EDitorial ± 22-Nov-2004

Itch You Can't Scratch

According to Google, which we trust to know about such matters, there's never been an occurrence of the word "flaky" on this website. What were the chances? Yet if you were searching for a term to describe both the back of my scalp, NNE of that curious metallic implant, and the skin above my eyes, you'd likely settle on that word.

I had a run of late nights last week while trying to finish a friend's new website, culminating in a 3am finish on Friday night stroke Saturday morning. Hey, it wasn't a school night, mother. As the days progressed the backs of my knees needed more and more E45 Itch Relief slapped on, my head got scratchy, and the eyes became like Chi Chi after too much sake the night before. Not good.

When you're stuck like glue
When you need some goo
— Elastica, Vaseline

On top of that, earlier today BBC News were running a story entitled "Too little sleep may make you fat". OK, perhaps I did have the odd biscuit or two with my 1am brew, but I can cut them out tomorrow, honest.

I can hear little sister advising me to eat more fish and stock up on Omega-3 (starring Charlton Heston). Score one for some salmon tonight and chalk another one up for some peppered mackerel at the weekend, though I doubt that Friday lunchtime's fried plaice at the Maybush qualifies, tasty as it was.

Sometimes you don't need to have the sleep of the just, you need to just sleep. Here endeth the lesson. Now get to bed!

Be seeing you!

Ed

EDitorial ± 8-Nov-2004

Cool As KFC

On a Saturday evening when I was knee-high, sitting in front of the Generation Game and Seaside Special, my dad would sometimes reveal that he'd saved enough Luncheon Vouchers from work for a teatime treat: Kentucky Fried Chicken. No salads or Zingers or TLAs back then — this was the 1970s, sunshine — but my, those beans were tasty.
A Pizza Hut, A Pizza Hut
Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut
— Fast Food Rockers, Fast Food Song

Me & the kids passed a KFC en route to some serious soft play yesterday, and I got to thinking what else those three high-scoring Scrabble tiles could stand for:

  • Kids' Food, Conveniently
  • Ketchup Frosted Chips
  • Kitchen Friers Cranked-Up
  • Kiss Fatty Calories
  • Kindly Finish Chewing

Mind still wandering in a vaguely creative stylee, it occurred to me that perhaps the good Colonel (real name Harland Sanders, died in 1980, aged 90) may have missed a trick in this country. Every other T-shirt in the town centre shouts out FCUK; couldn't the ad-boys make something out of you and KFC?

Be seeing you!

Ed

EDitorial ± 1-Nov-2004

Mr Peel Has Left The Building

A week away from work and the Net, and wandered into the newsagents at Niton (southern tip of the IoW) last Wednesday to be met with sad news: from a heart attack in darkest Peru, John Peel is dead, all the papers said.

Turned out he wasn't immortal after all, the poor chap. My Peel years go back to the mid 1980s when I was introduced to the delights of Stump, Half Man Half Biscuit, I Ludicrous, and many more. I've got fond memories too of filling up D90s with the annual Festive 50 — hit play and record NOW! — full of top tunes voted for by the listeners.

Then there were the Suffolk connections: Peel Acres was somewhere near Stowmarket, and his wife, The Pig, had become an ITFC season ticket holder; on the radio in the 10pm to midnight slot he'd quite deliberately play a longer track around half-eleven so that he could phone home for a quick chat.

So it wasn't that much of a surprise to find myself in the same crowd as the great man, once at the Film Theatre in Ipswich for a programme of short football films, and again at Cambridge Corn Exchange for a gig by his beloved Fall.

Listening to his Radio 1 show a year or two back, after he'd played a Captain Beefheart track, I sent him an email saying that this still sounded to me like so much noise. Ten minutes later he read this out, adding the comment, "education, dear boy, education." He will be missed.

Be seeing you!

Ed