Wednesday afternoon at 4:20pm, cycling across town and They were All Out. The kerb huggers, the lights jumpers, the right turners insisting on hanging way over on the left hand side of the road lest they fail to hold up as many people as possible. At the top end of Mill Road I inched my way to the front, only to find people coming across from East Road sitting in the middle of the yellow box, unable to move forward or to see their exit. I slipped between two cars, surprised the one behind had left enough room to allow two-wheeled transport through. Even the taxis weren't able to get around them, and they're not averse to breaking a few rules to get to their destination.

Took half an hour to wander around town, check out what was on offer in Borders closing down sale (looked like about 90% of the good stuff had gone, and most of the remaining stock was celebrity (auto) biographies) before heading across to the Maypole where my work colleagues had agreed to meet up before heading for our cross-departmental, unofficial Christmas meal at Café Rouge. The back room at the Maypole has been refurbished a little - there's now a large sofa against the back wall, by the largest table, and I gratefully sank down into it with a pint of porter.

The meal itself was pretty good - the highlight was the main course, roast duck on a bed of red cabbage, but the cunningly-named Pudding de Noel was also very tasty (it was actually sticky toffee pudding, rather than anything involving heavy fruit cake laced with brandy). Good company helped, of course.

Afterwards, we returned to the Maypole to drink until no more drinking could be done, or trains had to be caught, whichever happened first. I'm not sure I remember.

I'm currently working on a project where users are allowed to create tags which may be visible to other users, but they are not allowed to use rude words when creating these tags. Obviously, as a good software developer, it falls on me to write unit tests for the process of creating these tags, so I gamely tried to think of some pseudo-rude words to put in the test, so I could pretend that the service had decided they wouldn't be allowed.

I quickly came up with "bottom" and "heck" ("hell" is considered far too rude by our service to be allowed through, though "bloody" and "pissflaps" are perfectly okay), but needed a third. I remembered that in Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue, he reckoned that "zooterkins" was about the rudest word in the English language some time in the 17th century, and since barely anybody these days knows its meaning, I thought I'd use that.

I had a quick check on Google to make sure I hadn't misremembered the word though, which turned up a page suggesting that Bryson had corrupted the old word "sooterkins" or "sootikins". All well and good, but putting those words into the search engine opened my eyes a little. Needless to say, I chose a different third word for my test.

Spent Friday night at a gig at the Portland, watching The DeRellas, Revolutionary Discipline and The Shills (again), as well as some group of numpties playing reggae (to be fair, they improved once the bass and guitar switched places and they started covering Bob Marley, and the first bass player was suitably trouser quaking; still, reggae is never going to be my thing).

The DeRellas were the most fun band of the evening. Revolutionary Discipline were the biggest band, but had massive problems with the sound - everyone except The DeRellas used the reggae band's bass amp, which I think was the root of the problem - and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to keep everything in tune with everything else. Nice cover of Wayfaring Stranger too, though The White Stripes version is still the standout for me.

The Shills seem to get tighter every time I see them and, though also plagued by the bass amp from hell, were pretty spot on. The one thing that seemed to stick out was the bass player taking on more of the vocals - while I've muttered about their lead singer's distinctive style in the past, it's surprising how much of a difference it makes when some of the vocals are taken over by someone singing more conventionally, and not in a good way. Much like Morrissey in The Smiths, the unusual singing is a significant part of what makes The Shills what they are, and they should stick with it. They deserve to be seen by a bigger audience though, and I hope they figure out what they need to do in order to achieve that, much as I love seeing great bands in tiny venues (and dislike seeing great bands in big places).

Cycling to work the other day, I ran foul of a truck driver. And when I say "truck," I mean an eighteen-wheeled articulated monstrosity, not an SUV or a pick-up. This is what happened:

I was cycling around the roundabout on Coldham's Lane, going from Brooks Road to Barnwell Road - straight across, second exit. This can be a tricky roundabout at the best of times, particularly since a lot of drivers forget to indicate and leave you guessing where they're headed. Anyway, I was just past the Coldham's Lane turn when I saw a truck approaching from my left, obviously with no intention of stopping. He pulled out across the front of me, so I had to pull the brakes and try to cycle around the back of him, after giving him a two-fingered gesture to register my irritation.

What I hadn't noticed was that this was a foreign-registered truck, and the steering wheel was on the left. As I headed up the inside of the truck to carry on my way, the driver leant out and bellowed something at me (he was clearly English, despite driving a foreign truck). Possibly at this point I should have said, "you cut me up on the roundabout, show other road users some respect," but I went for a more succinct "Fuck you."

At that point, he swerved his truck towards me, all eighteen wheels of it, forcing me to slam on the brakes and stop at the kerb. Luckily he was either bluffing or I was lucky enough to get by him quickly and onto the cycle path on Barnwell Road (which is next to the footpath, and quite a way off the road), where he followed me for the next hundred metres or so, hurling abuse at me and, at one point, telling me to stop so he could come down and give me a good kicking (he also used the word "smelly" a fair bit, amongst his four-lettered tirade). I ignored him and, thankfully, after a while he gave up and carried on, but for a few moments I was concerned he was going to keep it up the whole rest of the way to work.

Now, as I say, possibly I was partly responsible for his murderous rage, and shouldn't have been quite so rude in the first place. On the other hand, I was stunned that he got quite as angry as he did - this wasn't someone just yelling a couple of insults, he was clearly in quite a state over being insulted by someone, especially a cyclist. Possibly he was having a bad day anyway - maybe he'd missed his morning blow job because his daughter was on a school trip - but even so, I'm not convinced anyone with a temper like that should be driving a big truck.

Anyway, to invite audience participation in a cartesiandaemon kind of way, what do my readers think I should have done?

• not been quite so rude in the first place;
• pulled over and taken my kicking like a man, assuming witnesses would have come forward and helped me out;
• got his registration/haulage company details and rang the police (if I'd had my wits about me, I would have done this anyway);
• something else.

Went to see Surrogates yesterday afternoon. Like Gattaca and the Aeon Flux movie, it presented humans struggling in a practically post-human world, and was sort of successful. The climax was kind of anti-climactic, but the story wasn't bad, even if it couldn't quite decide where it wanted to go. Good to see that Hollywood is still pairing off Bruce Willis with a woman 25 years younger than him as if nobody would notice though.

I spent part of Saturday afternoon watching Ritchie Blackmore smash up guitars, mainly because I'd read about the California Jamming gig where he blew up an amp stack and smashed several instruments. For some reason, I'd never had him down as a guitar smasher - I knew he used to throw them around a fair bit, which is pretty obvious from listening to some of the live recordings, but watching some of those clips on Youtube, it's clear that he was fairly accomplished at it. I bet he doesn't get up to that sort of thing with Blackmore's Night (more power to him for making music he's clearly into, but I'm amazed anyone actually buys it, and it seems like a massive waste of his talent).

In the evening, after an opening hair of the dog drink with some work friends, I headed to the Portland to see a bunch of female-oriented bands. I missed the first group (Naomi and the Insufferable Fucks, apparently), but caught the remaining four. Best group of the evening was We Rock Like Girls Don't, who played a blistering set, though Tiny Tigers were pretty good as well, and very tight when their guitars were staying in tune. Beverley Kills and Varsity Drag rounded up the evening, the former being fairly straight up punk (with a speedy cover of Shakespeare's Sister's Stay), while the latter were fairly tune-friendly indie punk.

I found this critter hiding in the bathroom this morning while I filled the sink to shave. Of course, I made him suffer the indignity of being photographed in a pint glass before letting him go again.



Luckily, all this happened before next door's workmen arrived to do whatever fence rebuilding is on today's agenda.

Excellent gig last night at the Portland Arms, with Model Village, The Puncture Repair Kit, and Tender Trap, Amelia Fletcher's current band.

Model Village, whose name is curiously unmemorable (I've had to look it up three times since I started writing), started the evening with some glorious harmonies, and out-shone their own myspace page quite considerably. Impressed at the guitarist's confidence in playing through a borrowed amp, something I would never be able to do (I like to have a pretty good idea what's going to happen when I use the pedals, which combination makes the feedback soar and how to get back to a more restrained sound).

The PRK seem to still be working on their plan to have as many instruments on stage at the same time, and were really great (the lack of any brass was made up for by Model Village, who had a trombone, possibly the least rock 'n' roll instrument in the world; Her Name Is Calla use one as well though, so maybe they're at the vanguard of a new trend). It seems to be traditional that when they play a gig one of their members is leaving for pastures new - this time it was drummer Becky, who is moving to Brighton. I hope whoever they get to take over does as good a job, and can play accordian and drums at the same time.

Amelia Fletcher is at least partly responsible for my love of Built To Spill, having covered one of their songs with Marine Research, one of her earlier bands. Her voice hasn't changed much since then, and she still bears more than a passing resemblance to a friendly mouse, but Tender Trap are aiming more squarely at a sixties-ish girl band sound than the earlier band's more twee-pop musings. No melodica here, but three-part female vocals in sychronicity, if not harmony. Good stuff, anyway.

I saw The Regency Array at the Portland on Friday night, who were pretty excellent - everything in the right place, two guitarists, and some neat interactions with the keyboards too, and while I wasn't as impressed with the Joy Division-ish singing, they thankfully kept that pretty much to a minimum. The stuff on their myspace reminds me in places of the much-missed Ricky Spontane, and you can't go wrong with that.

Yo Yo Yo Litvinenko, who I've seen before and remember liking a fair bit, were a bit wide of the mark that night. I got the distinct impression that there's a great band in there straining to get out, but is being swamped by a desire to cram as much as possible into every song. The only thing they played all night that didn't feel at least twice as long as it should have been was a cover of Walk Like An Egyptian, and it would have been sacrilege to fuck that up.

Headed to the Cornerhouse in Cambridge last night to see The Shills play an excellent set. I don't know if the sound was better, but they definitely seem to have got better since last time, though I still don't quite know what the singer is doing with his voice. It's a bizarre thing to listen to, difficult to describe, but he seems to use his whole mouth to form the sounds, while its incidental whether the words themselves can be distinguished at all. The Smiths are still a reference point, but I'm a sucker for a neat guitar solo, and they have those in spades - the playing mostly reminded me Another Girl Another Planet, flashy enough to do the job without drawing massive amounts of attention away from the song itself. Very new wave-ish, which is a relief when most other new bands at the moment desperately want to sound like new romantics.

I'd expected the other band on the bill, Horseman Shakes & The Draymen to sound a lot like the Groundhogs for some reason, but they didn't really go down that route. They were good fun though, but suffered from dreadful sound - the singer was mostly inaudible, and the guitar solos were way too quiet for the kind of band they are. They went down really well though, well enough to take a fifteen minute cigarette break and come back for another short set.

Stopped at the Salisbury for a quick pint, then got the last train home.

After a night punctuated by a lengthy dream involving large numbers of rodents scurrying about a house that wasn't mine (and was a bit of a tip, to be honest), mice and rats being molested by my cat and my brother's long gone malamute, I found a fantastic article on the Guardian's site about the Mott The Hoople reunion. I unwittingly booked holiday across that run of dates, so I could go to all of them!

Spent some time this morning having a proper look through my copy of the Who Killed Amanda Palmer book. Really liked most of the stories - the hot air balloon one is probably my favourite, at least in the context of the picture it accompanies - but one thing that leaped out at me from the photo where teenage AFP is sprawled in a teenage boys room next to a copy of Tin Machine! On vinyl! With a sticker obscuring David Bowie's face!

I always knew that album was up to no good. There's a good reason I've no idea where my copy of it has got to.

Back on the Mirrorball trip with Neil Young at the moment. It's probably regarded as little more than a footnote in his immense back catalogue, being as it is mostly straightforward garage rock, not even reaching the level of "grunge" despite Pearl Jam being the backing band, but once in a while it pushes all the right buttons with me. It tails off a little after the first four songs, but I Am The Ocean never gets old, and is reprised on the harmonium-driven last track, if you make it that far.

Woke up ridiculously early this morning and entirely failed to go back to sleep, so wound up getting up earlier than the cat, and managed to watch an episode of The Wire before half past five had come around. I'm about two thirds of the way through series three at the moment, and Stringer's just revealed to Avon what really happened to D'Angelo. If I'd had time, I would probably have watched the next episode as well - this can't end well.

I'm generally enjoying it, but am really annoyed at the BBC for taking five series of prime US drama and turning it into a massive slog. Really, three episodes a week? Is anyone actually watching it "live" as it were, or is everyone doing the same as me: recording it every evening, and watching when time and inclination are available?

Anyway, I'm sure all my readers will be excited to know that what originally woke me up at about 2:30, about an hour and a half before I gave in on the whole sleeping thing, was a group wandering down the road in front of the house, one of them loudly announcing that he'd just done the "bubbliest piss in the world." Obviously, I really appreciated knowing that there was a stream of unexpectedly frothy urine somewhere near my house.

Having got estimates in for getting the roof fixed, I'm pretty much hoping it stops raining for the time being. It's going to cost a fair bit, and nobody seems able to guarantee that they'll be able to actually stop the rain from getting in.

After finishing the Half Life 2 Research And Development mod on Saturday (good fun, a quick play through but fiendishly difficult in places), I spent most of the afternoon and the whole evening helping a friend celebrate his upcoming fortieth birthday, along with a dozen or so other friends. We started off in the Eagle, before moving to the Saffron curry house and finishing the Cambridge stretch of the evening in the Salisbury. Of course, there was time for one more when we got back to Ely - thank the Minster for staying open ridiculously late (by my pathetic standards, obviously).

Today has been a bit more quiet - I've tidied the house in preparation for a parental visit tomorrow evening (another look at the roof - heh!), and finally listened to the second CD of the Sonic Youth Daydream Nation anniversary set - a blistering collection of live recordings of the Youth performing all of the songs from the album.

Now it's pretty much down to dealing with the Sunday evening blues before they become Monday morning blues.

Penguin have made a trailer for Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Inherent Vice, which is interesting enough in itself, but there's some question about exactly who is narrating. The comments on the Guardian's blog entry though prove that Pynchon readers love a mystery (if you skip past those by OhGodNotHimAgain, which are barely comprehensible). I think my favourite is this one, by MarsLander.

Hmm. Not entirely sure what my problem was. Side four was a bit trying (too much Kim singing, which bugs me), but Karen Koltrane was a fine song.

Must compile a list of "celebrities" who should appear in Celebrity Cock Punch, so when I submit it to Channel 4's magical ideas centre, they'll know who to call first. I bet Graham Norton would present it too, if they can poach him back from the Beeb. He's down on his presenting luck, at least according to The Guardian.

After the Stephen Fry-appearing picnic extravaganza yesterday, today was something of a come down. In fact, I seemed to spend the entire day doing nothing, although I did watch Shallow Grave for only the second time (first was at the cinema when it came out). It was too wet to do much outdoors, so no re-roofing of the shed, no clambering on the roof to try and figure out where the rain is getting in, and no sitting in the garden with a book.

Also, had I managed to get my act together (and down to the supermarket), I would have done some baking. Working on the assumption I had the ingredients to at least make a start on either fudge or fridge cake, I put off starting until after the shops had closed before finding I didn't have the ingredients for either. I say "boo" to preparation.

Still, I am now listening to Sonic Youth's A Thousand Leaves for what may also be only the second time ever (I remember buying it, being annoyed by Karen Koltrane, and can't remember listening to it again since; haven't reached that point yet, being still close to the start of side two, so we shall see if it puts me off again).

On Saturday evening, I watched Kontroll after getting back from my nephew's birthday barbecue too late to go anywhere else. A thriller with hints of the supernatural, it was compelling but dissatisfying.

The plot centres around a group of ticket inspectors on the Hungarian metro. Generally hapless and, for the most part, unlikeable, it was difficult having any sympathy for their struggles with passengers, almost none of whom seemed to actually be carrying tickets with them. At the same time, there is an unknown character pushing people in front of trains while dressed in a black leather coat and hood, effectively impersonating Death. Central character Bulcsú is in the middle of some kind of nervous breakdown brought on by academic burnout (or so it is hinted), and seems to be living in the metro network, sleeping on the platforms and getting his meals in the canteen. Dressed in the same style as the killer, minus the hood, the question is whether or not Bulcsú is this serial killer, and can he get it together with the girl dressed as a bear who keeps popping up.

The answers are somewhat open to interpretation, which was, for me, the strength of the movie. Certainly it made it better watching than following his fellow inspectors, who reminded me somewhat of the sideline characters from Amelie - the mean grocer and his slow-witted assistant, particularly.

Went off to the Portland on Friday for my first gig since getting back from Brighton. Obviously this being Cambridge, my gig volume has to go back down, after seeing two dozen bands over three days or however many I squashed in while down south.

I got there in time to catch the end of The Protectors' set, playing some pretty neat punk pop on the tuneful end of things. As usual, I wished I'd got there a bit earlier.

Serf Combat were up next, and were better than their myspace page lets on. They got straight to the point, again playing punk pop with some good three way vocals, and broke a string almost immediately. Borrowed a guitar from the Protectors and kept on going. Apparently they were a man down, but it was difficult to spot any gaps in their sound. Look out, man4, your time may be up!

The Fuckin' Hate's myspace also didn't do them a lot of credit, but they were the most straight-up hardcore band of the evening, and even looked like two thirds of Husker Du (their Texan drummer had a brave Greg Norton handlebar 'tache and some very short shorts, accompanied by the haircut of a fifties teenager). Exceptionally loud and featuring lots of shouting, thoroughly enjoyable.

Last on were That Fucking Tank, who were the least obvious of any of the bands, featuring entirely instrumental songs played on drums and guitar with some sampling and looping going on somewhere out of sight. After the previous three bands, they stuck out like a sore thumb, and got kind of tired pretty quickly - the tracks seemed too long, too slow and the lack of anyone to focus on from the band made them hard going. Not a bad act necessarily, but not the right group to go on after three bands playing tight, two-minute songs with vocals and banter.

After that, felt obliged to stop at the Salisbury on the way home to kill the fifty-five minutes before the next train, and had something of a hangover the next day.

 

I'm too young for Farrah Fawcett to have really meant much to me (and I don't get to say that very often these days), and I'm not going to say anything about Michael Jackson, but people, spare a thought for Steven Wells, who also died recently. A man full of piss and vinegar, and the best thing about the NME in the 80s and 90s. I can't really say more than the comments on the linked page do so I'll leave it there, though the Register also has a nice write-up, linked to his Wikipedia entry, as does the Guardian.