Dom's Rambles

Part of Down & Out in Sheffield & Lincoln

Monday, March 31, 2008

I May Not Know Much About Art, But I Do Know What I Like.

This sculpture for example, which graces the grounds of the Usher Art Gallery in Lincoln. I think it captures a sense of both exertion and motion - if you gettin' me innit.

This abomination, on the other hand, which is hung on the wall of the recently revamped Drill Hall, gives me the creeps. It's like something from a bad acid trip!

posted by Dom # 8:35 PM 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Nights Out, Nights Out in Lincoln (oblique UFO reference there as I'm listening to the Strangers In The Night album as I type)

There was a distinct whiff of Old Spice in the air this weekend as your gracious host donned his glad rags, hit town and ended up coming home in a state of extreme refreshment. In fact I'm still trying to figure out how my underpants found their way into the kitchen sink.

There was a superb band on in the pub, an outfit called the Schoolhouse Rockers, who play old school rock and roll in a kind of Stray Cats style. I will definitely go and see this lot again.

See the above pictures of the band and check out the Facebook photo album for shots of the rest of Saturday night's festivities (is it just me or does Sam bear an uncanny resemblance to Amy Winehouse).

posted by Dom # 8:19 PM 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, March 29, 2008

This One Will Run & Run!

Apparently the phone has been ringiing off the hook in The Jolly Brewer this past week, what with BBC News 24, Sky News, The Sun and The Lincolnshire Echo all wanting a piece of the action (links will be up as soon as the reports have been filed and are online).
I must confess a certain smugness at being one of the original agent provocateurs of this campaign!

posted by Dom # 12:10 AM 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, March 27, 2008

We've Got Mail - And This Time It's From The BBC!

Believe me, I nearly came in my pants thinking it was an offer to make the TV version of Down & Out In Sheffield & Lincoln. My demands flashed through my mind: the keys to this before we even start discussing my other fees, Ralph Little to play me (although now I think about it, he may be getting a little long in the tooth to pass off for a 25 year old, perhaps a cast of ultra-talented unknowns would be a better idea), the same production team as Ashes to Ashes, no politically correct re-writes of the story etc.
Alas, 'twas not to be.

Another time maybe!
It seems as though BBC News 24 are interviewing Emma, landlady of The Jolly Brewer, regarding the Darling You're Barred campaign (see below) sometime tonight and they wanted a copy of the picture I took.
I have no idea when it's going to be broadcast though!

posted by Dom # 11:30 PM 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Fighting The Good Fight: The Plot Thickens!

Your gracious host is still trying to piece together the events of yesterday afternoon and early evening but along the way he did manage to get Alistair Darling barred from The Jolly Brewer and The Tap & Spile! I was thwarted at The Horse & Groom because, and I quote, "...we don't do politics or religion in this pub," which is fair enough I suppose.

A guy in the aforemention 'Brewer took a couple of posters off me to put in the pubs in his village so when I'm passing next I'll nip into The Royal Oak and The Hunter's Leap in Washingborough to snap some more pictures. I'm also assured that the bar manager at the Silver Streer branch of Wetherspoons will be presented with one at some point tonight (provided that Monkey doesn't get too pissed to go to work again).

UPDATE: This thing really is gathering pace, the Facebook group now has over 1,300 members, questions have been raised in The House of Commons and the campaign has been mentioned in several national newspapers. My local paper has been getting in on the action too - as an anonymous commentator informed me. Check this out. Soon Ali Baby will be banned from more Lincoln pubs than my leading lady's Y-Y chromosomal boyfriend!
Also, notice how, right at the end of the Lincolnshire Echo piece, the sniveling turd attempts to justify his brazen thievery with the preposterous and cynical lie that it's all for the kids and old folks.

posted by Dom # 7:56 PM 1 comments links to this post

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Exclusive: Alan Davies & Montserrat Lombard Caught Moonlighting In German Porn Movie Shock Horror!

I’ve always had something of a crisis of conscience regarding pornography. The libertarian, pro-choice on everything, part of me believes - and as a point of principle - that provided all those taking part in its production do so voluntarily (and are over the age of consent) then fair enough, let ‘em get on with it. Furthermore, if people want to shell out their hard earned for the end product then that’s nobody else’s business either. That said, I’m convinced that much of the appeal of porn - particularly the nastier stuff - is not so much sexual titillation as misogynous sadism. I do find that distasteful and it does rankle that part of my psyche which still clings to such caring sharing, interventionist, give a shit sensibilities I had when I was a pontificating leftwing twat who thought he knew what was best for everyone[1].
In my younger days I always prided myself on being able to shiver one off using no other stimulus than my imagination so questions over the morality of porn didn’t really enter the equation but as I’ve got older - and during extended pussy famines such as the current one - I’m finding myself ever more reliant on grumble flicks. To this end I recently acquired a collection of assorted filth on several CD ROMs from some guy down the pub.
As well as the moral and aesthetic considerations my reliance on bongo material introduces another worry. Given my past and present lifestyle I should be entering heart attack territory pretty soon – that’s if I’m not already there - and I live in constant fear of bringing one on as I’m bringing myself off.
What an ignominious end that would be; living as a lonely, masturbating wreck is bad enough but dying as one…?
Picture the gruesome tableau: a few months down the line the emergency services break the door down to discover my mummified corpse hunched in front of the PC, jeans round my ankles, hardened wad of tissue still clasped in one skeletal hand, desiccated member in the other, and with a twelve second excerpt from Goth Slutz Go Nutz Vol 8 looping over and over on the screen in front of me.
I just know someone would film it on their mobile and upload it to YouTube.
Still, needs must and having worked up a head of steam over the weekend, this afternoon it came time to blow the tanks. I drew the curtains, looked out the Kleenex, loaded up one of the aforementioned CDs and prepared to ‘make hand party’.

All well and groovy thus far but then Jonathan Creek star and QI fixture Alan Davies came strutting into the frame. I found this so distracting that it totally felled my timber.

All was not lost though, as Montserrat Lombard (who plays Shaz Grainger in Ashes to Ashes) soon appeared and she more than resurrected it.

I don't know why, but weird looking women with strangely shaped noses give me such a stonking knob-on that I could quite easily hammer a nail into a plank of wood with the thing.

[1] I’ve often wished that there were some kind of support group network for former leftists where we could go to tell all before an audience of our peers:

“My name’s Dom, and I’m a recovering lefty. I’ve been ideologically sober for over ten years now, ever since I got a job in fact.”

posted by Dom # 9:02 PM 1 comments links to this post

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Empathy With The Devil: Politician, Rope, Tree. Any Questions?

I trust that His Satanic Majesty will forgive me leeching His bandwidth here but it is for a common - and, indeed, worthy - cause which deserves to be publicised as widely as possible. I'm sure I don't need to remind people of the recent tax hike on booze which the above clown justified by claiming that it would, in some ill defined way, combat so-called 'binge drinking' and the attendant hooliganism.
Ali baby, here's a reality check. The gang of feral estate pikies who jumped and kicked me senseless on my way home from the pub last summer didn't do so because of Happy Hour at their local - or because Bargain Booze had an offer on crates of Stella Artois that week. They did it because they knew, even if the police could be bothered to take enough time out from persecuting motorists to get around to catching them, that there would be no meaningful consequences.
Got that, you beetle-browed fuckwit?
Anyway people, if you click on the above picture you'll get a larger version that you can print off and present to the landlord of your favoured drinking establishment, asking them to display it in some prominent position. The idea being to get this thieving tax parasite bastard (who would tax the air we breath if he could figure out a way of metering it and would doubtless justifying doing so by recourse to some fashionable eco-quackery) barred from every pub in the country.
Granted, it may be a token (even futile) gesture but it lets such loathsome pieces of shit know that there are some of us who aren't going to accept their legislated robbery quietly.
On a lighter note, I'm indebted to the aforementioned Devil for recently drawing attention to my inane prattle and, by doing so, sending my stats through the roof. I particularly liked one of the comments on His post:

I enjoyed reading that, because I'm around the same age and went to some of the clubs he mentions.
At the time I was a filthy 'outlaw' biker and how we looked down on his poodle haired glam rock types. We thought they were a bunch of pussies and weren't averse to giving them a smack now and again just to remind them of their position in the food chain.
With the benefit of hindsight I now know that they were getting all the chicks, who (amazingly) were actually turned off by my bad impersonation of Sonny Barger.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
I still reckon Glam Rock sucks though.

I had a similar confession from one of the scarier grebos who drinks in my pub and who I was always a little wary of back in the day (he drunkenly informed me that the first time he had actually talked to me he realised what a sound guy I was and couldn't help liking me).
In fact now I come to think of it, and except for one obvious example, there is no one from those days I wouldn't be civil towards or refuse to have a drink with. Okay, I take the piss at every opportunity but it's good natured piss taking; there's no genuine malice in Down & Out... because no one (again with one notable exception) was genuinely malicious towards me. The guy I called Tony Wilkins was mentally ill and not fully responsible for his actions. Others were similarly incapacitated through being out of their heads on drugs all the time.
As for 'Sally', she did what she did because of juvenile self-centredness and emotional immaturity. Her dogged refusal to explain her actions or to apologise for them (which was all I ever wanted her to do), as well as her subsequent David Irving style re-write of local history to cast me as the villain of the piece, was much more to do with moral cowardice than anything else so I could never really hate her. Even if it would have made it all so much easier to bear had I been able to.

posted by Dom # 2:01 PM 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Finished At Last!

It's taken over two weeks but at long last I've got all my 12" house/dance singles digitized. Now it's over to eBay to discover whether anyone's still interested in buying this stuff!

Update: Amazingly enough people are interested in buying it! I sold the lot within eleven hours - guess who's going to be pissed this weekend?

posted by Dom # 12:06 AM 0 comments links to this post

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Another Random Snapshot.

Someone once said that you should never trust a man who doesn't find Derek & Clive funny - and I totally agree with them. This sign, which I snapped on the bus into town for last Saturday afternoon's irresponsible drinking binge, may well amuse those familiar with this particular sketch off the Come Again CD.

posted by Dom # 8:36 PM 1 comments links to this post

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Monkey's Fliddy Arm!

I'm hoping to have the next major post finished and in the public domain by this evening. In the meantime here's a shot I took of James 'Monkey' Howgate in the pub on Friday night. The camera angle makes it look like he's got a deformed/fliddy left arm! It was hilarious, everybody thought so.

posted by Dom # 11:18 AM 0 comments links to this post