Twilight

I just started writing a blog post about my top seven favourite sitcoms, but got overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. So I'll do it some other time. And I'm writing about it here, which should give me an incentive to follow through on my promise. It will be quite the list, and will contain almost no surprises, which is in itself a surprise.

But I can't do it now. The pressure is too great. So I'll have to think of something to write about.

That will be easy. This planet is positively heaving with blog topics. You can't move without tripping over some kind of premise. There's protests and inquiries and debates and popular culture. I'm spoilt for choice.

The only limit is my imagination.

...

...

***

It's a couple of hours later. I originally wrote that as a hilarious bit or irony, but then I genuinely did have no ideas. I was like The Boy Who Cried Writer's Block.

I don't know if that's an appropriate apostrophe. Does the block just belong to one writer (in this case, a lying boy), or is it a universal phenomenon which affects all writers? Should it be writers' block?

I just tweeted 'I've got wronger's block'. Let's see how that goes. I'm starting to get desperate on Twitter. I want more followers, but probably wouldn't follow me if I was someone else. I'm not a part of my own demographic.

Anyway, I did think of something to write about. Lucy and I went to see The Twilight Sad at the Jericho Tavern on Tuesday night. They were very good. I've written about them before, but the main things about The Twilight Sad are that they're a) very loud and b) very Scottish.

That's unfair. They're probably just ordinarily Scottish - it's just thrown into sharper relief by the predominantly un-Scottish inhabitants of Oxford.

They are very loud though.

Here's their latest single:

The image on that video isn't very pleasant, so feel free to look at these baby badgers whilst listening to it instead:

This song doesn't really capture the loudness. I suppose it could if you turned your volume way up.

At the gig, I realised that I need a new coat. I like the dufflecoat aesthetic of a winter indie crowd, and I only have a shabby BHS suit jacket, which I wear in all weathers and social situations.

It's either the suit jacket, or my massive leather coat. The latter was not made for a mild winter. The former was not made to be worn in public.

But that leather coat was the last coat I bought, and that was in New York in 2001, somewhere near the World Trade Centre. It was spring, though. Just because I have a beard and a terrorist coat doesn't mean I can travel through time to commit atrocities.

Also, I didn't have a beard then. I was young and fresh-faced, like a rookie cherub.

So I haven't bought a coat for ten years. It's a big step to take, because I'm probably going to wear nothing else for the rest of my life. I mean, I'll wear clothes underneath it. If I didn't, it would be obscene. My fraying suit jacket wouldn't come close to covering my shame/pride if that was my general attitude to coats.

But I'll probably never buy another coat. Unless fashions change, and I need to buy something made of plastic or hydrogen.

I'll do some coat browsing and let you know how it goes. I'm sure you're on tenterhooks.

It was misty on the way home from the gig, and the streetlights were producing strange effects as they shone through the trees. They cast rays of light and darkness through the skeletal branches; the air was thick like soup. It was eerie. I took a photo on my phone, but I don't know how good it is.

I've been trying to email it to myself. That's my only way of getting my phone photos onto a computer. My phone didn't come with the right cable, so whenever I take an interesting snap, I have to go through a long process of sending it to myself. Like posting myself an anticlimactic birthday card, with the wrong number of candles taped to the envelope.

OK, here it is. It doesn't quite capture the magic of the evening. But it was taken with a rubbish phone, so you can't fault the photographer, who, despite wearing a stupid jacket, is a pretty amazing, and definitely non-terrorist, bearded cherub.

Yeah, I know there were too many commas in that sentence. But I don't care. I can use commas however I like. They're like children: the more you abuse them, the longer your sentence.

AH! An actual joke! It makes sense. ACTUAL SENSE!

You're witnessing a blogger in the prime of his life!

Anyway, take a look at this soupy-skied streetlight pic:

 

It's OK. It's fine. We're all fine.

Happy New Year, everybody.

You know - for later.

***

I hope the title of this blog post gets me loads of hits from vampire-crazed teens. Even though Edward is a boring cock, Jacob is King of the Chumps and Bella has all the vitality of a runny fart.

***

I can't end a blog post on the word 'fart'. I don't like that word. Let's finish on a word I do like.

Cluster