a review of xmas and the new year

London is all hazy. After new year there's a thick fireworky smog hanging over the city battling it out with the damp of the inevitable celebratory rainy stuff. Global fucking warming sod my pooey carbon footprint massive there was fireworks innit? fair enough making everyone sit in the dark every third sunday to save lightbulbs and scrape the yoghurt off every lid to send to compost heaps in dunklesdirk but we're not doing without smelly old banger fireworks are we? and how else would we make all the poor little critters get their yearly heart attacks? Jump foxy jump! Cring kitty cringe!.
I didn't go anywhere noisy (yah boo to pop). I watched 100 most irritating people programme. The most annoying were the people presenting it who thought they were good. Nothing worse than a knob who thinks they're good. Usual tiresome parade of Pete docherty and Wotsit Geldorfs and Beckhams and Women Who've Had Their Breasts Enlarged. plus some rather odd choices including Stephen Hawking who seemed to be deemed irritating cos he's in a wheelchair and is clever. This seems to be not allowed. Hmmm....Arse to that i say. Deemed most irritating was Amy Winehouse cos she could be good if she'd stop fanny-arsing around. But as Brighton Bard Danny Belton say - that is the way of genius - fucked up goes with it on the whole. wwhoopee doo i will stay a simpleton.
Xmas = food. Lots and lots and lots and going round different peoples houses 'no we haven't eaten yet!' and stuff stuff stuff til going home involves taking it in turn to push each other up and down hills. I got a drum kit (ooh!!!) it is red and glittery and goes bosh. I got a bay city rollers outfit which is fantastic but i am waiting for my post-xmas tummy to quell a bit before i can jam my fat arse into it. My dad gave me shoes with cats faces on. My mum gave me a red velvet cloak so i can play medieval ladies better. I think they both think i am 5 years old but i guess maybe i should acting like it then Grow Up young lady! etc.
i think will stay down here til i die. oh well!
jolly everything for ever to you all especially if you got this far.
ps last year at new year i watched momento mori which is v. complicated about japanese schoolgirls being cursed and stuff with flashbacks and ghotsst and visions and fuck knows wot going on eh? swizz!!!

The Nuns play Wanc - slightly later December

Tonight The Nuns play a Women only anarchist Cafe. I do keep meaning to invite people but then I remember they're a smelly MAN and no smelly MEN are allowed. Hah.
Chaps: This is what you missed (secrets revealium except for not telling you about the gold and the life eternal): Some of the nicest food ever. This is the best food rider I've had in my whole life ever. And wine is only £1 a glass. Uh-oh. and it's free to get in (but only if you're a woman - a man couldn't get in if he paid a million pounds).
And there is burlesque. Burlesque is when people dance or sing or tell jokes but they don't have very many clothes on. At least that's what I think it must be. Unless that's just coincidence.
It's good being a Nun. I wish i'd done this holy order stuff a while back.

The Nuns play Buffalo Bar - early December

It's good to be festive. The Nuns are santa-sancti-fied tonight in red and white right down to our freshly made wimples. Maybe we've offended someone. Or maybe I have. During soundcheck I fall off the stage. Okay the stage at the Buffalo Bar is only about 2 inches high but it's still yellow/purple bruisey painful. ouch.
Then I'm happily/noisily playing along and the amp that was about 2 metres behind me suddenly lands on my leg. Is it the poltergeist crosspatch ghost of some interfering anti-garage-punk nun? Maybe so. Luckily my side of the stage is next to the bar so during a lengthy banjo/keyboard solo I can have a restorative glass of wine. hurrah. But maybe this glass of wine is what me makes me fall over the step on the way out of the building.
the Nuns have made a mighty pop row but as penance I have legs of blue, purple and yellow. Ouch.

Circulus & Hot Puppies for my christmas present to me- Sat 15th Dec

The Hot Puppies are glorious. I can't say this with my own ears as proof but at the seated venue that is the Bristol Cube not a mouse stirs in the house. At the end of the set dazed listeners float out and start stalking the merchandise stall. Something like a musical about a perfect band performed in the grotty venues of England every time they play. The Hot Puppies

Then. It's xmas. Almost. something special! I've managed to photocopy the words to Silent Night and The First Noel. The bands gather on stage with to one side a wondrous festive nativity scene acted out in tableau by the Panther Girls and their ensnared captive 3 king 'volunteers'. We strongly encourage the audience to sing along to the carols. It's my dream come true. I'm re-living the best school-days of my life. Maybe school is smelly but everyone singing all together is amazing. The audience doesn't want to stop and we let them sing all million and one verses of 1st Noel. Glory to the audience hurrah.


This is my present to me: Circulus are playing for me. Okay and for everyone else whose paid to get in but I chose them from the shop window of bands my very own self and put them on for my own gratification. As gig promoter/organizer and as the soundperson has emailed in sick I am wound tightand stressed like a broken watch that an irritating granny keeps trying two wind. Circulus unwind me. Tight coils of stress ease themselves into gently waving tresses as they play. It's a kraut-folk mono-stomping journey led by crumhorn and cittern and capering cape-wearing troubadours of joy. I regress fully to my childhood hippy fairies are real self and if it wasn't so darn cold outside i'd be skipping home barefoot. Circulus

More photos here