Christmas Is Cool

Hellooooo and welcome to the Chrimbo edition of The Lock-In. 

In this edition, will shall first pay respects to the lost and well loved hero of Yule...the Artic Roll. 

Ahhh, yes, the Artic Roll, soooo yummy when you are 7, but not even Iceland- the crappy frozen food store- can sell it now. Probably due to Kerry Catona.

RIP the lovely Roll. 

[Right that's enough....you're on something...restrain her....NOW...oh Bee-Jeeezuz...-Ed.

Bizarre life with Darren....

Girls Aloud. Martina aka Tennis Goddess, New Order, Doctor Who, Motown,... Darren loves these seemingly incompatible things, and more...

Darren is the missing link between Civil Servants & real life... yes truly...

Darren at this moment in this time is compiling an MP3 collection of songs for his section do this week... Murder Mystery no less. Consequently he is choosing songs, carefully, to fit the mood...

TOM JONES!!

Motown

Al Green

Erasure

Girls Aloud

Beyonce

Katie Perry

Very very solemn.

He's wearing a Rod Stewart wig for it btw.

Oh god help me... I promised I would hang around but this is too much to bear, even for Oprah Winfrey or Jeremy Kyle.

Who gets my goat?

What the f...?

Taste Of The Forbidden Fruit (or Drinking on a skool night...)

Bleurrrrrarrrrrrrrghhhhhhh.

Only joking.

You have the best of intentions. You're tired and rationally, towards the end of a hard week, you should know you should have a bath and go to bed early.

But no.

For some unknown reason, the drive on the way home from the long slog at work results in a detour to the nearest offy. You are the reincarnation of the student of the 90s. For a moment as you grasp the bottle in one hand and the cold coin change in another, you feel that 20-something again. You're going home, vodka and diet coke safely stored so that when you reach your home you can knock a couple back "to the old days".

Retro is dead.

Long live the Wombles!

Fin.

Very Dodgy

Jesus.

Dodgy are on the telly. You remember them. Britpop chancers with their perky Chris Evans friendly choons such as "Good Enough" & "Staying Out For The Summer".

I saw them live in 2001-ish at a free gig in Manchester, and this was after the the singer had left the band to be replaced by some random bloke. Things hadn't gone too well for them after the record company had dropped them when Britpop became a bit of a bad smell in the industry.

What the hell are you on about man, I hear you saying. Errr, well, it's bad when this is the best thing on telly right now. Time 4 bed, me thinks.

Ooh, Brick advert on teleshopping!!

U2 The Fly

Contentious single this one. 

I remember buying it on the first day, from Dudley HMV, my clammy hands ripping at the cellophane...there had been a ban on hearing it until release date, and all us U2 fans bought it blind and deaf, hoping it was worth it.

It was worth every penny. U2 were raw, hardened by their times in the US, darker bass riffs undercut the swallow-like lead guitar, soaring and screaming to the years gone by, of the tears in the darkness, hoping for a better tomorrow...and all that Romantic shite.

Ah.

U2.

J'ai adore. Yaw pompous tw@ts.

Fin

Music channels are only any good at 2 or 3 in the morning - discuss

You only find good stuff on Satellite channels after 11 at night. This is fact. Okay, you have to to wade through loads of bad rap and terrible nu-metal-stroke-emo, and most channels either get signed in the bottom right corner of the screen or turn into teleshopping by 2am, but the bottom line is that we've been watching Massive Attack, Cocteau Twins, New Order, Elbow, Bat For Lashes, Travis, Portishead, AC/DC, Blur, Ash, Weezer, Lenny Kravitz, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, old Madonna vids, Blink 182,  Fatboy Slim... and so on.  

Why is this? Why can't they do this in the day? And why do most channels shut down after 2 only to be replaced with Tommy Walsh from Ground Force flogging some cack?? 

And then you find this...

Decent music..

The All Seeing I... and the beat goes on..

Fabulous re-adaptation and rearrangement of Sonny and Cher's hit.  Absolute class. 

Oooooh  Travis...Driftwood... [starts sobbing] amazing song... I sing along to this whilst flashbacks to my childhood flow infront of my eyes... beautiful reflection of the young adult fighting to claim their identity. Marvellous.

Welcome.

Welcome one and all to the Lock-in, a northern-biased view of the world through after-hours glasses...half full or half empty, the philosophy is yours.

Please refrain from spitting, swearing, and playing Shania Twain. 

I like Shania Twain, but I found, through deeply complicated psychological studies, that exposure to Ms Twain, results in bleeding ears and compulsion to wears men's baggies. Not pleasant. 

the idea of this blog is to read the rants of two Northern English peeps who, after 8, may partake of the occasional brandy and cigar. 

And when they do...the world is considered, judged, and saved or condemned by C x D x. 

Face it. Everyone knows the answers when they've had a few. just not many decide to rant when they're bored/intoxicated [note from Ed. -actually that's when most morons go on-line].

Well here we are then...errr....rant away baybeezz ...

Baaaaaa.