DJ Dogdriller Rides Again !!

Yes folks, for one night (well, evening really...well one hour out of an evening...) I got myself back behind the decks to play some "top choones" to an unsuspecting and not entirely appreciative audience. This took place at Marcus's one-off event Nun Fun Sunday at the Kinky Mambo cocktail bar in Islington.

The aim of the day was partly to celebrate Marcus's birthday, but mainly to raise desperately-needed funds for his show Postcards From God, a comedy-musical about the life of Sister Wendy, the art-critic nun. Apparently he needs £30,000 to put on the show, so he is doing a variety of things over the coming months to try and fill the coffers. Sunday consisted of various cabaret performance throughout the afternoon, followed by DJs (ie myself and three others through the evening).

With it being a school night, unfortunately people started drifting away once the cabaret section had finished, or maybe it was the stuff I was playing causing people to leave in droves ! I don't think the woman who came and asked me for Wham! was quite on the same wavelength as myself (or any of the other DJs for that matter), nor was the rather irritating girlfriend of the useless barman who came and pestered me for far too long (ie more than 1 minute) with questions like "What sort of music is this ?" "What songs have you got that I would like ?" etc, etc. Nevertheless, some people did at least dance and when I had finished and went to get a drink, a gentlemen of a certain age who was propping up the bar thanked me for playing Mott The Hoople.

Here's a selection of my set:
Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
Mott The Hoople - Roll Away The Stone
Althea And Donna - Uptown Top Ranking
Fox - S-s-s-single Bed
Art Brut - Modern Art
Kate Bush - Sat In Your Lap
The Sweet - Teenage Rampage
Fiery Furnaces - Tropical Ice-Land
Visage - Fade To Grey
Talulah Gosh - Bringing Up Baby
Gang Of Four - Armalite Rifle
The Breeders - Cannonball
Cocteau Twins - Iceblink Luck
Helen Love - Debbie Loves Joey

As an aside, Kinky Mambo is the only venue I've ever been to that has a vending machine selling sex toys. So if you have run out of Lust Fingers, Rod Rings, Ticklers or Love Eggs, this is the place to go.

My Gay Bar Hell

I am never going to another non-Retro London gay bar ever again. Was at the Duke Of Wellington tonight for David T's delayed birthday drinks. Now this is a place which, despite being in Soho, is considered quite down to earth, a pub rather than a bar and generally a respite from the more pretentious elements of the London West End gay scene. Nevertheless, I thought it was vile, it was packed with people I would like to see punished by imprisonment in a room with Pete Burns, the music was typical appalling disco crap and I was relieved when the birthday people decided it was time for them to leave for XXL and I could go home and prepare for.....

...NUN FUN SUNDAY and the return of DJ Dogdriller for one night only !!!! To be continued.......

Normal Service Resumed

After a rather extended break from blogging I can now finally confirm that both fridge and TV have been safely delivered. With the fridge, John Lewis were of course a paragon of customer service, but Comet still managed to leave me biting my nails with the TV, as the clock passed 5pm and the promised “between 12-6” delivery still hadn’t happened. But deliver they did and thankfully got everything right. And having successfully received my goods, I was finally able to fill in the email survey they sent me, asking for my opinion on their level of customer service - rather brave of them I think.

I had rather naively assumed that the TV stand I had also bought would come ready to use, but no, it was flat-packed for self-assembly. So first I had to spend half an hour sorting all the bits into the same order as on the checklist (I do these things properly, me) and then slotting it all into place. Not too difficult as it turned out, then I was finally able to get the TV out of its (bloody huge) box and connect it all up – and wonders never cease, it all worked!

So I have now gone from having 5 channels at my disposal to about 50. And I have one thing to say: isn’t the output on the extra digital channels complete and utter shit ? Repeats ad nauseum, shopping channels, quiz channels. I think the only thing I have watched for any length of time thus far is Celebrity Big Brother Live. I was really looking forward to Tittybangbang, the “seriously funny” new BBC Three comedy sketch show. Well, it’s about as funny as a 7-year-old who has learned to say ‘fuck’ for the first time and as annoying too. And for this I shelled out a grand. Hmmmm. On the plus side, having BBCi will no doubt pay dividends come June 26th and the start of Wimbledon fortnight. Apparently you can choose whichever match you want to watch from a choice of several. In a stunning feat of forward planning, I have already booked the first two days off work!

Meanwhile, in other news, myself, Ian & Doug won the “What’s On DJ Lush’s iPod” quiz on Tuesday, and not only that but Doug picked the money too. Not a huge amount, but still, mustn’t grumble about £17 each. And it could have been much, much worse – hanging up behind the bar, presumably as booby prizes, were….. dog calendars. Cheap-looking dog calendars at that, probably hand-plucked from the Superdrug bargain bins or something.

Comet Promises

As an addedum to the below, I've just had a quick look at Comet's website:

"Delivery Guarantee: We guarantee to deliver your product when we say we will or we will give you your delivery charge back."

Good.

"Comet was the first retailer to sign up to BBC Watchdog's 'Delivering the Goods' charter."

Ha Ha Ha Ha Fucking Ha.

Where's My Telly ?

Have spent a friutless Sunday afternoon at home, waiting for Comet to deliver my new TV. They were meant to come between noon and 6pm. Guess what - they didn't. Just before 6 I tried to call their customer service helpline to see if it was on its way, only to get a recorded message saying it closes at 5 on Sundays. How convenient. So now I have to wait until tomorrow before phoning up and trying to rearrange. I am also going to ask for the delivery charge to be refunded and for the delivery people to connect it when they finally do bring it (an option I didn't originally ask for). They can only say 'no', in which case I'll chase them for suitable compensation afterwards. Not only that, Gareth now tells me they also contribute vast sums to the Tory party.

To paraphase their little slogan: "Comet - You Know Who Are Scum".

New Year New Form

The optimism in my previous post seems to have be slightly over-egged...seems like we have left our form back in 2005 as we crashed 0-3 at home to Preston today. Even more annoyingly, had we won, we would have shot up to 6th place, ie a play-off place. Still never mind, plenty of season left to make up ground, and maybe we'll knock West Ham out of the cup on Saturday too.

New Year's Eve at Duckie was I have to say rather uneventful; apart from the fact it was in a different venue, it didn't really feel that much more special or unique than a normal Duckie, apart from the Wifes lurching towards "gay disco classics" (Sylvester, Donna Summer) rather too often - presumably keeping in mind that the mix of punters was a bit different, lots of people I'd never seen at Duckie before. From reading Chelsea's blog, I have discovered that the two Pete Burns-esque Duckie trannies are called Gina Love and Maur. I had a brief conversation with one of them at the bar (about the veggie burgers which were on offer), but I don't know which one is which so if anyone could let me know who's who I'll be eternally grateful. They really should have their own website!

Been splashing out again; after ordering a new telly last week, I've now also ordered a new fridge. Getting slightly worried; with all these new appliances on the way, surely something is bound to go wrong, either with the delivery or the goods themselves somewhere along the way?