Okay Rob, play guitar now brother

Are you familiar with the big box? Sigh. The big box is that terrifyingly large and black space on provisional job applications. In it, you're meant to justify the 5 minutes you spent twitting around on Guardian Jobs and downloading the application pack by forcefully bullet-pointing why you're perfect for a position that as of 5 minutes ago you didn't even know existed and have since only been introduced to by similar forceful bullet-pointing.

Contemplating the big box is how I've been spending my Saturday mornings. In my head, an angry voice keeps telling me to say goodbye to the special qualities that set me apart. Oh no, wait. That's just the song.

Government Administrator :: Eggs

I do work for the government, you know. For another month. The desperation is building.

Visit - Eggs

Footnotes to an imagined ethnography (1)

1. As an American who is an immigrant, I do not naturally wish to qualify where I was born by distance to the closest theme park.

2. Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan. Like the Isle of Man, Tatarstan claims a level of history, education and culture high enough to warrant its own statehood. Also like the Isle of Man, it is regarded by some as a boring and backwards place. Kazan has an IKEA; the Isle of Man doesn't.

3. Of course they do. Of course they do. Of course they fucking do.

Do They Owe Us :: Jeffrey Lewis (Crass cover)

4. Daphne is the most loathsome Egghead by a mile. You might be the Brain of Britain, but your website looks like it was designed by the person responsible for the Creation Museum, Taxidemy Hall of Fame and Antique Tool Museum website.

5. The unbearable wonderment of all things boy-girl-guitar is tapping at your window.

Visit - Jeffrey Lewis

And the whole world drag us down

In the don't give a fuck hours of Sunday morning, you're free. You can plan summer holidays to abandoned amusement parks. You can put the milk in your coffee before the kettle boils. You can play violent video games until the house wakes up (and after, if they have label business). Most disturbingly, you can rename your male cat 'Christine' for a quick audience.

Christine :: House of Love

[You should be working on your CV instead. Who's going to give you an office job if you don't demonstrate those IT skills? Sigh. And the cat's name is actually Alan. After Alan Davies. But that's was before he got up a creek for eating a hobo. Sigh.]

Visit - House of Love

I've been sneaking out

Beware, beware, oh travel writers and tourists. Never, on any account, mutter the impossibly insincere lines, "I'd like to see what nowhere looks like."

(And never, with impassioned bravery, delete see and like for live in. Oh, for fuck's sake. This is the angsty equivalent of pricking your thumb on a spinning wheel and not waking up for a hundred years.)

As a way of explaining my long (protracted) absence, let me use another (protracted) metaphor. Living in the Isle of Man is like finding yourself under the thumb of very strict parents. Sanctioned entertainment (Michael Bolton, The Squeeze (sic courtesy of IOM Today), two showings of St. Trinians on a Sunday), sanctioned professions (accountant, certified accountant, chartered accountant), sanctioned shopping (for this item, let me just say that I have far too many carrier bags emblazoned with the phrase 'Manx to the Max!' and a logo that frightens autistic children).

Briefly and cryptically put I've been grounded. And I apologise for any and all unreturned e-mails and messages. But I've been obtaining unsanctioned music and books via the internet, and reading The Guardian quite a bit, and so my confidence has returned.

So no, don't mutter those lines and don't go away, but if you must, I recommend China.

Somewhere in China :: The Shop Assistants


Visit - The Shop Assistants