I was pondering today that I might try answering the questions that pop up in Writer's Block for a week and see if they are in fact interesting or not. I was pondering this until I checked my email and saw that my blog post from yesterday about Zachary Quinto's birthday was in the google news update. Why do I never learn?

Anyway, the writer's block question - 1/7 is..

Recount a remarkable incident involving insects.

I do actually have a story involving insects but it's not that remarkable. When I was in primary school I was out with my class on some waste ground drawing creatures for art class (as you may have gathered, it wasn't an exclusive public finishing school, and yes I did say 'waste ground'). My friends and I had collected a nice crop of orange caterpillars in a Flora tub and thought that instead of putting them back where they came fro, happily munching on dandelion leaves, that we should take them home and let them enjoy the luxury of a semi-detached 3 bed before their inevitable early death.

So we formed a human chain around the caterpillars and managed to smuggle them into school. We hid them in the entrance hall behind a blackboard, but we couldn't find anything to make holes in the top of the tub and didn't want them to die so we just left the lid with a corner off. 

You can imagine what happened next.

The caterpillars made a bid for freedom whlst we were doing maths, and the next I know me and my friends, otherwise known as the Chrysalis Six, were in the headmistresses office. Luckily for us she was a good old stick and we didn't really get into any trouble. We wrote her a grovelling apology and I copied it up because I had the best handwriting. She later told us she'd shown it to her mum. By now of course, she was used to be doing things like this. I had after all been in her school for four eventful years.

So there's my insect story. It's not that remarkable and it might have been better if I'd lied and said that the caterpillars hatched into butterflies and charmed the school with a well-timed display of flutteriness. Damn.

I think it's time for a meme, because I'm bored. Everyone in the office has gone to a secret meeting, possibly with cake, while I sit here with nothing to do. There seems to be a cycle here - no-one does any work on Friday afternoons therefore no work is generated on Friday afternoons therefore I do no work on Friday afternoons.

I accidentally spent £45 in primark on my lunch hour (and a half. Friday!), but like I say - accident! Plus I need those clothes for my holiday, what am I supposed to do, walk around Hollywood in old clothes which I've worn before?? Who do I look like? 

Oh yes, meme, I forgot. I'm off to find a good one, hang fire. 

Ha! Just found out that the word meme is from the book The Selfish Gene by my good friend Richard Dawkins. The explanation of what a meme is contains this baffling sentence : The lack of a consistent, rigorous definition of what precisely a meme is remains one of the principal criticisms leveled at memetics, the study of memes.

Stop saying memes! Anyway, hang on, i haven't even got one yet, I got sidetracked. 

Here's a little tip, don't try googling memes because it will frustrate you beyond measure and you won't even find any memes. 

Okay, I've found one, and here it is. (PS Apparently it's very uncool to be the last one meming a meme, though how any blogger can start to make judgements on the coolness of others is beyond me). 

Doubleshiny's Fabulous Meme That She Found On The Internet

Name a book you own that no one else on your friends list does.

Well, I only have three people on my friends list but I'm pretty sure none of them will own We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson, and I have a spooky story about that book to boot. 

One of my favourite non-fiction books is Danse Macabre by Stephen King, which is about the history of horror. It has a list of recommended books and one of them was WHALITC, which I wanted to read. Now, I couldn't find it on the internet for less than about £30. My local library didn't have it either and the local bookshop couldn't order it for me. I spent about two years searching for this book, and then one day I went to a bookshop in Warrington which is up a windy flight of narrow stairs. I spent about an hour searching the books (they were all second hand and seemed to be in no particular order, possible in order of paper thickness or distance from the sun) but I couldn't find anywhere. Just as I was leaving I noticed a box outside the door labelled 'Free Books', and guess what was sitting right there on the top? That's right, Halliwell's Film Guide 1976. No, it was We Have Always Lived In The Castle, and it was free. 

Then I lent it to my boyfriend after about 6 months, and he never gave it back. Easy come, easy go. I do have hardback copy now though. Anyway, back to the all-important meme.

Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that none of your friends does.

I doubt any of them will have The Plague Dogs, which is a cartoon based on the book by Richard Adams (also actually recommended in Danse Macabre) and is the most depressing film I have ever watched. It's like a cartoon snuff film for dog lovers.

Name a place that you have visited that none of your friends has

Every time I think of somewhere I realise that I have actually visited that place with said friends. I doubt any of them have been to the place where the canal bends round near Castlefields. I saw a kingfisher there once.

Name a piece of technology or any sort of tool you own that you think no one else on your friends list has.

Tool? Is this a meme for workmen? I never own anything until a million other people have got them. My dad on the other hand used to be infamous for owning the latest gadget, he'd buy things when they were at their newest and most expensive and then the world would declare them useless within about three months. He had a carphone, a toploading Betamax video player, a photo CD player which was a pre-decessor of the DVD player but could only be used to look at still photographs on a CD (much like the lesser known 'computer' which was it's main rival in the image viewing world) and a mobile phone which needed someone to hold it while you pressed the buttons as it wouldn't fit in the average human hand.

So there we go - memes. 

Elsewhere in DS Life

I have missed a day's watering of the flowers in Animal Crossing, so a lot of work to do tonight.

I saw Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra last night at Warrington Parr Hall. My favourite one in the orchestra was a saxophone player who looked like John Flansburgh. I had a bit of a crush on him. (The sax player, not Flansburgh). Marc Almond was there and I got to see him perform one of my favourite ever songs 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye'. Awesome.

I now own a tshirt which says 'Welcome to Puppet Show'. 

Yesterday I ordered a game called Jam Session which apparently turns your DS into a guitar. I will write some Animal Crossing inspired songs and let you know when the first gig is.

Something has gone awry down at Paradise Street bus station, the station is closed and now you have to walk down to Park Lane to get the X1 bus. Strangely, not all of the people who get the X1 seem to have made it to the new location. What are they doing? Just sleeping under their desks? I managed to make the change but there were max 3 of the other people who normally get on at stand 4 of Paradise St. We looked quite alone, out of natural environment and forced to wait in the open air at a stop with the people who get the number 27 (yes, those plebs).

Because it's been sunny the last couple of days it almost felt like we were on a school trip, or a cultural exchange to a new bus stop. There were strange people there and I didn't like them. I wanted to gather the other X1 people (Skinny Builder, Old White Haired Man and Glasses Youth) and suggest that we all stick together lest these new people tried to separate us and take us down one by one. 

In other upsetting bus news I left my iPod case which my mum knitted me on the bus and I am told it has not been handed in to lost property. Surely nobody would want to steal such a thing? Firstly you have to have an iPod nano, secondly you would have to be happy for said iPod nano to be clothed in a bright orange wool sock with purple bits and a drawstring. I find it hard to believe that these two variables have collided to lead someone to take it from the floor of the bus.  However, I am without the case and I will have to get my mum to knit me a new one. 

Over on the Guardian Readers Recommend Maddy Costa has chosen Science songs for this weeks topic and already my only ideas have been snapped up. I must have more science based pop songs in my position than anyone, so why can't I think of any? Actually, since Costa has taken over I find the top ten songs to be quite snooty and purposefully obscure. I bet a million pounds that there will be no They Might Be Giants songs on the final top ten list, so from now on I'm going to be posting my own Top Ten based on the suggestions of the RR board, as a kind of protest. Here's this weeks....

Top Ten Songs About Science So There Maddy Costa

1. They Might Be Giants - The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas

2. The Flaming Lips - Race For The Prize

3. Jonathan Coulton - The Mandelbrot Set

4. The Handsome Family - Tesla's Hotel Room

5. Captain Beefheart - The Smithsonian Institute Blues

6. Monty Python - The Galaxy Song

7. Ian Dury - There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards

8. Rilo Kiley - Science vs Romance

9. Pearl Jam - Do The Evolution

10. Jurassic 5 - The Lecture.

More news from the shores of DS life.....

Finally changed the songs on my iPod, the others had been there since roughly Christmas

I have booked for Eclipse 2 at the Park Inn Northampton and now I need some Maya-esque black plastic tears

Finished the John Peel autobiography, now I on to 'Shakespeare' by Bill Bryson.

Ryan Jarman at the Cribs' Christmas gig at the Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

Originally designed as a fundraising exercise for Cystic Fibrosis, the three night residency at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds turned into a rampaging behemoth as it became apparent that The Cribs’ ‘special guests’ may well include their old pals The Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand, and guitarist Ryan Jarman’s current squeeze Kate Nash. By the time the extended indie-glitterati had realised that this might be a good prospect, the tickets were long gone, snapped up hungrily by superfans and ebay touters alike. At one point the £30 three day passes were being sold at internet auction for over 20 times their value, and The Cribs’ online fan base were desperately scrabbling for spares whilst all the time the lucky few checked their email confirmations over and over, for fear some small print loophole meant they had to recite the reg number of the band’s tour van before being allowed in.

The Brudenell was described by the NME’s Gavin Haynes as “a functioning working men’s club”, as opposed to the hundreds preserved by the National Trust presumably. He gushes about the “tacky seventies furniture” and “weathered carpet” like a cut price Michael Palin describing a kibbutz. In normal people’s terms, it’s a social club, with the only visible concessions to the event being an endearingly half-arsed banner and a t-shirt stand. The regulars are used to the influx of indie kids, as the Brudenell has a tradition of staging seminal gigs and getting the best and brightest from the UK music scene before the NME gets their grubby hands on them.
With the event being staged over three days there’s a kind of festival atmosphere at the Brudenell. There is much hugging amongst people you suspect have never met outside of Facebook or the previously mentioned Cribs forum. People are excited. Really excited. The prospect is this : The Cribs will play everything they have ever recorded. That means demos, b-sides, album tracks, everything. The first night will be occupied by their earliest demos, first album and b-sides from that period, and so the nights will continue. The band are in effect supporting themselves as they will take to the stage first to begin their chronological march across the discography, before making way for the aforementioned ‘support acts’.

Kate Nash supporting on Thursday night at the Brudenell

Something quite strange is happening front of stage. People are talking to each other, they’re milling and laughing and messing about. A couple of likely lads are dressed as Father Christmas and Kate Nash is pulling a fan around by the arm looking to introduce her to Ryan. It’s a bit like an office party, when your boss is also your mate and doesn’t mind you telling him how much you love him. There’s no room for cynicism here. Between sets the promoter of Wire Club’s Strangeways night launches into some Jarman-called bingo. “27, my age but don’t tell anyone!” winks Ryan as he thoroughly enters into the spirit of the occasion. Later there’ll be another round of the pint-pulling contest between band members and bar staff, interspersed with such merriment as a Cribs pub quiz and even musical statues. Cool is out the window, and it was never welcome here anyway.

In a bizarrely heart-warming turn of events the band seem to be dressing in their old ‘costumes’ to harken back to the good old days. Ryan Jarman bloodies his own lip during the ‘New Fellas’ set when this was a regular occurrence. His vintage Gitanes tshirt has already been shredded by the crowd, after surviving a Libertines tour. Drummer Ross has on the glittery waistcoat which was mocked in one of their early live reviews by Leeds Music Scene. They are self-referential, even ‘doing’ lines from their documentary film ‘Leave Too Neat’, but it’s not self-aggrandising, it’s more like a group of (200 plus) old friends reminiscing and telling in-jokes.

Gary Jarman on Wednesday night

When all the festivities are over and everyone has made a hundred new mates, sweated a few gallons and had their turn at slurring ‘”I love you guys canihaveaphotoplease?” it’s off to Wire, probably Leeds’ premier indie hotspot, to hear a DJ set by, you’ve guessed it, The Cribs! The entire Brudenell crowd seem to have decamped here, along with the band and their mates. It’s 5am before the place looks like calming down and even then there’s a glint in the eye of every Cribs fan leaving the place. They look like they’ve been whacked with sweat-soaked cricket bats but you can bet they’d do the same thing again tomorrow, and the next day, and that if the Cribs had 400 albums to get through it wouldn’t be a problem.

Christmas gigs may be de riguer, but this is more than that, it’s a bonding experience between a band who has tasted success and come back to nudge their fans and say “this is alright isn’t it?”. As we leave Wire some fans are hugging the band’s tour manager. When was the last time you saw a gig so good you did that?