In The Cold, Cold Night

Finally get access and time enough to blog. Feel as though there is little point relating anything but the tragic story of how my simple dream of a new job and a new home fell apart. The story of why I am now living in a garden shed. The story of how I was attacked by a nine inch high canine on my quest for a toilet break.

The story plays out like this; its Monday the 5th of November, and I'm starting my new job. It's on the other side of the country to my home town, and the short notice has meant I'm staying in a basic hotel, breakfast not included. I had arrived into the town on the previous night to a cascade of fireworks for bonfire night, which somewhat alleviated the stress of carrying my own bodyweight in clothes along the two-mile hike from the train station. Somewhat.

My first day goes well. My boss is nice, as is her boss and her boss's boss. The team I'm set to work in are all friendly. I sit in a state of constant terror, natch, frozen in front of reams of text I can barely comprehend. Constant assurances are hurled at me that I'll "pick it up soon". They're probably right. Evening came and morning came; the first day.

Second day is a easier. Find out where the toilets are, strike up (albeit stilted) dialogue with who I guess I should refer to as 'my colleagues'. Crack the odd joke. No-one seems to notice; this is probably a good thing. The hotel is depressing, but I am buoyed by the fact that on Friday I will be moving into my own brand spanking new flat, furnished and lovely. Evening came and morning came; the second day.

Third day, fourth day, fifth day - all fairly similar. I'm beginning to understand how this real world thing works. Only problem being my housing plans have fallen through. So three more weeks in a hotel, oh the ecstatic joy you can imagine I felt!

To save a bit of money, I stay in a bed-and-breakfast. Unfortunately, the only room I found was in the garden shed. Bathroom facilities are in the house, it's below freezing outside (and possibly in here) and whenever I stick my head outside a troop of tiny yapping dogs go crazy for my (albeit delectable) ankles.

Epilogue
I spend three weeks in the hotel. I finally move into my flat at the start of December. It takes all of that month to get a phoneline installed (possible upcoming rant post about the hideous evil that is British Telecom call centres I hear you say?). It takes most of the next month to get a broadband line installed in my flat, and I take another six weeks off from blogging just for good measure (read: fear).

Anyway, I'm back now.

Going Missing

It has been, to say the least, a tumultous three days since last I posted here. One spent in frenzy, one spent recovering, and today spent with the weight of the future dropping once again squarely on my shoulders. And yet, in a delightful twist in the tale of fate and flat-hunting, everything has fallen neatly into place. What a pleasant surprise, especially considering the near-disaster that Wednesday was.

Three flats to look at, in three towns. The first in what has been described to me as a "sleepy little commuter town" outside London. More like "town of the dead, or those soon to be so". To say that the flat and building felt like a retirement home was not an exaggeration. I am twenty-two, and refuse to live in a flat that comes furnished with a ceramic pig, a communal garden shared with pensioners and a faint but persistent stench of stale urine.

Flat number two was a first-floor place in a building so new that not only was the carpet still shrink-wrapped, but I was informed the third and fourth floor weren't actually finished yet. Astronomically expensive but just oh-so-nice. Which didn't exactly prepare me for the third and final property.

Now, I know estate agents (or realters if you like) don't have a reputation for desperately spilling all their proverbial beans on you, so I assume when you walk into an apartment to view and your guide says "it's not gonna take long to look round" that it's going to be small. But, dear God, why? Why did anyone think that building something so tiny was a good idea?

So maybe it was small and cosy? No, why bother with that? In fact, why bother with a cupboard (in this furnished flat) when a curtain in front of a wall full of holes and with a stick jammed in there will do just as well? No need for an oven either, just this stone-age microwave that looks like it will cook anyone stood within half a mile, that'll do.

And it's really not worth re-painting the walls. Blood red and lime green is a classic combination. And the dust and filth take the edge of the headaches anyway. And to be honest, with this smell you'll probably just go outside more often, so who cares if the sofa should have an attached Hazmat sign?

You'll never guess which one I went for.

Jigsaw Falling Into Place

I've never been one for logistics. I'd rather tackle a problem with an email than a phone call, my logic being that I can collect and rationalise my thoughts better in the written word than over the telephone. Unfortunately, this choice is invariably the slower of the two, and more often than not results in being ignored.

I happily sit in limbo. Only days remain before I am to move home and start work, but through the comfort of other people's delayed actions I am immobile. I cling to a nostalgic and blind sense of entrenched normalcy, and sit in the headlights, waiting for the impact. In my life, I find more often than not that I can face any problem that hits me and find a way round it, but I'll be damned if I can ready myself before it comes.

With the right impetus, I'm lightning quick, I rush forwards, rugby tackle the headlights and bring them crashing to the ground. Throw me into a boiling pan and I will leap out. But it is my fear that, like a cold-blooded frog, unaware of the danger, I will sit content in a pool of calm as the heat builds and builds until I begin to cook.

On a more practical note, I should probably cut my hair soon.

Positive Tension

Stayed up late last night, watching the coverage of Bloc Party playing at the BBC Electric Proms. It really did look like a fantastic gig, with the unusual presence of a full choir really filling out their sound.

When their debut album, Silent Alarm, came out in 2005, it was a brilliant mix of post-punk angular guitars and abstract, heartfelt songwriting. Frontman Kele Okereke's distinctive bi-tonal voice plays off against wonderfully stinging lead guitar from Russell Lissack, all propelled by the excellent and decidedly unorthodox rhythm section of Gordon Moakes and Matt Tong on bass and drums respectively. Their second album, the hugely under-rated A Weekend In The City, pushed their sound into new directions that most indie boy bands would run screaming from, and apparently their new single has them 'going a bit New Order', which is certainly a twist.

Watching the intimate and yet epic set on my TV, I found myself achingly nostalgic for the part of my life that I fear has passed. It was only a few months ago that I would always be lining up two gigs, the rotating wheel of live music that I loved never quite stopping turning. Recently, I have lacked the desire; indeed the last live music I saw was at Glastonbury nearly six months ago.

That weekend, I missed out on my second Bloc Party gig. They clashed with someone I hadn't seen, but I think the real reason I missed them was to preserve intact the memory of seeing them in London. A perfect night, it is a memory too well formed in my mind to detail here, but needless to say that it was both intimate and enormous, and that I was close enough at points to grab a fistful of Okereke's hair (though of course I didn't).

Time to get the wheel rolling again, methinks.

Devil's Haircut

I am frequently perplexed by Russell Brand. Anyone outside the UK who is reading this is probably thinking "Who?" - so I'll explain a little.

Brand is Britain's most current comedian, and by that I mean - without passing judgement on his level of fame or ability - he is certainly the most iconic of the crop of comedians to come to prominence in recent years. Sporting ridiculously large hair, women's jeans and a permanent colour scheme of "black and more black", the sex-maniac and reformed heroine addict uses a Dickensian wit combined with a delight in controversy to great effect.

I subscribe to his (incredibly popular) BBC Radio 2 podcast, having done so since he abandoned 6Music, and usually listen to it at night, stifling the laughter that always escapes me by forcefully cramming a corner of duvet into my mouth. Over an hour of hilarious interviews and tangential rants, and featuring weekly staples such as the phonecall to Noel Gallagher, and imploring China to "get out of Tibet!", its a dizzying mix of high- and low-brow humour, with a healthy dash of left-wing politics.

Which is more than can be said of Brand's new programme on Channel 4, Ponderland. Television has never been Brand's strong suit. While Big Brother's Big Mouth was a great forum for his fiery banter, The Russell Brand Show, a sort of mutant talk show, was a disaster (witness the painfully dull interview of Matt Lucas and David Walliams of Little Britain fame).

Ponderland is even worse. With no sideman to play off, the programme is simply a monologue delivered by Brand to camera, with occasional interludes in the form of stock footage from the pre-VCR era, mostly public service announcements or cheap documentaries. Brand rambles incoherently on such sweeping subjects as "Romantic Love" and "Childhood and Adolescence", and the audience, presumably dosed up with laughing gas, or maybe just on a day trip from the lunatic asylum, roar with laughter to the most banal of puns.

There is the odd moment of genius. Brand phones his own father to ask him to grade the colour of his genitalia using a paint samples board, on the basis that "dad's have browner willies". But generally you sit there praying for Brand's sparring partner Matt Morgan to turn up, and give the entire thing a little grounding. He does not.

A true original, it remains to be seen how far into the future Brand's career will stretch. But I sincerely hope that any future forays into television comedy can capture the brilliance of Brand's unique radio work. Brand can excel in a loose format, but needs to be tethered down occasionally, or God help us all.

Moving

The reason things have been so quiet on Curious Quill recently is, in essence, I have been getting myself a career. Terrifying as it may seem to me now, I am about to join the ranks of the tax-paying, flat-renting, shop-on-Saturdays, living-for-the-weekend masses. As I alluded to in my previous - and embarrassingly abstract - post, this will involve me packing up and moving out.

The curious thing is that the stress of finding somewhere to live on the other side of the country is probably a blessing in disguise. It seems to have blanked out the sheer terror I should be feeling at being tied to the tracks, wriggling to escape the inevitable and speedy approach of a high-speed train called The Worrying Prospect of Independence.

My labels are all going to change. Sure, I've recently moved from the era-defining "Student" to the deliberately vague "Graduate" (occasionally prefixed with "Unemployed" or the more optimistic "Job-Seeking"). But to abandon these luxuriant titles in favour of the more harsh "Young Professional" is something I'm perhaps not quite ready to do.

I'm sure the following months for me will consist of an immersion into (the deep end of) my new life, and I will probably live in a constant state of backlash. Hopefully I'll not be one of those slightly embarrassing types who really have no excuse to be hanging around watching bands full of people five years younger than them. Or those who continue to go to the local art house cinema to catch the latest existential Polish crime thriller, long after it has ceased to be "trendy" to do so and is instead "unnecessarily pretentious".

Then again I've never worried about labels anyway. They never really seem to stick.

Return To Sender

Time to break the ritualistic, self-imposed leave of absence. No apologies for a lack of presence; I had better things to do, and I was busy doing them. No explanation of the what and the why, maybe those can come later, but not now.

No longer stood at the crossroads. I have chosen my path, and I prepare to take my first baby steps. Choose shoes. Find the way among the rocks and snakes. The lack of choice does not make choosing any easier, and I will have to feel my way in the dark. A new beginning maybe, and the end of an era. Exciting prospects and a freedom I have most likely never experienced before.

More than anything, I feel like I'm leaving home.

Fan Mail

And so there is yet another postal strike in the UK, meaning there will be no post going in or out of my house until next week. This is annoyance in itself, cutting off my supply of DVD rentals which are the source of movies for the Sure Motif, and is designed to drive me more insane waiting to hear from various prospective employers.

Plus, going by the decorations starting to go up in the high street shops, I'd better be thinking about sending off my Christmas cards.

How To Disappear Completely

And so the most unpredictable mainstream rock band in the world have outdone themselves again. No singles released from Kid A. Confusing messages about Amnesiac being a b-sides compilation. A general mess of marketing surrounding Hail To The Thief, and exasperation at yet another pre-release leak.

So, with new album In Rainbows, Radiohead are effectively leaking it themselves. After months (maybe years) of speculation, its out in 10 days, and can be downloaded for any price you choose from their website. That's right, any price at all. So that can be free, or anything else you can think of (plus a £0.45 debit card charge if you decide to pay), or you can splash £40.00 for a "diskbox" which includes the album on CD and as a double-album on 12" pressed vinyl, plus a bonus CD of extra tracks and all in a nice book-and-slipcase set, which comes on in December. Included in the price is a download on 10th October like everyone else.

Its a puzzling strategy that is obviously to be applauded. This is not the same as the Crimea self-releasing their second album after being dropped, nor the same as those free Bravecaptain albums. Radiohead are not an outsider group, on the fringes of a music scene that has rejected them.

I suspect this is all an attempt to move them out of the mainstream. The album will surely be chart ineligible, and I doubt there will be any advertising, and probably no singles. However, everyone likes a free album, so all this is likely to do is make them the biggest band in the world.

I can cope with that.

Charmless Man

Listening to Jonathan Ross ingratiate himself when interviewing celebrities is a frequent, painful occurrence. But watching Friday Night With Jonathan Ross this week was too much to bear, as his slobbering sycophancy was burbled over Beth Ditto in a baffling display of inept adulation.

The infectious exuberance of the Gossip front woman somehow maintained my interest in what was otherwise a cringing dialogue worthy of Ricky Gervais. Ditto should be applauded for her feminist, fat-and-happy, out-and-proud stance, but in an interview like this surely praise should be reserved for her talents, instead of the tabloid-friendly labels so frequently applied to her? Her phenomenal singing voice, fierce political ethics, her lightening quick wit (which merrily ran rings around Ross's own mithering pantheon of innuendo); none of these were mentioned. Ross did touch upon her status as a fashion icon(oclast), but was far more interested in tired stories of squirrel-eating.

The lowest point probably came when Ross realised his usual flirtatious interview technique was unlikely to work. He daintily ran away from Ditto's comment that she prefers the "ladies who look like boys". Sycophancy failing, he then switched to flattery, claiming he finds his wife more attractive when she is carrying a bit more weight, as if this rescued Ditto from any embarrassment she might have about her own size. Not only is this patronising, it is also a serious distortion of the truth - Jane Goldman, Ross's wife, could at most be described as voluptuous, and certainly does not approach Ditto's frame.

Note to self: must research and write post about film critics' wives. Jane Goldman is a wonderful oddball, and I believe Mark Kermode's wife is a leading academic mind on soft-core porn. Maybe Barry Norman's wife was a Page Three girl...

All of which leaves only reinforcement for my opinion that Ross should abandon BBC 1 for perhaps Channel 4 or BBC 3, where he could cater for the niche market that he better suits. He is too talented a presenter to be re-programmed as yet another personality-free prime-time clone.

Oh, and have a shave!