MAD [PIZZA] MEN[IA]

This week has seen many things: cracked heads [not crackheads], orangey-yellow leaves and yet more Jimmy Saville stories. It has also taught me a few other things:

ONE] I do actually have willpower: Yes, I managed to sit  ['bowl'] my way through two hours of pizza
         torture. I've never seen a sight like it. Tuesday saw a work excursion to Bloomsbury Bowling lanes,

         followed by eighteen of the largest round pizzas [no one beats you Firezza, with your rectangular

         masterpieces] I have ever laid my eyes on. At one point I had three in front of me and, bearing in mind

         these were the size of the larger wheel on a penny farthing, I ended up having just three slices [most of

         which ended up on the floor, my tights and my [bowling] shoes.] "Only three slices?!" I hear you cry with

         baffled tones. I didn't think I had it in me. Turns out I do. Maybe it was down to the sheer magnitude of

         drinks we'd all had by this point but either way, those of you who know me will know that this is an

         incredible piece of news.

THEY WERE SO GOOD.

TWO] Mad Men is returning, and it is sexier than ever: I have actually made both of these statements up, having
         deduced them from the wonderful pictures on the Daily Mail website, this being my favourite:

This is how I always mean to look on holiday..

        So whilst I have heard nothing of an actual new series [not saying it hasn't been announced. Just saying
        that I am as horrendously out of date as furry milk], I can't help but wander [SJP] "Just how cool is this new
        series going to be?" and "Where do I buy all these outfits from?". If you know more than me please send
        a letter with all information, including dates.

THREE] Imogen Thomas will never ever know how to dress: I learnt this today after realising that she looked no
             more shocking with a pumpkin painted on her pregnant belly than she does during a normal day-in-the-
             life. I mean, I was taken aback at first, but then I saw a photo of her in normal clothes and realised that
             there wasn't much difference.

It doesn't even really look like a pumpkin actually.

The belly is better than the boots.

FOUR] There is more than one chili growing on my chili plants: Not only this, but the second chili is growing on
           another plant and looks completely different! Variety is the spice of life, and no truer statement could be
           uttered in my room at the moment [just referring to my plants], with a handful more flowers ready to
           bloom, die and produce little green spices!

Here's chili No.1

Here's chili No.2 Isn't it GLORIOUS?

This weekend will see me going to Hogwarts and gorging on chocolate FROGS [or something like that].
I definitely will have learnt something by...i'd say...Monday.

love

STANLEY

OMG CHILI NEWS

Happy Sunday, and here's an early literary treat because i had to break some news to you:
MY CHILIS HAVE ACTUALLY PRODUCED CHILIS [it's actually one chili but who's counting?]
Just in case you didn't believe me I took a beautiful photograph:

That long green thing with a flower poking out of its feet [could have used any word here]
is an actual lip-tingling, bum-burning c h i l i.

Unfortunately in my haste to take a picture the minute I had to be somewhere else I neglected to take down the name of this brilliant being. It doesn't really matter though. These flowers are going to turn into chilis and right now there are at LEAST five. That's enough for about two home-made curries. Oh.

One last thing: I spent the weekend in Newcastle, more specifically Gateshead, more specifically Dunston and had a wonderful time, but what i'm quickly sharing with you is this brilliant thing I found in 'Pound World' [creative name] in the Metro Centre:

What is this? A packet of Skittles? No! No - this is a candle packet.

I had to buy two [obviously] and consequently my room is going to smell like a skittle factory. More importantly, the candle is BLUE:

I've got to remember that this bluey guey-ness isn't edible.

So I've let out the news that needed to be let out. All that is left for me to say is that I made a friend. This this friend is fluffy.

Love

STANLEY

TANTRUM TASTIES

This week has seen the outside temperature plummet, John Whaite's 'Great British Bakeoff' victory [surprisingly] and more Jimmy Saville stories. Here are the other things I've learnt though:

ONE] Some children are mental [because their parents are mental]. Those close to me know that I have a weird
         sixth sense for analysing the cries of children. Like a birdwatcher but with less birds and definitely less
         watching. Anyway, I can tell whether a child is crying because it is hungry, crying because it is in pain
         or crying because it wants attention. Imagine my joy [shock] at reading an article entitled:

'The tantrum toddler who held his breath so long he had to be revived by mouth-to-mouth'

         Excuse me?! I don't even know where to start with this. I couldn't even read the article; I just looked at the
         photograph in complete dismay. The sad things about this are:

                    a] This is clearly a tried and tested action for the child who has obviously gotten his own way
                        by doing this before.

                    b] The article and consequent photograph has given the baby FAR too much attention, more than

                        he could ever have imagined in fact.

        I can't really criticise as I am not a parent and haven't been through the trials of this very tough job myself,
        but I have seen parents deal with their cheeky children in ways which diffuse the situation straight away and

        don't lead to attempted suicide. This is, unfortunately, a very sad example of parenting-gone-wrong. More to

        the point, the child could have killed himself during his 'tantrum'. Also just take a look at this photo on the

        Daily Mail website:

Look at that STANCE. I'm scared of this child already and he's
not even old enough to talk.

        Lets hope that at least one person in this photo learnt their lesson.

TWO] Harrods can sometimes be amazing: Most of the time Harrods is just a big jug of wishes, "I wish my bed
         was made of solid oak" or "I wish I had a dog so I could buy it a Harrods doggy bed". Things like that.
         Today however it has utterly redeemed itself due to two facts:

                   a] Alex James of bassy fame will be there today from 5:30pm to 7:30pm giving out free samples of

                      his new cheese named 'goddess'. That gives you approximately half an hour to get there. If you

                      want to sample his cheese [had to say that] i'd drop everything. Right now.

                   b] A Disney pop-up shop has opened on its fourth floor. Now I was witness to their pop-up Wizard
                       of Oz store, and though I'm not a Musical fanatic, I absolutely loved the way they went about this,
                       complete with every shop assistant owning a name badge with 'Dorothy' written on, and a
                       gigantic array of ruby slippers available in pretty much every size. I am no Disney fanatic either,                        but since getting back from DisneyWorld this summer I've become somewhat of a Disney

                       magnet. With a dress-up area and a slipper salon, not mentioning the decor, this will be a
                       heavenly hub for little girls [and big ones too]. I advise everyone to take a look before Christmas!

Thanks Time Out London blog. If I wasn't catching a train to
Newcastle right now i'd be on the next flying carpet there.

As I just mentioned I am off to Newcastle. Interestingly Cheryl Cole is there at the moment. I saw her on Chatty Man the other day and was very surprised at how emotionless and reserved she was. It was like she'd had
personality botox or as though there was some X Men type forcefield around her. We all know she's feisty, especially when toilets are involved, so I wonder how hard it was for her to remain like that for an entire interview?

I'll let you know when I meet her tomorrow.

Also can I just say that Vodafone UK's chat service is brilliant and they just helped me sort something out very easily. Shame they're going to hoik up all our bills in a few months.

STANLEY

x

NAZARETH - HAIR OF THE DOG (1975) REVIEW

I can't say I've ever listened to a band who shout more than they sing for longer than ten seconds, so on a fateful Wednesday morning when I was met in the staff kitchen with a 'morning!' and a CD I thought this a perfect challenge:

    a] Review an album of a band i've never heard of and who, i was told,

    b] are more on the heavy rock side.

Deal. Needless to say i dove straight in with armbands and rubber ring, only to realise that this band founded in

1968 weren't going to pound my ears with chorus after chorus of mindless guitar scales. Nazareth actually went on to inspire bands such as the widely known and loved [not by me] Guns N' Roses [all too obvious in first track 'Beggar's Day/Rose in Heather' of which we will speak no more], and clearly influencing others such as BRMC.

This is BRMC and not the cast of Harry Potter on steroids

What first hit me about the album is that it makes excellent use of bass. In fact this band love bass so much they double up its lines with guitars. This creates, in effect, bass in stereo. Changin' Times is a prime example, giving the bass line centre stage, right up until 3:30 where the guitar starts to form a band of its own. 

More surprisingly title track 'Hair of the Dog' opens with a Rapture-esque standalone cowbell which remains for the entire four [plus] minutes. Whilst the album does have more stereotypically 70s songs such as 'Miss Misery' [not to be confused with the Elliot Smith masterpiece] boasting single, slow, repetitive guitar Vs drums moments with an overtone of screech, you'd be forgiven for forgetting what band you were listening to when you reach 'Please Don't Judas Me'; a delicate almost asian/deep south amalgamation of whispering electronic noises and hand drums. Whilst the entry of vocals is at first a shock, they make the contrast of strong with weak, harshness with elegance more definite. The fact this song boasts a self-indulgent 9:45 can almost be forgotten. 

The guy on the left looks like he's in KOL. The guy in the middle looks like he's
and extra on 'My Name is Earl'. Interesting.

By the time you've reached 'Guilty' you may be forgiven for thinking that Radiohead had slightly stolen, hip-ed up and de-Dolly Parton-ified its melodies for 'Creep', that is until the trademark lead vocal complete with extra screech comes in with confessions of alcohol and drug abuse. But top track has go to 'Whiskey Drinkin' Woman' which has the power to bring out the karaoke queen in pretty much anyone who's even muttered the word 'whiskey'. Think cowboy boots and slammers in a dark American bar lit with red candles. Right, that's me off to learn the words.

The artwork did put me off slightly. I just didn't get it.

You can listen to clips from 'Hair of the Dog' on Last.fm HERE

MANCHY RONANCHY

After a weekend that did happen but remains slightly hazy, here's a list of things I think I learnt:

ONE] MANCHESTER IS GREAT: Wow. Bold statement there. It’s true though. Although I have only actually

         been to this city twice, I can say that both times left me with fond memories [and a very very sore head].

         One other observation I can make is that Manchester has SO MANY BARS. Being from Birmingham, the

         second city, you would probably expect me to be used to such a phenomenon. I can’t say at all that I

         was. Once one rum was finished, the other was bought across the road, and round the corner from that,

         and five minutes from there, and two doors down from here! Brilliant! What a way to see a city and its

         people at their best [worst]. There is only one problem that I can find with this method and this is that by

         the time you reach the intended destination [which by the way is the best(and smallest) club/room above a

         pub in England, you may aswell be in space for all you know. My stay felt as short as Gordon Ramsey’s
         patience which has brought me to the conclusion that:

                  a] err..i obviously have to go again?! And,

                  b] Take Me Out is a really dangerous program to be watching whilst having a few pre-drink drinks

                      because you can’t take your eyes/brain off it for a second, thus leaving your glass, the bottle and

                      your hands to work auto pilot-like.

        On another positive note [wow there are so many!] we did enter a Nandos colouring competition, so fingers

        crossed.

Apparently this is the only photo that was taken the entire time the four of us we were there
[and I had already left by this point]. Thanks Abby. Nice Fountain.

TWO] LISTS ARE GREAT: [as is repetition clearly] I am a self-confessed list-lover. I write shopping lists, lists
          to remind me to reply to messages and lists of things I wish to happen. This week
          however has seen me create a new genre of list: 'The SONGS I NEED TO [legally] DOWNLOAD ' list.

          If i'm listening to BBC 6 music at work and a smashing song comes on, i'll send myself an email

          containing the song name, band name and 'DOWNLOAD SONG' in the title. Whilst i'm not going to share

          this list for fear of judgement, I will however say that since Tuesday it has reached 6 songs. My thinking

          here is even if I download 5 new songs a week, that's twenty new songs a month. This in turn will stop

          me winging about the lack of excitement in my itunes.

Apt.

THREE] RONALDO IS FAT: [curveball] Yes, hands up if you remember watching the World Cup at school and
             remembering one of two things:

                  a] Ronaldo scored about 24352437546389 goals and, 

                  b] not understanding the offside rule does not hinder football-watching pleasure.

            Whilst it is probably old old news, I came across this picture today and thought I'd switched the
            computer screen to 'wide' with my crazy robot eyes:

I promise this is him.

            I can't understand what has happened here. If I miss a day of running I feel sluggsh and guilty. This
            young man trained like a beast for years of his life then BOOM. He ate all the pies diamond encrusted

            pies. I'm not saying i'm appalled at all - if anything I'm impressed. It must have taken real effort to go

            from fit to fat if his body was having none of it. ANYWAY, this is more like me thinking out loud than

            front page news [I think it's been demoted from the Daily Mail website within two hours]. I like blasts

            from the past and on a scale of Blast to Heavy, I'd say it's pretty great.

Next week will see me reviewing a 'heavy rock band' because I should probably stop scouring the DM website and because someone at work told me I should do it.

It's nearly the weekend.

GREAT. I've used 'great' over four times.

STANLEY

x 

FROGALICIOUS

Since this week's news has been filled with some pretty sad stories and nothing else I have decided to compile this week's post with silly and unimportant things to somewhat lighten the mood. No change there then!

ONE] My chilis are liars. [Starting with a chili update. Radical.] Whilst these plants can't actually talk they
         have found other ways to lie to me. What last week seemed like a manifestation of actual, real-life chilis

         has actually resulted in the growth of.....flowers. What the hell? If I wanted a plant that flowers I would have

         bought one. 

As you can see there are merely flowers.

I mean, they're quite pretty. They just don't have heat.

          I have decided that the next stage must definitely be the chili stage. What else can these plants produce
          if not that? Their own bees?

TWO] Christmas is looming: I know this due to two things:

                   a] the sun is shining but it is now acceptable to wear sunglasses and scarves, and

                   b] i have found myself making mental lists of what would make wonderful presents for people.

         My list might only consist on one thing which, sadly, I can not go ahead with [soz Andrea Bocelli] BUT it is

         definitely making me more and more excited each time I wake up and shiver a tiny bit. Once we've drunk

         ourselves through my sister's birthday and covered ourselves with fake blood for Hallowe'en we can all buy

         our [chocolate] advent calendars and walk around wearing things similar to this:

Sunglasses and jumpers. So alternative. So me in a few weeks. Thanks google.

THREE] My sister is getting whites tree frogs soon: YES. You may or may not know I have a strange
            obsession with frog 'things' [I have a frog nail brush], so as you can imagine I thought this was the
            best idea ever! I therefore decided to google these little froggies:

AWW. Well sort of aww. They''re smiling which is very cute and they are hugging which is also cute.

On the other hand they look like the Sopranos of the Frog World.

"Frogthony, Frognior and Frogotore"

        I kept searching and really, my hopes were sky high. I could not wait to meet these little smiley froggies.
        That is until I found this:

I tried to name it but I just couldn't. I'm not sure it even counts as a frog.

Does it count?

It just looks so full.

Like it's just eaten an entire army of flies with a side of algae. 

If my sister does get one of these I'll probably never go round.

On a happier note I am in Manchester this Saturday night. If there is anything wonderful going on that I should know about please let me know. It's got to look something like this:

Minus the young lady on the left and plus my wonderful monsieur.

Did I mention my weekend starts now?

Lots of love, 

STANLEY

p.s I almost forgot: I reviewed Wiz Khalifa's new single for Hellion Magazine again HERE