Hello everyone! How are you all? Comfortable? You'd better be...
I have had an interesting weekend, in which I played a support gig for the superb Dead Radio Society, which was very nice indeed. (I've known them for a year and a half, and this is the first time we've been able to share a billing, and - I hope - not the last.) I then spent the weekend with friends, playing games, watching DVDs and going for a pub meal. My weekend was briefly marred by a slightly rude cashier at a supermarket in Leek, who asked me for ID whilst I was buying a bottle of beer. Apparently, I have to look over 25 in order to buy alcohol, and apparently, I don't. I don't have any other form of ID than my passport, and I have never needed to take my passport to my supermarket. I have only needed my passport in order to go to Greece.
Now seems to be a good time to mention that my 32nd birthday is this Friday, and also that my friends (who, incidentally, bought all the beer they could fit in a carrier bag or two each), who were with me in the queue, averaged at about eight years younger than me. The irony is not lost on me that had I been unable to buy alcohol this weekend, it would have ruined a weekend of playing games and watching cartoons.
One thing I was able to buy without fear of reprisals was Pringles. Oh, blogwatchers, I do love me some Pringles. I know this constitutes product endorsement, and were I a well-established, internationally loved career-musician, I would be sitting here with my fingers crossed, looking out of my bedroom window in case a giant Pringles lorry crawled down my road, crunching wing-mirrors on the way past (for 'tis a small road bejewelled with cars), delivering the lifetime supply of moreish crisps I so crave.
(I also loved Cheese Bugles - an occasionally recurrent theme on Facebook and Twitter is my sorrow and teeth-gnashing disbelief that they are no longer available in the UK. This is probably wonderful news for my arteries, who, years ago, had to sustain me despite my filling them with conical corn tastiness for several months.)
It gladdens my heart to see new flavours appearing as I gaze at the Pringles section in supermarkets these days. I don't go for spicy flavours, nor do I like anything too oniony (cheese & onion has never appealed to me, largely because of the smell, but also because I used to sit next to someone who scoffed them at lunchtime, and then would breathe cheese & onion crumb-gas into my face - I still retch a little even now), no - my flavours of choice are either plain or something with a meaty theme.
Thus I was really curious (and my curiosity cannot be fully described on this humble blog without graphs and descriptive etchings) when I saw, on the shelf before me, Spaghetti Bolognese flavour Pringles. And, two shelves down, Smoky Bacon. Paydirt. As far as the bolognese goes, they are doing a range of dinner flavours, it seems, as there was also steak & ale (or onion, I forget) pie flavour, spicy fajita, and macaroni cheese (this one's next on the "To-Try" list). As for smoky bacon, I'd not seen these before, and I just love bacon.
I can entertainedly report that, once I'd bought my beer from Tesco's (self-service till, authorisation needed, staff-member didn't even look, just swiped the card & let me buy the beer - THAT'S HOW IT'S DONE!), and we all got back to my friends' house, the bolognese Pringles were tentatively tried & ambivalence was the main verdict. However, when I came downstairs the next morning, they had been polished off and it was agreed that, yes - the more you eat, the better they get.
I am not a connoisseur of food, it must be said. I love a good meal and will happily eat in whatever decent restaurant you plonk me in, but start talking snacks & I will compare happy/outraged memories, share out bags of crisps for taste-testing (and also a glass of water or lemonade, you don't want to cross-pollinate flavoursome crumbs for fear of spoiling the judgement), and hide Monster-Munch in a bottomless crevass (I have no desire to smear my teeth in orange gunk, thankyouverymuch, and the same goes for Wotsits).
I can imagine you being a bit concerned by these paragraphs, so I will take a moment to assure you that this is not an obsession. I have, in recent months, become aware of how many bags of crisps I can get through during weekends and time at work. I recently cut crisps from my lunchtime diet, and a tube of Pringles is a rare treat for me. I would expect them to stay that way too, otherwise the beauty of them would just be lost in a haze of dry-mouthed salt-lust.
Anyway, I think you all know me that little bit extra now, and I feel a little bit easier plugging my wares. As you all know, I am writing a mailing list and I would continue to urge you to join up and receive an e-mail from me once a fortnight. It'll be largely upcoming gig lists and the like, but I would make efforts to send the odd e-mailable free gift (I have just laughed whilst typing this, as there is no way of e-mailing something you would have to pay for, and I currently have no items for sale - although I am now working on this). I do recommend the mailing list, as it will prevent any confusion regarding the location of any gigs I'm playing at, and any other pertinent information. I am slightly better at giving out all the relevent details on the mailing list, and it's a friendly little mailout as well. Ask anyone who's on it!
If you'd like to join (and after that cosy ad, why wouldn't you?), go to www.wix.com/mrjohnmacleod/music and go to the 'Contact' page, where there is an e-mail form to fill in. That goes straight to me, and I'll add you to the list. If you're going to this site through your smartphone, you will instead see a link that says "Get in touch" - you'll be able to e-mail me through that. You would be most welcome and will receive the digital equivalent of a nice hot cup of tea and the biscuits of your choice (I could talk about that now, but it's a whole other blog...).
Meantime, if you chaps would like to know where I am up to at the moment, I am still looking at songs and wondering what to do with them. It's an odd thing, I am very, very eager to put songs somewhere where you can download/buy/keep them, and that is now quite high on my priority list. I am thinking of one or two EPs of home demo material while I work at what I would like my "album" to be. So I will keep plugging away at home demoes (and, more importantly, getting them right) with which to do this. So please do keep bearing with me while I'm working this out, because I feel I am not that far from having things I can present to you (that aren't diatribes about crisps).
In the meantime, I hope you have finished your cup of tea before it went cold, and if you feel you need something stronger and alcoholic to drink (my blogs can have this effect, I've had the tests done), make sure you take your passport with you when you go to buy it.
Take care folks,
John.xx
No comments:
Post a Comment