So there's a show coming up pretty soon - the Gardener's Arms on Plantation Road in Oxford, home of the famous "thai curry gig" of last June, will be paying host to myself, Triple Rosie and most excitingly of all Ish Marquez, who is stopping by for an acoustic evening as part of the UK tour he's doing with Lizzie and the boys!

It will be an unplugged show, and consequently extremely nice! The standard of all the acts will be almost literally unbelievable! The entrance fee will be a feeble three english pounds! It starts at 8:30ish! On Wednesday, Dec 2nd! Any questions? No? Good.

I even made a facebook event, that's how good I think this show will be. Come along if you dare.

http://www.myspace.com/ishmarquez
http://www.myspace.com/triplerosie
http://www.myspace.com/faceometer

For those of you following my "week of horror" saga, hopefully that last cycle ride - through high winds and driving night rain, and from which I emerged looking as if I'd jumped in the Thames - puts a fitting capstone on the nightmare. Friday the 13th is over. Tomorrow I'm all about exciting new things. My ginger spirit takes more than a simple rain storm to suppress.

I'm churning out new concepts for hot art. Some of it's even gonna get made. FaceOmeter is where it's at, idiots. One ginger brummie, alone in the world, attempting to keep it fresh.

• The misreadability of this headline
• A lovely dinner with my wonderful housemates
• The stories of Sam Taplin
• The tune Watch her Disappear by Tom Waits
• Being ensconced in my car
• Tea breaks with Lisa

I may be having a terrible time right now, but I'm still so lucky in general. PEACE TO ALL MY WICKED HOMIES YO

That was a Lars reference.

I'm nervous about blogging on this subject because I'm concerned it will paint an unrepresentative picture of this era in my life when future-me takes a moment to glance back through the entries of yore and smile wryly at his foolish past. Future-me: life is generally totally wonderful right now.

But my God, it's been a totally shit day. I have a vague feeling that saying this to the internet will make it better in some way. Today, for those still with me, struck a bold new balance between the "one VERY shit thing happening" and "lots of QUITE shit things happening" models by having lots-of-things-which-are-not-quite-VERY-shit-but-significantly-worse-than-QUITE-shit happen. And, as is the case with all truly shit days, significantly over 80% of the shitness has been my fault.

But not exclusively mine! I'd like to take a moment to thank "Mysterious Bodleian Asshat Man" for being the only thing about today worse than me myself. There I was, enjoying a homemade sandwich in an alcove of the Clarendon Building (to hide from rain) and he comes up and tells me (nb. "tells". As after the manner of one who owns the place*) to dismount. Among the many things he did not have were a Bod card, a reason (believe me when I tell you this is not a building I could damage even if I wanted to), and, which is worse, a civil attitude. I was too "on the phone" to enter into full discourse with this fellow, but if he's reading this - mate. You're an asshat.

Also today I've been upset by some people, and have myself upset more. All unintentionally. And I read an article in the library twice without noticing until I came to file my notes. Glad I got that off my chest. Some research student I am. I'm going to bed.

*It occurs to me that maybe he did own the place. Well... still an asshat.

For the first time in history you can now go into a shop, browse through the CDs in it, and find one by FaceOmeter.

Admittedly it's only one shop, and if you're reading this you probably already have the CD that's there. BUT THIS DOESN'T MATTER. Why? Because Videosyncratic is a brilliant, brilliant place. It is a video ("dvd"?) rental shop which also sells graphic novels, comics, and local music.

Some of the lifeblood of Oxford's scene pumps through this place, so go and check it out. And hey, if you still don't have the album, hate digital media, live in Oxford and want to save on postage - an unlikely string of contingencies, I admit - then head down there!

Today is my first day off in quite a long while and I used my trip Videosyncratic to buy the latest installment of THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't remember now if I've gone on and on about this on here before, but it really is terribly good you know. I am aware that as someone who owns seven graphic novels, four of which are by Alan Moore, my opinion is both valueless and cliché. BUT MY GOD I DON'T HALF LOVE THIS LEAGUE STUFF. Check out this picture if you don't believe me:


What else? A proper summary of the numerous bizarre and on-the-whole-excellent happenings of the last month would be almost impossible, so I resort to a scattergun bullet-point list of aides memoireses:

• Numerous sits on the Oxford tube, some more seminal than others.
• Alphebetising the entire horse section.
  
• The film 'Up' which, not to pump anything too much, is the best film of the last decade.
• A bizarre sequence of events involving cigarettes, the quadratic equation and a monkey-horse crossbreed.
• Putting maps on the wall, admiring them.
• Strawberry bullseyes from a garden centre.
• Genuine new song ideas, some even leading to words.
• A new hoover, fulfilling yet another dream.
  
• Delirious overuse of Pret.
• Fixing the Peug's radiator leak (we hope) and broken wing mirror (almost); dealing with the Peug's perennial fuel shortage.
• Being schooled in my new job by my infinitely superior 16-year-old colleague.
  
• U56 at sunset, complete with Capt. John Smith, Works.
• Posing inadvertantly for a range of different photo ID cards.
• Reacting to the fact that the first of my close friends to get engaged has got engaged.
• Basement Pizza.
  
• Discovering a Herschel telescope in the Oxford Museum of the History of Science.
• Discovering that the local Sainsbury's sells Thomas Hoe Stevenson's aged red leicester at the deli counter.
• Discovering that the 3 foot tall top hat made by Natalie out of card and paper to fit me also fits my in-development robot, The Optimist 08.
  
• Evenings in Witney with spiced nuts and posh crisps, incl. the 5p toll bridge.

Man, things are good.

So last night I got to hang out for some precious moments with an old friend of yours and mine...


Yes..! As this terrible photo indicates, MC Lars was at the roundhouse in London! I look tired because at this point I've been going since 8:30am (on stuff at least partly connected to Freud, incidentally) and I just missioned it up from the Strand after a seminar to see his show (which I missed).

I've become so busy in the few months since we toured together that it really was like having another life back for an hour. DJ, the failsafe boys, and Rob and George were also there, and all deserve honouring on this blog. The whole thing was a fabulous reminder of the good people and times that are out there for those prepared to seek them!

I look forward to Lars's next visit, when, I assume, we will build a house entirely of breadsticks and live in harmony in the woods. PEACE YO

Yes, I know. I'm a terrible correspondant. I have two jobs and am doing a full time degree.

But I want you to know that I'm still taxing musical things at every moment possible. Prove it, you say? Well how about this sodding jam I did with Triple Rosie last weekend? I wrote the lyrics on the shitter because I'm punk rock.

Consequential FaceOmeter news soon, I promise.

Housemate and musical ally Roxanne "Muh muhmuh muh muuh" Brennan departs tomorrow (today) for New York, city of dreams. You may recall that I once did that, with slightly less than dreamy results. But Roxy will have a much better time than me - for many reasons, but mostly because she's a lot better than I am at music.

Those in doubt - she's meeting up with ally Chris to re-form The World is Not Flat, a group who I've ranted about before and with good reason. They're playing shows all over the north-eastern USA, and I strongly recommend watching their myspace for details and hopefully some new tunes at some point!

Back in Blighty, Catweazle is 15 on Thursday. FIFTEEN. When Catweazle began, I was in PRIMARY SCHOOL. They are celebrating with "Hatweazle" - a night where you have to wear a great hat, and where you must play new material. I have plans for both contingencies, and I very much hope to see you there.

Edit: Matt Sage provides a brilliant interview about Catweazle twenty-ish minutes into this show on BBC Oxford!

This blog is proving a most imperfect chronicle of current times - things are so busy and so many that any accurate reportage is kinda falling by the wayside. I will try to stick something proper on here in due course, but meanwhile here's a picture kindly sent in by Wes of Colchester. It's from the tour I did with MC Lars earlier this year - you can tell this because the stage is really well lit and the photo looks positively professional...


Thanks to Wes and all at Street Team Promotions. Proper update later...

That's the West Country, for the uninitiated (Eddie "RIP North Bridge" Coate taught me the hand gesture) - although interestingly, the other WC was heavily involved in the events of this weekend by virtue of last night's somewhat stonking curry. Enjoyed with former housemate "Geoffrey the Beffrey", this particular Spice Magic return transported me to new levels of joy, pain and toilet - levels which continue even now, some 24 hours later.

But let's back up - this was a trip to Exeter, to a music festival at the Double Locks pub. It wasn't something I was looking forward to. I've done a lot of travelling lately, I'm not feeling great about my live material (FaceOmeter is now officially on haitus pending new songs), I had no particular personal investment in the gig, there's a lot of other more mundane stuff happening to me right now, the previous evening had been pretty shit, and so forth. The day dawned grey with flecks of autumnal rain and the walk to the train station in Oxford proved dispiriting, with insufficient time to procure a sandwich before boarding.

But clearly I still have not learned the teachings of Five Figs Down. The party isn't over until the vibe says so. After two days of river walks, cosy mill visits, video games, dogs, the moon, food, drink and good people, I am returned re-energised for the coming days. A guy on Queen St wanted a high five from me, and didn't get one. An incredibly drunk middle-aged woman wanted me to dance to a brilliant Dad Rock band playing Rolling Stones covers, and may have been marginally more successful (she then pretended to go down on me before throwing up and passing out, and I wish I could say that that was the most alarming thing that's happened to me lately). Geoff and I pissed in a river, the Let's Do café was visited, and I was gloriously reunited in Exwick Mill itself with Jess "Buttercup" Maidment and a piano.

The technical burps were the return journey (Sunday, trains, Britain, don't, not ever) and the PA (adminstered with enthusiasm if not ability by a man who certainly wasn't called Jarvis). I solved the first by learning lots about the scientist and musician William Herschel (1738-1822) and the second by playing unamplified whilst standing on a table in the pub beer garden, depicted (by Geoff's iPhone, la de da), thus:


Google Earth is the first thing I've seen that's made me want an iPhone, by the way. But for it to really convince me, the screen is going to need to be twice as big.