That's right, I've been reading 50 Shades of Gray. There goes all my intelligence.
It's wild. If I had found that book in a shop and just bought it on a whim, I wouldn't admit in public, to a friend, or on the blog, that I was reading it. However, with the insane popularity this book has amassed it is perfectly acceptable to announce to your fellow co workers in the office that you are reading this filthy, filthy book. And do you know why it's so filthy? The absolutely horrendous writing. WHY SO MANY ELLIPSES? WHY?
If I read any of the following:
"holy cow"
"holy shit"
"holy moses"
"he cocked his head"
"pushed me over the edge"
"inner goddess"
any more, I will just take it, because I can't expect any better, and that's what Ana would do, she just can't stop herself taking it.
Alsooo is it just me or is this book embarrassingly anti-feminist? Just me? I don't know, have some back bone Ana and keep off of Grey's one for a second. She manages to withhold once (that I've read so far) and she goes home and cries about it. Woman up Miss Steele. And if you're going to cry about not getting any, take it, and take it in your stride.
Stride of pride.
And now I have to apologise, for being a hypocrite. I rarely spell check this blog, look over the grammar or even do a simple sense check. I used to say it was part of the blog's charm. I write a post in one sitting then post it, coherent thoughts and all that. However since reading 50 Shades. (I found a spelling mistake in it last night) I've realised how annoying it is when someone is sloppy with their writing, I'll try to do better.
I don't want to read the trilogy, I really don't, I can't wait to finish this first book and get back into Tolkien again, yeah LOTR!
Frodo and Bilbo. Love you Bagginses.
But, on another note, good on you woman for making a ridiculous fortune from this book. Donate at least a proportionate chunk of it to a literacy foundation. Again, though I shouldn't ridicule, I started this blog partly to keep me writing since graduating University, and without any Professor to mark it, or an English version of Word to spell check, it's turned into a overly colloquial flood of words inter-spliced with 'awesome' at least once a blog. But there you go.
Recently I have been: winning a fishing competition at the Skeld Regatta, recording more radio show and some Heavy Metal Buffet Podcast, filming for Maddrim, reading 50 Shades, editing for Maddrim, went to the Voe Show, swimming in the sea a few times and perfecting my Trujillo impersonation.
This photo is property of my sister. Her name is Floortje Robertson.
However this blog was a backwards one, as I'm ending it with my 'what I've been up to' oh no wait. Not entirely backwards. Here comes the goodbye:
Evol fo stol
Neilojram xxxx
P.S You listened to the new podcast yet? 88 minutes in. Yeah, yeah, that's me interviewing BLACK SABBATH. Reggahs ananab.
Hiyi
How’re you?
That’s fantastic.
I’ve been pretty well too.
Recently I have been: to see Judas Priest on their last date of the Epitaph tour, to Download Music Festival, starting up a weekly radio show, made a film that is currently touring Britain, working as a camera assistant for a new drama, won a daft raft race and my cat died.
Listen and read, we may just share the same experience.
Heavy Metal Buffet is made by my brother Dirk and friend Jamie.
On the subject of online radio, on Friday evenings, from 6pm till 9pm you can tune into Joe, then myself and finally Dirk and Jamie (but NOT related to Heavy Metal Buffet show) for some suitable, family friendly and tuneful radio.
Right, Jamie and Dirk are way too distracting to listen to while writing so I've put on a bit of Master of Puppets by METALLICA. Holy shit they were awesome at Doonlod, we got up on the Vodaphone veiwing platform, which, although we were a bit away, offered us an amazing view of the entire stage, the snake pit and the crowd. Man it was impressive to see the crowd watching METLICA. The next day when Sabbath came on to finish the festival I swear the crowd was even bigger, the entire festival seemed to turn up to watch Sabbath, and it was awesome. They played songs from the first eight albums. I was wondering if they'd play any DIO but they stuck to all the early Ozzy, which, although there were some DIO songs I would have loved to hear live it was fitting. And it was amazing to see Iommi play, his hands created the sound of metal we love so much today and even in his illness he came on and gave the most awesome performance. I'll always hold the memories of seeing Sabbath, although deeply under the influence of freaking Anthrax's whisky at the time, as one of the highlights of my life. Yeah that's right I got Anthrax's whisky, met them and Megadeth and the lovely Kobra Paige backstage, best weekend ever.
Moving on.
Not sure if you've heard about the Hansel of Film, I'm going to explain it now without double checking it's actual description on t'site. It's a relay of homemade films from the length and breadth of Britain touring around the isles in honour of the olympics. At each location films are shown from that location, from the previous location and then there are out Shetland films in the mix. 'Hansel' is Shetland for gift. SO ENJOY.
Actually, the Culture Show is doing a whole piece on Hansel of Film on Wednesday, check this oot:
Maddrim made a few of the films there, even though I wasn't involved in Maddrim when some of those earlier entries were made, yeah, you're still welcome. Dirk and I really wanted to make a film, we came up with an idea, wrote a rough script down and set to make it on a Sunday (I forget which) pretty close to the deadline when we had all the equipment. But it pissed it down on the day and it was imperitive that we film the film outside and we didn't wanna get rained on. The filming was pretty much cancelled, then, at 15.30 Dirk was all like:
"Let's make a film about kids who like Star Wars, yeah, they could like it so much it's become their whole world, they've even created almost their own Star Wars universe for themselves"
We had two scripted scenes and the rest was all adlibbed. I paste the link here now for you to enjoy.
It's called Punch It Chewie, and none of us are sure if that line is actually said in the film, and neither is Han called 'Hans', but there you go.
What a nice guest appearance from our now dead cat.
Anyway, I've been thinking alot about Trujillo lately, I've not got him out of my head since I first watched 'Some Kind Of Monster', pretty much one of the best films of all time, so he's been in my head for a while, he's a cutie. He's also very good at doing the crab while he plays his bass. There's, I believe, a reason for this, and I'm not sure it while transpire in the same joke form that it has developed over time for myself and others who have created the joke. I'm just going to tell you, Trujillo man is a creature from the sea. That is not a put down, not in the slightest, alot of awesome creatures come from the sea, my Ipod for one. (SEE ALL THE REFERENCES FROM ALL THOSE PREVIOUS BLOG POSTS EVER) It is however, a justified reasoning. What you don't see when they're auditioning bass players for Metlica, is in an earlier scene when we join Kirk on a surfboard, he discovers Trujillo nipping at his toes beneath the briny waves. Hammet the kind hearted 'hey-guys-instead-of-thrashing-it-out-on-each-other-how-about-going-into-the-studio-and-thrashing-it-out-on-our-instruments' lead guitarist for Metlica brougth Trujillo back to the studio, albeit, as a new logo for St. Anger. We all remember how Hammet commented "Needs more spiders" when looking at the album artwork. By bringing this multi limbed crustacean into the studio, he was filling a certain, ju-nay-say-quah, (Read it and take it), it was only after Trujillo's freak out in his new, arid enviornment, which created more destruction then when Hetfield slammed the studio door, twice, they gave him one of Newstead's old basses to nip at. AND THUS. THE NEW BASSIST FOR METALLICA WAS FOUND.
And Bob Rock did cry.
Then they hired Rick Rubin as the producer for Death Magnetic.
Then Dave Grohl personally wrote into Metal Hammer praising Death Magnetic.
And The Unforgiven III made it.
And Bob Rock did cry again.
It's all cool, he's totes happy now the band is touring with the Black Album again. Back in his original glory.
Where was I?
Yeah Trujillo is a lobster or crab, I think everyone says crab but I say lobster, because I love Trujillo and I love lobsters.
Sitting up on the hill typing, because it's just too nice to be sat indoors tonight. Perhaps this shows how long it's been since I last blogged; the fact the sun is still shining after eight at night is a huge difference to February, but then, it was snowing yesterday, so the weather is still erratic as it was then, and will always be, here in Shetland. (CUE OPENING THEME)
Not quite mastered the laptop's inbuilt camera.
So news from the Robertson household. I bought shit loads of bread today. Heaps of it. Was emailed from Chaz saying Dirk was heading over an we needed to stock up. I went wild. If your feeling inclined for baked dough come along, we could toast it, grill it, even eat it raw. Was in the supermarket today, (because I was buying bread) had a good look through the magazines. Earlier this year the coop was selling this Marvel collection of all the greatest story lines hard bound for about a fiver each. It was amazing. Checking again to see if they were still stocking it, but nae luck. What I did find was a National Geographic, it was all: "the American Civil War" and I was like "this is great because I want to learn more about it!" Currently all I really know about the Civil War is what Vampire Bill Compton has taught us or about how the crack came to be in the Liberty Bell from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. So I was keen to buy it. I forgot that National Geographic is a basically a picture book of near enough A5 proportions and isn't even hardbound (unlike my beloved, but unfinished, Marvel collection) it was good though, cracking photos of Iceland.
What really pisses me off are the other magazines, the celebrity/lifestyle/fashion magazines. I used to love them, maybe that's why they annoy me even more. I got really angry at Angelina today, pouting on the cover of one, along from her was some actress laughing inanely and then Kirsten Stewart, doing nothing. PER USE. Why do you think yourselves so important as to sell your stories and interviews!? Wait. HA HA AH HA HA HA I write a blog.
HYPOCRISY.
And that's one of the reasons I haven't blogged in a while, because of a lack of focus for these entries I feel like I'm just bombarding the internet with a stream of incoherent, badly slanged driv that should be left in a subconscious somewhere... and then actually spell checked... just in case anyone should ever stumble upon it. There are so many blogs out there that are brilliant, with a focus on something like music, gaming or food, perhaps not even that, not a specific genre, but the blog is actually a well done, concise and interesting follow up of that persons time since last blogzz'in. I don't even give you that in my blog. I've not even given you real news. For my household's news from the last three months all I gave you was: bread. Yes. Today we bought bread, similar as every other 3 or so days (although as I said it was a shit load and I don't think we'll need more for at least five).
So whether to gain focus, carry on regardless or quit this blog. I think it'll be a mixture of the first two with an occasional avoidance of blogging every few months. Therefore, with regards to my blog as it's been heading along since it began, there will actually be no change. I just promise to write more, often.
The title, a quote ladies and gentlemen, from my Mam. I overheard that a few days ago when she was telling Dad about times when she reckoned we didn't need the doctor.
It's all cool she was a Nurse.
In Amsterdam.
SO, NEWS.
Firstly Claire and I got to do a way fun day of photos with John Carolan and Babs Clubb, she did the make up, John took the photos. It was a fun day with a free jukebox full of good heavy metal music. If it were possible to listen to Holy Diver too many times in one day then that would've been it (but it's not).
Last time I wrote here it was January, and I hadn't been to any Up Helly Aa's yet. Well I have now, been to three. Let's update you.
For anyone who doesn't know what Up Helly Aa is, it's a Viking Festival we have in Shetland celebrating our Viking Ancestry, the lightening of the nights and also originally started to spread out the drinking from Christmas and New Year so there was less of a binge in December.
(True story)
The best known Up Helly Aa is most likely the one in town; many consider this to be the main one. Always held on the last Tuesday of January, over 900 men, in costume, take part in a procession through the streets of Lerwick pulling a Viking Galley which they then burn in the play park for everyone to enjoy. This is before embarking on a night of performances, music and revellery. Actually I explain it pretty well here:
This is Maddrim's latest addition to Youtube
That's not all Maddrim did for Up Helly Aa, no it is not. We also got to help Promote Shetland with both a radio show (Joe and Marjolein's Radio Hour), a live web stream of the procession and some footage from the day (which will be added to Promote Shetland's page in the near future!) The web stream went live to over 8000 different viewers from around the world! AWESOME.
Here's Shetland Islands Council telling you in yet more detail, there's a lovely picture of Joe and the back of my head, and another of Katya taking care of the TriCaster - mad skillz (Check out how I use the word interviewing twice within eight words): http://www.shetland.gov.uk/news-advice/PR-MaddrimbroadcastUpHellyAa.asp
Up Helly Aa is awesome, I encourage everyone to come to Shetland to see it, whichever one, there are 10 official festivals, there are also a few others, such as the Waas one, I was Guizer Jarl (as in Head Viking) there in my youth. Proudest moment of my life. Before graduating.
Andy, Annie, The Guizer Jarl and I
Woaaaah, just as I was typing this I got an email:
"Your membership order below has been shipped. You will recieve your membership package shortly. Thank you for your patience. Your 2012 Ultimate Soldier Megapack contains:
-Megadeth Cyber Army 2012 T-Shirt -Cyber Army Challenge Coin - Series II -Deluxe Megadeth Logo Sticker -Megadeth Cyber Army Laminate -Welcome Letter from Dave Mustaine -8x10 Glossy Band Photo -Cyber Army 2012 pikCARD"
YUUUUS! That's right I am now a proud member of the Megadeth Cyber Army.
Claire got me to join after months of telling me about how awesome it is. It is awesome.
Dave Mustaine, Chris Broderick, David Ellefson and Shawn Drover all have their own forums where you can read messages directly from them, the other members are sweet as, you get early announcements for tickets and deals AND you get the awesome welcome pack that is written above. And finally why wouldn't you want to be a member of the fan club for Megadeth.
I'll share with you the song that got me into Megadeth back at the tender age of 14:
You are welcome
So, join today. Just cllick the bar below to check it out and then join:
I promise next time there will be more chisels, hacksaws, Ipod and chance of gore. I just really gotta go clean my room now. GOODNIGHT.
