It's My Birthday!

Yep, today is my birthday. I'm turning 30. Overall I feel a bit weird about it. I think turning 30 means I have to become a grown-up, right? I have to be sensible and save money and think about having babies and a five year plan. Scary.

So, to rebel against the big Three-Oh I shall be celebrating at Jumpers For Goalposts, my favourite night of playing "arts and crafts" and listening to goofy music. If anyone would like to come and join me and help me celebrate then here are the details:

THURSDAY 18^TH AUGUST

JUMPERS FOR GOALPOSTS

The Alley Café

8pm to latePM

Nottingham’s craftiest craft night returns on 18^th August to bring some calm to our riot-torn city and make everything all music and google-eyes again.

There will, however, be a riot of colour and creative ideas, with arresting creations but NO CHARGES FOR ADMISSION!

We’ll have live music from ‘Santo and Claus’ and you can dance the night away (in your seats while making craft items) to the sonic collages made by DJ's from the fantastic film society Kneel Before Zod... we're expecting amazing soundtracks all round!

And don’t forget, the Alley Café serves excellent vegetarian and vegan food until 9.00pm if you fancy Dinner and Craft and Music.

****

If you're wondering what to get me as a brilliant 30th birthday present, I like cake... and diamonds.

Bex

xxx

FUN-Raising at Jumpers for Goalposts

Please come along to the Alley Cafe on Thursday from 8.30pm for an evening of music, craft & entertainment. ish.

Becky
x

Dr Who!

As mentioned before we recently held a special magical Jumpers for Goalposts party at the Alley Cafe where we celebrated the magic of Dr Who via the medium of improvised music & craft. Here's the evidence (bit bumpy, don't get motion sickness!)




In case you've never been, Jumpers for Goalposts is held on the 3rd Thursday of every month at the Alley Cafe in Nottingham. Essentially it involves a lot of larking around with child-friendly craft materials (googly eyes, pipe cleaners, lollipop sticks) making wonderful creations for our competition AND live music. That time the live music was the audience, usually it's a proper band. Come down and join in and see for yourself how much fun you can have with glitter glue and a pint of organic cider!

Becky

Black Swan, Good Hair and things to do this week

Hello,

How are you? What've you been up to lately? Have you changed your hair? I like it!

Here's some things we've been up to lately:
- Bird watching - we've got lots of little blue tits, great tits, blackbirds & robins fluttering around in our garden, along with a big fat squirrel that keeps eating all their seeds!
- Getting ready for the awesome new Fists release on Hello Thor records (details in previous post)
- Going to the auctions (it's a different world)
- Making more things on my sewing machine (tea cosies & placemats are my latest adventures)
- Practising for Jumpers for Goalposts (scroll down for more info)
- Going to Just The Tonic (only once, saw Paul Foot & thought he was really very funny)

AND...
- Watching loads of films & TV - round-up & recommends here:

Misfits - If you haven't got into this TV series yet then DO. It's funny, rude, a bit gory, endearing and exciting. About a bunch of asbo kids who get magic powers from a storm. That does it no justice. *RECOMMENDED*

Going The Distance - Anders will tell me off for adding this to my list, but I enjoyed it. If you're a fan of the romcom this strays slightly away from the usual format (by just being a bit less lame and having characters you're a bit more likely to want to be friends with) - e.g. Drew Barrymore is the main character and she's not a control freak like every other female in rom-com land. I liked it.

Black Swan - I still don't know how I feel about this film 2 weeks after seeing it and I'm still talking to people about it. That seems pretty good to me. However, I found it a bit annoying, over-blown and trashy too. It's hard to pigeonhole and hard to describe without giving anything important away. My enjoyment of it was shared 50-50 with annoyance, so this isn't a glowing recommendation from that point of view. I would however still say you should watch it, if only because it will keep you talking. *RECOMMENDED*

Beetlejuice - I am aware that I'm the last person in the world to see this film, but isn't it fun?! I love the bit where they all do a dance around the dining table and I bet that was awesome to film. Plus it has the woman in from all the Christopher Guest films. Love her.

30 Rock - We went for a marathon of the latest series at Bones' house and it was AWESOME. If you've never seen it then it's about Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) who is head writer on a SNL-type of show in America. It's also got Alec Baldwin in and he is hilarious. It's got a really high gag-rate, you care about the characters but it never tries to make you cry and Anders hearts Tina Fey. Watch it from the start, it will be a pleasure and a joy. **RECOMMENDED** (Big time!)

The Baader Meinhof film (I'm getting the name a bit wrong there) - This is often on those "films you should watch" lists, but I wasn't really feeling it that much. It's about a terrorist group in Germany in the 60's and is a bit confusing if you don't know anything about the situation (me) before you watch it. Interesting, some good performances and nice to see a mix of real-life footage and drama, but overall left me a bit cold.

Good Hair - This is the Chris Rock documentary about black hair. It's absolutely fascinating, a peek into a world I knew very little about. AND there is a hair styling contest. It's worth watching for that alone. One of the stylists entered before and her theme was "brokefront mountain" (no I don't get it either) and there was an awful video she made of her and some women dressed in cowgirl outfits with a bit of hay. It made NO sense and her entry in this documentary is even more random. A thoroughly enjoyable film, well-presented, good structure, interesting and funny in places. **RECOMMENDED**

So, that's what we've been up to.

Now on to what's coming up this week:

1 - Jumpers for Goalposts - Thursday @ Alley Cafe, FREE
This is a monthly event we run where you can come, hang out with your friends, hear a bit of music (usually just 1 band will play a few songs) and make something shit out of plasticine and pritt stick and straws. We call that part the Creative Competition and there are mega prizes involved. It's also very hard-fought and sometimes people create actual amazing things, not just rubbish penis-related puns!!

Anyway, this month we are doing something a little bit different. In place of our usual (talented) musical act YOU will be the band. Come and join in as we create an intergalactic jam session on tiny instruments. No musical talent needed (phew!), jsut enthusiasm and a willingness to have a go on a kazoo (no euphemism). We'll be playing a very exciting special TV theme tune... if we can all learn it quickly enough over the night to make our final performance a success then we will film it and share our talent with the world!

2 - Record Breakers - Saturday @ the Arts Theatre, £10 in advance
This is a huge gig organised by Denizen Records which features some of the best musical acts Nottingham has to offer, all together on one stage. Come along to see the likes of Yunioshi, Kogumaza, Dearest, Swimming, Hhymn & Fists ply their trade in this gorgeous venue. There are Late Of The Pier DJ's and apparently a world-record attempt too! You can get £10 tickets, or even get a cheap group booking deal from http://www.hellothor.com/.

what a lot of stuff. I'm tired now. See you thursday or saturday or both!

Bex
x

Music & Crafting

I've written about Jumpers For Goalposts on here lots, but in case you don't know what it is.... it's Nottingham's finest music & crafting evening, hosted by Hello Thor Records and starring an acoustic act, DJs, a creative craft competition and MEGA prizes (TM). This month the act is Jake Bugg. Come down to the Alley Cafe on the 3rd Thursday of the month and join in.

Here is the brand new, very exciting Jumpers For Goalposts blog. I recommend a visit:

http://thesecretdiaryofjumpersforgoalposts.wordpress.com/

And you can read more on LeftLion here: http://www.leftlion.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=21877.0

Love Bex
x

Jumpers For Goalposts

A quick reminder... it's Jumpers For Goalposts  tomorrow night at the Alley Cafe.

We've got Hawks & Other Birds playing live. New band out in Notts.

We've got Anders & Holly (Polka Dot Promotions) playing charity shop vinyl as an homage to the wonderful Music Exchange (read below).

PLUS

We've got a great creative competition with some truly MEGA prizes to be won*.  Because the band are Hawks & Other Birds and because Nick is a big girl who's afraid of flapping things like birds (sorry Nick! xx) we got to thinking about phobias... so you need to come and show us what you're scared of, via the medium of plasticine, googly eyes, crepe paper and talent.

See you there!

Bex
x

Some pictures from Jumpers past...

 
 
* in this instance the word MEGA = a bit rubbish

General Ramblings

Hi,

Thought I'd pop a few thoughts up while I'm finishing off my lunch on this sunny Friday.

Firstly, who watched MasterChef this season? How great was it?! I was totally hooked. I haven't been that into it for a couple of years, but I really enjoyed this one. Particularly how John had gotten all slim and cool in his cardigans, instead of his 80's blazers. Did anyone else spot the winner really early on? I thought I was a genius, but it appears lots of people knew, so maybe I'm only half a genius.

Secondly, who watched the new Dr Who? LOVED IT. Can't wait for the next one tomorrow!

We saw Kick Ass the other day at the cinema. Have you seen it? It's a strange film, enjoyable but kind of like it's two films squashed together. There's a super-violent/bloody Tarantino/Japanese style super hero revenge flick combined with a 'nerds at school get cool' film. It was good, but I expected something very different. By the way, if you have seen it, the guy who plays the main character is British, weird right?!

Popped to a little art auction at BackLit studios on Wednesday and accidentally bought two pieces. Well, I say accidentally, it's not like I sneezed and he counted it as a bid or anything, but I wasn't really planning to go hog-wild and buy two things. I love them both though, will try to pop up pictures of them another time. Really i just wanted to mention the studios as I haven't been before but they have lots of exhibitions and happenings, well worth checking out. Apparently there's a facebook group for those of you on there. They are in Sneinton somewhere, just off Carlton Road.

If you're free next Thursday we're doing Jumpers for Goalposts at the Alley Cafe, as we do every 3rd Thursday of the month. If you haven't been before, it's billed as Nottingham's finest, funnest, free-est felt-tips n folk night and basically involves the following elements:

• a live act (usually one person and a guitar, but in the past it's hosted keyboards, synths, washboards, melodicas and even a double bass)
• DJs (not making you dance or anything, it's a bit small for that, but offering a fabulous soundtrack to your evening)
• a craft competition (there are rules and craft materials provided for you to explore your creativity and use your nimble fingers to invent a beautiful miniature artwork. Or you can just put glitter and googly eyes on some bits of old cardboard... it's up to you)
• "mega prizes" TM. (I'll let you decide if they're mega or not when you win one)

In general it's one of the nicest, friendliest, happiest evenings of the month. You can have a lovely organic cider, drink a cup of tea, hear some wonderful music and make a magical/shit creation. All for free too.

This weekend we're at the big Hello Thor / Fists EP Launch Party at the Rescue Rooms tonight (incidentally I dreamed about this last night and Barack Obama turned up. He's so cool.) and then just doing general hanging out and relaxing over the weekend. I'm hoping to see Whip It (Drew Barrymore's film), because I HEART Drew.

Right, better go crack on with some work now. Lunch technically finished ten minutes ago.

Love
Bex
x

Thanks Popbitch!

For bringing this to my attention:

http://www.takeaweirdbreak.com/

Sample:


Very funny. Thanks also for this joke:
Old Jokes Home:
Q: How many musos does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: It's a pretty obscure number.You probably haven't heard of it.

Tonight I am DJing at the Dolly Disco @ The Alley Cafe. Come along if you like to hear music being played with gaps in between and lots of cries of "Oh no! I pressed the wrong button!"

I have been selecting some tunes ready for the occasion. They currently include:
Vampire Weekend (great live footage), Doris Day, Hot 8 Brass Band (also amazing live footage),Kenny Rogers (live footage from the 70's) and Beyonce, to name a random, yet representative selection.

DJing tonight, Library EP launch tomorrow. Fun weekend!

Love
Bex
x

Pictures!

Hello,

Ah, another month, another Jumpers For Goalposts! Last night was a strange one really. While it was brilliant in many ways, it was also really odd. To begin with the Alley Cafe was jam-packed with people. Nick from Hello Thor kept claiming they were a victim of their own success, but I think some drunk people just happened upon it and a group of ladies had booked a table for dinner (not knowing what they were getting themselves into!).
This made manoeuvering (How the hell is this word spelt?!) around the room a little bit like playing one of those puzzles where you slide little squares around until the full image is revealed. Anyway, no time to ramble, so i'll make lists instead:

The Good:
Seeing lots of lovely people who I only see once a month because I'm not very good at going out.
The winner of the creative competition - incredible dedication to the cause
Learning that Rachel (from Kathleen & Lily's) has a phobia of cut hair, and I can kind of understand where she's coming from with that.
Impromptu crowd involvement in Line's rendition of Love Is Strange by Mickey & Sylvia
Alyssa's massive new mobile phone
Joey's incredible homage to the Big Bopper (who is really creepy!)
Fists (always)
Going home with a signed drawing entitled Transformer Vs Pyramid on a paper plate
The overheard conversation between Yellow T-Shirt guy & his friend where his friend was saying (a little worse for wear) "This is making me so happy, oh I love Buddy Holly, this is brilliant, oh it's made me so happy, I can't believe it" and on. It was lovely.
Tom Whalley's teeny tiny quiff

The Bad:
General squeezy-ness in the bar. If Hello Thor continue to be a victim of their own success then a new venue will have to be found!
The hot chocolate machine was switched off
Many of the creative competition entries

The Ugly:
Jenna, Rachel & Chaffe's competition entry... it had real human hair on it for chrissakes!
The crowd involvement in Line's rendition of Love Is Strange by Mickey & Sylvia. (*Please note that in this instance the crowd refers to me)
That dick trying to start a fight. What was that all about? Someone doesn't understand the phrase "just for fun".

Here's the photographic evidence:

Doing other things instead of doing work

It's strange how sometimes doing other things instead of working isn't that pleasurable. I've been whiling away the morning doing little bits of real work alongside lots of bits of procrastination, but the guilt is too bad and I'm not really enjoying it. So, this little post will be my last hurrah before I knuckle down to some serious business.

I just wanted to pop up some pictures from the last Jumpers for Goalposts, which was great and wrong in almost equal measures (not really, great won by a long chalk!). The Tom Tomas Club played a chaotic, under-rehearsed, amazing set of songs linked to films. Tom introduced every song claiming they wrote it and it had been made famous by other people. When you think about that please bear in mind that the set was made up of Ghostbusters, Anyone Else But You (Juno), Man of Constant Sorrow (Oh Brother Where Art Thou?) and Purple Rain.... Purple Rain... by Prince... or "that little feller" as Tom called him. It was ludicrous, especially the part where they sang Anyone Else But You to each other lovingly and added in their own names and the bit where Nick put down his guitar and threw himself headlong into Purple Rain, arms outstretched bellowing the lyrics at the top of his voice.

Here are the pics:












As you can see the performance was interesting, the creative competition fiercely fought and the evening (in the words of Joey Chickenskin) RULED.

Bye!

Becky
x

Jumpers for Goalposts

Hello!

I really like Jumpers for Goalposts. Me and Anders had an action packed night last night. Well, first off we ate soup and watched a bit of telly and then I made us late by refusing to stop watching Come Dine With Me in order to go out into the real world and have fun. Then we raced into town armed with a large viking helmet, a box of craft supplies and a bag of records along with layers and layers of clothes, hats scarves etc. We dropped off the supplies at the Alley Cafe with Tom & Nick and went ice skating on the square! Ice skating is brilliant. We aren't brilliant at it, but it's brilliant anyway. I would love to go ice skating on a proper frozen lake one day, but for now skating round market square with some drunk showy-offy people will do.

Jumpers was, as always, brilliant. It was a christmassy theme so everyone made nativity scenes for the creative competition and some lovely people sang Christmas songs. Ashley Askins did some sterling work with some singalong carols, supported on backing vocals by Joey, Alyssa, Jaynie and Rob... not that they were asked... just kidding, it was beautiful. Joey also did his Nottingham Christmas song which rules and uses the word Beeston. He also demonstrated a marvellous falsetto taking the Kirsty McColl part on that Pogues Christmas song (too soon!).

The last live performance was my favourite though (sorry everyone else) because Nick Nock, Mayor of Gun City, did "All I want For Christmas" by Mariah Carey which is my favourite ever Christmas song. It really snowballed until Nick (the 3rd member of Hello Thor) was saying "now it's the ladies turn!" and "just the men now please" and we were all singing "ooooooooooOOOOooohhhh BABY!". I wanted it to happen 20 times in a row, but Nick felt he'd already been a bit self-indulgent and finished off.

Actually, I lied above, the last live performance was an entry to the nativity which was really really really really really really really strange. It was a mini play, one minute long and featured a pregnant man named Roger, a drunk man shouting "Vikings" and some stuff about "the system". They won a prize for the sheer effort which had gone into it. Second place was won by Jaynie's crew for their Reversible Super Jesus and first place was won by a Prog Rock Christmas from the minds of Jenna and Rachel of Kathleen & Lily's. I'll post some pics up when I've found my camera and loaded them online.

Tom played some great music, danced like a wally and didn't talk to girls.

Thanks to all the Jumpers for Goalposts people for a lovely time.

Bex
xx

p.s. I forgot to mention that my favourite entry to the Creative Competition was a baby jesus with a paper chain umbilical cord. It was the best one by miles and should have won all the prizes. But, then again the prizes were rubbish (GOLD coins, MYRHH-th (a kenny everett record) and FRANKENSTEIN comics and FRANK-INCENSE, Frank Sinatra endorsed incense. Like I said, rubbish) so maybe it's best that it didn't win.

The artists formerly known as Pork Swordz

Hello

I just wanted to talk about a couple of my favourite things and how they are being united - like cheese and toast - to make one brilliant thing tomorrow night.

JUMPERS FOR GOALPOSTS
This is one of my very favourite nights out. It's in the Alley Cafe which I love. It was set up by Pete* & Han who I love who run I Dress Myself which I also love.

The idea behind Jumpers...is that someone plays some records (which I love), a musical act play live (which I love) and then everyone takes part in a creative competition which usually involves fuzzy felt and crayons and bad jokes about celebrities, all in a bid to win the INCREDIBLE PRIZE (usually some charity shop gem or a bit of tat that the promoter had lying round their house)...which I REALLY love!

After Han & Pete became tremendously busy running a brilliant screenprinting business and having a lovely baby, they handed over the reins to us, Supernight. After we got too busy we then handed the reins over to Alex @ Shadowplay who then went to the Czech Republic for a bit and handed it all over to Tom from Not in Nottingham/Yeah I'll Play It Later/Hello Thor. Now, Alex is back and he's doing it again with Tom. Got all that?

Hope so!

Anyway, these ramblings are also here to celebrate the glory that is HARRY & RORY, two young punks who used to go by the name of DEATH BY TV. They changed their name to PORK SWORDZ. Then to MAURY POVICH THE BAND. Each name more brilliant and funny than the last, I'm sure you'll agree!

Hello Thor (me, Tom and Nick) put Death By TV on at a gig where their set lasted no more than 11 minutes - most of which was taken up with banter along the lines of "being mature is for SUCKERS!" and pressing the demo button on their Casio and having a dance-off to Wham.

They are awesome.
And they will be at Jumpers for Goalposts tomorrow night.
I hope you are too.

x Anders


* By the way, Pete's now doing some stuff at the Sumac Centre including the brilliant Sigh night. Another splendid evening where you can listen to sad records and drink great cocktails.

Mask Mayhem

Hello!

We went along to Jumpers For Goalposts at the Alley Cafe last week and witnessed some truly disturbing activities...

The creative competition was about making a summer-solstice-wicker-man-creepy-mask and these were the results:


Competition Entrants (I want to make a joke about how this is them without their masks, but I'll refrain...)



The person who made this proudly declared themselves "The Winner"... they weren't. They came 3rd. However, it is an amazing creation.



Look at what it does!



2nd Place was Joey Chickenskin who won an album for old people couples which made me feel a bit sad... good sad, but sweet old people break my heart a bit, so that album got me big time!



Victory! Alison came first with her amazing elephant mask creation. Look at this photo... that's real victory for you, that's how you should celebrate when you win something.




Tom was really funny when he became "Prize Master". When I mentioned this later he let me into a little secret... he's a "prop comic... like Joe Pasquale", and those prizes were great props. An old couples album, a mug with an alsatian on it and the triumphant hand with a bee on it... as modelled by Anders:



Anyway, it was lots & lots of fun, so thanks to Tom & Everyone at the Alley Cafe for such a great evening!

Bex
xxx

THANKS!

I just wanted to say Thank You to everyone that came along and made Jumpers For Goalposts so swell last week.

I had a great night and yet again loved the atmosphere in the Alley Cafe.

So...

THANKS to Dave and Leanne for playing live.
THANKS to Chris for bringing the Music Library experience to Jumpers...
and THANKS to everyone who came along, took part in the creative comp and was so darned lovely.

x anders

Jumpers for Goalposts

Hello there,

Thanks to everyone who came down to the last Supernight gig at Moog last week with Fists, Battlecat and Vastik Root. It was a cracker! You can read more about Vastik Root on Leftlion.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention Jumpers for Goalposts, seeing as how it's next week and all. Supernight have taken control of Jumpers for a little while because the usual hosts Han and Pete have had a beautiful baby girl and, frankly, they'd rather be hanging out with her!

So, for our first Jumpers for Goalposts event we will be bringing you the usual friendly atmosphere, creative competition, lovely drinks, a live performance from David Blazye and a guest DJ spot from Chris Matthews (Music Library).

All for free at the Alley Cafe next Wednesday!

Hope to see you there,

Love love

Becky
x