Friday 29 July 2005

What The Hell?

Another new story on Cheery Bananas Online for you, if you like that sort of thing...

Thursday 28 July 2005

We Are Pure Legends

Gracious thanks to Stewart from award winning-fanzine Beard who gave Cheery Bananas a nice menshie in a recent Diskant interview.

As a matter of no small coincidence, Cheery Bananas Online is 1 today, a fact we've celebrated with a new story on the site and tentative plans for a new issue...

A Political One

I’ve not commented on the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by the Police last week, but since it’s caused me to shout at the television I think I probably should.

The government line on the incident seems to be that it was ‘a tragedy’ but the police were doing ‘a difficult job.’ Sir Ian Blair the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is spinning the line that ‘What if he was a suicide bomber?’ Aye what if? It’s not even as if they had shot a guy who didn’t have a bomb on him that day but did the day before. Sir Ian Blair: “He wore a padded jacket, that might, didn't, but might have concealed a bomb.”

In my opinion this is a national tragedy where the Police fucked up big time. The ‘what if?’ defence is akin to a doctor wrongly diagnosing that a patient has cancer and removing a testicle or a limb and then saying ‘Ah but what if I was right? If I hadn’t got it so 100% wrong, then I would have been 100% right.’ An utterly nonsensical childlike argument that just doesn’t wash.

You have to look at why Jean Charles de Menezes was targeted that day by the Police. What suspicion did he bring on himself? Why did they follow him from his home? What made them so sure he was a suicide bomber intent on blowing up the tube station?

From what I’ve read he did very little. He left a building Police had under surveillance. Should they not then have known who he was? If it was a building with multiple occupants, are they all suspected suicide bombers?

You have to also wonder why then did they let him get on a Number 2 bus? If they were so sure he was a terrorist why not intercept him then? And why get on the bus with him, to sit a few feet away?

Some folk say, “Well he had the chance to stop when the police warned him.” But did he? The police didn’t approach him, they were plain clothed officers who came from behind. And it’s certainly not unusual for someone to ignore people shouting at them in the city. Perhaps the police were aware they were caught up in some sort of city saving big mission, but Jean Charles de Menezes certainly didn’t.

Why did he run? Well, the story emerging now is that he didn’t vault the barrier but in fact accessed it thru his travelcard. The ‘he jumped and ran’ story according to de Menezes’s family was spun by the police later in the day. But if he did run, who’s really surprised? He was obviously a frightened guy, aware that people were following him, in what had become a dangerous area.

The police were only protecting the public goes another of their defences. Well Jean Charles de Menezes was one such member of the public that they were meant to protect. Instead he got shot 8 times, seven in the head. Tony Soprano wouldn’t have executed anyone so brutally.

But they risked their lives! Well, no, they gunned down an innocent unarmed man. If they wanted to risk their lives they could have held him down after they had pounced on him and checked under this suspiciously enormous jacket he was wearing to see if there was a bomb there. If they were risking their lives they could have lain on top of him to shield others from the bomb blast (I saw it in a film). No, the only life they were risking was that of Jean Charles de Menezes.

What these guys were after wasn’t to risk their lives and save the lives of others, what they were after was Hero Pussy. Stanhope tells it better than me, but the hero status seemed to be what was driving these guys. They surely didn’t seem able to make a calculated judgement on the situation. Why didn’t they call for some sort of back up to cut him off and face him down? “The guy who wrestles an alligator is risking his life, but he’s never done it without an audience.”

Recently I have found myself in the odd position of supporting the police. During the G8 riots for example and I thought they deserved credit for seemingly being on the ball in tracking down the suspected London bombers. And on that second front they still, bar this gigantic cock up, look pretty much on the case.

Should the police be held accountable? Oh yes. They made a huge mess of their jobs and should be accountable the same way anyone else would be. Shoul the Met Commisoner be saying that this could happen again? No he should not.

Wednesday 27 July 2005

All Express "Journalists" Are Pernicious Wankers


The Daily Express led today with the headline “Bombers Are All Spongeing (sic) Asylum Seekers”.

Aye, don’t hold back eh?

Of course, what they’re really suggesting is:

“All Spongeing (for fucks sake, you'd think working for a paper they could at least spell eh?) Asylum Seekers Are Bombers”.


This kind of pish has to stop and I'm not just talking about the spelling. I’ve read a lot of shite about what has happened in the last few weeks (Squander 2) and its starting to get my back up.

As B-liar says, there is no justification whatsoever for suicide bombing. Same as there is no justification for shooting an innocent man several times in the head.

People talk about not giving in to the terrorists, but we already are, letting them change our way of thinking, allowing ourselves to be come meaner, less tolerant and more easily manipulated by a government intent on taking away our freedoms.

It must be a pretty easy shift working for the Express. According to these almighty buffoons, everything that’s ever gone wrong in the UK is the fault of dirty foreigners, here first to take our money then to blow us up.

Equating all asylum seekers with suicide bombing is evil, plain and simple. Pernicious, deliberately misleading and designed to influence and nurture growing mean spirited attitudes within our country.

Asylum Seekers only want to come here in the first place because we tend towards tolerance, our police tend not to shoot people in the head and we tend to cherish our freedom.

Yet here we are, allowing the Government and the media to mug us out of the very freedom they claim to be protecting. Don't let them kid you on.

Fantasy League

Yes, It's that time of year again, when we all dust down our dreams of Fantasy League glory.

As I prepare to unfurl the virtual Championship flag on the opening day of the season, I invite you one and all to join Tom and I in some white hot footie action. You know you want it.

Click here to build your team and then join The Cheerybananaship from mini-league admin.

The password is ladies.

N.B The site doesn't work with all browsers, so use Explorer.

Monday 25 July 2005

Firefly

On a whim and because it was cheap, I recently picked up the “Firefly” box set.

I was turned onto the fact that it might be a good show by it’s inclusion in a “Top 10 Cancelled TV Shows” article Tom put on “…pish” a good while ago, a list from which I’ve already gleaned gems like “The Tick”, “Sports Night” and “The Ben Stiller Show”.

So far, having seen 11 of the 14 broadcast episodes, this has to be the best show I’ve seen in a while.

I’m not a fan of sci-fi as a rule and while I can sit and watch Star Trek and the likes, they tend to be full of sweeping, clumsy social comment which I find pretty repetitious and boring.

Firefly is a different kettle of fish. Following the adventures of a salvage ship crew who tend to enjoy a wee money making caper, this is very obviously a “Space Western” with no strange aliens or lengthy dull bits about photons, particle accelerators or dylithium crystals.

It’s basically a really well written and performed show about a largely good natured misfit James Gang trying to make a buck and avoid conflict with the feds which reminded me by turns of Cowboy Beebop and “Alias Smith and Jones”.

A shame it was cancelled after just 14 shows.

Joss Whedon, who of course went on to score a huge hit with “Buffy…”, created the show and even wrote and sang the theme tune, Dennis Waterman style (Although they did get a pro in to re- record it), and there are also writing and production contributions by Ben Edlund, creator of “The Tick”.

And here's something I didn't know until just now. "Serenity" a movie based on the show directed by Joss Whedon and featuring the original cast (hurray!) will be released Sepetember 30th, so happy days.

Thursday 21 July 2005

FIFA 2005


For any gaming fans out there, I had a great time last night playing FIFA 2005 when I should have been writing. Bought on the cheap with Glue profits, I was hopeful it might be good, but have always really gone for the superior playability of the Pro Evolution series.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that EA have just about caught up in terms of gameplay and rip the Pro Evolution crew a new one in terms of glitz. Unlike its main competitor, this game has loads of fully licensed leagues from the Premiership to the Korean K-League, real players and stadium names, a fun jukebox and a vastly improved and really easy to use method of updating squads. It also has a career option, allowing you 15 years to become the worlds top player/manager.

I picked it up for £15, a real bargain. I’ll get to the writing, honest I will…

Glue is Back!


We're going to be back for more Glue, the venue was briefly the 13th Note again but this time YOMG is at Arta on Sunday the 25th of September as part of the Merchant City Festival. Only one night for this stint, so expect it to be bigger and better than last time (and the time before that.) If that means even more male nudity than before then so be it.

Tell all your pals as it's a much bigger venue than we've played so we'll have to work hard to fill it up. This show should bridge the gap from the sketch show to Yule Owe Me Glue the Pantomime coming at some point in December.

Wednesday 20 July 2005

Welcome to the Surreal World

At last we get mentioned in The Daily Record. A life long dream for both of us. Here's a feature on Sabotage from today's paper.

Tuesday 19 July 2005

Mexican Food and Rock 'n' Roll

After dinner at Driftwood, Jo and I went with Darran and Heather to see The Raveonettes at King Tuts. (Good to see Dazza with trousers on.) I think out of us all I was the only one who had really heard them previously.

Anyway I thought they were fantastic. They really rocked and even although they didn’t play Beat City they didn’t really have anything that was weak. Heartbreak Stroll, My Tornado, That Great Love Sound and Somewhere in Texas were among them.

Jo and Heather both really liked them, Darran claims he needs to hear ‘some studio stuff’ before committing and on the way out Alasdair, who was also there, told me he wasn’t that keen on them. Though he has now put that down to perhaps being too close to the speakers. But like I say for me they were terrific.

Although there were five people on stage I spent the whole gig craning my neck to see as much of Sharin Foo as possible. She is so much more of a Goddess in the flesh than in photographs.

Monday 18 July 2005

Another Triumph


As you’ll have no doubt read on Tom’s post, this was a weekend of Glue, and has to be rated as another positive step. Two good audiences, although Sunday’s was better than Saturday’s, and we got good feedback on a number of fronts from broadening out what we write about to that thorny problem of what to give the audience when we’re away getting changed.

My favourite moments have to be Tom’s cracking “Bad News Strippers” sketch which brought the house down both nights, his vital goal-line clearance when my tash fell off last night and losing my shit when Dazza walked on in the pants. Despite the fact that I primarily wrote the sketch and had seen Darran in his outfit a couple of times, his nonchalant wink and “Awright mate?” knocked my composure aw away tae fuck.

The star of the show seems to have been Bertie, our jaded bunny rabbit kids TV favourite. Loads of folk listed him as their favourite character, which means my career in puppetry looks like being extended rightly or wrongly.

As Tom says, more Glue is tentatively planned for September and we’ll be once again looking at organising things better and getting all the glue crew more involved in what we get up to.

All in all, not a bad weekend considering these were our third and fourth gigs and I had a great time performing the stuff.

The Show's Over

Awright so those of you who weren’t there want to know how Glue 2 went. Well it went pretty well. We had more or less a full house on Saturday and although there was less on Sunday night they seemed to laugh more.

A couple of the audio sketches divided the audience on the first night so we replaced them for the Sunday. I enjoyed the Sunday night more although as Fizz rightly points out it was the most ramshackle performance yet.

A fake moustache fell off during one sketch, though that managed to add to the general hilarity and in the penultimate sketch Fizz had a Jimmy Fallon Moment and cracked up at Darran’s nonchalant but trouserless entrance into the sketch. The audience were all on side though so it didn’t really matter as they found it funny too.

On both nights we were approached about various projects, though early stages and all that so I’ll not go on about them just now. At the moment we’re looking at another show in September. I’ll update on exact details as and when we get them sorted.

Friday 15 July 2005

The Publicity Drive

Another couple of pieces of Glue publicity on the eve of the first night. Over at Glasgow Theatre Underground we have a wee mention. And in the listings of today's Metro you can read 'Fraser Campbell and Tom Brogan's acclaimed show.' Very nice but unfortunately that is under the listings for this evening. They have us listed as Friday and Saturday and not Saturday and Sunday. Wonder if anyone will turn up looking for us tonight.

Wednesday 13 July 2005

Very Special Guests


After rehearsals last night I headed to Mono to see Architecture in Helsinki. They were all right, multi instrumentalists, lots of trumpets, girly melodies and big beards.

I arrived too late to see Marceline’s mate’s band, but I did arrive in time to see the ‘Very Special Guests.’ They turned out to be Data Panik playing their first ever gig. For those who neither know nor care Data Panik used to be Bis.

They were quite good, very poppy. I resisted the urge to shout for the Power Puff Girls theme tune.

Here for your enjoyment are some blurry photographs.






The First Cheque

Yesterday we received in the mail our first professional writing contract and payment for the first 3 episodes of Sabotage. So far we have three sketches in two of the opening three shows.

I also have a CD of the first three shows, so if anyone missed them and really wanted to hear them they can have a copy.

EDIT: Fizz has listened to the CD and we actually have five sketches in the first three episodes. Museum of Surly, Chuck Rodgers Painter and Decorator, Conspiracy of Love, Hollistic Car Repairs and The Twinkle-Toed Detective.

Tuesday 12 July 2005

It's Hot

It was 82°F in Glasgow yesterday (For the benefit of our non-Glasgow based readers…Ben mainly). It’s funny how any kind of extreme weather brings public transport here to its knees. Trains were off cos apparently the rails were melting. The buses were erratic and mobbed and when I went to use the Underground it was off too.

Whenever it’s too hot, too wet, too cold etc round here stuff tends not to work. If terrorists want to destroy Scotland all they have to do is gain control of the weather kind of like The Penguin or some other Batman villain might do.

Apparently it's 75 °F at the moment. I ain’t complaining. I’m heading to sit in Kelvingrove Park before rehearsals tonight.

Monday 11 July 2005

Dig!

At the weekend I went to see Dig! It was quite entertaining, the juxtaposition of The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s complete inability to play the game with The Dandy Warhols’ ultimate crossover success through a Vodafone commercial made for interesting viewing.

What comes across most strongly is that BJM main man Anton Newcome is a complete and utter bam. From attacking members of his band midway through songs to wrecking industry shows from attempting to sabotage Dandy Warhols gigs to multiple arrests he comes across as one of the biggest ever fuck ups to become a musician.

Since seeing the film I’ve been reading the BJM website and in particular this statement by Anton Newcombe who insists that the film is a gross misrepresentation of him.

Friday 8 July 2005

Glue Publicity

You may have noticed our entry in The List. You may not, so that's why I've put it on here. We really need to take total control of our own publicity. 'Surreal'? I wouldn't have described us as surreal. I also think it's a word that may put people off more than attract them.

I've also included the chalk advert that sits in Blackfriars' window. Two days of rehearsals in Blackfriars this weeekend, so hopefully many of the current fears will be lifted at the end of it.


The List listing.


Glue in Chalk.

Rock 'n' Roll for Free

Last night I went to see Brendan Benson at Virgin on Buchanan Street. I expected a short acoustic set, but what we were treated to was a 35 minute electric set with a full band. He played most of my favourites Feel Like Myself Again, Good to Me, Tiny Spark and Spit it Out as well as a good few more.

He made a slight faux pas by complaining about ‘these English summers.’ Predictably that was met by boos and groans. He did look embarrassed and repeatedly offered his apologies. ‘I knew as soon as I said it…’

A cracking little show that makes up for me missing him when he played The Arches in April.

Later on in the evening I saw Amina at Mono. Amina are an all girl group from Iceland who are supporting Sigur Ros tonight. They also accompany them. They played plinky plonky instrumentals and haunting strings. I got quite into it by the end of their performance.










The Big Sleep

This post is really just for Ben, as I know he’ll get a kick out of it. The photos were taken in the work car park around about three o’clock in the afternoon a few months ago.

What’s the Difference Between God or a Dog Talking to You?

Here’s Larry David’s latest blog on The Huffington Post. Some great stuff here on fruit, the army, pillows and President Bush.

Thursday 7 July 2005

London

You post one political blog and see what happens? I’ve not go too much to say on it than what you’re probably saying yourself. I would imagine Africa can kiss their aid goodbye. Work at our table has pretty much stopped and we've increased our already frequent web browsing.

To keep up with what’s going on I’ve found that the 7 July London Bombings page on Wikipedia is about the best place. They have links to other blogs, news and photo sites covering events.

What Billions?

We’ve not been very political on here for a while, but this was a news story that got the heckles up. $8.8bn of Iraq’s money set aside to rebuild the country has disappeared. That’s not to mention the billions of dollars that was dished out that Paul Bremer and the US authorities thought they didn’t have to account for. As you read on it looks more like the construction business Tony Soprano set up than the rebuilding of a country.

Here’s how they used to do things.

Wednesday 6 July 2005

Some Photos

Here are some photos from the last couple of weeeks.






Here is Marceline and Uter on stage at Mono.


Marceline and Fraser.


And here's my name in chalk outside Blackfriars.

I'll try and put some photographs up on a regular basis now that I have a cameraphone with which to snap away.

Tuesday 5 July 2005

A Tasty Heidfu

We’re still finishing off our CD Exchange here at work and I’m listening to Marceline’s kooky compilation. One of the songs reminds me of Ayrshire band Nyah Fearties. Anyone remember them? Have a look at their site. Their album titles include the title of this post, ‘The Good The Bad and The Alkies’ and ‘A Keech in a Poke.’

I’ve just been handed the recording of the Glue audio prior to sound effects being added so I’ll move onto that for a bit.

Did You Miss Sabotage Too?

Fizz and I missed Sabotage on Saturday, however our Mothers heard it and both appeared to like it. If like us you missed it, you can catch it on BBC’s Listen Again feature by clicking here.

The BBC Press Release mentions a couple of our sketches. Ours are the first two 'one off' sketches.

Monday 4 July 2005

That Was Cold Blooded

Over the weekend I watched plenty of Chappelle’s Show season two, in fact almost all of it. It’s gold, pure comedy gold. From the now famous “I’m Rick James, bitch!” sketch to ‘When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong’ it’s class the whole way through.

The Rick James sketch comes from Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories. The link below provides some of the best quotes from the sketch, including my personal favourite, Charlie Murphy’s assessment of Rick James, "He was a habitual line-stepper.”

Audio Glue

We recorded the audio for the new Glue show at the weekend. The recording went well, with most sketches ‘in the can’ in only a take or two. There’s a good number more of them than there was last time and on this occasion they have been professionally rather than haphazardly recorded.

You Owe Me Glue flyers and posters should now be visible around some Merchant City establishments. There should also be some photographs from rehearsals up on the site in the next few days.