ‘cos it may put you off. What about beneficial then? That doesn’t really sum it up either. Anyway look, the site is called The Superficial.com and folks, it’s a tribute to the dedication and sheer hard work being put in by students of the English language, wherever they may be. Now then, I wouldn’t call the contributions erudite necessarily, because of course, erudition only comes with loads and loads of experience and a lot of research and stuff like that. However, the signs are extremely positive and what bowled me over, and I know this sounds daft, but do you know there was one bloke, I think it was a bloke because he called himself “cxxtface”, who actually knew how to spell Wednesday. A. A. Milne would’ve been proud.

I gotta say, there were some very strange contributions on the Pete Doherty page, with loads of advice for the guy, as you can imagine. Now, I rather like our friend Pete, so I disagree with most of the shite advice being given by these still-wet-behind-the-ears, hamburger-stuffed, spotty arseholes, because for my money, he really ought to take lots and lots more drugs. If you’ve got a talent, then feed it!

Now I’m not saying that there weren’t any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors and stuff like that but hey, on one web page devoted to some complete and utter non-entity, there were loads of comments written in English that actually made sense, even if it was clear that the writers themselves were complete plonkers and were probably more sad and boring than the idiot they were writing about. There was even one bozo who actually managed to write twenty-nine words straight off, with no mistakes. That folks, is cause for celebration! In fact, I’ll drink to it, even at the risk of being regarded as superficial.