Sunday 24 July 2011

An everyday tale of a revengeful phone, a view from the gods and a wired acoustic Athlete

If you read the saga of Stinky Phone (SP) a couple of weeks ago, I maintain that SP took a swan dive into a gutter while on the way to see the Barenaked ladies.

It would appear that SP has taken a different view on the whole incident and blames me for throwing him into the gutter and then further upsetting him when I put him in the freezer overnight to resurrect him – I don’t know what he has to complain about, he had the lawn mower battery to keep him company…


Since Mrs B was meeting me in the Union chapel, Islington to see Athlete, and there was no reserved seating, it was imperative that I had a phone with me. I can imagine some of you thinking why didn’t I arrange to meet Mrs B at a set time and a set place. You are clearly not familiar with Mrs B’s lack of work life balance (You probably need to read …. Mrs B’s pitiful attempts to see Kylie to get an idea).


There was no point taking two cars to Islington, so I was dropping Mrs B off at the station, which introduced train time table pressure to the usual  rush to get out of the house.   I was having difficulty tracking down SP, I had seen him just as we were leaving but a quick check of my bag told me I didn’t have him…. I even got Mrs B to use her phone to ring SP to see if we could track him down. The phone rang through the Stereo, confirming that he was somewhere on board so I relaxed a bit. It was only after I had dropped Mrs B off I noticed that the phone connection was no longer showing. SP had somehow managed to end up in Mrs B bag, she now had 3 mobile phones with her to my none….Eeek, meeting up in the venue was going to be a nightmare.

After an initial bit of panic and some swearing I calmed down and then had a genius idea – I just need to find someone at work who has an old phone that they don’t use and I could then pick up a Pay as You go SIM  and voilĂ  communications would be restored.

As luck would have it the second person I asked - Mike (while he probably does not read the  BlackLOG I’m sending him lots of good vibes for getting me out of a hole) - had an old phone actually sitting in his desk draw and despite not being used for a few months it was still almost fully charged.*  Being a basic model worked in its favour, no apps running in the background whose main function seems to be to run your battery flat..

* . Ha!  To those of you thinking what an idiot, who on earth keeps old phones at work….?  Well, Mike clearly does actually.

So it was off to the local Phone shop at lunchtime

Vodaphone Shop
Me -  “I would like to purchase your cheapest Pay As You Go option please”

Sales staff  - “That would be £5 for a Pay As You Go SIM” 

Me – “Excellent, I’ll take it”

Sales staff – “Would you like to purchase a £5 top up?”

Me – “Do I need it?”

Sales staff – “No….unless you want to make any calls.”

Me – “OK……….then I’d better have the top up.”

I handed over 2 crisp £5 pound notes

Sales staff – “It’s only £5, Sir.”

Me – Quickly doing some basic maths in my head (where is my phone when I need it?) “Doesn’t £5 for the SIM and £5 for the Top up card make £10?”

Sales staff looking at me like I was an idiot – “If you purchase the top up when you buy the SIM you get the SIM for free.”

Me – “Why don’t you just offer the SIM with £5 worth of calls?”

Sales staff – “You might not want to make any calls.”
I sure  could have had some fun with that statement in a phone shop but having retrieved my diplomatic hat on my way out from Kew…

Me – “I feel like I’m entering into a Monty Python sketch!”

Sales staff  - just looked blankly at me

I decided to pay the £5 and get out before I ended up paying £20 for no calls and no SIM card 

Is it just me that gets into these stupid situations?

The action moves to the Union Chapel Islington later that day
I sit motionless in the car (so to be honest not a lot of action), while torrential rain bounced off the car, the various drenched people drifting passed, doing remarkably good impressions of drowned rats.  After 20 minutes and with no sign of the rain abating any time soon, it was my turn to do a drowned rat impression.  I had spent the time contemplating whether to attempt to try and get The Beast into the venue…I finally decided as it was so wet that the chances were that security would not be too draconian as dripping wet people queued to get in.  My assumption proved correct and what security there was were keeping well away from the entrance - I barely needed to show my ticket. 

Once inside the church I went straight upstairs (as was pointed out by Athlete frontman Joel Pott, when he came on stage.  The seats truly were in the gods…) and found a position in the front row dead centre and secured three spaces, Mrs B myself and the Beast.  I sent a text to Mrs B, explaining where to meet and sat back to wait for her arrival.  The two support acts were OK but did not appear to be anything special “Robot Heart” & “My First Tooth”.  The latter being a sort of  “Noah and the Whale” clone with a female lead singer. Mrs B was not going to have a problem missing them, she’s not a big “Noah and the Whale” fan…

All that waiting around on your own can get quite lonely, so I’m grateful for the couple who sat down beside me.  While I had an interesting chat with a couple called Lee and Nicky, making me feel a little less like “Billy no mates” , Lee and Nicky sat traumatised by the strange bloke who accosted them as soon as they sat down…. We talked about groups we had seen, the Olympics and how hardly anyone got any tickets,  I even discovered that Nicky’s brother had just purchased a flat in Bishops Stortford, just around the corner from us, what a truly small world we live in….

I got a text from Mrs B about 9pm, just as Athlete hit the stage, saying that her latest work crisis was over and she was on her way….about halfway through Athlete’s set Mrs B made her appearance.  I was relieved that Mrs B saw at least a bit of the concert but also that Lee and Nicky weren’t left with the impression that I was a total nut job with a made up wife…..

I really enjoyed the Athlete performance which had been billed as a stripped down tour, i.e. acoustic (well sort of acoustic as the guitars were all amplified, I always thought acoustic meant not amplified), which was ideal for the wonderful sound that echoed around the old church building. My only issue was that it was quieter than the average gig and the sound of The Beast:

Click Click Click  Click  Click
Click Click Click  Click  Click
Click Click Click  Click  Click 
Click Click Click  Click  Click 
echoed around the building and proved hardly conducive to my clandestine attempts to sneak a few concert piccies….About as subtle as a British MP with a blank expense form .…

Mrs B asked me to turn the sound down...

Me - "What?"

Mrs B - "Turn the shutter sound down"

Me - "That's the mechanism working, it doesn't come with a volume setting"


What can I say, The Beast likes to roar like a lion not whisper like a chocolate bar….

Joel Potts - Looking up to the Gods
 Miss Winehouse
What a sad and tawdry tale of wasted talent. While she represented many of the things that I dislike, Tattoo’s, Smoking, excessive drinking and drugs, she had such a wonderful voice.  We were lucky enough to see her at the Cambridge Junction about 4 years ago, when she could still perform. We saw her briefly at V a couple of years ago when she came on stage with The Specials to do one song.  She barely managed that, a shadow of what she had been… Yet another one of life’s flawed talents….
Show me the sunny
Monitoring our way to a fortune (or not) with our Solar Panels

KW Produced so far –  2131

KW generated in the last week – 90

This has earned us approximately – £1065
Record of the week
Wires by Athlete - I knew it wasn't proper acoustic gig....

The Outsider by Athlete -

 Rehab by Amy Winehouse - Amy really should have gone to Rehab

What a waste by  Ian Dury and the Blockheads- Ian sums it all up

Watch of the week
The regular section in support of Joe (Stunt Cock) and his growing watch business

Xupes has been trading for over 2 years and  Joe has recently developed some great contacts in the trade which enables him to pick up surplus stock and sell them at great prices. Mrs B is a regular purchaser from his jewellery section, going self service once she finally realised that her husband is not the jewellery buying type….
Xupes price  £650.00 
RRP         £1,350.00
Saving        £700.00 
Photo Finish
All shots taken with The Beast of Athlete at the Union Chapel Islington
 
You've got wires going in
you've got wires coming out...
 
So probably not proper acoustic..

Carey Willetts Bass Guitarist and chief water drinker....

Athlete - not a bad little backdrop....

Tim Wanstall - keyboards

Well Joel Looks like he had a good time and
so did the audience....
Till next week...

31 comments:

  1. very interesting, great post, bro.

    congrats!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, funny. We really have become slaves to our cells. I'll bet your first thought was, "Well, I'll just call her and tell her she has my phone." Or is that just me?

    Glad to hear the solar panels are paying off! It's great to not be a slave to the power companies.

    Great photos!

    ReplyDelete
  3. awesome photos of the show, look like they all had a good time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Diego Sousa said...
    very interesting, great post, bro.

    congrats!

    here was me aiming for Dull and boring…I must do better

    ReplyDelete
  5. kathryn said...
    Oh, funny. We really have become slaves to our cells. I'll bet your first thought was, "Well, I'll just call her and tell her she has my phone." Or is that just me?
    Mrs B left Stinky Phone at work the next day and so lent me one of hers. It is weird receiving a phone call from your own phone, especially when the phone screams out your name in the middle of the office. Now all I have to do is work out how to call myself last week and give myself this week’s lottery numbers…..

    Glad to hear the solar panels are paying off! It's great to not be a slave to the power companies.
    The problem now is we are slaves to the weather gods…Just going off to practice my sun dance…

    Great photos!
    Thanks, almost as good as the ones that I didn’t take….

    ReplyDelete
  6. Batow said...
    awesome photos of the show, look like they all had a good time.
    I certainly did, Mrs B however only had half a good time …

    ReplyDelete
  7. A very enjoyable post. All that rain. I thought it was summer in your part of the world

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mynx said...
    A very enjoyable post. All that rain. I thought it was summer in your part of the world
    Are you kidding, this is Britain we have 500 phrases for summer rain i.e.

    More rain
    Rain again
    F**king rain
    Wet rain
    Damp rain
    Soggy rain
    Monday rain
    Morning rain
    Constant rain
    Saturday rain
    Night rain

    Etc, etc… we even have a phrase for when it is not raining which is :-

    It's about to rain….

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wait? I'm confused. Why would you need to make calls on a PHONE? I just carry mine around for looks, while setting it in conspicuous places.

    Again, a great post, but I'm enjoying your last comment about the rain almost as much.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This is fascinating.
    Why would they charge you more for making calls on a phone? LAME NUTS. People are so insane nowadays.

    http://www.glamkittenslitterbox.com/
    Twitter: @GlamKitten88

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rehab by Amy Winehouse : irony she has it.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Brooke said...
    Wait? I'm confused. Why would you need to make calls on a PHONE? I just carry mine around for looks, while setting it in conspicuous places.
    I did some research and discovered that a toped up phone SIM weights 0.00000000000000010001 of a gram more than an empty one so if you aren’t going to make any calls it makes sense not to drag around the additional burden of a toped up SIM….

    Again, a great post, but I'm enjoying your last comment about the rain almost as much.
    So you have discovered the deep and murky world off the under comment….I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit bitter at the moment, as all this rain we are getting is interfering with our Solar panels money making ability during what should be the most lucrative time of the year…makes you want to cry but I can’t handle anymore water…

    ReplyDelete
  13. Bonnie said...
    This is fascinating.
    Why would they charge you more for making calls on a phone? LAME NUTS. People are so insane nowadays.

    http://www.glamkittenslitterbox.com/
    Twitter: @GlamKitten88

    It’s probably the same people who want to charge us a small fortune to make phone calls using fridges, aerosol cans, lipsticks and coffins. What I don’t understand is why my camera does not come with a built in phone, MP3 player and acceleration 0 – 60 in 4.2 seconds…

    ReplyDelete
  14. Static said...
    Rehab by Amy Winehouse : irony she has it.
    More even than Alanis Morissette

    I bet she wished she had done the song “Drink and Drugs” instead

    with its iconic phrasing

    They tried to make me take drugs, I said, “No, No, No”
    They tried to take me down the pub, I said, “No, No, No”

    ReplyDelete
  15. I bet she also wished she had done "I Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)"

    with it's lyrical hook and funky guitar fill

    I don't like the drugs but the drugs like me, I said, “No, No, No”
    I don't like the drugs, the drugs, the drugs, I said, “No, No, No”

    ReplyDelete
  16. Haha, what a weird phone shop and what weird plans they offer...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Static said...
    I bet she also wished she had done "I Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)"

    with it's lyrical hook and funky guitar fill

    I don't like the drugs but the drugs like me, I said, “No, No, No”
    I don't like the drugs, the drugs, the drugs, I said, “No, No, No”


    Sadly her cover of the Manic Street Preachers “The drugs don’t work” will now remain unreleased in case the makers of Heroin and Crack Cocaine sue her record company for maligning their products…..

    ReplyDelete
  18. Julia, the Thanksgiving Girl said...
    Haha, what a weird phone shop and what weird plans they offer...
    Sadly it’s pretty standard for British mobile phone shops who run a smoke screen policy in order to con the Mark, sorry I mean customer, into paying the highest possible amount while thinking they are paying the lowest price….

    ReplyDelete
  19. Oh that's crazy, why would you want to make calls?

    Let's face it, we've made phones into miniature computers, but we still can't make a phone that takes a call. Just ask anyone who calls me and gets a drop or static every 10 seconds.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Lol. "You might not want to make any calls." Then why buy a phone...

    ReplyDelete
  21. "Not unless you want to make calls"

    ...

    *smack*

    ReplyDelete
  22. @ BlackLOG: "Sadly her cover of the Manic Street Preachers “The drugs don’t work” will now remain unreleased in case the makers of Heroin and Crack Cocaine sue her record company for maligning their products….."

    BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! HiLaRiOus!!1 =D

    ReplyDelete
  23. A Beer for the Shower said...
    Oh that's crazy, why would you want to make calls?

    Let's face it, we've made phones into miniature computers, but we still can't make a phone that takes a call. Just ask anyone who calls me and gets a drop or static every 10 seconds.

    I’m currently using my phone to make toast….It would have been useful to call Mrs B and tell her that breakfast is ready, but I can’t get through since she is using her phone to brush her teeth, I guess she is going to skip Breakfast

    What did your phone do for you today?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Funny Pets said...
    Lol. "You might not want to make any calls." Then why buy a phone...
    What with the music, games, films and other goodies on phones, frankly I don’t have enough time to make calls…. .

    ReplyDelete
  25. Sub-Radar-Mike said...
    "Not unless you want to make calls”
    I’m going to purchase two cans and some string for a more traditional form of communication….

    *smack*
    I wasn’t aware we were holding a vote on Amy’s cause of death. The jury is still out on the cause but I guess Smack is right up there along with Alcohol abuse….

    ReplyDelete
  26. Static said...
    @ BlackLOG: "Sadly her cover of the Manic Street Preachers “The drugs don’t work” will now remain unreleased in case the makers of Heroin and Crack Cocaine sue her record company for maligning their products….."

    BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! HiLaRiOus!!1 =D

    It’s not like I make this stuff up……Oh, wait a minute….

    ReplyDelete
  27. Okay, sadly for you, I'm not going away this time. Haha

    My 3 weeks of being insanely busy have come to an end. =)

    Did I ever tell you how damn cool you are for all the the live music & the photography, and, well, everything about your life?

    Good strategy with the phone. In my mind I pictured you making the Monty Python comment.

    I was rolling over the camera sounds. Something so simple can strike my so funny.

    Really great photos!! And these watches every week are insane. I mean, as in, insanely quality awesomeness, even though that doesn't really make sense grammatically whatsoever.

    And poor Amy. What a damn shame. Someone should have taught her better.

    ReplyDelete
  28. LilPixi said...
    Okay, sadly for you, I'm not going away this time. Haha
    I’d better make the spare bed up then…

    My 3 weeks of being insanely busy have come to an end. =)
    I’m still trying to work out what all the cloak and dagger stuff has been all about….I’ve narrowed it down to :-
    a) A spy and the mission is now complete
    b) An assassin (Would tie in with the death of a certain Mrs Winehouse….
    c) A teacher and you had a very busy end of year..



    Did I ever tell you how damn cool you are for all the the live music & the photography, and, well, everything about your life?
    It’s called not having children which means you have money and time to do fun things =...

    Good strategy with the phone. In my mind I pictured you making the Monty Python comment.
    Most of my humour tends to drift back towards being Pythonesque

    I was rolling over the camera sounds. Something so simple can strike my so funny.
    Nothing wrong with basic humour, sometimes it’s the least complicated things which are the best…

    Really great photos!! And these watches every week are insane. I mean, as in, insanely quality awesomeness, even though that doesn't really make sense grammatically whatsoever.
    I’m just glad that I’ve got the “time” each week to include them…

    And poor Amy. What a damn shame. Someone should have taught her better.
    Like many artists I think she sold her soul to the devil in trade for her talent. It’s a shame she didn’t take a leaf out of Heather Mills McCartney and sell her sole instead, at least she could have hopped on with her career…although come to think of it, other than leaching money off of people I’m not sure what talent HMM has….

    ReplyDelete
  29. "It’s not like I make this stuff up……Oh, wait a minute…."


    I just tap into the collective unconscious and pull jokes out of my ass on a regular basis. I've found my nirvana.

    ReplyDelete
  30. That him and his they in his palace burn; Following!

    ReplyDelete
  31. Static said...
    "It’s not like I make this stuff up……Oh, wait a minute…."

    I just tap into the collective unconscious and pull jokes out of my ass on a regular basis. I've found my nirvana.

    Just as well I was blessed with a big old ass…..Shame most of what it produces is the same old recycled rubbish…

    ReplyDelete

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