I'm going to France for two and a half weeks, leaving tonight, catching
a night ferry from Dover to Dunkirk, arriving in France for breakfast.
We're going to the same place in France that we've been going to for
the last nine, or so, years. It's a very run down and decrepit rural
cottage in Normandy; a few miles apart from any other human life, cows
and donkeys are our main companions over there. The house
itself is so primitive, there's no central heating, not a huge amount
of electricity and obviously, very little chance of getting an internet
connection out there. It's not what you'd call a luxury holiday, but
it's still great fun. I bought myself a battery powered guitar
amplifier, so I can take my guitar over there and therefore keep my
sanity. There's one advantage of going to the rainy part of rural
France for a holiday, at least: The food is spectacular.
So,
I'll be giving updates in two weeks, after a fortnight of drinking and
writing music in solitary, it's just a shame I was unable to stick my
band's demo track up onto the Incarnadine myspace in time. Feel free to
leave abusive comments on my page and laugh at my stupid photos.
My band has finally been formed and it finally lives and it finally makes progress. After a few limpwristed attempts at creating a metal band and making my fantastic vision come to life, I have finally found something prominsing.
It is INCARNADINE!
We are an original thrash band from the City of Bath in Somerset, probably Bath's first thrash band ever. I am the vocalist and one of the guitarists; I have found out that an old friend of mine is a fantastic drummer and enjoys thrash, we immediately started playing. His name is James and he is edging his way up to Dave Lombardo's standard already. He has a small Boss Recording setup and we're in the process of writing and recording some ultra-rough demos.
And today, after not speaking to him for about a year, Harvey turned up and is interested in becoming our lead guitarist. James and I are going to send him some demos and he's probably going to join. Thrash has now reached the South West of Britain.
We're without a bassist at the moment, but that's always going to be a tough one, he needs to be able to shatter concrete with groove, and explode skulls with Burton-esque power.
In the meantime, check out www.myspace.com/incarnadinethrash for some info, no photos or demos yet, that'll be sorted soon. Then you can see whether I'm an obese black guy or not...
I have finally become fed up with the viruses and dodgy porn links from Limewire and I have realised that it will be a good six months until I can start earning money for music - and that will all go on guitar stuff - because I'VE DISCOVERED TORRENTING!
I'm not in the mood for discussing the moral argument about downloading music illegally, we all know that the RIAA rape their artists royally and there's probably a similar industry going on here in Britain, and we all know that real bands should want loyal fans before they want £££. So, on that basis and my lack of money I have started clawing my way through torrent websites.
After finally realising the truth in "Most thrash you won't be able to buy anyway" spoken by the elitist MHDrunk in the Thrash Thread I went straight into the Torrent Help Thread and found out about uTorrent - for I knew nothing of this magical E-kingdom - and I went searching for appropriate sites.
I immediately downloaded two albums I was in dire of: "Enemy of God" by Kreator and "Killing Peace" by Onslaught; they are both utterly fantastic works of European death thrash, but that's not the matter. The matter is that I can find nearly any music, without viruses, whole albums and no risk of having the FBI sending me to Guatanamo Bay for "theft," but they only care bout the RIAA, not the artists - just needed to be said.
So, in short, PIRACY ROCKS, and it rocks even more when you get away with it and even more again when the quality of the pirated music or video is as good as the real deal, and it rocks even more because it's free.
I'm a cheap cowardly bastared and I'm fucking proud.
The wonders of an ancient Indian plant were discovered for the Western world by British explorers hundreds of years ago. If you are some of the many who annoyingly doubt the good that the British Empire has done, and instead focus on the bad; you must give my country at least one benefit, TEA.
It is a special and unique drink. The leaves of the plant are dried and when they are infused with boiling water, the flavour and the colour of the leaves are released into the water. You will see a majestic brown cloud sweep through the liquid until the entire teapot is swamped with colour.
I must digress before I continue, tea can only be tea if it is made from loose leaves. Teabags may be efficient and well meaning, they may make it simple to may a cuppa - one bap per cup, and all that bollocks - but it just takes away from the eccentricity of the art of tea making, tea is supposed to be a careful and intricate creation. You take a heaped teaspoon of your tea leaves for each cup - be it Orange Pekoe, Russian Caravan, Samakand, Lapsang Soushon, Rwanda or an Assam or the classic Earl Grey - and place it into the centre of your, at the moment, empty teapot. As the water is boiling in your kettle, you now have time find some cold milk from the fridge. But, you must decant the milk from the bottle or carton into a milk jug; it just adds to the tea-ness of the occassion. Since you're now using tea leaves, that also means that you must use a tea-strainer, unless you would like a mouth full of sodden leaves.
Once the water has boiled you now must quickly pour it into the pile of leaves. Now, after the pot has been filled, you must wait around four minutes for the tea to brew, otherwise it will not have developed a full enough flavour. But a quick reminder: drink it within 45 minutes at the most, otherwise it will stew, due to the leaves continuing to diffuse their flavour into the water, strengthening the taste, until it's rather disgusting.
And you see that teabags take all these glories away; they contain just dust and the cheap disgusting pieces of the plant - most probably the roots and stems which have been devoured by slugs.
As I mentioned before, the equpiment with which you prepare the tea - tea strainer, tea leaves, milk jugs, teapot instead of just a cup - has been an important part of process. This leads me neatly to the debate over "mug verses cup" it really doesn't make a huge amount of different to the tea-ness of the occassion. A mug is for a less formal style of tea drinking, but, as I have done, buy a historic mug from the Imperial War Museum - with Earl Kitchener on, or Doctor Carrot, or a strong British Spitfire. A teacup is often used to finish off your Sunday lunch, after three or four courses of decadent British food - wintery soups, roast beef and heay cakes - you must carry the saucer around with the ornate cup, otherwise you have commited a faux pas of tea and will henceforth become branded a yobbo for your entire life.
Now, onto milk and sugar, they are entirely down to personal preference, but I am not a fan of other's views. Milk, I think is a neccessity of tea, but only if the tea keeps its colour. It must not verge on the white side of brown. I find sugar completely ridiculous, it sweetens tea, which it isn't meant to do. Sugar takes the original taste from the tea - which milk does not - it enhances it. If you want a slightly sweeter taste, get a slightly sweeter tea, like Orange Pekoe, it has a maltiness to it.
This concludes my first tea segment. Tea, the pinnacle of Englishness, we are stereotyped and mocked for it by the ignorant. These people are just jealous of our beverage, distraught that they have to settle with a poor freeze dried coffee substitute or Lipton tea bags. I hope you have enjoyed this week's post, now as I head off to the loo, after a tea binge, I sincerely hope that you don a pinstriped suit, a black umbrella, a bowler hat, a copy of The Daily Telegraph, vote Conservative and drink a cup of real tea. I thank you in the knowledge that you have hopefully managed to elevate yourself from the ignorant drones of the majority.
I'm not too accustomed with the whole world of blogging. I have a few ideas bumbling around the old noggin about what to post. I was considering learing a new song on mah guitar each week and telling you guys how it went, I could do that, tell me if it's an alright idea - I WANT THE FEEDBACK. But I want to make something simple and easy which I can add to.
So here it is, easy and amusing, the offensive jokes blog. Before I start finding a posting jokes I do want to make it clear that I am not a racist, religionist - except I'm not a fan of fundamentalists of any sort - sexist, homophobe or whatever -ist. I have black frends who find racist jokes funny, so just look at the joke and not me.
If you wonder why I will laugh at some huge disaster or make fun out of a tragedy, the quick answer is because I'm English. We can make the most depressing situations into nihilistic jokes. I may not do that now - but I might - I don't know what jokes I'm going to post.
I'm of to search the web...
What's the difference between a bench and a Mexican?
A bench can support a family of four.
Why do black people have white palms?
Because there's a little bit of good in everybody.
As another Englishman i have to agree, and as far as bad taste jokes go the one from the lady in government was pretty funny: Theres a Russian, a Cuban, an Englishman and a Pakistani on a train, the Russian takes out a bottle of his best vodka, drinks a bit and throws the rest off the train and says 'theres plenty more of that where i come from'. The others are impressed so the Cuban takes out one of the finest havana cigars, takes one puff and throws it off the train and says 'theres plenty more of those where i come from'. Again everyone is rather impressed so the Englishman stands up and throws the Pakistani off the train.....
Why can't Jesus eat M&Ms? Because they keep falling through the holes in his hands!
Q: How do you starve a mexican? A: Hide his food stamps under his work boots
Who's the best Jewish cook? Hitler.
Q: What's the difference between a dead baby and a trampoline? A: You don't wear boots when you jump on a trampoline.
How do teach a paraplegic to swim? Weld his wheelchair to a submarine!
Why doesn't Mexico have an Olympic team?
Because everyone who can run, jump, or swim has escaped.
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freddaahh's blogs, last updated : February 23, 2009
