Happy New Year: It's 2009

And I will never, never, never grow so old again.

Gordie Is Absent

I would rather be anywhere else than here today.

Today has been a Fucked-Up Day

I actually decided I wasn't going to post this one,
but then ILTV posted a nice U2 lyric and I thought again.Blogging - it isn't just there for the nice things in life.

Today has been a fucked-up day
Today has been a fucked-up day
Today has been a fucked-up day
Looks like tomorrow'll be the same old day

Today has been a fucked-up day
Today has been a fucked-up day
Today has been a fucked-up day
Looks like tomorrow'll be the same old day

There's people runnin' up and down the line
With grocery bags on they heads
And dollar bills pasted onto their faces
Squeegee in their hand

Woo, woo, woo...
Woo!
Woohoo!
Woohoohoo!

BECK HANSEN

That's When You Fall - #1

Down Cyprus Avenue
With a childlike vision leaping into view
Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe
Ford & Fitzroy, Madame George

Marching with the soldier boy behind
He much older now
With hat on drinking wine
And that smell of sweet perfume
Comes drifting through
The cool night air like Shalimar

And outside they're making all the stops
The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops
Gone for cigarettes and matches to the shops
Happy takings Madame George


That's when you fall
That's when you fall
Yeah, that's when you fall.

A Gift from God

So...

I woke up this morning with so much interest and enthusiasm for what I had to do, that I found myself saying

"Don't waste this! It's a gift from God..."

Our regular expert was not available.
Then I thought: "I wonder how I could say what I'm feeling right now without invoking some kind of monotheistic deity that I don't believe in?" So I figured I'd blog about it.

Unfortunately, Hot Vimto's regular theology and religious affairs expert was not available to offer her advice, so I had to make do with Scarlett Johansson instead.

An inadequate substitute

I know, Dear Reader, there's simply no comparison. But this picture of Ms. Johansson, believe it or not, is the number one match on Google Images when you search for "there is no God".

So, in the absence of a proper theologian, she'll have to do. Credit to Fox News for the picture, and another crazy blogger for the interesting choice of caption.

Now, maybe a higher power is at work here? (See, I never said I didn't believe... I just said I didn't believe in... what I don't believe in, okay?) Because Scarlett, apart from making 'Lost In Translation' and being strip-searched at Heathrow with my best friend (he looks like Bill Murray, allegedly) has also recorded an album of Tom Waits songs.

And Tom Waits has received the thumbs up from the Pope. It makes no sense to me at all, but here's the news.

The Civilta Cattolica, a Jesuit journal, the contents of which are subject to Vatican approval, says that Waits represents “the marginalised and misunderstood”.

Father Antonio Spadaro, 40, who normally writes about literature but is emerging as a Roman Catholic authority on pop music, said that Waits, whose songs include Dragging a Dead Priest, had lived a youthful life of “drugs, alcohol and sex” as an outcast on the streets of California.

He therefore understood “the lower depths” of society, and was able to convey the desperation of those on the margins. His past also enabled him to express their “capacity for hope and instinct for happiness” in “authentic songs devoid of vanity and false illusions”, Father Spadaro said. "

So, maybe that'll be alright then?

"Devoid of vanity and false illusions"

I'm not even going to mention what you get when you Google
"a gift from God"...