jellylegs

Britain has a new great comedy show - Directors Commentary with Peter De Lane is hysterical. Absolutely fan-bloody-tastic
Watch it.
"Vintage De Lane"

So last night I went to the Villa semi second leg. Fantastic game, great atmosphere and Villa put in a fine performance to win the game 2-0. We needed 3 goals though put with 10 men for most of the match we gave a great account of ourselves.

Anyhow got back from Brum and went to see Runaway Jury in the multiplex. It was at enjoyable romp with Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and John Cusack. On the way out we were strolling towards the exit when a young school girl approached us to offer two free tickets to a preview of The School of Rock..............which was nice.

hey

First day back.............

So finally went back to college today even though I was due in since monday. Good to be back. Thrown straight into the panic when the first thing I was told was 'Hey Steve, Your name was called out in Roy Greenslades calss yesterday. Supposedly he mistakenly received your international relations essay before xmas as well as the one ment for him' What a glorius start! So went to sort out that prob today. Not really a bother but was just not the best return. Then my feature was chosen as the one to debate in class. I awaited for someone to stand him and scream "Why am I wasing my time reading this shit". Thankfully though it never happened. Actually went quite well. Bits and pieces to pull up on but it's only the first draft. The final draft will appear on this site in the coming days for those interested.

Listening to a demo by a guy called Peter Doran. He's from Mullingar and a mate of my friend Morgan. It's great stuff. Bit rough around the edges but definitly as good as anything I've heard in awhile. Quite a grower. The boy has the tunes. Hopefully more will soon here it.

Anyway I might pop by later. Villa play in the Carling Cup semi final first leg tonight. It's a big night. 7.45 sports fans
Over and out
Steve

I hate that the advertisement thing on my site is about rats and mice. I hate that they read my text and have rats and mice ads gazing out.

Last night I had the best ever night out in London. Superb. Danny (ex observer editor) came over and we went on the tear with Enda, Dean and Gearoid. ate some indian....food. Got locked in a pub till 3am...because we're Irish....and free drink...because we're Irish. God I love being Irish!!

Nothing like reading a drunk blog post ranting about music eh...................(see yesterday or rather the early hours of this morning) but I think I came off alright.

So today. dealt with my trobbing head with some lucozade and a dash to college where I began work on my website (due monday). I had originaly hoped to focus on something interesting, like a site devoted to Woody allen or something but my lack of time has seen me stoop for the personal site, 'Stephen Cummins online'. I know, I know but eh, what are you gonna do? I'm also, of late, been looking into getting a programme for my computer to make the dvd drive region free. I have a disc to make my playstation read any region disc but you need a modern tv to get colour and sound while using it, (it's a long story). Our tv was the first tv in history. chuffed at first to have such an historical tv set. it's coppled together with loose nails everywhere and plexi glass. very retro, very hoxton. Old school you know but it doesn't solve my region free problem.
Anyway I want the region free thing (it's 25 dollers) so I can buy some of the newer woody allen films online and also Lost in translation which is available in it's region 1 format.

So also today I got more of these 'I read your blog and I'm concerned about you' correspondence. Two more to be exact, and while it's wonderful to have people concerned about you it's also sort of unsettling. I've had a few such emails, calls in the last 3 weeks. It's unsettling because I didn't think i was giving out that vibe. sure i'm down and pissed off and unsettled at times but so is everyone. Orlagh thinks I'm divulging too much private feelings, "your being to private, too personal, maybe you should hold back, be funny". Funny! I thought I was being funny. I dunno. Now I'm even more confused though my 'down time' is over. I'm back on the boat. A little wet but I'm there. I dunno, maybe I'm being 'too honest'. I know like it's embarassing for some people because they may be embarrassed for me. Maybe I shouldn't wash my linen in public. Maybe I'm becoming a moaner. Maybe I am a moaner. Maybe I should stop beginning with maybe and stop asking my computer questions! I dunno. I'll do what comes nat-ura-ly. There i said it! Switch away if your unsure about the online version of Steve or send me a quiet

email

You know I've just decided that I'm never gonna be worried again and I'm gonna look paranoia in the eye and say 'enough thou feeble meandering beast' because it's cool to use old english syle. Ethan Hawke told me that as he pulled another novel out of his ass, sorry head. Back to the point. No more paranoia because theres a chip shop very near my flat that is run by two italien/greek guys. There's the boss guy and his deranged looking, never speaks, is always berated and is obviously brain dead, sidekick whom I like to call 'Igor'. Now Igor's boss is the most paranoid man in the world. He's always looking at the window. If a youth comes in he panics and serves them immediatly - "Kids around here. you got to a get them out quickly before they get there friends in and makea the trouble". When you order he never listens. He asks 'open or closed' when serving the chips. he speaks turned to his site on the look out for youths, scared shitless,. He always ALWAYS gives you your chips 'open' no matter what you say. He's looking at becoming Igor. He's a nervous wreck. Paranoid like you wouldn't believe.
So whenever I worry. Whenever I panic and drift to paranoia I think of being that guy. I think of Igor wrapping up snack boxs and then remembering he forgot to cook the chicken. I say' don't go there. look at the result. Resist'
The irony of this is as I write I'm already worrying about becoming 'Chip guy'!!

# posted by Steve @ 11:19 p.m. 0 comments

My biggest regret in life…………………

Not seeing U2 in Slane. That is the biggest regret in my life. Even if I wanted I couldn’t have got a ticket. U2 ARE THE GREATEST BAND EVER…….EVER. For SO many fuckin’ reasons. Tunes….voice…..music….influence…inspiration. Whatever you may say about Bono (and if it’s negative and your Irish…it’s not valid……we Irish despise our own fortune and others too. We’re shits…..unfortunately). But seriously Bono is Ireland’s greatest ambassador…along with Bob G. Only ambassadors to actually give a shit me thinks. They make a difference... no matter how small. I will respect those men for ever for using a position I may never gain, and making a difference...no matter how small.
U2 have also released phenomenal records. Just listening to their greatest hits…their live shows… is a dream.

God bless U2……the greatest band in the world….the greatest people involved in a shit industry… the men. I love Ireland more because of you. You make me proud to be Irish.

A beautiful Moment..........

In the Slane DVD, someone throws Bono up a tri-colour. Bono has never worn a tri-colour. He has always flown a white flag during Irish gigs stating that claiming a crass nationalism was a part of the Irish problem. He’s all too right. But during ‘New Years Day’ he dons the flag looking up to the hill…at his manager...maybe. And he states, “Just once….” He’s back home. A glorious celebration of being Irish and showing the world. Of being Irish and making a difference. Of being Irish and being home amongst your people and of achieving the highest honour. Headlining Slane…twice. But Bono, being Bono, goes on… “Just once…imagine your Jason McAteer (the Dutch game had just happened earlier)…imagine… Come on Ireland!!!!!!!!........The republic of Ireland soccer team- the best support act we’ve ever had”. And then he throws the flag back to the crowd. that was 'a moment', he seemed to say. that was it. And boy was it beautiful. beautiful for more reasons. not because of nationalism but because it was anti-nationalism in a way, yet pro the moment. beautiful in such a way that it can't be explained. it's not that simple. it's not black and white. It's Ireland!!
Bono is God. A man of morals. A man of sense. A man of politics. A man, I wish there was more of.

I finally started my feature (due next week) and quickly switched topics after a lack of belief on my part off what i was writing. I'm now focussed on a new topic. more on that soon

I'll keep it short today. Saw Lost in Translation today and it's fantastic. really spurs you in to writing. Highly enjoyable, influencial and just generally great.
go see.
more tomorrow my friends

Great weekend. lots of drinking and getting to know new friends. Really makes a difference to life in London because as I still await returning to college, the one thing I've been missing here is a social life. So thats great. turned out as well that they got tickets for a load of gigs we're off to which is great.
I'll not stay for long, I've a feature to do for uni next week on unsolved mysteries and how they're now being solved by advancements in technology, etc. If anyone has any ideas, info, etc Email me.

So The short story may now never see the light of day because , to be blunt, it's shit...ish. It's great learning for me but yee would laugh.
In other news I was, well I dunno how to say this, but.......John Lydon (Rotton) is to appear on 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' in two weeks. It's either another mind bloggling move following his appearance on Judge Judy OR (which I suspect) its going to be a great tv moment. tHE man is an intellectual genius. One step ahead of the rest and well clued in. Worth a watch if only to see a genius with a big mouth Vs an idiot (Jordan) with a big gob. " Johnny who" with the response, "Jordan who? never fuakin heard of yeah....but I recognise the tits"

P.S I've been really getting into the new Strokes album lately. It's brilliant brilliant brilliant. Good on ya Mr Casablancas (What a name!)

So yesterday I wrote a short story that I intend to post up here in the next day or two. Just gonna let it breathe abit and then I'll touch it up. It's about a recently unemployed 20 odd year old who sits on his backwall for most of the day. The backwall looks out at Mountjoy prison entrance and side.
Also yesterday I went to Starbucks and was perplexed, and quite annoyed, by the fact that they have published a leaflet on "how to order a coffee at Starbucks". You have to indulge them in their own wanky language in order to get a coffee at extorionate prices!!
Welcome to the big smoke....

Ok brief mouse update. While i was in the pub Orlagh saw him and chased him around the house before losing him. He nimbled at the traps again. I reset them. No catch. I'm now going to take them away from tomorr and go full on with poison and possibly glue traps which will catch the bugger alive. Gross I know but fuck it. It's him or me at this stage.

Leaving that subject, a great win for the villa last night. We were lucky with the second goal but it's about time we were granted our share of ladyluck. Great opener from Angel and we are now in 6th place. An extraordinary achievement considering this time last month we were in the bottom three. O'leary seems to be finally settling on a style and its paying off. He says it will take him 3-5 years to get the team where he wants it. He's got a 5 year deal and on the evidence so far Villa's fortunes may soon change for the better. 6th in the premiership and in the semi final of the Carling cup. Our season has finally turned about.

Currently listening to u2. Been listening to alot of music lately. Bono is truly the man. A great pop star but also rooted in his irishness and the sentiments which accompany his nationality. Crackin tunes as well.

I am Neil Diamond

So I was on google and decided to check if this blog would appear under my own name in the search field when I stumbled upon this little beauty.
It doesn't get much better then this, etc
Me and Neil Diamond

So I now sit with a bottle of jameson in one hand and a big long stick I found in the back of the airing press. It's thick and slightly longer then a mop handle. I've boarded up the, well sort of covered, the heater for I think the mouse/mice/ rat (see below) are living. Its located where a fire place used to me and it's my prime suspect for a nesting area. The little cunt faced bastard taunted me again last night and this morn. I saw him yesterday only for him to cowardly run for cover. FACE YOUR DESTINY YOU MOTHERFUCKER. Sorry. Well last night he lifted the cheeze without setting off the trap and did the same again this morning. I've now opted for mars bar as my bait because its sticky and hopefully he won't be able to lift that as easily. I called the estate agent/land lord type people and there going to get on to my mystery landlord and get him to ordr in rentokill. Well the councils version of rentokill anyhow. I just hope they come before I do something stupid! I feel like taht guy, oh whats his name... Richard I think. I feel like Richard the main character in The Beach.
Oh with regards the rat thing, I got a great email from Amy that was meant to reassure me abit but this segment made me laugh uncontrollably. It inevitably made me more paranoid but I like it. "The rodent thing sounds shit - I hope you've sorted it out. By the way, a rat can fit anywhere a mouse can, not trying to freak you out or anything, just letting you know."
Its like a doctor saying "you could die from this, not trying to freak you out but you should know" Classic stuff and it cheered me up while lifting me to new unforseen heights of paranoia
Well anyhow, between me and the whiskey, and the battering pole I shall attack the vermin with, one of us will be knocked out shortly!
So later folks. I predict a 2-0 win for Villa tonight (live on sky sports 2). Angel to score both.
Till next time

Yesterday I bought the first season of Dawson's creek on DVD in the New Years sale. I spent today watching some of the episodes and trying to grasp why I harbour such an emotional attachment to this show. I know all the drawbacks and criticisms of the show and its flaws but for me it means something special. I was 17 when I first saw it and in a way grew up with it. I always wanted that life as well. Far from reality. The great setting along coastal america, the love, the hope, and the dreams. It was, and is, a blessed form of escapism as far as tv shows go. Reading back over the episode guides I can almost place where i was and what was happening in my life when i first saw each episode of the teen saga. I thought about the show and myself last night and woke up this morning confused. For a minute I thought I was back home in Drumconrath, that things were starting over. When reality kicked in I felt like bursting out. I felt regret. Regret at the way I've done things over the last 5 , going on 6, years. I wanted to be 17 again. To start over, to wipe out my college years and do them again. To do them differently.
I remember watching the first D.C. episode. I was at home in Meath and it was a lazy summer Saturday afternoon. I was in the middle of my leaving cert and it proved a welcome distraction to watch this new, and at the time highly controversial series. It aired on UTV and I caught almost every episode over the coming 2-3 years. During college I drifted from the show and it to drifted from its roots though last months final episode was exceptional. Well scripted great drama and heart-wrenching. I cried at the end more so that I felt like a part of me had died. It still tugs at me even now when I think of it.
So what do I want? I want that life. I want my youth back. I want to escape urban life. I want to detach myself from the city, from all urban life. To live in the country. To hold small town values. To return to the days when watching Dawson's Creek was a highlight. When Friday nights meant new friends on Channel 4. I want the innocence of Kevin Williamson's D.C. I want....... I want... I want what I can no longer have. Reality sucks and i just want a vacum to suck me out. 'Dawson's Creek'- my unlikly adolesent best friend.

So today is the day where the rest of my life will twist and twirl and amass itself more in sync with my thought process. It’s the 4th of January. Four days late but I have to deal with the New Year hang over. Not in the literal sense of course. I wish though.. I wish my head throbbed like the sound of Gary what’s his face’s ‘Mad World’ over and over again. But no hangover, just a ‘hang on what the fuck is going on’ moment. So it’s New Year, new Steve. I’m going to read. Read so much as my girlfriend will think I’m flirting with the Librarian. Read until I shit prose. Read until I stop swearing and transform my crudeness into positive literary energy. I WILL READ. But that’s not a New Year resolution. No those things dredge and smother your conscience. What I’m looking for is something to kick-start things over. I dunno why this feeling flows, and to the smug bastard in the back row, ‘No it’s not new years blues’ I’d respond with something sharp and witty but that’s precisely why change must be instigated. I sit, lie, sleep, drink, and occasionly eat in my north London flat. The sound of sirens and spewing mean I live in a city. nice

So I haven't blogged in a couple of days mainly due to a verment that has single handedly guided me into a depression over the last two days. I arrived home new years day evening to find a mouse in the flat. The little fucker is annoying the hell out of me. I'd spotted him somedays earlier. As I was sitting on the couch I saw something dart down the hallway at the corner of my eye but put it down to a piece of fluff or something. The second time I saw it I got up but saw nothing. I thought I was going mad until I heard a rustle at the bin and saw the fucker. Small as my thumb but nasty none-the-less. So yesterday morning I bought four traps only for one of them to later either
a)break or
b) snap and just miss the wee shite
My paranoia began to grow and grow and I suspected we had a rat and that the trap was unable to hold him. Orlagh says this theory is nonsense. Maybe so. I'd imagine a rat has more balls when it comes to roaming about and also is not as good at fitting into confined spaces? I dunno. Anyone who has advice email me.
Anyhow I set the four traps on fri mor and left the house for the day. I returned mid-day to find one of the traps as I described earlier. The traps were pre-baited so in a bid to lure him out I placed a bit of cheese on one of the traps and left again. That night I returned and the cunt had somehow managed to get the cheese without snapping the trap! I bought 5 more traps!! laid them last night and once again he managed to rescue the cheese without getting "guillitined" as the bloke in the hardware shop put it.
I'm hoping now the fucker will die tonight. I've given him ample opportunity. I've spent a tenner on traps and forked out a fiver today on poison in the event that he fails to meet his maker tonight.
There can only be one winner.
Aside from being made near homeless and sleepless by a diseased little bastard, all has been reasonably ok. I went to see The Lord Of The Rings yesterday in soho. Not the version I had expected but entertaining none the less. Some of the 'action' scenes were unreal.
No really. I saw the third installment, (oh how tempted I was to say turd installment!). Its quite good. Actually its excellent stuff, though I think the second was my favourite overall. It carries on from the two towers immediately that its advisable to re-watch that segment of the trilogy in a bid to refresh the memory. The ending of the film is somewhat cluttered. Jackson ties up every loose end but he does so in breaks or segments. He fades out at times when you think that's it, only to drift back in. The ending is good but too broken and feels at times cobbled together or spliced in to please fans of the books. The theme of wars destruction of innocence is paramount to the conclusion yet hangs sullenly when it should be nailed down for the viewer. At 3 hours 40 minutes the film flys by and maybe the added 40 minutes to the other 2 films three hour durations meant that Jackson was under pressure to wrap things up at the end hastily. He couldn't have cut the war scenes too much as they fit just right. Not too long, not too short. One gets the feeling that the extended version will be bogged down by war footage but hopefully it will lay more depth to the concluding parts. In looking back it has to be noted how overall satisfying the three movies were. It is a moment of cinematic history that will perhaps never be attempted again. The imagination of Tolkin brought to life is sublime. All three movies bore their individual merits and Jackson forged each storyline neatly together. It was a mammoth undertaking, but a successful one. We will never see its like again, and pressure will be put on Jackson to make a version of The Hobbit. Lets hope he accepts as the film looks likely to be made and anyone else then Jackson at the helm would be a sin.
So that was New Years Day. On its eve we drank and watched Jools on TV which delivered a priceless tv moment,

Jools: "Sharleen(from Texas) have you any predictions for the new year"?

Sharleen: " Well hopefully success for all and a peaceful year.No real predictions but I think it'll be a good year. Maybe we'll get another number one!! (giggles)

Jools: Shane (MacGowan) have you any predictions for the year ahead?

Shane: (Looking puzzled) Judgement day (laughs like a chain saw)

On that note,
take care and I'll see you soon
Steve