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 Archives 
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Saturday, August 28, 2004
  
The mighty Embrace played a secret gig in Leicester Square on Thursday, taking on the establishment, flicking two fingers at The Man and winning. Sort of. If you've never heard of Embrace, well, you're not alone - but they're about to be massive. They were big before, back in the post-Britpop wilderness of 1998, when 'All You Good Good People' and 'Come Back To What You Know' were top ten hits and their debut album sold half-a-million copies. Then the world forgot about them (even though they released another couple of brilliant albums). Now, they're about to release their new single, 'Gravity', which is fabulous. And to whip up some publicity - and to give something back to us, the fans - Danny McNamara and the rest of the lads invited us to Leicester Square for a free gig. For the hardcore Embrace maniac, their secret gigs are legendary - they invented the whole concept, long before The Libertines did it and the NME decided to call such events guerilla gigs. A few years ago, I found myself hunting for codes across the net in order to get a pair of tickets for their sixth secret gig, SG6, and then watching the band in the stately surrounds of Batsford Manor. The band even gave us free beer. It was the best gig ever. The Leicester Square SG, SG11, was a bit different - it wasn't even secret, for one thing, after being announced on Teletext and XFM. We were told to bring along a helium-filled white balloon with Gravity written on it. And because they were playing without a licence, they said that they would do as many songs as they could before the police bundled them into a van and shipped them off to Guantanemo Bay. Several hundred of us turned up - I took Maggie and Helen; Butter couldn't make it - and crowded around Danny who was standing on a crate with a microphone and some kind of mini-amp which didn't appear to be working very well. As you can see from the admittedly rubbish pictures above, I could just about see Danny's head. It was the quietest gig of all time (perhaps someone should contact the Guinness Book of Records) but it was still brilliant because we were really close to the band and the crowd provided the volume for them. They played five songs, which we all sang along to, even the ones that haven't been released yet, and during 'Gravity' we let go of our balloons and watched them float skyward, some of them catching in the canopy of the trees for a while before sailing off into the blue. Or rather, grey. Then some bastard turned up the volume on the big screen in the square, which meant it was even harder to hear the music. And then the cops turned up, threading their way through the crowd and trying to stop the show. However, rock 'n' roll - even really quiet rock 'n' roll - will not be defeated, and Embrace did one more number before dashing into the haven of the Capital Radio building and the arms of Dr Fox (who, foreign readers will be surprised to learn, isn't a real fox). Reports on NME.com that they ran off like scaredy-cats when they heard a siren are rubbish. Afterwards, a few tourists stopped us and asked who the band was. 'Embrace,' we replied excitedly. 'Oh,' they said, faces blank. This time next year they'll be telling all their friends they were there when Embrace played Leicester Square. Bizarrely, some opportunist has put a white Gravity balloon on eBay. If anyone bids on this it will prove that the world is insane. Sunday, August 22, 2004
I've just watched Paula Radcliffe's attempt to win the marathon. Poor Paula. Still, the British team has done brilliantly this week. Watching sport I suddenly become terribly patriotic and start cheering on posh blokes whose lives changed when they chose rowing over rugger at Eton. I was even cheering when our yngling team won gold. Apparently, 80% of Britain's medallists in Sydney went to private school, which says a lot about the state of sport in this country. Staying on this sporty theme, my very own posh bird has decided to take up running and is going to try to get a place in next year's London Marathon. Yesterday, we took a trip to London to get Butter kitted out. She had her feet tested on some hi-tech Adidas-sponsored computer thingy, then bought a pair of silver Nikes. I'm a running widow - every Sunday afternoon, my girlfriend goes out running while I lie on the sofa and exercise my brain. We watched Fahrenheit 9/11 yesterday. Great film. Very funny - love the bit where the guy enjoys a glass of Bordeaux in his riot-proof chamber - and moving. Butter blubbed as we came out of the cinema, although that might have been a late reaction to the admission fee. £8.50! Lucky it was such a good film. Imagine if you'd paid that to see Swept Away. Back To F-9/11, as Sigue Sigue Sputnik might have called it: Michael Moore is a very clever propagandist, and the film is totally biased and manipulative, but so what? Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. You ain't gonna shift Bush with subtlety, and it's a good thing that the left has someone who's willing to play the bad guys at their own game. Our work fantasy football league has started up again. I am completely rubbish at it. Sunday, August 15, 2004
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Yeeeeaaaaahhh! She's all woman. She loves a smoke. And she romped to victory on Friday night making me £100 richer. I'm sure Nadia won't let her new-found riches change her, and I won't let my £100 change me. I'm still going to go to work every day, still talk to my old friends... Actually, this is the first time I've won a bet since Grittar won the Grand National in, I think, 1984. That was back before I had principles. Butter is concerned that my Big Brother betting bonanza is the first step onto a slippery slope and that I will soon be careening into gambling-addiction hell, ruining us both, a sad tale that will end with me in the gutter and her whacking me repeatedly with a large rolling pin. Therefore I have sworn not to gamble any more. This is hard because I just know that the odd-looking-yet-oddly-sexy Amy Winehouse is going to win the Mercury Music Prize, and 8-1, well, those are pretty good odds. Must. Resist. 
We went on a little jaunt to Greenwich yesterday. Yeah, why not head into London on a really hot day? What a great idea. It was mine though - I admit full culpability. On the plus side, we saw the Cutty Sark, above, and the Meridian Line, and the park is lovely. Greenwich is one of my favourite parts of London, and I'm eternally interested by Docklands, which we rode through on the DLR. Tip: never travel by DLR on a scorching day - it's as bad as the Tube. Especially when it gets stuck, is full of irritating tourists with very loud voices and smells like someone ate a wheelbarrow-full of rotten turnips just before boarding and farted them all out just after boarding. Then we boarded a chocka Tube train ('hey, Claire, welcome to my everyday life') which we fled in Holborn. For some reason, Holborn was completely deserted and we couldn't find anywhere nice to have dinner. 'Right, let's go home,' stropped Butter. Eventually, though, we ended up in a below-par Indian near Covent Garden. Oh, and the Butter heel problem reared its ugly, er, foot again, just like in New York. She really must buy some comfy trainers. Her birthday is approaching and I would offer - but she wants an apple Martini kit instead. More on that in a later installment. Can you spot the difference on this page? We've had a bit of a redesign. 'Bit' being the operative word. Sunday, August 01, 2004
I suppose I ought to write about something other than Big Brother, but what? The weather? Yes, it's hot, sticky and sultry again. We've had about 6 wasps in the flat today. In keeping with my veggie principles, I try not to kill wasps or other beasties - er, apart from flies; well, you have to draw the line somewhere or you'd start worrying about fleas and lice, and now I feel the need to stress that I rarely encounter fleas and lice... So whenever a wasp swoops into the room I have to hunt it down with a glass and postcard. The great white hunter. I've bought two lots of gig tickets this week. Embrace, my 2nd favourite band, are back back back, and as well as doing a proper tour they're playing one of their secret gigs somewhere on August 15th. 3 years ago this week, Butter and I went to their 6th secret gig, SG6, at a country mansion in Batsford. To get tickets, you had to find a special code on the net. This week, they released more codes for SG10. I got one, but you can only go if you live within a certain catchment area. I'm waiting to see if we qualify. We're also going to see Scissor Sisters in November. I will be wearing my special earplugs. I tried to do a photo shoot with Syd and Nancy yesterday but they wriggle so much - these were the best shots I could get: 
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