Part 1 Of My Performance At Truck.

I've been meaning to put this up for a while now and FINALLY got round to doing it last night. I'm gonna put the other parts (I'll probably split the whole thing into 4) up over the next couple-few weeks too. As you can tell, I'm was pretty nervous and it took me a while to get into it, but I'm still pretty proud of what I did. I hope you enjoy it.

The Failed Pope Post.

I kept trying to write a blog post about the Pope's visit, but everytime I tried to write it, it either came across as too preachy and self-righteous, or just very dull, so here are some points that sum up the Pope's visit to the UK.

* What is the point of having a bulletproof car if you still have to have 8 security guards walking alongside it?
* I found the backlash against people opposed to the Pope and his visit from the people who didn't care one way or the other about it to be rather worrying. (What, we're expected to have this thing shoved in our faces all day every day and NOT react to it?)
* Constant, continual news coverage is kind of killing the quality of tv journalism. (I think Charlie Brooker has already well and truly covered that point much better than I ever could tho.)
* Some people said some stupid things.
* I cannot take the word "Popemobile" seriously.
* On the subject of the Popemobile, didn't it look and move like a massive motorised wheelchair?
* Some people said some really stupid things. One particularly stupid thing I copied and pasted from I can't remember where read, "I can't help but think it's the protestors who are the real bigots, not the pope. "thou shalt not have a different view to mine"=hypocrisy" which managed to give an opinion on the protestors while entirely missing every single point of the protests themselves. Now that takes some kind of Fox News style skill in the art of complacency.
* Fuck off, Pope.

There. A far, far less coherent post than it would've been, but one that can now have a little pin placed in it for the Potato Farm to move on from.

...and the next post will be something I hope you will all enjoy.

This Is The 400th Potato Farm Post.

Oh yeah.
No bold statements of intent to mark the occasion this time, as I never keep to them.
No out of the ordinary item or quirky thing, as I'm at milady's Mum's house and I can't really think of anything special to do for it anyway, but I don't want to lose the new found momentum I've regained with writing this blog.

However, today I found out that Hannah Simpson aka Cakeyvoice:- http://electricbiscuitonline.blogspot.com/ , who is also by the way the lady responsible for me even having a blog in the first place, gave birth to a boy, so my 400th post is a soppy sentimental wish of a happy and healthy life for Frank Vincent Lewis. His parents are awesome, in fact Matt Lewis, Frank's dad, is responsible for what is considered by many (myself included) to be the best post ever posted on this blog:- http://axlspotatofarm.blogspot.com/2007/11/blog-post.html , so this is bound to be one pretty awesome dude.

Happy Birth, Frank Vincent Lewis.

The Other Day...

...I heard someone knocking at my front door. I opened it to see a man with a cardboard box that had a collection of change in it.

Man At Door: "Would you be interested in donating to charity, yes or no?

Me: "Errrrrrrrrrrrr..."

MAD: "I'm collecting for a children's charity. If you have any change even just one or two pounds, it would be very much appreciated."

Me: "Errrr... Let me see what I've got."

I opened my little change purse to find I had 62p. I took it out.

"I've got 62p. You can have that."

MAD: "No, keep it. Keep it for if you are out and you need it for parking or something."

Leaves.

Now, there are a few things that strike me as odd about this. One is the fact that his cardboard box just had "COLLECTION FOR CHILDRENS CHARITY" written on it in a marker pen. Another is that he didn't tell me what the charity was or what it did, but most of all, what I find most odd about the whole thing, is that in spite of all this really quite dodgy stuff, I was willing to give him money, and he refused to take it! Now, I don't know about any of you, but whenever I've dealt with people collecting change for charity, they will take whatever you can give them and are generally pretty happy that you're willing to give anything at all in the first place. I have never had a donation of change turned down because it wasn't enough.

So, what the Hell is with that? Anybody? Something dodgy going on, or is he just a very odd man?

Derren Brown's 'Hero At 30,000 Feet' Programme.

WARNING: This post is VERY boring.

Did anyone see this? I'm sure it's on 4OD if you wanted to but missed it.

Anyway, if you didn't, Derren Brown took a very shy man who wouldn't say anything if there was a fire in a room because he wouldn't want to be the one to bring attention to a situation, and over the space of thirty days turned him into a man full of confidence who offered to help land an aeroplane.

Now, there's been some backlash against this programme. People have been saying on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc, that the show wasn't real. It couldn't be. It was so unconvincing and badly acted, they said. Someone (I'm pretty sure it was Andrew Collins) even cited the music they chose to soundtrack certain parts of the show as a reason it couldn't be real. Now, whatever your opinion of it, you cannot cite bad soundtracking (and some of it really was terrible) as a reason to believe something is fake. Bad acting, yes. Bad music choices, no.

The one scene that seems to be cited as sure-fire proof tho, is the train tracks scene. In this scene, Derren Brown puts his volunteer into a straightjacket, gets him to lie down on some train tracks and then ties up his legs, just as a train is about to come. He then offers little help to the guy to get himself free, but this guy doesn't really seem to be panicking that much. He seems to be a bit startled and worried, kind of like if a vicious dog was barking at him and trying to bite him but was still firmly on a lead, but not really anything approaching panic.

Now, is this bad acting, or is it just that maybe people just sometimes react to things in ways we wouldn't expect? Is it bad acting, or is it that in fact, there are so many individuals that surely there can never be a standard way of responding to any situation no matter how intense or grave?

Anyway, back to Andrew Collins again, his problem with the train tracks scene seems to be that he just doesn't believe that there is any way that Derren Brown would be allowed to do this (I'm filling in the blanks here. He hasn't explicitly said that this is his problem with it.). Now, this is an interesting point. Would a tv programme ever be allowed to take a member of the public and put them in such a position of danger?

I could go on biting into the details of this programme, but it just be me repeating myself agiagn and again. It all just boils down to whether you believe it or not.

Personally, I think Derren Brown is far too intelligent to drop the ball like this, but there are some bits that just don't seem right.

Now, my theory is that if this whole thing was staged, it was staged to act as a trigger. At the end of the programme, Derren said it was time for someone else's journey to start and started a clock to count down from thirty days. I reckon that there could be another show coming up telling about how people who've watched this programme have had their own experiences of changing something in their lives over the course of thirty days, starting from the day this show was broadcast.

Though, writing that and reading it back, it does seem a little far-fetched.

Maybe it is all real and just because of the way it was presented, or because of the high profile Derren Brown has now, people just want to not believe in it, want to pick it apart, want to find fault in it.

One thing is for sure. This programme has got a lot of people talking about it and thinking about it. So no matter what this show was, it has been very clever in the way that it has got into people's heads.

Derren Brown, you're in all our heads, aren't you, you little bighter.

Deal Or No Deal.

I hope this series of 'Deal Or No Deal' is shorter than the last one.

When Deal Or No Deal started, I found it really interesting. I really liked watching the way people dealt with odds and how they decided to play them. It used to come across as a form of extreme gambling at times, as people were faced with cold, hard decisions they didn't know how to make.

Then somewhere along the line, a dirty word started to become involed.

"Destiny."

Suddenly, the numbers had meaning. Personal association came into play. The programme became less about a person's decision making process and more about personal spiritual journeys.

Then it got really creepy. It started turning into a televised cult where everyone would hold hands and try to send positive energy into an almost empty box.

Luckily, before the series got into everyone drinking poisoned kool-aid or going on a murderous rampage, someone saw sense and decided the series must have a little break. Put Noel Edmonds in an ice bath before he exploded and let every one of his disciples some time to calm down.

Now it's back, and while it's certainly better for having had it's cooling off period (on a serious note, during one of the episodes where they were doing the 'everyone hold hands and send out positive energy' thing, I actually thought they were going to start chanting), it still seems to have calmed down. Noel still works them up a treat tho, to the point where they permanently look on the verge of breaking point, even when they're doing well. There are still some of the spiritual tell tale signs though. A little bit too much about instinct and 'believing in yourself.'

And this time, it's like that from the off. By the end of this series, I wouldn't be surprised to see them all attempting levitation, or trying to determine what was in all the boxes thru some sort of collective conciousness or an attempt to dematerialise into a form of cloud in which everything reverts to the same base molecules and then reforms so that every box has £250,000 and everyone wins everytime and live happily ever after as the same collective being.

And Noel Edmonds would be the conductor of this orchestra of amalgamated beings. And they would probably take over all of us, whether we wanted them to or not.

And that's why I hope this series of 'Deal Or No Deal' is shorter than the last one was.

Who Wants To Read Some Poems I Wrote When I Was 15/16 Years Old?

Come on. WHAT part of that doesn't sound like a great idea?

So, there was a "Comedy Special" edition of the Chester Arms open mic night and I was going to read these poems out at it. The idea came from listening to the Andrew Collins & Richard Herring 6Music podcast. On their show, they did a segment called "Poetry Smackdown" where they would each read a poem they wrote in their teens. Of course, the standard of poetry is an embarrassment, that's the point, and the segment is always at the very least quite funny and at the most, pant-wettingly hilarious. I remember walking down Cowley Road listening to one particular podcast episode and I got some very odd looks due to the fact that I had to stop walking as I was almost crying with laughter when Richard Herring read out the line "The only water that was pure, was from an orphan's tears."

Anyway, for reasons I won't go into now, I couldn't go. I was going to do them at the next months one instead, but couldn't make that one either. Then I was going to at last night's one, but there were only about 8 or 9 people there due to a) the torrential rain we had in Oxford yesterday evening, and b) George's admission that he had done virtually no promotion for it this month. Hey, cut him some slack, he's just moved into a boat. No, seriously.

Anyway, the atmosphere wasn't there, so I didn't feel comfortable with doing it, so as a sort of punishment for neglecting this blog, I'm going to post them up on here. These poems are the ones I selected to perform from the worrying amount of dreadful teenage poetry I found in my old bedroom at my Mum's flat. I hope you find them amusing.

Just to reiterate, I know these poems are embarrassingly bad, that's the point. When I found these again, I couldn't stop laughing at how bad they are. When I was 15/16 though, I actually thought these were really good and profound and meaningful. How stupid I was.

Right. Are you ready? Here goes.

School.

School,

Ain't cool.

Full of fools,

Stupid schools.

Loads of teachers,

Bloody preachers.

Children go there,

People don't care.

Children do well,

Further Ed. Hell.

Children fail,

Parents wail.

"Best days of your lives,"

The ageing Grandpa cries.

How the bloody hell would he know?

For him it was so long ago.

Paul.

Paul,

Hit the wall,

it was small,

He was tall.

What an unfortunate thing to do,

But he knows lots of tall people have done this too.

He's walking along with his head in a cloud,

Eating and talking and walking so proud.

But now, Oh my God, it has happened again,

All of his proud thoughts have gone down the drain.

And now all the harsh words are hurting his brain,

And he'll probably go off and die of the brain.

You know Paul was actually never that sane,

And now his poor death is all in such vain.

August The 1st.

I'm sorry, but I don't find it funny,

How stupid people spend all their money.

They throw it away in desperation,

To buy a new car with a new registration.

Some do it to chuckle, snigger and sneer,

At those who have not got a car of this year.

Why do they do it? (Sad bastards!) Who knows?

I just hope they rust and decay when it snows.

That would teach them!

Some people of course, do have good reasons,

They're not like the ones, just after the seasons,

new choice.

A new voice,

That's what's needed, before we all go mad.

There are more important things than cars you know!...

Mung Bean.

I'm a mung bean,

Put me in your casserole.

Then you'll eat me,

And I will die inside your body.

But I'll be happy,

For it's the only place I want to be.

I love you.

Right. I think that's enough embarrassment for one day.

"Too Operatic."

I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing this blog. Here's a little something that happened a couple of weeks ago.

Someone bought the new Andrea Boccelli album. It's an album of him singing selected arias and duets from Bizet's famous opera 'Carmen.' She came back to return it a week later. Her reason was that it was "Too operatic." I actually had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing in her face.

What the Hell did she think she was buying?

This Is Probably A Bad Idea.

I am about to go and play football with some mates. I haven't played football for about 5 years, coz last time I did I managed about 3 minutes of play before I had to stop due to a fucking hideous asthma attack which left me unable to breathe properly for about an hour.

So why the fuck am I putting myself thru this again?

It's gonna be a disaster. I can see it now. After a couple of minutes I'll be acting like someone who's been shot thru the throat and suddenly the pitch will turn into a battlefield and everything will go in slow motion and Barber's fucking 'Adagio for Strings' will be playing. And I'll die. Thanks, football.

I was thinking about Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' the other day. I used to love that piece of music, but it's one of those ones that gets played to death on anything sad or poignant. I've seen charities use it to soundtrack images of starving people. I've seen sports programmes use it to soundtrack montages of people losing. I know full well it gets played at funerals, because I've sold cds of it to people so they can do just that, and I'd be surprised if it hasn't at some point been used to soundtrack a divorce. Still, it is actually a pretty good piece of music. It portrays a feeling or emotion pretty perfectly, it's just REALLY overplayed to the point where I kind of can't stand it anymore. Kind of like Pachelbel's 'Canon', which is another massively overplayed piece of music. The main difference is that 'Canon' isn't really even that good. It's overplayed, very popular and inoffensive but essentially a bit empty. 'Canon' is the 'Friends' of classical music. Every now and then it serves a purpose, but most of the time I just wish it would go away.

I guess 'Adagio for Strings' is more like the 'Frasier' of classical music. It's very good but still just a bit overplayed. If it wasn't on as much, I wouldn't be bored of it.

So, back to the point, I'm probably going to die playing football tonight and when I do I'm probably going to be annoyed because I'll probably hear Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' which although very annoying, it could be a lot worse. It could be 'Sex & The City'. Now that really doesn't bear thinking about.

Soundcloud.

So yeah, my mate Mark Ryan sent me a message to record some of my poems and he night be able to sneak one on his radio show, so I recorded a couple today. If you fancy a listen, they can be found here: http://soundcloud.com/misteraxl

They're a little quiet so you may need to turn your volume up a tad.

Hope you like them. Proper blog soon. Currently working out my Truck set and woking on a poem about Caesar Salad, a poem about Weeds and 7 apology haikus.