Be Excellent To Each Other

Oh them? I preferred their 4-track demos.

Yeah, about three years ago I think. MaliA and I think Bobby kept giving him different things to drink.

Yeah, I like the music, but as fond as I am of Luke his 'singing' is not my style.

Heh, thanks.

Pfft. Sure it was just Bobby.he is a reprobate.

Awesome! I don't have headphones with me and I'm at work, so I won't listen right now. It seems like the sort of thing that might not go over well in an open plan office.

Do they actually make cash from Spotify? I've read a few things saying bands get about 1/3p per play from it.

Just asked him:
"Yeah but it's not enough for it to be like a measurable amount, every thousands of plays is few pennies or something silly"

Sam says...
"Unfortunately it doesn't work like that anymore! some clever guy uploaded an album of silence and got all his mates to leave it on repeat and made a fair bit of money so its goes of views per i.p address in a 24hour cycle like YouTube I like the effort though!"

Matt says...
"Fear not, it's running on four proxied virtual machines and will be from now until there's a power cut, so it'll get there eventually."

Brilliant.

This is tonight! I'm excited (and still believe, obv.). Currently sitting in a hipster bar opposite the venue trying to identify likely crowd members. I've a circle ticket as I'm not really a mosh-pit person.

Enjoy.

Patsy won a mug from the hipster shop on The Tombola at the Christmas Whatnit. It has a bird on it.

Yesterday I had a brilliant day out at Gulliver's land near Milton Keynes.

My friends and I have all got kids now (theres 20 of us including kids!) so rather than buy all the kids presents, we decided to spend the money on a day out together and it was lovely. We met Santa, saw a mini pantomime, had a go on some rides and generally spent the day together.

So much easier than having to worry about what to buy everyone.

This is superb.

Christ, I've been there. It's, um, well, couldn't you have gone to Legoland or something?

I know exactly what you mean but one of my friends picked it and our kids are young enough to appreciate it still.

The high street was done out with a load of Christmas decorations too so I thought it actually looked quite nice. It snowed at one point too!

Went to my sons first nativity play last night.

He was a star both in the role he played and how he behaved and joined in

I was worried he would try and run off the stage when we noticed us in the audience but he stayed up there and sang all the songs with all the other kids.

The school let us take video as long as you agreed not to share it on Facebook etc as some parents don't like that, thought that was a nice touch in this day and age.

The standard of the show was amazing, all the kids where 3-5 and it was in tune and they all got their lines right.

Obviously not Shakespeare, but a credit to the kids and teachers!

Izzy's brought home with her the script and character list etc. for her school nativity play. It's a bit different to when I was her age.

The Narrator does 90% of the talking, and Mary, Joseph, the Three Kings and the Innkeepers are all non-speaking parts.

What's that about, then?

Forcing the kids to act is probably a violation of their human rights, or something.

I have to go to Georges today... They are a bit different

I think they have lots of narrators, rather than just one.

My eldest isn't doing a nativity this year. The teacher has explained that it's disruptive to the learning of the whole class and it's hard to get the reception and nursery together for it. Instead they're doing Christmas carols on the play ground.

I read this as the teacher saying "I'm lazy and can't be bothered to do one"

My wife went in and challenged her about it but got nowhere. My wife is a teacher and teaches exactly the same age so she knows what it's like. One of the excuses the teacher came up with was that she'd "have to book the hall"

Ridiculous.

Jesus

Last year, Mini Fop the First was at a Montessori nursery and they, inevitably, did something secular rather than the nativity. So we had The Lorax by Dr Seuss, and it was ace. Total chaos, the kid playing the Lorax bounding about the stage like a maniac, the narrator bellowing incoherently into a megaphone like Mark E Smith, kids playing trees, fishes and so on. And some excellent songs, with rewritten versions of 500 Miles and Les Fleurs.

This year she's at a normal school and will be singing some Christmas songs this afternoon, which I'm sure will be lovely too, though not as pleasingly anarchic.

Last year was a celebration of different cultures around the world and what children do in those places for Xmas. This year is a more traditional nativity. It's quite funny that the little one has asked us permission to be in it because she doesn't believe in God! Watching her have theological discussions about Jesus with her Jewish friend is most amusing.

That would be an ecumenical matter, bum face.

Mines at a Catholic school, its my wife's religion not mine, but they aren't heavy on it. Its the religion of the school but you don't have to have your kids christened etc to go there.

They also do other faiths in the year, he had to go in dressed up for Dwali day in October.

My wife and I don't agree on the christening thing I think he should choose for himself, but I don't mind that he learns the Jesus part of Christmas as regardless of your beliefs its part of what Christmas is about.

If you take Christ out of Christmas, you end up with mas, which is a bit close to mash if you ask me. Why don't we have mash for Christmas dinner, answer me that? Bloody muslims.

You don't have mash with your Christmas dinner...? Everyone with a sense of decency mashes their boiled potatoes with their gravy anyway, so I just pre-mash it and then you only have to stir your gravy in. Job done, on to dessert!

Mr. flis got a rather amazing leaving present when he left for his new job last week. Two tickets, including flights and accommodation, to watch Ireland vs. Wales in the Six Nations Which is well good. And saves me having to buy them, which was Christmas gift idea no.2

It's political correctness gone mad.

I suspect we're off to The Church for the nursery singalong. I quite like The Church, as I take Brexit there as tea and cake is £1 and I can talk about Chamber music.

Get.

The fuck.

Out.

Boiling any vegetable is the best way to remove any flavour - potato more so because of the myriad ways you can cook it to make it taste amazing.

Literally any other way.

Potatoes are pretty horrible unless you add fat to them somehow or other really.

And salt. Lots of salt.

I just...I don't...what?! Boiled potatoes with Christmas dinner?! BURN THE WITCH.

I think last year we had 3 different types of potato for Christmas dinner: boiled, roasted and mashed (and I think the roasted were done in two ways, some were done in the meat juices and some were seasoned with herbs and stuff)

Yes but you also have chips, salad and fish fingers so get out

Nooooo! You've got it all wrong!! I do not have boiled potatoes. When I used to live at home or go anywhere else that supplied potatoes boiled, I mashed them up with my gravy to make them taste... of... food. Now that I am the master of my own Christmas dinner destiny, we have mash and the mash always has something added to it.

The first time I gave Mr. flis and his children mash with cheese in, or mustard, or anything actually (they'd been eating it overcooked and mashed in it's own starchy ooziness prior to that) they thought it was some kind of magic.

But...but...roast potatoes.

Not for christmas dinner.

I think last year we had

Roast Beef, Roast Turkey and Roast Lamb
Boiled Potatoes, Mashed potatoes, Roast Potatoes, Croquets and Pasta
Stuffing, and Pigs in blankets
Roast parsnips, roast carrots
Boiled carrots, boiled cabbage, boiled sprouts, boiled cauliflower, boiled broccoli,
tinned peas, frozen peas

There was probably more, but I forget

PASTA!!!!!!!!!!!

Tinned AND frozen peas

Owen (my eldest) doesn't like potatoes unless they are chips.



I think we cooked for 8 people last year, 3 people preferred tinned peas, 3 people wanted frozen, the other 2 didn't want either and as the two cooks wanted different things, we did different things.

Obviously!! The inclusion of mash does not mean we don't have roast potatoes! And some kind of weird garlic and cream potato thing.

Ah, but Craster will think that because you have mashed potatoes, there's less space for roast potatoes.

It's the same as his bread sauce theory: "I don't want bread sauce because I want more gravy instead."

Taken to that extreme, the perfect Christmas dinner is four portions of JOWL and nothing else.

...

Well, damn.

Well I won that argument with surprisingly little effort.

JOWL?

Silent J.

Mmmmm, jowl.