Man In A Panic

A Cup Of Empire, Please

Here's how to fluster an American.

Next time you're this side of the pond and offered a coffee, ask for a 'damn fine cuppa' instead (and smack your lips too).

The palaver that follows is a treat.

'Ah.  What sort of tea would you like then?'

'Tssk.  Well it's after three in the afternoon, so the Earl Grey, obviously.'

'Right.  Erm...in a cup or a mug?  Milk and sugar?  In what order?  How long should I boil the water for? And will you be needing a cookie...sorry, 'bis-quit' with that?'

I always expect it to be brought to me ten minutes later on a red pillow with a silver stirring spoon.

I guess it's the cultural equivalent of an Italian requesting a perfect espresso....or an Irishman a perfect pint of Guinness....or a Filipino a perfect, fully fertilised, nearly hatched duck embryo.

Except that it isn't.  Let's face it, ANYONE can make a cup of tea.  And it's astonishing that so much English hauteur is associated with chucking a Tetley's tea bag into some boiling water and adding a splash of cow juice.  How have we got away with it for so long? 

Never mind - keep it up chaps!  And God Save The Queen.

Talking of cultural treasures, I shared an (imported) pack of Twiglets with my co-workers last week.  My Account Director had one and had to take the rest of the day off sick.  Five days on, she's still complaining that her tainted fingers smell like a 'cat's ass'. 

They loved the Wotsits though.

Lyrically Speaking

With an Ipod semi-permanently glued to my head, I've been taking more notice of lyrics lately.  Here's some current favourites...

"Met a woman in a bar,
Told her I was hard to get to know,
And near impossible to forget,
She said I had an ego on me
The size of Texas
Well I'm new here,
And I forget,
Does that mean big or small?"
I'm New Here by Smog

"My Baby said she wanted some action
I said, Baby, I can't give you that
I'm a simple man
My Baby said she wanted adventure
I said, Baby, the outside world's not safe
We should just sit down"
Baby Said by Hot Chip

"I dressed up like a woman
Under these clothes for you
And you've left it till now before you tell me
That's not what you wanted me to go through"
The Perfect Gentleman by Broken Family Band

Hmmm - lyrics are better set to music, eh?  Otherwise it's just bad poetry. 

So here's the plan.

I'm going to write an opening line...and then you readers have to make a suggestion for the next line...etc....and then when we've got a song, my mate is going to set it to a variety of musical styles - the Bluegrass Mix, the Noodly Rock 12", the Ragga Rewind - and then we'll upload the best one on a filesharing system, viral the hell out of it online and become very very rich and famous.

So....a ONE, a TWO, a ONE TWO THREE FOUR...

"Sundays are a bit shite in San Francisco when you're all alone....."
"I once met a girl with a ping pong bat...."

(Er...anyone got a good opening line?!)

Merry F**king Xmas

Because San Francisco is America with a pierced tongue and tattoos, you don't always get service with a saccharin smile.  Mostly you do though - pearly white teeth and hollow 'how are yous?'.  Which is why I so enjoyed my trip to Trader Joe's supermarket this morning.

The guy on the check out looked pissed - in both the American and British sense.

"Hello!"  said I.

"Jesus f***king Christ" said he, "they've put the f*ucking Holiday music on.  Rudolph the f**k nosed f*ucking deer.  I need to get a f*cking job man, I need to get outta here".

Now THAT is service with a smile. I was laughing all the way home.

Desert Island Discs

I've been listening to a lot of Internet radio here (mostly because the telly is unbearable) and recently caught Radio 4's long-lingering 'Desert Island Discs'.

It's so dated, it's absurd.  It lingers like a living coma, one of those programmes whose very longevity ensures it's longevity. 

Aside from the long dead conceit of choosing '8 favourite records' ('favourite 30 gigabytes' would be more appropriate and even then you'd get bored immediately in this Ipod-music-murdering-age), I simply don't believe the guest's music choices are honest.

Try it yourself right now.  Your 8 favourite records ever.  For a millisecond, you picture yourself twirling by a palm tree to Modjo's 'Lady' before your brain over-rides your loins.....first the classics...The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Johnny Cash....then something to make you look clever.....Rachmaninov, Roxy Music, Miles Davis...throw in something to reprise your teenage years....The Stone Roses or Primal Scream.....a Cold2 or Uplay anthem to remember ex-girlfriends by....some non-Bob Marley reggae to seem more worldly than you are..... and you're done. 

BULLSHIT!  My Ipod tells me that my current favourite track is a remix of Le Tigre's 'Deceptacon', but I wouldn't want my future spawn imagining Gramps krumping, saucer-eyed and squealing 'I wanna disco, you wanna see me diiiiiiiissscccccooooooo'.

Even more unlikely are the book choices at the end.  Yeah, like FECK you want the complete works of Dickens.  You’ll be wanting a bumper book of jokes while your head fries and you scrabble around eating bugs for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I've got a better idea than Desert Island Discs.  It's called Desert Island DJ Twat.  Here's the set-up:

You're stranded on a desert island, thirsting for music.  Miraculously you meet DJ Man Friday, a native islander and the unlikely owner of some decks and a big box of 12"s.  'Thank the Lord!' you exclaim 'Some tunes to lift my sandy spirits!'.....but he then proceeds to play the 8 records that irritate you more than anything in the world....that have you whittling coconut shells into weapons with which to slice off your ears...that make you crave the whine of a million malaria-ridden mosquitos...

Namely:

1.  Movin On Up - M People
2.  Size Of A Cow - Wonderstuff
3.  Loveshack - The B-52s
4.  Living The Viva Loca - Ricky Martin
5.  Dancing In The Moonlight - Toploader
6.  If You Tolerate This - Manic Street Preachers
7.  Sex Machine - James Brown
8.  Fun Lovin Criminals - The Fun Lovin Criminals

Damn, there's a whole tsunami of musical misery - but the RULE is that it has to be stuff that DJ Man Friday would assume you'd like....so no novelty records, or Simon Cowell atrocities, or Dido, or Jamie Cullum or monstrously embarassing AudioBully 'remixes' of Nancy Sinatra.

Yes folks, this is an INTERACTIVE section of the blog!  What would DJ Man Friday kill your soul with?