sea legs and violence...

This weekend saw the return of the Benfleet Boys on board the Elizabethan...and a moment of all too common street violence.
Myself and one of my oldest and dearest pals Mr Simon 'Stretch' Foster threw down a short but perfectly formed set while sailing soulfully up Old Father Thames on Saturday night, the occasion was the wedding of Natalie and Oliver and the reception on the luxurious paddle steamer was a top night...on disembarking me and my good lady travelled further southward to the home of the Furzers..here we quaffed whisky and brought the world to rights before sleeps dark vail covered us all.In the morning a hearty breakfast(Norwegian salmon and scrambled eggs) was indulged in and quality time was spent with the side grinning Dylan(a three month old bundle of joy).
Still coping with a slight hangover we traversed northward using the landmarks to guide us and as the rain lashed down we stopped on the Holloway road to purchase crisps,ginger beer and other pain curing accoutrement's.
After turning the key in the lock and slipping into my leisure wear I put the kettle on grazed on snacks, cheese and fizzy pop til I felt ill,then came the nausea that was the second installment of the double derby week and to save you from a match report lets just say it was a draw..
Night fell and as my wife settled down to watch the puke fest that is lark rise to crappyfeltch I went online, only to find that on his way home Si had been mugged at chisel point by some cowardly shithouse only minutes from his home,phone,cash and records were robbed but thankfully Si is OK..Maybe now people will now start to buy into my Taser Tsar idea.(a pub concept that involves me armed with a Taser patrolling the streets punishing the law breakers 'shocking results')
Anyway another weekend in the smoke came to an end...and as ever it was chocker full of ups n downs....
Dr Johnson was never so right!

Derby Day and the death of TV......

The butterflies have started the replica shirt has been washed and ready to go since the weekend and tonight is the night.........
Now if you believe the red shite,I mean the red side of Merseyside they don't think of this as a derby they prefer to say that Man Utd are their true rivals....five european cups blah blah blah....
But to beat them tonight at Analfield sorry Anfield would make this year a dream and to put them out of the F.A cup next weekend well... Heaven,Nirvana,you name the mythical place of enlightenment and I will be there.........With knobs on!
"90 minutes of shear hell" as John Barnes once put it,is exactly what I will be going through tonight but it will never compare to the persistent visual torment that seems to be infecting British TV of late.I'm talking about the lazy and incompetent TV executives idea of regurgitating period drama instead of throwing abit of money at something original and groundbreaking.Why in gods name does someone at the BBC think that all the public want to see is some remake of a remake of a culturally irrelevant and thoroughly twee dead mans novel.
Why does this biscuit tin and tea cosy kak with its "oh madam I seem to have brushed your bosom" and its "Master James I feel your tone has inflamed my ardor" bullshit,become some sort of staple output for a Sunday.....
I mean I'm kool with Antiques Roadshow,I like the soft ambling pace of this pre-bath classic.But now Sunday evening has become Ovaltine for the brain...and even if you flick around period drama is everywhere and not just in the guise of Dickensian toss but there is a real reluctance to make any show based in the present(unless it has a public vote),Heartbeat,The Royal remakes of the 39 steps,All nostalgia trips.
You know something is wrong when all you do is watch DVD box sets of American TV.
We all know about the current and highly talked about TV that is being produced by the likes of HBO and FX and I'm sure that many of us have lost whole weekends watching The Wire but ask yourself this....What if ITV took half the budget they spew on the evil that is X-Factor and let someone make a new and intellectually engrossing pilot....What if the BBC took some of the money they make from the advertising revenue they get from UKTV food,Dave and G.O.L.D and gave it to Charlie Brooker or someone of his obvious talent and told them to go ahead and make something the isn't the vulgar catchphrase littered sub Benny Hill fest that was the last Little Britain Debacle.....
What if?
Dont get me wrong....Life on Mars was a great moment, all be it retro,and The Mighty Boosh is a triumph but I'm sure there is enough talent around to make these nuggets in the shit a regular find rather than a occasional bonus...
I never thought I would agree with Bruce Springsteen...
BUT
"57 channels and nothin on"
True Bruce..
To true..........................

grounds for divorce

After spending a tracksuited day at chez Vane yesterday I can now confirm that
Football Manager 2009 is evil!
It's hold on me is permeating my brain even as I sit here typing this out,all I can think of
is how my scout is gonna get on with his assignment to find me a young powerful striker
during his trip to South America......
This game has it all,if you are a footy obsessed freak like me then this really could condemn
you a life of loneliness, broadband dependence and a autistic knowledge of hundreds of
minor footballers allover the world.This laptop based crack could also seriously damage your
wealth, simply because you will give up your job and sign on just to get your fix.
How my Leyton Orient side is getting on, is such a vast distraction that even if Salma Hayek was offering to pay me to disappoint her sexually while opening bottles of Springbank 30 with her buttocks,I would ask her if I could just check my current team confidence levels before.This would of course lead to me forgetting completely that I had on of the world most gorgeous women
begging for my own brand of shoddy loving due to the fact that I'd drawn Spurs in the cup.
So after losing one day to this hermit creating sim,I now worry that if this continues that it wont be long til I am pale, malnourished and divorced...
But on the upside I may have got the O's promoted and be on a revenue boosting cup run........

soup...

With the cold snap continuing to force the wearing of unflattering clothes,and the excess of Christmas still lingering in your love handles and bank balance.
There is a new way to fulfill all your moral, nutritional and monetary needs............
SOUP
Yeah that's right soup, its cheap,warming and has that element of the healthy "five a day" shizz
that clutters up the press and media,OK it doesn't has active bacteria,or help a long jumper see better, but its all good.
French onion,spicy lentil,pea and ham or classic minestrone,with a chunk of crusty bread,you can't beat that....
Now I know it all sounds very neo modern gastro peasant(I'm claiming that as a new movement) but who cares...
I'm loving it, Ive gone soup mental.
I'm doing a pea and ham today,all I need is a fat tongue a trust fund and floppy hair and I'd be on the tele!
Dan Vane's Neo Modern Gastro Peasant Kitchen Channel 4 @ 8......
You never know bigger cocks than me have clambered onto the goggle box.
Anyway think soup
Peace out......

spreading the word..............

At the weekend myself and perennial virus catcher Simon Foster*
began work on the next step of my world domination,a small and yet perfectly formed way of reaching out to the millions of unfortunate sods that haven't yet heard the gospel according to The Vane....
The pics were taken in a suitably adhoc way,at a very apt location and all this was nicely rounded off with a visit to my church the holy refuge that is the Wit and Cat.
And after watching Man Utd batter Chelski,the day was ended with sausage and mash and a early night...ahhhhh there's nuffin like gravy to weigh down the eye lids and sooth the soul.
So to the next stage of the process,Mr Foster is currently in tracky bottoms pulling all his best Southend College knowledge together to create the finished masterpiece...I can feel your anticipation building or is it just wind.Anyway once it is done it will be clogging up the in trays of hundreds of editors everywhere...and also by then I hope to have pimped this site with the help of the newly uncled Mr Staxx aka the sprag..
So back to the grind..Hoxton wont ponce itself!

*Bones Brigade Founder Member

Death of a legend

Isn't it weird how life's strange turns and twists throw up the oddest moments of
peculiar symmetry,the other morning I jumped into my car on my way to doing the ultimate
rock n roll pastime of paying bills in Crouch End and the album chosen to accompany my
journey this particular day was the awesome fuzz fest that is The Stooges second long player Fun House.
When I returned home I discovered that the man who created the monumental noise that had
made even the most mundane of trips to the bank swagger like Iggy on crack had passed away.
My heart sank,Ron Asheton was a pioneer and a futurist but most of all he made me want to be a guitarist...the bleeding amp and crunching chords that pinned me to a wall in Essex as a youth had lost not one Gram of their strength in all these years.The fuzzed out soul and sometimes too "raw power" was still enough to get a 30 plus bald man bouncing in his small hatch back on the way to the Nationwide in nappy valley.
Its not often that a true legend dies but this week one has,and needless to say ever since I heard the news its been 1969 OK in my gaff....
R.I.P
Ron Asheton
1948-2009

2009 the year of Dan

So the Christmas wotnot is over and the trial of awkward silences tough meat, tougher wrapping paper and not enough nibbles comes to a end.......
Also along the way the new year snuck in during a very pleasant and terribly Guardian reader style break in a barn in the countryside.Lots of fun was had in the sub zero frosty temperatures of Hereford with my cousins,sister and the other half or should I say the better half.
I cooked my first ham,I say......
I cured a salmon,what what....
I drank sherry....
I'm becoming my grandad,or Hugh Fearnly Whittingwotsit.....
Anyway gourmet shizz aside it was tip top,but as I plowed down the M4 yesterday i must admit
I was chuffed to bits to be heading back to the big smoke,that's the thing about the weekend in the country thing,you get there, light the wood burner,pull the cork on a huge red and suddenly you are working out ways you can make a living in the wilderness,over the next few days you convince yourself that making cheese or running a smokery is a genuine option,but then as you hit the M25 on the way back your brain goes SUSHI....
And that's when you realise that you wouldn't be able to cut it due to your obsession with raw fish...
Today the usually new year crap begins,people in strip light lit orifices everywhere will be chirping on about their DETOX....
About how they are gonna drink less exercise more be better people blah blah blah...
Well its too late for me to drink less and eat less and as for being a better person that's why I see a shrink!
The reason why most of the detoxers cant hack the boozey crimbo is cos they are part time drinkers,holiday slurpers,they are the light weights you see being sick in there handbags on the central line around December the 19th...
I'm not proud of my intake but a regular top up of light and lager definately helps with the whole indulgent festive period,cos I've already got a good foundation to build on.
I eat twiglits all year round so they come as no shock to me!
Other than the extra pounds ,higher cholesterol and a scar where i cut my hand on my new and unbelievably sharp knife,my other reason for being pre-occupied is the transfer window.
That's right for all footy obsessives now is the time,sky sports news rolling info bar in the background, tribal football.com in a window all of its own and the BBC gossip columm being checked religiously every morning.
But being a Evertonian I don't think I'm gonna be celebrating any record breaking transfer coups,still the thought of Man City blowing millions to still get relegated is something to make it all worthwhile.
I also aim to do more of this blogging thing and take 2009 by storm so watch out!