The Boy Least Likely To

surprise me

2008-08-15T21:10:16+02:00

"there is no love of life without despair of life"
- albert camus

i've been thinking about chocolates. revels chocolates in particular. because revels are doing this promotion at the moment where you get to evict a flavour from the packet, and then the chosen evictee flavour will be replaced by an exciting new flavour for a limited time. i was quite excited by this for some reason. and my initial reaction was to plump for the coffee flavour revel or the raisin one. just because those are the ones i hate. especially the coffee ones. but then i started thinking about it a bit too much, and i began to imagine a revels packet without the coffee ones in. a packet without the ones i didn't like. and somehow it seemed less fun. as if some of the excitement would go out of eating revels if there was no risk involved anymore. it would just be a packet of chocolates like every other. there would be none of that chocolate russian roulette. there would be no surprises. i would just like them all and happily eat them all, and then throw the packet in the bin and buy another packet. there wouldn’t be a half eaten packet of revels containing all the coffee ones, and the raisin ones with all the chocolate bitten off, sitting on my windowsill. and the thought of that made me feel slightly less human.

so when i went on to the website i did something odd, and i didn't vote out the coffee one or the raisin one. i voted out the malteser. after all it does already have a packet all to itself, which often comes as part of a multi buy with revels at my local garage anyway, so i figured i wouldn’t really be missing out. and i had to keep the orange one because that's my favourite. and although the minstrel has a packet all to itself, like the malteser does, a friend of mine did point out that the minstrel in a revels packet is naked, so it does make it slightly special. the toffee one has to stay if the raisin stays because they are the most difficult to distinguish from each other, and as you get towards the bottom of the packet it can be quite a thrill trying to pick out one from the other. so i went for the malteser. and i got to virtually attach it to a balloon on the website and cut the string, and then it reminded me of that song we wrote about a balloon and a broken string and i figured i must have done the right thing.

anyway, i checked the leader board on the revels website and coffee is winning, closely followed by raisin, so i guess it'll be one of them that goes. but i can't help thinking that it won't be the same without them.

x

if i stay here just a little bit longer

2008-08-14T16:44:44+02:00

june. july. half of august. i can't believe the summer is almost over. i've only written three blogs in as many months. at the beginning of the year i made a new years resolution to write one a week. so far this year i've written seventeen, and i think there are about twenty weeks left so that means we must have already had thirty two weeks, in which case i'll be about fifteen short of my target even if i write one a week for the rest of the year. oh well, perhaps september will be a particularly exciting month for the boy least likely to.

august has been nice so far. i came back from being on holiday in the south of wales. where it was sunny for a couple of days and then rained for the rest of it. i stopped in hay on wye on the way there, which was pretty exciting. the town of books. something about being there reminded me of that thing about never being more than ten feet away from a rat. not because there were lots of rats or anything, but just because there were so many second hand bookshops and i was overwhelmed by it all. it was like i was never more than ten feet away from a book that i really wanted but might not know was there. and i knew it would be impossible to search through all the shops, but that i wouldn't be able to relax knowing that i could be standing just a few feet away from a book that i might've been trying to find for ages.

the only book i did buy while i was there was a copy of the selected poems of theodore roethke from this amazing bookshop that only sold poetry. but it was the same in that shop too. there were just too many books and i forgot most of the things i was looking for and was too nervous to ask for the few things i remembered. then when i got home and i'd calmed down a bit. i went on their website and found out that they had a copy of 'transformations' by anne sexton. in stock. it must have been in the shop while i was there, just sitting on a shelf, probably only a few feet away from me. like a rat.

i'm going to have to go back to hay on wye one day. and i'll make sure i'm better prepared next time.

also while i was in wales i discovered that i don't know how to buy flip flops. i thought it would be quite simple but it turns out that there are all sorts of rules and regulations that i was completely unaware of. i don't think i'd know how to buy shorts either. it's funny the things you learn about yourself when you're on holiday.

we had promised a new album this summer. but obviously it hasn't been released yet, otherwise we would have mentioned it. i wish i could write about everything that's happened but i can't. although when i wrote in november about the light at the end of the tunnel, i did worry that it might have been a train coming the other way. and i can now confirm that it was a train heading towards us and that there was almost a terrible accident. we managed to jump out of the train we were in just in time, but that didn't stop the other train colliding with our empty one. luckily no one was badly hurt and as soon as we have cleared all the broken bits of train off the track we will be continuing on our journey, but until then please be advised that there may be some delays, and that there will be changes to the listed timetable.

only thirty four blogs to go now. perhaps i'll surprise everyone and post one tomorrow.

x

ps. i put our version of faith by george michael up on our facebook page, because lots of nice people keep emailing me to ask me where they can get hold of it and it isn’t available anywhere. you can only listen to it on there but it might temporarily assuage your hunger. there’s a link to our facebook page on our myspace page just above the link for the shop. and on our website too.

between stations

2008-08-03T12:32:29+02:00

i've only got a few minutes to write something, because i've got to go and catch a train up to london for the innocent village fete in regents park. we played there yesterday too. i was a bit confused for the first couple of songs, but i really enjoyed it after that. today i'm hoping it doesn't rain and that i get a chance to see some of the other things that are going on. i particularly want to see some duck herding.

we're on at four o clock today, a bit later than yesterday. but according to the little fete guide, we're still on at the same time as the cheerleaders. so if you're a fan of the boy least likely to and cheerleading you've got a big decision to make. perhaps we could try and work some cheerleading into our stage show so you don't miss out if you come and see us. i'll speak to amanda applewood about it.

my train leaves in ten minutes, so i'd better go now.

x

my eyes were red but that was just with hay fever

2008-08-14T16:45:59+02:00

hay fever is so embarrassing. as are all allergies. even though some of them are obviously very dangerous and frightening. hay fever is embarrassing because it's a sign of my body being totally oversensitive to something that is actually innocuous. it's scared of something that isn't really scary at all and just goes totally mental about it. i can't believe that my body is scared of pollen. and not just scared, it actually thinks it's dangerous. dangerous enough to start rapidly activating white blood cells to fight it. and my brain knows it's just pollen and dust particles, but my body won't listen to my brain. it's the equivalent of seeing a spider and calling the police. and every day the police turn up and i have to explain to them that it's all been a big mistake and that it was just a tiny spider and nothing for my body to worry about. and then my body wakes up the next day and sees the same spider and immediately calls the police again. it makes me so angry sometimes that my body won't listen to me. it's such an idiot.

thank you to everyone that sent me suggestions for treating my hay fever. all very helpful, although i'm still nervous of the advice from someone that suggested i take a whole mouthful of tablets every day. and someone else suggested moving to germany, which might be taking things a bit far. everything else i will try though. except it's been raining for the last two days anyway so i haven't really been suffering that much.

one of my favourite bands from the last few years, lucky lucky pigeons, have put up some new songs on their myspace page, and they've made it so that i can download them all for absolutely nothing. it says they're songs off their new album, bird flu. i thought they'd split up because there'd been a blog post that mentioned them doing their last gig ever a couple of months ago, but then these new songs appeared and they're fantastic, especially 'no lips on locos', which sounds a bit like what vienna by ultravox would have sounded like if it hadn't been shit.

there are other things i wanted to write about and maybe i will later. i know i should write more often, but i just haven't been in the mood recently. i think this month might be different, but i always think that.

x

a little souvenir of a colourful year

2008-06-17T13:41:13+02:00

"i built that challenger by myself,
but i needed money and so i sold it."

if i had to choose one i probably couldn't. i'd have to be allowed two. the thing is, i've always had 'thunder road' as my favourite song by bruce springsteen, but it doesn't seem complete somehow without 'the promise'. it only seems like half the story. a bit like that episode of friends where phoebe finds out that her mum never showed her the ends of sad films to protect her from the painful truth. if you only have 'thunder road' you only have the hopeful bit, where it's all rolling down the windows and letting the wind blow back your hair. you only have the beginning of the dream. it doesn't seem true unless you remember there's every chance it'll end up like springsteen does in 'the promise', sleeping in the back seat of a borrowed car with the tyres rushing by in the rain.

x

jigsaw puzzle blues

2008-05-15T16:34:30+02:00

"we all of us somehow caught. we born this way or that way and we don't know why. but we caught anyhow... me is me and you is you and he is he. we each one of us somehow caught all by ourself."
- carson mccullers

it's thursday morning. last night it was wednesday, and it was unexpectedly big. but then i wonder if perhaps wednesday nights are the big ones now. it used to be fridays, and it was thursdays for a bit after that. but i don't get excited about thursdays the way i used to. in the sixties and seventies i think it was saturdays, but i wasn't alive so i can't be sure. it just always seems to be saturday nights in films and books from then. it's never been mondays as far as i know, and sunday nights are always going to be subdued, especially now that itv have moved midsomer murders to eight o clock, which effectively means the night's over by ten. which only leaves tuesdays and wednesdays, and tuesday gets lumped in with monday too often for it to amount to anything much. so i guess it's wednesday nights that are the big ones now.

tuesday night was not big. it was very very small indeed. i ended up getting involved in a jigsaw. actually it was two jigsaws. two double sided clangers jigsaws. two hundred pieces in each. i didn't think it would be much fun at first, but i kind of became obsessed and i forgot myself and it was like nothing else in the world mattered to me until i'd finished them. although sadly, one of the jigsaws only had one hundred and ninety nine pieces in so it will never be finished. i've taken a photo of it though, and if by chance anyone has got the same puzzle and doesn't care if they never finish it again, then could they send me the piece i'm missing. i'll send them a swap in return. i don't know what it's equivalent swap would be. perhaps a barbie or something. doing a jigsaw was a surprise though. i think people should do more of them. you can always drink and take drugs while you do them.

we're playing at the innocent village fete in regents park in august. i'm quite excited about it. i've never been before, but apparently there'll be welly wanging, morris dancing, duck herding, dog agility, ferret racing, cream teas, a coconut shy, dancing, homemade cakes, funfair rides and a big farmers' market. which obviously just sounds like any other weekend in the village i live in, so it won't be that special for me. but i imagine that for people who live in london it will be quite exciting. tickets are available from ticketmaster, and we're playing on both days.

i read an article in the paper yesterday about someone who's been creating knitting patterns for dr who characters and then putting them up on her website so that other fans can knit from them, and the bbc have told her she has to take the patterns down or face the threat of legal action. it all came about because someone else knitted some of the monsters from the patterns and put them up for sale on ebay, and the bbc felt obliged to protect its trademark. it seems kind of ridiculous to me. it's a bit like if someone typed up the lyrics and the guitar tablature for one of our songs and then posted it on the internet so that other people could learn the song, and then someone else recorded a version of the song and made a cd and then put it up for sale on ebay. i suppose it would be normal to expect to be paid properly by whoever performed the song and recorded the cd, but it hasn't got anything to do with the person who put the lyrics and the guitar tab up on the internet. i suppose it's not that simple, because if someone recorded a version of one of our songs and made a cd and then put it up for sale on ebay, i'd just be really flattered and try and bid for it myself. lots of people have made models from our artwork out of all sorts of things and i've always thought it was a lovely thing for them to do. i love it that they like it enough to do that. anyway, i thought that i should probably show some sort of solidarity just because we're into knitting things now. i couldn't find any pictures of a knitted ood though, but here are some of a knitted adipose. whatever that is.

i think i'll have to get some knitting patterns done for our website.

anyway, i must get back to whatever it is i do.

x

spin songs you need to download now

2008-05-06T12:57:25+02:00

i just found out that 'i box up all the butterflies' is number one in this month's spin magazine's list of songs you need to download now, which has made this sunny day in england even sunnier. i think i'll go to the pub to celebrate. if anyone wants to meet me there, i'll be in the red lion from midday. i expect you all live too far away though. oh well, if you want to see the bit in spin then you can go here or you can go and buy a copy of the magazine. it's the one with my morning jacket on the cover. which is reason enough to buy it anyway.

and if you want to download the number one song you can go here and it's yours for free.

happy tuesday

x

the awful rowing toward god

2008-05-02T17:49:06+02:00

"you keep rowing and i’ll keep smiling."

i went to see 'happy-go-lucky', the new mike leigh film on tuesday night. i thought it was really lovely. i'd read some reviews that said the main character, poppy, was incredibly annoying, but i didn't think she was. she was just a bit of a dick sometimes. but a very likeable one. it was quite refreshing to watch a lead character who wasn't troubled or over thoughtful, but had the same tights in every colour, and just seemed happy and kind of hopeful about things. there's a lovely bit at the end when poppy is on a boat in regents park with her flatmate zoe, rowing round and round in circles, and it made me think of the anne sexton poem 'rowing' from 'the awful rowing toward god', and it might not have been the subtext of that scene at all, but i enjoyed it more thinking it was, and that's the scene i took the quote from at the top of the page, but i might have remembered it wrong. i just liked the idea of smiling while everyone else is rowing round in circles endlessly searching for some sort of bigger meaning to life, when perhaps there isn't really one, so you might as well just be happy and not worry about it. anyway, i really liked the film, even if no one else did.

"was i bored? no, i wasn't f**kin' bored. i'm never bored. that's the trouble with everybody - you're all so bored. you've had nature explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the living body explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the universe explained to you and you're bored with it, so now you want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn't matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it's new as long as it's new as long as it flashes and f**kin' bleeps in forty f**kin' different colors. so whatever else you can say about me, i'm not f**kin' bored."

so i figured that if i was going to include one quote from a mike leigh film then i might as well include some of my other favourites. the quote above is from his film 'naked' and the quote below is from 'career girls', and the other two are from 'naked' again. i probably should have included some from 'abigail's party' or 'nuts in may', because they're two of my favourite films of his, but i could only think of "laurence. angela likes demis roussos. tony likes demis roussos. i like demis roussos. sue would like to hear demis roussos. so please, do you think we can have demis roussos?" from abigail's party and that didn't really seem to fit in anywhere, even though i did just end up putting it anyway while i was trying to explain why i couldn't put it in, and i wanted to put in the bit about chewing thirty times from nuts in may but i didn't have time to watch the film again to check the accuracy of the quote, and i've already included one quote i'm not certain about.

"i'm not an idiot. i'm like an idiot savant,
i just haven't found my savant yet."

there's some good news and there's some bad news.

bad news first. i'm afraid we've had to cancel the show we were going to do at the bush hall at the end of may. i'm really sorry, but for various quite complicated reasons it was just going to be impossible for us to do it on that day. anyone that bought tickets will be able to get a full refund from wherever they bought them from. a big "sorry" to the school and rod thomas, who i was really excited about having on the bill with us as well. i'd even had some special posters printed to put up, which i guess are all useless now. perhaps they'll become collectors items instead. i'm not thinking they'd be valuable or anything, just that perhaps there might be some people who collect posters for concerts that have been cancelled. anyway, hopefully we might be able to get both bands back on to a bill with us on some dates in the future.

the good news though is that we are playing another show in london at the end of may. so for everyone that wanted to see us at the bush hall, there's still a chance that you can see us. it'll just be a day earlier, on the 28th of may at the union chapel. we're supporting andy burrows at a special one off show for his new solo album, and i think it'll be a really lovely night. i hope some of you can come. if you do want to then you can buy tickets from all these places.

www.seetickets.com
www.ticketmaster.co.uk
www.stargreen.com

the same places you have to go to to get a refund for the bush hall show. we really are very sorry.

"it's the future that f**ks you up, brian, it's the maggot in the apple... i wouldn't even mind, but you don't even have a f**kin' future, i don't have a future. nobody has a future. the party's over. take a look around you man, it's all breaking up."

becki and rose have left the pipettes. and even though there are two new members coming in to replace them, so i suppose at least the pipettes will continue to exist, it still makes me kind of sad. i'd only just got used to gwenno replacing julia, and now everyone else has left. it feels a bit like when mike nolan left bucks fizz and david van day continued touring as bucks fizz with none of the original members, until he was made to change the name of the group to david van day's bucks fizz show, which i always thought was a funnier thing to call it anyway. perhaps they should change their name to the new pipettes to differentiate them from the previous line-ups. like when the seekers became the new seekers, and then they could represent the united kingdom in the eurovision song contest like the new seekers. and like bucks fizz. i just end up going round and round in circles. like the bit in the film. anyway, i suppose everyone should just be happy because if they all release records then it'll just mean more pipettes all round. but i can't help feeling a little bit like the world will be slightly different from now on.

i've spent the last couple of weeks working on the artwork for the promos for the new single and the album with my brother. we had to photograph them outside and fit it in around everything else that is going on in our lives, and it kept raining and we had some trouble with the poster paints we were using. we finally managed to get it finished at lunchtime, and then the sun came out and never went in again for the rest of the day. typical. the covers look really good though. we will reveal them to the world in the next couple of weeks, as soon as we've confirmed release dates and that sort of thing. you can be excited if you want.

"have you ever thought, right, but you don't know, but you may have already lived the happiest day in your whole f**kin' life?"

there's no such thing as victory

2008-04-01T18:12:59+02:00

"all have won and all shall have prizes"
- lewis carroll

we won the mark radcliffe and stuart maconie pick n mix competition, and we are now their record of the week. hooray. i feel on top of the world. it was so exciting to hear one of our new songs being played on the radio. a big big thank you to everyone who voted and to mark radcliffe and stuart maconie for taking a chance on a relatively unknown indie pop group.

"winning isn't everything... it's the only thing."
- vincent van gogh

in news elsewhere, i spent a lovely day doing the artwork for the next single and i think it’s my favourite of the new photos so far. it still features the knitted bird but in slightly more compromising circumstances. not in a sexy way. that would be wrong. i just mean that the bird is restricted in what he can do. as soon as we’ve finished it i’ll put it up on the pictures page. the single should be out next month.

here are four other things i've been enjoying this week.

the french version that girls aloud have done of their new single 'can't speak french' called 'je ne parle pas français' because it reminds me of when sandie shaw used to do french versions of all her albums. and because i especially love the line "i let the funky music do the talking" when it's one of the least funky songs ever. brilliant.

the terror dream by susan faludi.

mulatas. i went to a cocktail bar called la bodeguita del medio on saturday night and tried these for the first time. it's made up of limes and rum and crème de cacao and and it tastes just like those green chocolate lime sweets you can get. i declare it officially the drink of the spring. gin and tonic is disgusting though. anyone who likes it is a weirdo.

'where did our love go' by the supremes, because before i went to la bodeguita del medio i was sitting in ed's easy diner on old compton street on saturday afternoon drinking a raspberry ripple milkshake and it came on the jukebox and it sounded like the most exciting and incendiary pop song ever.

x

eggs are happiness shaped

2008-03-26T18:40:24+01:00

i think perhaps the blog i posted earlier was a bit miserable. it all comes from too much sitting indoors when it's raining and eating too many easter eggs and listening to aidan moffat. i think perhaps i shouldn't do so much of that, even if he is the new amy winehouse and nothing tastes quite like refrigerated easter egg chocolate. i think perhaps i should get out more and not worry so much about every tiny little thing. i left the house for a bit this afternoon, and when i got home things didn't seem quite so bad after all. i remembered that i love being in the boy least likely to, and that even if sometimes it feels like i'm banging my head against a brick wall, there isn't really anything to feel sad about. because we're just a pop group and we just make pop records and it should be fun. and when i remember that, i feel happy and i want to make more of them.

x