You will be delighted to know that this is the last from the jukebox for a while
Hurrah!
Back to Debbie.
Well, she's a looker ain't she? I like the squinty shapes her mouth makes as she sings. Like a Gibbs SR toothpaste advert.
And such a snappy little dresser!

May I be indulged? Not long now, just a little longer.
We're coiling up the ropes and polishin' the gimbals, raking throught the signals chest for the blue peter.
Wind's changin' see. Turnin' warm, turnin' offshore, tide's stopped too.
It'll turn soon now as well.

Think we'll have some more Janis.
It has been a very Joplinesque week. And I have been singing White rabbit for days, esp the intro (one of the best ever) and I need to clear my palate.


Play LOUD!

I am, you may be surprised to hear, a brave man. I take no credit; it’s a trick!
I learned how to do it on an Outward Bound course. Any fear, you just switch it off. I have to qualify that by saying I am also shot through with a craven cowardice like veins of gold in quartz. That’s right! It’s the cowardice that keeps us all alive.
Anyway, I have made the drinks run to Tesco these last five nights and bought the exact same items every time. Three litres of perry, two litres of squeezed orange juice, a bottle of Basics vodka and some fairy liquid just for the look of the thing. I have made sure my shirt is tucked in and my shoes are polished. (cowardice, see?). This is all to do with Kim Ayres and me saying to him that I wanted to work the checkouts. I’m sure of it.
Anyway, the other night there was a young student type on the till and bugger me if he didn’t engage me in conversation the little weasel. lets call him "Overly familiar checkout guy"
(OFCG)

So, while he was packing:

OFCG: alright?
Me: yeah...
OFCG: been a hard day, eh?
Me: yeah, something like that..
OFCG: hard week more like!

I thought; this is just what I need. They are either squashing all your stuff down the end of the conveyor belt or doing behavioural science 101 on you. So, I LOOKED at him. I looked into his very soul and he shut the fuck up.

So next night I bought the exact same stuff and I’m walking down looking for an empty till and I see him again. My first thought was “fuck” then, “Christ, I am a customer! I’ll go to any till I please.”
So he says hi and starts to put the stuff through. He stopped at the Basics vodka. Something had clicked. He looked up at me and it was all I could do not to wink at him.
That’s right my friend, the psycho’s back for his fix.
He never bothered to ask for a loyalty card.

Am I a domestic god? I have spent the best of the day cleaning the Perth foot on the ground. It was far from improving. Fear and loathing in the heart of darkness more like. I am concerned that a future burglar might disapprove of my obvious corner cutting and leave me a note calling me a slovenly bastard.
When do you know when it’s time to change the bed? When your very best Egyptian cotton sheets look like the Turin fucking Shroud, that’s when.

That’s not the whole reason right enough. No. I was on the drinks run to Tesco and overheard four boys talking at the door. One of them made a remark to his friend about a girl he knew and I was suddenly so angry. So very angry indeed I will never repeat it so don’t ask. I looked at the four of them and I knew I’d get a beating and I still wanted to jump up and down on his vile head. I’d be in fucking Broadmoor unable to explain myself.
Ho hum, a nice Jaffa cake and milky tea will cheer me up.
Nothing beats the smell of lavender pledge. Know what it smells like? Smells like victory. One day my war will be over.

Derange! That's what they said. However, here it is because I love her so very much. The beautiful white song, sung by beautififul white kids, for beatiful white kids, in a beautiful white summer. white rabbit.

Nine years later, we, the punks of this world, spat in their eye.
Hooray!

nb play it loud!

I had a terrible terrible crush on Grace Slick, I finally shook it off three weeks ago last Wednesday. She's a bloody good singer.

But, we must not leave the Jukebox just yet.
Ah yes London in the eighties.
Wasn’t it more sunny then?

I was twenty before I took any notice of Janis Joplin. There was a film documenting her life on tour for a year. I watched it in a smelly little cinema in Cambridge high on hash. Fifteen minutes in, I was a convert. Watching her matured me and I was devastated to discover she was already dead.
This trip down the Maroon tow path must be a pain in the friggin’ haggis for you all.
I know SheBah will be reaching for her Gucci sick bag and we may not be here tomorrow (according to Ayres), so get it while you can.

Update: the bastard thing won’t embed so if you want to see it (and by Christ, you better) you must follow this link.
late update! It does embed.


These songs will finish soon I promise, there is nothing worse than a drunken host hogging the Dansette at the party.

Everyone got a drink?

LET’S SNOG!

Love this song, and after all my mathematical profundity, what a welcome change!

You will all be familiar with looking at a misshapen vase only to suddenly see the silhouettes of your handsome father and beautiful mother. Imagine then a remarkable young schoolboy surfing through mathematics like a bowl of frosties and now under the tutelage of a famous Cambridge don returned to his old school talent spotting. The young lad is struggling with something, it’s instinctive, and the old don tells him to relax, not to think, not to try and grasp the concept, just keep going, and see what you will see. Well, none of you know the language of mathematics, no offence, it’s not your fault, but that afternoon, something went clunk and the boy stared at the old don who wasn’t that old at all now that he noticed and the don smiled back, because he knew that the boy had just seen a landscape that he never knew existed. More, he knew how privileged the boy felt to have been led to such a precious gift.

Well the boy grew up and pissed some of his life away having a high old time of it, but that profound feeling of understanding and privilege returned to him today 10 minutes before he met his brand new chairman. So he smiled and his eyes watered a bit and he girded his loins and met his new chairman. He looked the fucker in the eye and led his team. He ran over his allotted time by an hour and at the end the new chairman thought the sun shone out his ass and shook his hand and told him to come and see him in Toulouse and Dick was furious because he said fuck all to him and he was back in his car on the M90 by 8pm and here I am, sitting here, wondering not for the first time, if there might be a God after all. If there is, She is smiling on me. I have been so lucky recently.

And so, back to work keeping Britain's balance of payments in the red. The prospect fills me with such dread. I'd rather put my hand in a bag of ferrets. Aren't Monday nights awful? I once confessed to Ayres that I'd like to be a checkout girl at Sainsburys and just sit there all day pushing stuff past that laser thing. I said it would be great. After a while I would start making comments to the customers about all the rubbish they were buying. He was right, he said I'd hate it and I should buck my ideas up.
A Maroon was never beat! I shall set my lantern eyes and gimlet jaw to the wind and all shall break against me like hurricane Gustav (shit name for a storm) but I shall remain. Gigantic and magnificent.
Something like that. I'm off to work, wish me luck.

I'm just a little blue today.

Here she is.

Ok, that was good ol' Blondie.
This one's going out to a 'very good friend of mine, Mr Conan Drumm, I think he'll preciate it.
and also anyone else who's tryin' to get a handle on the ol' doctor, (yrs truly) here.

LETS ROCK!

Please stay tooned for Ella Fitzgerald,. (the best singer ever.)

"No, I don't believe in luck..."

This week I have been mainly listening to Blondie and that little teaser who says she kissed a girl and liked it- the taste of her cherry chapstick. Well I ask you.

I had forgotten just how beautiful Debbie Harry was, so here she is.

Well it was either going to be her or Rick Wakeman.

Doctor Maroon’s Hangover Cures Number 1

(There IS no number 2. Trust me, I’m a fucking Doctor)

Take 500 mg Paracetamol
Take 500mg ibuprofen
Take 500 mg aspirin BP
Take 1 Beecham’s powder.

Wash down with copious shambuie.
An Auld Alliance of Scotch and French, d’ye see?
Liqueur and champagne
You mix it 4:1 champagne to liqueur.
Put the champagne in the glass first you dolts!

(That carpet was cleaned last month.)

Swallow!

Just had a call from Mater. I was expecting it; they have a quality much prized by secret intelligence services around the world. They can pick up the slightest nuance, careless word, pause, anything and then focus on it with forensic ruthlessness using every lever in the toolbox to get IT out of you. It’s intrusive telepathy like in that film The Village of the Damned.

Hi mum,

Achilles, it’s your mother

Yeah I know, it tells me before I answer

How is everyone?

Fine thanks

How are you? How was your day? Still busy?

Well not so much…

Still having to work away overnight?

It’s tailing off now, we…

And what about within yourself?

What?

How are you, within yourself?

Is everything all right mum?

I am perfectly fine, it’s you I’m worried about.

Why are you worried about me?

How did you get on last Saturday at the dockyard?

It was fucking awful

That, is a terrible way to speak to your mother. Anyone could be listening.

Everyone’s out.

Someone could be listening at the exchange.

Really? I don't think so.

Hmmm

What. What is it?

Something’s different.

I’ve got to go mum there’s someone at the door.

Please keep in touch.

Right-mum-bye.

That was close.

Shite for shore eyes.

What’s the old clown thinking about? Not only has he produced a bewk, but also called it “Being a Scot” Pass the sickbag Alice. Here’s a tip for you Shir Shean, STOP.
‘kin Hell. I mean, getting your nutty wife to ghost write your autobiography; why, that would be like me writing a tedious pisspoor tale about the True Cross being found in Scotland (Pilate’s birthplace) in a weak formulaic attempt to jump on the Da Vinci Code bandwagon…
Oh.

Hi everyone, it’s time for MIDWEEK ROUNDUP! Foot Eater is in Sood Effrika (mid winter there) and is moaning that Cape to Rio is rotgut. Well of course the FIRST one is, but after that there is no finer raw white spirit currently on the market in Southern Africa.. I like mine with ice and bitter lemon, -ZESTY! Talking of which, our zesty southern belle Savannah, and Kitchen Bitch Eryl apparently visit our good friend Mr Gorilla Bananas, (Best Blog yeah, yeah, get on with it) but both remain silent. See that? Mr Bananas? I’ve still got it mate. Me an’ Sav go way back, back to the days of Dick Headley, and quite often we’ll burn the midnight oil with a tincture or two, And Eryl said she would spit in the Vice Chancellor's crème brulee if it came to it, so, you maybe get the awards chum, but I get the burds. Talking of which, Kim Ayres is moving in on Pat when we had an agreement, - he took an oath the bastard, - that he wouldn’t. The future of the Blogosphere is at stake! Funny how life in the unreal world of Russia and Georgia (not that one Sugar) is mirroring life as we know it here. Back off man, I’m a scientist. You’ve been warned. Conan Drumm, Chipping Norton MUST be a corruption of the French. Which brings me back to Foot Eater, and his solipstic claim that I was never further south than Kirkintilloch; Johannesburg mate! That’s the furthest south I’ve been. Any further south and you’re in Shackleton territory, which brings us back to… Nearly forgot. Harry Hutton (leader of our Order) posted the perfect post on the death of Solzhenitsyn. It was exactly what I wanted to say but was too crap to manage . It begins; "Champion bore Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died." That's the spirit.

Down the hatch! Now!

Live, on videotape, from the stardust room of the British Legion, Chipping Norton…

It’s the MAROONS!

Before we open the envelope,

[and…clear! Two minutes everybody!].]

Some of you may have noticed recently that a new blogger has turned up. Mrs Pincer or Pounder or something, I can’t remember, I’ve hardly exchanged a word with her. Still, nonetheless, it would be inhospitable not to welcome new blood to the group, so to this end I’m off to Edinburgh to have a tryst.

What about Mrs Maroon? I hear you call. That is a problem I’ll admit, but I had a brainwave - I’m not going to tell her! She would only get the idea into her head that I was somehow dissatisfied and had decided to “play away” and this sort of thought can be disturbing to a woman so I thought it better to make up some tale about overnight project meetings, hey! It could happen, the globalised 24/7 world we live in…
I’m much more worried about Fatmammycat, my Ether Soul Mate and focus of all my hopes; but she seems determined to fall in love and live happily ever after, so I’ll just have to sit out the next 25 years (I have the patience of the Sphinx, well who wouldn’t with such a prize on offer?)
So that’s what I’m going to do.
In the meantime, because SafeT and Binty have turned up again, I am going to do the Maroons and for a change, there is going to be only one winner and we all know who it is. It’s like the football league, we know at the start of the season who’s going to be there at the end. MY DECISION IS FINAL.
I had planned to increase the tension by some means but couldn’t think of anything.
What I will say is this. The women bloggers are much, much better writers than the men. None of them can drive a car to save their lives but they all write better than any of us; Harry Hutton included [Leader of our Order]
I’ve wondered about this, whether blogging is a medium that particularly suits women for some reason, whatever it is, their quality of writing is ahead of ours by a country mile. Having said that, you get a bloody good laugh with the men, it’s a testosterone thing, the godam wimmin wouldn’t understand, right…

[back in 5, 4, 3, 2…]

Welcome back everyone. The winner of the Maroon 2008 for getting everything right and being the best of bloggers, like, all the time, is neither man nor woman but Mr Gorilla Bananas!

Tarra!

Mr Gorilla Bananas, couldn’t be with us tonight so his good friend Mynah Bird will accept the award on his behalf…

Quick, turn it over, I think Morse is starting on channel 10.