middle curse

by lali puna

Quit your jobs
Don't cross you fingers
Don't work for people
You can't trust
Quit their money
Leave their places
Slam the door and
Don't look back
You've been here so long
Don't take the middle curse
Don't hesitate, it's overdue
Suit or revolt, it's up to you

quack quack!

ooh they're ace!

we need the eggs

live link

about quack quack

they do one song live with *two* drummers. it's so exciting!

very energetic but laid back fantasticness. i love them.

arf!

happy xmas to me part II

right. the student loan arrived. i haven't gone to sweden (yet). i have, however, ordered a second hand violin off ebay, taken the kids to the vets, painted my kitchen and treated myself to these:



for those thinking they have gone blind, that's a very poor photo of a bottle of 10 y/o macallan - matured in bourbon and sherry casks - and a 12 y/o 'special release' lagavulin (which we realised the next day was meant to be drunk 1 part whisky 2 part water. we were doing it straight.)


which *would* be fine. except i've had an extremely drunken weekend, about a third of the whole lot left and a lot of bruises.

damn my eyes (and my liver)

edit: 6.55pm. the viledin has arrived - hurrah! the teach yourself violin book hasn't - boo! however, i *have* just knocked out a screechy but accurate version of twinkle twinkle little star, after it being in my possession for fifteen minutes. vanessa mae, watch your back.

happy xmas to me part I

sorry if i'm being boring here but i'm just totally evangelical about the national - in case you hadn't noticed.

i really recommend seeing them live next time they tour, and as a taster, i've just been sent a link to this , which has some fantastic videos of some of their live stuff - and every single one is worth watching. i am treating it as one of my xmas pressies.

in order of preference (with an attempted description):

about today: one of the most gorgeous songs i know. really sad and a really long intro into it, but it's *so* worth it. it builds to a crescendo at the end beautifully. *sighs*



murder me rachael - "i saw my love with pretty boy"... "loved her to ribbons" amazing. matt is like a man possessed, screaming the second line at the end, and the sheer wall of noise just blows you away when you're two feet away from them. padma, the lovely, permanently bewildered looking aussie violinist, looks like he is actually *feeling* what he's playing, if that makes sense. and he has lovely silky shiny hair in this too.



cherry tree: for the lyrics "you're sharp alright... can we show a little discipline?"

baby we'll be fine - "all we've gotta do is brave and be kind... i pull off your jeans and you spill jack and coke in my collar, i melt like a witch and scream.. i'm so sorry for everything "



wasp nest - sleigh bells, really nice arrangement. "come over here, i wanna kiss your skinny throat".

lit up: their newest single (i think), violinist dude really goes for it.

abel - starts off shaky but gets into its stride about halfway through. matt is like a coiled spring, screaming and shaking and biting his hand. he's very sweet and shy in r/l.



so, to sum up:

quiet songs

about today
wasp nest
baby we'll be fine
cherry tree

loud songs

murder me rachael.
abel
lit up

i think i've pinpointed the moment i fell in love with them: when they announced their second album would be called 'sad songs for dirty lovers'.

stolen off of indymedia

cos i very very liked it.

"As the climate fails more people will likely die of thirst and of hunger than of the direct effects of the seemingly constant hurricanes, floods, ice-storms et al. More people are dying that way now and the ratio will probably be constant even as the numbers geometrically increase. Probably even more people will kill each other in resource wars. The really hilarious thing about climate change wiping out humanity is the simple fact we consider ourselves the most intelligent species - and we triggered the event. And I love how politicians say 'we can't switch to renewables in time. If we chose to as a species we could switch to renewables tommorow. All those factories turning out Ipods and cars and bombs and computers spacecraft and other such luxurious nonsensical shit could turn out generators instead. Think about it - we are trading the whole beautiful earth for crap that we don't even like. I hope your kids all like their Christmas presents this year because they will be paying for them for the rest of their lives.


Humanity i love you because
when you're hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you're flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shops and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house


We've got photographs of men on the moon,
We've got water that is good for us,
We've got coffee that's instantaneous,
We've got buildings that are very tall,
We've got cigarettes that are low in tar,
We've got policemen can tell us who we are,
We can reproduce a work of art,
We've got missiles can tear the world apart,
Good, good, good, good, good, good technology. "

excellent - buses for homes.

from the good old bbc website:

Red bus revamp for green living

Falling asleep on the bus is about to become easier as a new scheme providing short-term housing aboard double deckers is to be launched.
Eight buses have been refitted with kitchens, bathrooms and living space.

The buses, with solar panels and recycling bins, will be lent to a London homeless charity over Christmas.

Double Decker Living, a new London company, aims to provide alternative housing for the homeless and key workers such as NHS staff on call.

The idea for the bus, which can house up to five people, was prompted by the phasing out of the Routemaster, the distinctive hop-on, hop-off red London bus.

Life skills

"The double decker is such an iconic London image, we wanted to see what we could do with it," said Jason Hart of Double Decker Living.

"Everyone I speak to laughs because it sounds so strange but once they see it for themselves, they become very enthusiastic about the idea."

For the first stage of the project - to be launched on 19 December - Leyland Olympian double deckers are being used, but plans are under way for a Routemaster version.

Centrepoint charity for young homeless people will use the buses as teaching venues for life skills classes, covering topics such as cooking and interview preparation.

Each bus is designed to be environmentally friendly.



next thing you know, they'll be donating all the empty office space in london as accommodation...
oh, sorry, my mistake. that's the day that hell freezes over.

right. that's it.

first of all, this happened back in october:

Sweden "to break oil dependency by 2020"

The Local Sweden 2nd October 2005 11:21 CET

Sweden will be the first country in the world to break its dependency on oil, according to Minister for Sustainable Development Mona Sahlin. By the year 2020, a series of "carrots and sticks" will have created a Sweden which is able to switch to other energy sources.

Swedish Government Plans Oil Independence by 2020

Stephen Hinton, Post Carbon Sweden, 1 October 2005

The Swedish Government plans to break oil dependency by 2020. The Minister for Sustainable Development, Mona Sahlin, announced today Sweden aims to be first to fossil fuel independance, bringing Swedish exports of environmental and energy efficiency technology to the forefront of the competition.

postcarbon news clicky

other things about sweden:

the swedes calculate refuse charges on how much waste is actually produced. as you may expect, they have a v. high recycling rate. and presumably don't do this. (there was a similar thing a while ago about leeds sending waste overseas... in fact it's here)...

apparently it's very cheap to live there.

i like the sound of it. if my student loan ever appears, and you don't see me for a while, then i'd recommend looking there...

city middle

City Middle

Karen, take me to the nearest famous city middle
Where they hang the lights
Where it's random, and it's common versus common
La di la
[repeat]

I've got five hundred in twenties
And I've got a ton of great ideas
I'm really worked up
I'm on a good mixture, I don't want to waste it
I'm on a good mixture, I do not want to waste it
I wanna go gator around the warm beds of beginners
I'm really worked up

Karen, take me to the nearest famous city middle
Where they hang the lights
Where it's random, and it's common versus common
La di la
[repeat]

I have weird memories of you
Wearing long red socks and red shoes
I have weird memories
I have weird memories of you
Pissing in a sink, I think
I have weird memories of you

I wanna go gator around the warm beds of beginners
I'm really worked up
I wanna go gator around the warm beds of beginners
I'm really worked up

Karen, take me to the nearest famous city middle
Where they hang the lights
Where it's random, and it's common versus common
La di la
[repeat]

I have weird memories of you
Wearing long red socks and red shoes
I have weird memories
I have weird memories of you
Pissing in a sink, I think

I have weird memories of you

Parking your car, you said, I'm overwhelmed
You were thinking out loud, you said, I'm overwhelmed
You were parking your car, you said, I'm overwhelmed
You were thinking out loud, you said, I'm overwhelmed
You said, I think I'm like Tennessee Williams
I wait for the click
I wait, but it doesn't kick in
I think I'm like Tennesse Williams
I wait for the click
I wait, but it doesn't kick in

I have weird memories of you
Wearing long red socks and red shoes
I have weird memories
I have weird memories of you
Pissing in a sink, I think
I have weird memories of you
la da da da...

I have weird memories of you



i want to post the reasons this song's so important to me. you know the thing where you totally hijack the meaning behind someone else's personal thoughts and apply them to yourself? it's a case of that...
karen. i think i go on a lot about her, but i think i still need to. i think about her every day. in 2000/2001 we went to amsterdam together for new year. between us we probably had 500 gilders in twenties, we had a ton of great ideas and i was really worked up (i was kind of in love with her but never told her).
she was the person to recommend tenessee williams to me.
new years eve was random and full of common/chavvy kids chucking firecrackers.
when we got back to manchester airport, she drove us home and felt really weirded out cos she was driving down a new stretch of motorway/major road and was really confused by new surroundings and a little spaced from the week. i'm fairly sure she was overwhelmed.
i have lots of weird memories of her
she didn't piss in a sink as far as i remember, but she *did* piss herself in several other random places.

download link to the track clicky here (will work with windows media player)

pocket monster music

between us, the all the wine un-coolective kind of have nicknames
monster (me)
pocket (rich)
laura music (lau)

we are kind of talking about promoting/putting on gigs of ppl we like who are small and gigging, and doing 'all the wine' as a kind of sandwich in which they would be the filler.

i really want to put a 'promoted by pocket monster music' tag on any flyers we do for anything.

oh and while i'm blogging..

*this* showed up in my inbox the other day.

autobiography - chapter one

i was born, i got drunk, i caused trouble, i fell over. Then i got drunk again and fell over once more. After that i caused some trouble and then i fell over. As i got older i got drunk and fell over. You would have thought that i would learn to stop getting up but then just i was about to learn, i got drunk and fell over, later that day i got more drunk and fell over, then i was sick and then i drank more and fell over again. i fell drunk and got over, got fell dunk over. over drunk got fell. sick, trouble, drunk got over fell, drunk fell, got over drunk, sick fell.

the end.

from an Anonymous Source. i very like it.

woo! I'm drunk!

and i have just returned from our works' xmas night out


i work for a very small recruitment agency, while studying. there are four other ladies in my office, most of which also work part time. we also have offices in sheffield, york and manchester.

tonight was our works do and all of us got together in a v. posh hotel in leeds for a slap-up all-expenses-paid meal. and a free bar. and taxis paid for.

i have spent the latter part of the evening sampling every single malt whisky behind the bar for free.

i then came out to two of my leeds colleagues. they were fine.

i have stolen a bottle of wine (with the encouragement of the sheffield office) to bring home with me.


god i have never had a better job in my life.

it rocks. x