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:

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.

Beating the January blues...

Bugger!

I typed out a cracking little post of all the brilliant things I'd looked at online to cheer myself up today. Then it just disappeared, damn damn damn!

Oh well, here's a quick list - without all the unfortunate jokes...

1) Hype Machine - I've been checking out loads of great new music. Current favourites include Battles, Pedro, and Euros Childs' new stuff.

2) My dear friend Abi pointed me in the direction of Zoe Irvine's Magnetic Migration Music. Zoe finds bits of tape in the street and sticks them together for exhibitionsl, installations and the like.

3) Amy Lee Harris wonderful knitted creations (available at the delightful Kathleen & Lily's shop) led me to find One Good Bumblebee, a wonderland of cute and kitschy creations.

All of which leads to an afternoon of twee, indie entertainment.

Happy New Year everyone!
x anders