We are the angry mob, we read the papers everyday.

I'm going to see Damien Rice on Friday with The Girl.
I've never seen him play live before.

His gentle musings, his twisted lyrics, his warped humour and his constant examination of failed relationships have had me hooked since "O" was originally released.
But that's not all.
For me, one of the most enjoyable things about his music is his co-singer....so this is the biggest piece of shit wanky tosspotting news I've read.

Bollocks.

We all face the same way, still it takes all day. I take a look to my left, pick out the worst and the best.

It doesn't look as bad as it felt.

This is the tyre that decided to blow out on me on Friday night.

After finishing the job on Friday, I went back to mine to have a good scrub up and then headed up to see The Girl. It was one of those 'things are really good' moments. The job was complete, I was going to spend the weekend with The Girl, the tunes were on and I was making good time due to lack of traffic on the roads.
Three quarters into the journey, I could tell something wasn't right. There was a noise that didn't sound like my familiar 'bone shaker' sound, so I turned down the music and wound down the window to investigate. Yep, definitely a new noise. The engine seemed ok and all the dials were reading as they should be, but there was definitely a new noise.
I pulled into the middle lane and noticed the steering was fighting against me. In a moment of complete stupidity, I eased my grip on the steering wheel and straight away the car veered off to the right. Time to pull over onto the Hard Shoulder methinks. As I drove over the cats-eyes between the middle and inside lanes, the noise increased dramatically and just as I was about to pull onto the Hard Shoulder, I felt the tyre blow. The steering went incredibly heavy, the steering wheel juddered as if I were driving off-road and smoke bellowed from the front of the car. The smell of burning rubber filled the car and it desperately wanted to go back into the Motorway lanes, but I fought with the steering wheel and luckily I won.
A very worrying 30 seconds!

It was dark and me being Mr Unprepared, I wasn't carrying a torch of any description, so I struggled with changing the wheel using the headlights of the cars zooming past as some kind of light. Twenty minutes and two very dirty hands later, I was back on the road.

It's the first time I've had anything like that happen to me and I'm convinced I was very lucky to be able to keep control of the car. I know it could have been a lot worse. I played the whole thing down when I arrived at The Girl's house, not wanting her to worry too much about it. A couple of days later, I mentioned it to Bling (the guy I've been working with) and he told me that when he had a blow-out on the Motorway, he lost control of his car and it spun round a few times before crashing into the central reservation.

Something or someone was looking out for me that night.

You can brave decisions, before you crumble up inside. Spend your time asking everyone else's permission and then run away and hide.

We have absolutely shit loads to get finished tomorrow.
We have to complete and leave by the end of the day.
She is moving in on Friday.
Oh shit.

Tomorrow will be a long day.

We actually managed to have a lunch break today. Bling's wife made us some sandwiches. I dropped a clanger when she asked me if I wanted some mayonnaise on mine, to which I replied "Mayonnaise is the food of the devil". My sandwiches arrived cut into quarters....with the crusts cut off. I'm sensing she likes to get her own back.

I can hear my neighbours TV. They must be turning the volume up more later, which means either they are getting more hard of hearing or quite possibly to drown out my increasingly loud music.
Something's up with the 'Cool As Fuck' couple on the other side too. I haven't seen Mr Cool As Fuck since January, when we had a conversation over the fence, as you do. He hasn't been around (or at least I've never seen him) and his car is never on the drive anymore.
I wonder if he's away on a Training Course. Or maybe he's left or been thrown out. Maybe he's in their garden....she's been out there digging and tossing dirt around a lot lately. Wow, I could be on TV, being one of those 'neighbours being interviewed' thingies and be the one to say, "No, she was lovely. She wouldn't have said BOO to a goose".
Or perhaps an episode of too much active imagination.

Yep, tomorrow is gonna be a long day. But when we're finished, we're not taking anything else on until Monday, so that means a nice long weekend.
No prizes for guessing what I'll want to be doing over this time....yep, a marathon wanking session.

Come all ye reborn, blow off my horn. I'm driving real hard. This is love, this is porn

I can visually feel the weight coming off me.
Does that sentence even make sense?

At the beginning of last week, I bought a pair of combats to use for 'work'. With my multi pocketed and knee pads included combats, I set to work on Tuesday. By Wednesday afternoon the side of my hip was red raw. The waistband had been digging in so much.
I bought them as a 34 waist. I seem to fluctuate between 32 and 34, but I wanted these work combats to be comfortable, so went for the 34's. After two days of wearing them, I realised I've bought one of those 'not quite the same as everybody else' sized garments.
I begrudge having to exchange them for a 36 waist. I'm not a fucking 36!

Anyway, seven days later and they appear to be much more comfortable.

I can see it in your eyes, there is something....something you wanna tell me.

Those 'spooky' moments.

Call it second sight, premonition, intuition, preconception...whatever....but it's very odd when you get those times when you've been talking about something and then sometime later, there's a connection.
It's happened quite often with The Girl and I, when we've spoken about something during the day and then out of nowhere we're reminded of what we were talking about by something on TV, or on the radio, or in the news, or by somebody else randomly mentioning it.

Over the weekend, we were talking about places to go on holiday. The city of Prague came up, we had a brief conversation about it and then went onto speak about other things in our quite strange, random way.
Cue last night, when The Girl was sat on my PC doing her English Assignment and I was lay on the sofa, flicking through the music channels. On pops a track by Lasgo called "Something" from about 5 years ago, with a video shot on some city streets, in a restaurant and in a train station. Something was naggin at us both....
The Girl decided that finding out where the video was shot was more important than finishing her English Assignment. There was much Googling, followed by a little frustration. It looked at one point that the video was shot in Germany or possibly Belgium, but Wikipedia came to the rescue as a last resort and there it was in black and white:
"As 'Something' became more popular throughout Europe, they shot a videoclip in Prague for international usage."

Now that was a spooky moment.

But this is solution and this is amends. The joke always tends to come true.

All change.

As as tomorrow, Monday the 12th of March, I'm Self employed.
It's been a huge decision to make, with lots of pondering and scenarios dancing about in my head. But I've waded through all the shit to get here.
After not earning any money since January, it would be quite nice to start bringing something in.
And I'm happy.
I'm smiling.
I have that tingly feeling inside my stomach.

I didn't do too much damage to The Girl's backdoor. I left her with a smile on her face....and a new cat-flap in situ.
I should have taken some photos of it, but instead I was more taken by the potato man I made:

Your back's against the wall, there's no one home to call.

The weekend is here already....
Where did the week go?

I'm now off to spend the weekend with The Girl.

She reminded me mid-week to take my 'tools' with me, because I offered that next time I was up there, I'd do "some damage to her backdoor".

It's not quite as sinister as it sounds, but I'm still gonna have a great time this weekend.

Set me free, why don't 'ya babe. Get out my life, why don't ya babe.

So, earlier today I was thinking about The Girl and lo and behold....my mobile phone chimes. Message alert!
How lovely, I'm thinking....that she must have also been thinking about me;
"Hey love....don't suppose you know where my claw hammer is do ya?"

Now is this one of those times when I just smile and be thankful for the 'thought' anyway, or should I begin to get worried that the spark is going.

I'm a different person. Turn my world around.

Thoughts from the weekend:

The Girl burped in front of me. It wasn't one of those accidental types that can slip out unintentionally, it was a proper belter.
Couple this with the fact that we had a little 'domestic' about the use of a carving block and all of a sudden, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about this relationship.

Stop me, oh oh oh, stop me. Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before.

Decisions and dilemas.

The line up for V Festival has been announced.
The tickets have gone on sale.
I don't really have the money to go.

I've only missed 1 year since they started the festival, so it's like a 'regular holiday tradition' for me. The year I didn't go, I hated hearing about the line up and how good it was. I really felt like I'd missed out.
I'm gonna have to take some time out to seriously think about this one. There's so many reasons why I wanna go this year, particularly because The Girl has said she'd like to come with me. It would be our first....
Hopefully they will release some more tickets a few weeks down the line. I might be in a better frame of mind to make a proper decision by then.


Some new songs available for free download on the jukebox thingy, on the right.

Camille Jones because it's such a groovy remix. There's another great remix floating around, "That Kid Chris Mix". It's good!
Mark Ronson because it's just such a brilliant song. One of those songs that made me stop what I was doing, just to listen to it all. The back end of the song is genius.
Sophie Ellis Bexter because it's a great pop song. I didn't like it on first listens, but it's been a definate grower.
Avril because it's a totally different direction to what I thought she'd come back with. It's very poppy and the intro percussion reminds me of "Hey Mickey". Another grower.
Omarion because apparantly he's the latest 'American' sensation. His vocals remind me of Bobby Valentino. I'm not too sure about the lyrics though.
The Gossip because they have been much touted recently. Completely catchy and laden with hooks to have you humming it all day long.
Alesha Dixon because it's just a damned good song. Pure pop delivered by the best girl out of the Mis-Teeq trio.
Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly because they are fast becoming a favourite band of mine.
Joss Stone because since she's been in America, she's gone completely bonkers. A great song in a style a al Christina and I'm hoping that her first album proper lives up to this lead single.