Chess

You have to realise this is a one minute game. He has more time than I do at this stage. But I horse in and threaten his queen.

He does what most people do when their queen is threatened, and moves her out of the way.

Allowing my queen to steam in there and it's check-mate with 3 seconds to spare. This is more exciting than the World Cup!

Muraly stuff

There's Ballyclare Town Hall. That's part of the mural.

There's the end of it. That's the end of the mural there.

There's some marathon runners. There they are now, running along there. Look at the wheelchair competitor. A nice politically correct touch there, I thought.

Trees. There's some trees. Some trees there.

There's the marathon runners again. One man seems to have strayed off the path a bit. Not quite sure what's going on there. I maybe painted that on a Monday morning or a Friday afternoon. Not sure. There's the Mourne mountains at the top left. Look at them there, sweeping down to the sea there.

There's Swans. Those are swans there. And a train. And the Cave Hill. And more marathon runners.

There they are there going round the corner. I had to use a bit of artistic licence at this point, because it doesn't actually look like this in reality, but I got around it, by using a device we artists call "making things up". Artists are able to do that because they are incredibly clever. That's why I'm an artist, and you're not. You just do whatever stupid thing it is that you do. Because you're not an artist. Like me.

Here's another bit near the end. That's the Holestone. I know what you're thinking. That stone must be pretty big. It's as big as the town hall! But you'd be wrong, due to your stupidity and lack of a third level educational qualification in an art based subject. The reason the Holestone appears to be so big is due to a concept we artists like to refer to as "perspective". It would probably be hard to explain this theory to most simpletons, but it is basically that things that are close to you look bigger than things that are further away.

You might need to go to art college for at least four years to fully grasp this complex idea, so I won't even try to start explaining to you.

Right. This is just me showing off. Look at the length of that tunnel. It's at least a mile long. And I painted it all by myself. And not just one side. The other side too. And I never caught siphilus or got bitten by a big dog while I was doing it. Which was quite an acheivement, I think.

There's Sentry Hill there. Look at it there. There it is.

Well. England there.

Trevor Brooking. Your thoughts.
"Well, obviously shite."
Alan Hansen?
"You have to agree with Trevor, there, they were shite. And onions."
Wise words there from our panel of experts.
Let's look again at some of the highlights of how shite England actually were.
Terry plays the ball through to Rooney, who just kicks it aimlessly in no particular direction, like a big useless cock.  Harry Rednap. Your thoughts.
"Well Gary, I know I look like a man who has been drinking whiskey constantly for about a decade or two, but even I have to say they were unbelievably poor."
Thanks for that Harry. Let's go over now to Fabrianno Accapella to hear what that wanker has to say for himself.
Oh, we won't be able to bring you that interview. Cappello has been sacked.
Wayne Rooney, who did the square root of feck all throughout the tournament was also unavailable to make any intelligent comment.
Steven Gerard said," Ehhh? Ehhh?You know what I mean like? You know what I mean like?"
To which our reporter replied, "No. I don't know what you mean. Like."
Well, at least they qualified, which is more than Scotland, Wales, and the Irelands north and south can say for themselves.

Nostalgia

Do you remember when people used to make compilation tapes for each other?
It was usually a girlfriendy boyfriendy sort of thing, but when I was in Manchester, myself and my friend, Murdoch, used to make compilation cassettes, if for no other reason than to try to outdo each other with the stupid titles and cover illustrations we could come up with for them.
I sent Murd "Rowdy Howdy". On the rowdy side was Death Metal. On the howdy side was Country and Western.
He sent back, "Even the vegetables screamed!", which was a horrendous mixture of unlistenable Grind-core nonsense, and a million beats per second dance music.
I sent back "Saturday night/Sunday morning". One side featured the kind of music that could peel paint off your walls. Basically a few guys beating musical instruments with a brick, while some Neanderthal screams insane nonsense into a microphone in a language no-one understands. Just what you want on a Saturday night. The Sunday morning side was all dreamy trippy-hippy stuff, you know, like Melanie, and the Mamas and the Papas. That kind of thing.
Then Murdoch delivered the coup de gras.
I can't remember any of the music on the tape, but I will never forget the title he gave it.
"Smell your Granny, she's boggin'!"

Start baking now!

Because if England actually win the World Cup, there will be a fierce demand among sport journalists for a large helping of humble pie.

Well done England.

They beat Slovenia. Slovenia.
They scored a crappy goal and then spent the last five minutes fecking about around the corner flag.
Top notch entertainment.
They are just about a football team.
Let's all just look forward to them getting knocked out on penalties in the quarter finals by Germany.
As usual.

Steven Gerrard's haircut.

You would think, what with the amount of money he earns, he could afford to pay more than 50p for a haircut.

Great goal by Dafoe!

What they didn't say was, my feckin' granny could have saved that. What was the goalkeeper thinking?

Normal? Who's normal?

Okay.
I once read an article in some magazine or something.
It said that the people you are sexually attracted to are a result of images that you were exposed to at the age of around seven. Seven is apparently the age when we start to become sexually aware.
The main body of evidence for this was that there are a large number of gas-mask fetishists among British people who grew up during the war, yet not many in America, where gas-masks were not issued so much at that time.
Sounds crazy.
But I am thinking there may be some truth in it.
You see, when I was about seven, my Mum used to buy this magazine called "Women's Own" , and I sometimes used to look at it.
There was an advert in it for a sort of a healthy fruit drink, called PLJ.
The advert featured a naked woman bending backwards with her arms above her head, in kind of a gymnast pose.
There was nothing pornographic or erotic about it, but she was naked, and I had never seen a naked woman before. It was fascinating to me.
The woman in the advert was of a fairly average build and she had quite small breasts.
I have always found that the women I find most attractive are of average build with quite small breasts.
So maybe there's something in it. If my Dad had read the Sun, I might be more attracted to busty blondes.
Can it really be that you will take someone to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until the day that you die, because they look similar to a photo you saw in a magazine when you were seven?

They certainly don't do it for the money.

Well, why pay them so much then?
I am sure top sport stars don't have money in mind when they start out, but it certainly seems to be having an influence on them now.
The Football World Cup is a good example.
You see, players don't get paid, as such, for representing their country. At least not in the same way their clubs pay them. And look at what happens. The french team in complete melt-down, the english players affronted that the fans are treating them with other than adulation when they perform like they just don't care.
One english player even turned down a place in the squad, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.
I think maybe what he meant to say was, "What's in it for me?"

Should

Schoud.
Shoud.
Should.
You know what you should have done? You should have spelt that word differently. It just doesn't look right to me.

You know what you should do?

You know what you should do?
No. But I have a dreadful feeling you are about to tell me.
What I should do.
What should I do?
Well you should get a decent haircut for a start, and then you should blah blah blah, blah blah blah.
Well do you know what I think you should do?
I think you should go and take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.
That's all the advice I'm going to give to you.

Fighting!

Briliant, isn't it? Nothing like a good fight.
But when did we realise that brutal violence was a better way to settle disputes than reasoned discussion?
History would perhaps suggest it was a fairly recent development. It has been suggested by some learned people that the Neanderthals died out because they lacked the power of speech, whereas we homosapiens survived because we had, in the words of every tedious job advertisement, excellent communication skills. So they were victims of natural selection because they they could only grunt or hit someone with a stick, while we developed the ability to say, " Could you pass me the salt?"
They had bigger brains than us, apparently.
Did we ever fight with the Neanderthals? Did we ever inter-breed with them? Nobody knows, but sometimes when I walk through Rathcoole, I suspect that we might have.
But back to the fighting. We are animals. The power of speech is not strong enough to make that go away.
Why do we fight?
Because we like it.
Go into any video shop and you will see they have a whole section dedicated to war movies. And most of the other movies will involve some sort of violence. And we respect violent people. They are strong, where people who are not good at being violent are seen as weak. Apart from maybe Gandi and Jesus.
Look at the world we live in. The highest honour a man can get is the Victoria Cross. You pretty much have to be in a war to get that little badge. And you have to be in it pretty deep. Single-handedly taking out machine gun nests and that sort of thing.
I recently single handedly painted a nice mural on a previously ugly tunnel under a motorway.
Now I don't expect the Victoria Cross for that. Maybe if I had been under constant sniper fire while I was doing it. But I wasn't.
The thing is, people don't have to be under threat of death to be heroes. Look at my Dad. His generation were thankfully spared a major war, but he brought up three balanced and successful children and me, while working tirelessly and imaginatively in a job he was brilliant at, without ever starting a fight with anyone.
Mind you, I did see Dad almost get in a fight once.
He was playing football at the time, and this big guy tried to start a fight with him. Dad gave as good has he got, and the big guy backed off.
Maybe it's okay to be a bit violent if you're provoked.

A dog in the street writes.

Today, after £200 million were spent, mostly on solicitors' fees, it was announced by a dog in the street that the Paratroop Regiment gunned down a load of people when they really shouldn't have on 30th January, 1972.
Hooray for Justice!
Hooray for Freedom!

I was too young to remember that, but I do remember the IRA killing a load of Paratroopers in Crossmaglen. Eighteen of them if I remember rightly, and some of them weren't much older than eighteen.
The murals and the gloating from the Republicans in the wake of this atrocity confused and sickened me.
Hooray for Justice!
Hooray for Freedom!

World Cup

Is that how they celebrate the beautiful game in South Africa?
By making your house sound like it is infected by a swarm of bees?
I personally won't be watching any more of it.
People who get paid more in a week than I earn in a year dribbling fairly unentertaining passes back and forward along the back four, and that bloody buzzing noise constantly, relentlessly microwaving your brain.
It kills the excitement of football.
The South Africans, like the Americans, obviously don't fully understand the game.
A constant din is just a constant din. The excitement in football is the ebb and flow of audience participation.
When your team scores, it's all, "You're not singing, you're not singing, you're not singing anymore!"
And when a shot goes close, or a goalie makes a good save, everyone goes, "Ooooh!"
And when a goal does eventually go in, everyone goes completely biccies, shouts at the top of their voice and hugs complete strangers.
That's half of what football is all about. If that atmosphere is drowned out by morons going, "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
" with crappy childrens' trumpets the whole way through the match, regardless of what is happening, that seems to me to defeat the whole purpose of watching football for pleasure.
Some of the best experiences I have had at football, are when one individual voice rings out.
I went to see Northern Ireland play Denmark once. Northern Ireland scored and we all went nuts for a minute or two.
Then Denmark equallized. There were a coach-load of Danish fans at the other side of the stadium, and they, fairly reasonably, started cheering and waving flags.
Then this big Belfast man about two rows back from us shouts, "Aye! Your fecking bus is on fire!"
Everyone laughed, because that is what football is all about.
I think some countries should be excluded. Because they just don't get it.

The Fear descends

It's not fear of flying. The actual flying part I don't mind. It's all the crap you have to go through beforehand.
I understand that security at airports is important and I suppose it's our own fault because it's so cheap now that you get herded like cattle.
I can still remember when air travel was considered pretty swanky, and the staff called you sir, and sounded vaguely like they meant it. And then you got loads of free stuff on the plane. Like tiny little tins of Coke, and tiny little bags of peanuts that you never saw anywhere else. It was like Gulliver's Travels.
Now it's just unpleasant and intimidating. I'm not much looking forward to it. Also I am flying to Gatwick, which has to be a candidate for the ugliest place on Earth.
But then we rock! (presuming I don't get mistaken for a terrorist and thrown into Guantanimo Bay )
I am quite pleased with my latest purchase. Millets are probably not best known for their comedy slogan tee shirts, but I was in there yesterday to buy a torch and there was a tee shirt with "YOUR TENT OR MINE?" which I thought was funny. I just hope when we get to the festival there aren't about a thousand other people wearing the same shirt.

Yes, Sir Alan

Right. Here's a man who looks like a chimpanzee. And as far as I can tell, despite what he thinks, he's about as intelligent as one. He invented the Amstrad computer. Which was rubbish. It took me two goes to pass my physics O' Level, and I think I could invent a better computer than the Amstrad.
I mean, who's still using an Amstrad?

Okay. One more post today.

Because the tunnel is pretty much finished. Just one panel of it left to do, because it was drizzling rain all day and there's not much point in painting the wall when it's wet, because the paint just runs and you have to do it all over again.
I am looking at getting a digital camera, so expect some photos soon.

Sorry to post so often today

But isn't Melvyn Bragg really annoying?
He has this way of asking a question that sort of suggests, "I obviously already know the answer to this because I'm so clever, but just for the benefit of our stupid listeners, would you care to expand on that point?"
And another really annoying thing on Radio 4 is the History of the World in 100 indescribably boring objects, described by indescribably boring people. And that music is doing my head in. Right. I'm away to finish painting the tunnel.

Wear pants. It makes sense

I got up yesterday, and I was running a bit late, so I was in a hurry getting dressed. I was looking around for some clothes, and I couldn't find a pair of pants. And I thought, "You know, I think I could just forgo pants today?"
It was a bad idea.
Pants are good. And going without them makes you feel a bit like you're only half dressed.
Well, today I am wearing pants. And they feel good.

Stop doing this

Now I don't want what I'm about to say to be misinterpreted. I respect older people. They won the war, which was fairly impressive, and we all appreciate that they did (apart from neo-Nazis).
But why are older people unconditionally entitled to things for free, which impacts on the rest of us?
For example, my Dad would be able to take the bus for nothing. Now, he doesn't. Because he has a very nice Mercedes car. I, on the other hand, don't have a very nice Mercedes car, but if I want to take the bus, it costs me £1.60.
The reason it costs me £1.60 is that half the people on the bus aren't paying for it. Now I assume this is somehow government subsidised, but there's nothing free unless you steal it, so we're all paying for it somewhere along the line.
Maybe older people should be encouraged to either own a nice Mercedes car, or just stay at home.
And here's another thing!
Right! (Rant alert)
They have a sign telling you to give up this seat for an elderly person. Aye, right. Even though you've paid for a ticket, you're expected to be prepared to stand up and allow someone who paid NOTHING to sit down? Is there any justice in this world?

Following Gerry's advice

Here's Gerry's advice.
"If you see a fly in your house, kill it straight away."
The thinking is, that if you kill them straight away they don't get an opportunity to breed, and then your house won't be full of them.
Sound advice there from your uncle Gerry.

shonen knife

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=astKY3mmDVI
I don't know how many of these girls you would go out on a date with, but I would personally go out with any of them.
 This song is a bit dodgy though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9RAbi2xEvo&NR=1
They supported Nirvana once. Kurt Cobain was a big fan, apparently.

Job Vacancy

I have a vacancy for a machine-gun nest operative. Duties will include sitting up all night and shooting anyone who grafittis my mural. Some digging and filling of shallow graves as required. Packet noodles, baked beans and a trangia stove will be supplied as part of an attractive salary package.
Apply in writing or in person.

This is really sad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xRaVTKDipA

A man whose talent just fell apart. He seems like a really nice person, but something just went really wrong somewhere.
RIP Roger "Syd" Barrett.

Is it just me or is everyone sick of hearing about England and the World Cup already, even though it hasn't even started yet?

Let's just hope they get knocked out by Germany on penalties, like they usually do. Otherwise we will never hear the end of it.

Mural update

Yesterday was guest painter day down at the mural.
First off was a group of four young skateboarders. They did a bit.
Then two blokes came along and asked if they could get involved.
Then I saw two Chinese students and asked them if they would like to lend a hand.
They all signed their names on it, the Chinese girls writing theirs in Chinese script, which I think, lends a certain multi-cultural feel to the whole project.
Today I am going down there, but I suspect I am just going to paint the thing myself.
An occupation Damien Hirst would find alien.

As if squatting wasn't enough.

When I lived in Manchester everyone squatted.
You were considered to be some kind of idiot if you actually paid rent for accommodation. All you had to do was find an unoccupied flat, and break in.
Not satisfiyed with that, we came up with a scheme to avoid paying the electricity bills.
When a bill came in, we would phone the electricity company and say, "I don't know who those people are. We've just moved in here last week."
They would say, " Oh, sorry. We'll issue you a new account. What's your name?"
So every time a bill came in we just repeated the same process, giving them a different name each time, and they fell for it every time.
And this is where it got funny.
I think we were the first people to do it, because we told them the house holder was Mr. Foo Man Choo.
They issued us with a card and we never paid a penny for our electricity.
Anyway. The word got around , and then everyone was doing it. And there was a sort of a competition to see who could come up with the most ridicuolous name.
My friend Murdoch always won. Among the names that he submitted were... Mr. Fhrr ( how do you spell that? ) and Mr. McGonagonagogal.
I swear I am not making this up.
We did this for a couple of years. I can't believe we got away with it.

Artists can continue to make a very poor living with the exception of wonky faced Greek looking purveyors of what is, in most peoples opinion, a pile of Shoite.

That's basically true.
You can talk all your hoof-head bollocks about art that you like.
I spent today painting a tunnel. And am I expecting to win the Turner Prize for it?
No, I'm not. I'm getting a day's pay for a day's work.
That's art.

Re: Squirrel eating a burrito

Okay.
I know you might be thinking, "That squirrel's not eating a burrito. It's just posed in front of a piece of lettuce eating a bit of cheese or something. That doesn't look like any burrito I've ever seen."
Well.
I typed " Squirrel eating a burrito" into Google image search, and this picture came up.
That's good enough for me.
I've never actually had a burrito, but in my mind it is not beyond the realms of possibility that burritos contain not only cheese, but lettuce as well.
So like I said, that's good enough for me.
If anyone wants to have a fight about it, don't come round my house tomorrow morning. Because I will be out. I'm a very busy man.
And don't be coming round and throwing stones at my window the next day, because I hate to be disturbed while I am trying to watch the ommlette challenge on Saturday Kitchen.
It's a sin to fight on Sunday, and Monday I'm busy again.
So just leave it.
Okay?
Unless Tuesday suits you.

I don't know!

I had an idea of something I felt I wanted to talk about. But this web log thing made me enter more passwords than Napolean Solo, and then eat the evidence, or something, and I have completely forgotten what I was going to say.

Which was something really important. Really IMPORTANT!

But it's gone now thanks to this stupid site and its security. I can't remember it. 

I mean who would want to hack into my web log and write nonsense under the pretense that they were me?
I contest that no-one would.
NO-ONE!

So in the meantime, until I remember what profound or profoundly inane thing I was going to say, you will just have to make do with a picture of a squirrel eating a burrito.

Sorry about that.