The other night...
..me and Mrs. snuffy went to a spanish restaurant.

She had the baby squid, with some olives. I had some bread and tomatoes.

Because we were both short on money we shared each others dishes

I guess you could call it a Mix Tapas

(Sorry)
(Snuffy114 demands a cyber razor cut, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 12:21, Reply)

qotw
i hang around lurking in the shadows for months, finally join and this is the qotw!! why did i bother? roll on thursday
( SteveFrench Cardio is for homo's. do you even lift bro?, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 12:18, 1 reply)

Heavy Metal Boy Racer
So there I am, Colchester's only 'heavy metal boy racer'. I'm 20. I have the long hair, the sleeveless Iron Maiden T-shirt, the faded jeans with big belt buckle. The sun is blazing, my car is freshly polished, windows wound down, one arm out of the window with tats on show. 'Smurfs Metal Mix Tape' is blasting from the Stereo. Metallica, Maiden, Slipknot, AC/DC, Biohazard, Megadeth, trying to educate the general public in good music. I'm oh so cool.

Cue group of rock chicks walking on the pavement. Smurf lazily drives past, 'Wait & Bleed' pumping from the speakers. Rock chicks cheer. Rock chicks whistle. Rock chicks wave. They've got to be worth another pass haven't they?

Find a side street, turn around, start driving back. 'Wait & Bleed' finishes. Draw level with rock chicks. 'Barbie Girl' by Aqua starts. Loudly. Rock chicks look at me oddly. Cue mass acceleration and never driving down that road again.

Bastard. To this day I do not know why I decided to include that in my Metal Mix (which I still have 10 years on).

*pop*
(Big Smurf Brush me daddy-O, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 12:14, Reply)

Mix Tapes
I gave my first girlfriend a mix tape which included "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison (Cos she had brown eyes) and "Let me put my love into you" by AC/DC (cos I wanted too!). We lasted a while after that and when we broke up I sent her another one with "Ain't my bitch" by Metallica and "Why does it hurt when I pee?" by Frank Zappa (didn't have anything wrong with me, just wanted to give her a scare!)

First post y'all!
(Krizla6.9, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 12:05, 1 reply)

..
Not a mix tape but a mix CD (it’s a digital age we’re living in after all)…

Just over a year ago I met a bloke online and we started chatting quite a lot. I’d mentioned the name of the company I work for in conversation with him, and last valentines day I received a parcel at work containing a CD with loads of songs I’d said I liked, and a few of his own favourites. He’d also filled the CD case with red, heart shaped confetti.

It’s a lovely gesture and I do appreciate the time and effort he went to, but at the time I was seeing someone else.

Ironically, a couple of weeks later I got chucked by the bloke I was seeing. I’m still in contact with the guy who made me the CD, very regularly. We’ve never met up but we talk on the phone a lot, and sometimes indulge in sexy-texty. These days it’s not CD’s he’s sending me, but he is texting me sound files of him ‘arriving’ after I’ve sent him rudey pictures. I’ve currently got one of those as my ringtone, it makes me and my housemates laugh every time.

…I hope he doesn’t read this.

*pop* please be gentle, it’s my first time
(mmm...spunk, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 11:57, 3 replies)

Not a mix tape story
because that's a really crap boring QOTW.

I'm going to post a boring yet true story. It does involve tapes though.

My flatmate from years back enjoyed skip-surfing, and once arrived back, blootered, with not one but TWO cases of cassette tapes. And written on those little cardboard insert things were film titles!!!

Upon listening to them, however, it was clear that someone had parked a cheap, nasty cassette recorder in front of a cheap, nasty TV and recorded, well, the film that was on telly. If you could stand the arse-clenching boredom for long enough, you'd be rewarded with a distant cough, fart or sniff, usually followed with a 'shhhhh!'.

One tape even had a lady memorably barging in and asking loudly, "d'you wanna cuppa tea, Kev?" followed by a hissed "fucks sake!" followed by "ooh sorry".

Magic.
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 11:39, 1 reply)

Mix tape eroticism
Chickenlady's extract makes me recall my own abandoned novel, entitled: "I Wanna Sex You Up" - a story of a young man who becomes so obsessed with the hit record by Colour me Badd that he grows designer stubble, wears pastel suits with shoulder pads and embarks on a life of heterosexual hyperactivity. Here's an extract:

..."She was serving coffee in the diner on the corner of 3rd and Maine when I walked in. She was busy and didn't notice me. But then the first strains on Colour Me Badd's epic cut started to waft over the radio waves and I began to do my choreographed moves.

I pouted. I shimmied. I slid across the floor and thrust out my pelvis in a sexual manner, clutching my groin for added vulgarity. And as the beat got into my soul, I began to sing the "Ooo-ooo-OOO-ooo" refrain.

My twitching pecker leapt forth from my trousers unbidden and bobbed in time to the beat. "Tick-tock, we don't stop!" I crooned, as I exposed myself to the assembled diners while simultaneously choreographing.

She approached me in a haze of love blindness and I readied myself for the orality that was sure to come. But instead, she tipped a decanter of iced water over my ivory tower and said:

"You really are a tosser. Get out or I'm calling the police."
(frankspencer, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 11:00, 1 reply)

Mixing QOTW
No mix tapes story, instead a bit taken from the same story as the earlier peaches lines. I could have put this in the Stalker qotw - it's from my stalker novel. I could also have put it into a stealing qotw. Or your worst journey qotw.

So it's a mixed qotw (near enough for me).

Caution - may contain erotic prose

*********

It was a Wednesday when I first spoke to him; I decided that it was time. My time to enter his life; to gently slit the thin curtain that lay between us, to slip into his world unbidden and as yet unwanted. I pushed up against him as we squashed into the Victoria line tube at 8.30am; I took his wallet.


Swimming in the hot crush my hands slide down my body, my breathing quickens, my eyes close. Short sharp breaths, heart pounding, I feel the hardness of his thigh.

Swallow, breathe.

My torso; close, fitted to his back.

Swallow, breathe.

Hand to waist; I feel his belt; hard leather, my finger wants to trail along its length. Lower now; back pocket, smooth edge of fabric.

Swallow, breathe.

Fingers slip into the soft fold, feel the hard shiny wallet.

Swallow, breathe.

The train lurches as we go around a corner; I am grateful of the chance to lift and take it. I move his wallet to me; hold it close against my stomach, slip it into my shirt, down further into my clothes; warm still.

Swallow, breathe.


My breathing slowed. I stood enjoying the warmth of him against me. The world slid away and my fingertips tingled with the memory of touching him. I have touched him; his body has touched mine; I closed my eyes and my detached life began to melt into his.

Is this what it would feel like to lie next to him on a warm summer’s morning?


This was the beginning, the start, the point from which everything unravelled and slid away, far away until nothing of me was left.

*****


.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 10:36, 9 replies)

No woman, no cry

/pop/un-lurks.

Hi there, I’ve been lurking almost a year now, trying to get up the bottle to post my one and only story worth telling and I think I’ve found just the QOTW to do it. I will apologise in advance for any excessive length and also for any slurring which may occur - this is due to Dutch courage in the form of Scottish Water. It is on topic, but you’ll have to stick with it.

Well, where to begin? (not so easy this is it?)

How about 1978? I was 17 and while not a geek - I’ve never been a geek - I was a nerd. Kind of. I was into Punk but wasn’t really a punk, I was tall and a bit spotty and I liked maths. My best friend Nick however, was cool. He was a ladies man and bass guitarist with a post-punk band. We’d known each other since junior school and had become best friends in about the 3rd year.

I was more political than him, thanks to my elder brother. I went on marches a lot and in the holidays I got together with like minded friends from school and we’d volunteer down at the Anti-Nazi League HQ, stuffing envelopes etc. We were keen and our hearts were in the right place. I also got to mix with girls, though I was yet to have a girlfriend, and one of the girls was Manisha. She was a year younger than me - still in the 5th form, but would soon be a lower-6th former. She was born in South Africa and was a ‘Cape coloured’, i.e. her parents’ families came originally from India. The whole family was heavily involved in the struggle against apartheid: her grandfather and uncle were lawyers and belonged to the same practise as Nelson Mandela (before his imprisonment, that is); her auntie had been imprisoned for a time in Robben Island. When Manisha and her brother Anand were 6 and 4, the family had fled to the UK where they claimed political asylum. Ten years on the family were still not UK citizens but ‘stateless’ i.e. they had no passports.

As well as being highly political aware, Manisha was a peach and I fancied her silently but fervently from afar. We got on very well and soon we were both part of a tight group of mates. This was great until the tragedy stuck; she and Nick fell in love. It was full-blown teenage love and I made the best of things, i.e. suffered silently and became a much bruised gooseberry.

I got a Saturday job in a department store restaurant kitchen and when Manisha was looking for a job too, I put in a good word for her and she got a job as a waitress. This gave me more opportunity to eat my heart out, but it also gave us time to get to know each other better. As the ‘middle-man’, I could give sound relationship advice, listen to her moans and gripes etc. I found it easy to talk to her and we became very good friends.

Then the two of them broke up. I had both of them crying on my shoulders - I’ve always been a good listener, but this tried my patience somewhat. Anyway, it meant that we saw less of each other except at work. I didn’t want to be disloyal to Nick.

I’ll skip forward here to 1980. I’d got decent grades for Maths, Further Maths, Economics and Government & Politics A Levels and was now an accounting student at Southampton University. I managed to lose the ‘V-plates’ at long last [thanks Trish!] and was a studious student as those things go. My musical taste was a bit left-of-centre, more punk and reggae than heavy metal and I was pathetically glad to be ‘interesting’ as far as accountancy students go - and believe me, that’s not far.

Half way through the year I got a letter from Manisha! She was thinking of going to Southampton too and wanted to visit. Fine! She came down, but with some boyfriend in tow. I spent a day showing them round before they went back to London.

The next time I saw her was a scene straight out of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ - the one where George Bailey meets Mary at the college party - except this time it was the freshers’ ball. She’d finished with the boyfriend by then and at 18 she looked sensational. I mean jaw-droppingly gorgeous. No, that doesn’t even come close. Well, you’ve all been in love at 19 haven’t you? Is there anything better in the whole world? We spent that night in my room in the house I was sharing with two other guys from our school and a friend of ours. That year, she hardly spent a single night in her room in halls. I’ll leave the details to your over-fertile imaginations, this isn’t the place. She loved teasing me though, in more ways than one, and used to call me ‘Beenie Man’ - the reggae lovin’ bean counter.

Things went smoothly, I graduated with a first after a final year in which we’d shared our own flat - just like an old married couple. Our musical tastes coincided exactly, and one of the happiest days I can remember was when Clint Eastwood and General Saint played at the Uni. We were both right down at the front, lightly stoned, grooving away as if…sod it, can’t think of a good analogy, but you get the picture. In contrast, although I can’t remember where I was when I heard John Lennon was dead, I can picture exactly the scene as we sat up in bed listening to Radio 1 when it was announced that Bob Marley had died. We put ‘Redemption Song’ on so loud I couldn’t hear her crying. We loved that album, and I’d tease her sometimes when she took an age to get ready or something: “Bob’s right you know - ‘no woman, no cry’. Get a bloody move on!”

“I like a man who cries,” she’d say,

“OK, you can stay.”

The next year I moved back to London and rented a flat in Walthamstow. Manisha came up to stay weekends and holidays and had a room in halls for week days. I’d got a job with one of the ‘Big Five’ accounting firms and was also taking an MBA. They sponsored it and gave me time off too, I was earning good money and was happy.

As soon as Manisha graduated (History and Politics) we got married. Just a small registry office thing. Her parents were devout communists, and I’m a non-practising reform Jew. Now she could finally get a passport as she was a UK citizen. We used it first time for our honeymoon in the Maldives.

Although house prices were rising fast in London by then - this was 1983 - we were both working and we found a real do-er up-er round the corner within our limit.

Skip again a couple of years and 1986, Manisha became pregnant. I’d got my MBA and a promotion and we decided she should take a couple of years off work to be a Mum. She was working for the GLC and it was about to be abolished anyway, so we thought it must be fate.

Now, if you or your partner has been pregnant you will know about the changes the female body goes through. One of them is the enlargement of the breasts - this is necessary to produce milk of course - but Manisha had a large birthmark on her left breast. It was made up of lots of tiny moles really close together, making a dark, raised area, looking something like a relief map of Crete but about four or five inches across. As her breasts grew, so did this birthmark, and it started to itch too. It had never caused any sort of bother before, but this was a bit disturbing, so off to the GP we went. She took a look, asked some questions and said that it was probably nothing to worry about but she’d make a note to take another look after the baby was born.

This is where the mix tape comes in for the first time. From other posts, this seems to be fairly common - I think that’s down to Dr Miriam Stoppard and her babycare/pregnancy books. I think it was in her checklist of things to put in the ‘birthing bag’. Anyway, on this little beauty was a load of reggae of course: Marley, Culture, Burning Spear, Misty in Roots, plus a load of punk tracks like Buzzcocks - ‘Ever fallen in love with someone’; Ian Dury - ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’; Xtc ‘Making plans for nigel’; Ruts ‘Babylon’s burning’; The Higsons ‘Conspiracy’; Madness ‘My girl’s mad at me’; Elvis Costello ‘(Idon’t want to go to) Chelsea’ etc etc. I won’t bore you with the full listing.

August 1987 she was born - our little Jasmine - and you know when I mentioned 19 year olds in love earlier - well that was as nothing compared to the feeling you get holding your own tiny little child in your arms, well not quite, but different. I can’t explain it to you if you’ve not got any kids, and if you have, then I don’t need to .

All was well at bean-counting towers. I took a couple of weeks off work and we adjusted to the little one, she seemed to like us…

…in September, the doctor sent a letter reminding us about checking out the birthmark. This time, she suggested a specialist look at it, and the best place would be the Royal Marsden. OK, well, hmmm, I suppose that’s the best place, you know best etc. The doctor arranged it and in early February 1988 she went in for a biopsy. Now I didn’t know what this meant and was scared to ask really, but Manisha said they’d look at the birthmark and see whether it was benign or malign. No point worrying til then. I hadn’t realised they would cut the whole thing out!

She went in with an over-night bag, including tape and walkman, by taxi - she didn’t want us dropping her off as Jazzy would be asleep. I kissed her goodbye and arranged to visit the next day which would be February 13th - I promised to bring some flowers and the baby.

When we arrived at the ward the next afternoon in visiting time laden down with a dozen red roses and a bundled up baby I was shocked. All the other women on the ward looked to be in a really bad way. Quite a few were bald from chemotherapy, lots looking not just old but ancient, wasted, drained, all life sapped away. And there was Manisha, propped up in bed, a huge bandage on her chest under her nightgown. Jaz spotted her and reached her tiny arms out towards her, but a nurse swooped down on us, saying, something like: let me take her for a minute while you two have a talk - before snatching her away, cooing in her 6-month old adorable face passing her around the nurses and patients as if we weren’t there. It’s true that, like a fairy drawing colour with a wand in a black and white cartoon, her presence created smiles, spreading down the ward in her wake.

With one eye on the nurse, I went to talk with Manisha, who was a bit upset not to have Jasmine in her arms, but otherwise seemed OK. They didn’t have the results of the test yet and she’d have to stay another night, but all being well would be home in a couple of days. I found a vase for the roses, reclaimed the baby, chatted about this and that and when visiting ended at 5.30, off we went.

The phone was ringing as I opened the front door - not an easy manoeuvre with a bundle of baby on your hip and a bag of nappies etc. in the other hand. It was still ringing though and I reached it in time to answer.

“Mr Bean-counter?”
“Yes,”
“It’s the Royal Marsden here,”
“Oh yes,” Jasmine was wanting to be put down so I said, “just a sec,” while I put her down.
“Mr Bean-counter,”
“Yes,”
“It’s about your wife,”
“Yes,”
“There’s been a complication,” possibly the four most horrible words in the English language.
“Yes,” my brain had frozen and my body was shutting down, “what is it?”
“It was just after you left. She suffered a pulmonary embolism - a blood clot lodged in her pulmonary artery and cut off the blood supply to her lungs. The thing is, she had her Walkman on and her eyes closed and by the time the nurse noticed and called the doctor I’m afraid it was too late. She died just after 6.00pm. I’m so very sorry Mr Bean-counter.”

Even today, there are tears running down my face and dripping into the whiskey glass shaking in my hand. The shock at that time was total - luckily, it numbed some of the pain, and time passed in a fog. I couldn’t describe the next few weeks even if I wanted to. My Mum came to stay and looked after Jasmine while I was sorting out things and crying myself to sleep. I took a month off work to think what to do, anyway, I could barely count to ten.

I found a nursery that would take Jasmine while I was at work, but after two weeks I handed in my resignation. The people at work were great but I just didn’t want to be there, I couldn’t bear to leave Jasmine at the nursery in the mornings. I decided to move to Southampton and set up as a self-employed accountant. That way I could work from home. At least I didn’t have to worry about money for a while. The life insurance paid off the mortgage, I put the house on the market. In the short time we’d been there the value had shot up, I sold up and bought a big place in Southampton which would serve as home and office.

I played that tape I’d made for her over and over again. The first track was ‘No woman, no cry’. By the way, Bob was wrong, so very, very wrong. I just tried holding on to the lines that said “Everything’s going to be alright”, but it was a damned close run thing at times. By the time Jasmine was a year old, she must have heard the tape over a hundred times, and “Don’t worry, Jaz, everything’s going to be alright” was a kind of mantra of mine.

You have to pull yourself together when you’re looking after a baby, and if there was one thing keeping me going it was Jasmine. There was so much of Manisha’s face in hers…

God, I wish that was the end of my story.

Briefly, over the next few years, I built up a business doing books for small and medium sized businesses in the area. I could do it virtually in my sleep which was good, and it kept me busy, which was also good. I made some friends, got recommended. One of my old housemates still lived in Southampton and taught at the University and Manisha’s family (especially Anand and his wife) as well as my family visited a lot, so I had plenty of human contact. Quite a few of my clients were self-employed builders and tradesmen, one was Steve who was a plumber. When his daughter Michelle wanted to open a hairdressing salon, he asked me to look after the finances for her. Steve and his mates did the place up for her for the cost of the materials and she’d done an apprenticeship, had HND and whatnot, she was in her mid-20s, pretty, unattached; I was in my early thirties by this time and hadn’t wanted or sought out female company since Manisha died six or so years previously.

You may doubt this was so, but firstly, my heart was burnt to ashes, secondly, I’d turned off this part of my life and thirdly, I was a single Dad with a little kid - not so easy to do anything about it, even if I wanted to. But, little by little, I got friendly with Michelle. She was…undemanding company but she actually made me laugh and I could tell she liked me. She got me to bring Jasmine to her shop and did her hair for her which thrilled her, as I was her usual hairdresser at that time. I still didn’t make any move though and it was her idea in the end - she invited both of us for dinner at her place…

…Six months on and she’d come and stay at our place at weekends. She left womanly bits and pieces in the bathroom, took over a couple of drawers in my bedroom. I went along with things, maybe I shouldn’t have.

It was a couple of weeks before Valentine’s Day. You can imagine how I felt about that date. She wanted to go out to a restaurant but I told her not to come the following week as we wanted to be alone and we’d be up in London, visiting Kew Gardens, where Manisha’s ashes were scattered in the bluebell wood. I suppose she felt it was time for me to ‘get over it’ and get on with life. I disagreed, we went to bed in foul moods and woke up the same way. At breakfast, Jasmine was acting up; I was making a pot of coffee, so I didn’t see what happened but Michelle started shouting at Jasmine. As I turned round, Jasmine threw a spoonful of cereal at Michelle and Michelle pulled her out of her seat and smacked her on the bum… …before I knew what was happening, I’d pulled Michelle’s arm round with my left hand and smacked her across the face with the flat of my right hand, then I was shouting in her face “IF YOU SO MUCH AS EVER TOUCH ONE HAIR OF THAT CHILD’S HEAD AGAIN, SO HELP ME, I’LL KILL YOU”

I bent down and gathered up the screaming Jasmine in my arms, ran out of the kitchen and up to her room, murmuring “Don’t worry Jaz, everything’s going to be alright.” When she’d calmed down a bit I said “OK Jaz, we’re going out for the day, get yourself dressed, I’ll be back up in a minute”

Back in the kitchen, Michelle was looking furious but hadn’t moved. “OK,” I said, “I’m really sorry I hit you, but this isn’t working. It was never going to work. I’m taking Jasmine out, clear all your stuff out before we get back.”

“You’re fucking dead you. I’m gonna tell my Dad you slimeball and you’re gonna wish you’d never been born.”

“Too fucking late for that you cow, been there, done it. Just be gone or you’ll be the sorry one.”

I took Jasmine to the seaside. We had a favourite place where there was a café and some shops on the front and a good long beach. At times of stress I still sometimes fall back on cigarettes, at that time I did. I very rarely smoke in front of Jaz but I did then. We went into the café, got a table by the window, I got me a large black coffee and a hot chocolate and a cake for Jaz and I smoked, staring out of the window at the cold blustery February morning.

“Daddy, what was Mummy really like?” Jasmine asked as I lit a second cigarette. I couldn’t get a word out at first, but the tears started again. She came round the table and gave me a huge hug, “Don’t worry Daddy, everything’s going to be alright,” she said.

“That’s right Jaz,” I said, “everything’s going to be alright. Let’s take a walk on the beach, and I’ll tell you all about Mummy.” We spent a couple of hours walking along the beach, throwing stones in the water, picking up shells, and I told her stories about when the two of us were young students, or when we were working together as 6th formers and when we were newlyweds before she was born.

When we got back to the house the front door was wide open. Shit.

I went inside first and made Jasmine wait just outside the front door. I stopped in the doorway to the living room. Inside, all of the photos of me and Manisha had been smashed and crumpled or torn and all over the room was tape. She’d taken the special tape and pulled it all out of the cassette, stretching it and tying it around things, yards and yards of thin brown tape, totally beyond repair. I stumbled out and into the rest of the rooms; the bedroom was a mess and all over the house the photos had been broken. Luckily that was all.

I had re-prints made of all the photos from the negatives and I made the tape again. I knew the order of songs off by heart and still had most of them on disc, though some now had scratches and jumps where they hadn’t the first time I’d taped them.

I’ve met a few women since, but I’ve not brought them home. I’ve not met anyone I’d trust that far. Jaz knows that I’m always there for her. A couple of years ago she went off to university and it was as if I’d lost an arm; I’m still trying to get used to it. The house is so damned quiet all the time. She knows if she’s feeling low, I’ll drive the 450 mile round trip to bring her home at a minute’s notice.

Each February at the nearest weekend, we go to the same beach, come rain or shine and I tell her stories about her Mum. The next day we drive up to London, with the tape on the player and we wander round the woods at Kew and I tell her more stories. As she’s got older, I find I can tell her different stories, I think she knows her Mum pretty well now.

Thanks for listening - I don’t feel any better yet, but I can see that I will do soon. Sorry it was so long.
(A Bean Countin' Man Takes off socks to count past 10, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 10:17, 60 replies)

So very bored
I'm so bored of this weeks QOTW that I feel compelled to play various pranks on people, generally mess about and cause a bit of mischief. In other words I'm off to have some 'mixed japes'.
(Errorist, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 10:03, Reply)

And the band played on... and on... and fucking on
Possibly even more tenuous than Legless’ last post. But I thought I’d share it anyway.

Last year, me and the sweary one went to a wedding in a very posh hotel. Now, before I start ranting, we did have a fantastic day, the bride and groom are very good friends, and I especially love her to bits – I met her when my life was falling apart round my ears, and she was a fantastic support. So I don’t want this to come across as denigrating in any way…

Whilst the day time was great, the evening was not quite our cup of tea, as it turned out. We knew there was a band on, and during the early evening had got talking to them out in the beer garden/bike shed. And then the sweary one asked what sort of stuff they did (their mode of dress suggested possibly some sort of light rock, which could have been acceptable – family friendly atmosphere and all that).

No.

Oh no.

“We do Tamla Motown stuff” said their leader.

Fuck.

“Oh god, I fuckin HATE Motown” blurts she before her brain can engage properly. Which, to be fair, the guy laughed off and we had a bit of a chuckle about it. Meanwhile, I’m sitting thinking that I can appreciate a lot of things that I don’t particularly care for, as long as it’s done well. “If they play their instruments well and put on a good show it could be OK”, I thought (optimistically, as it turned out).

Come the reception, the ‘band’ (a four piece) got on stage. Dressed in Motown-style identical suits. With not an instrument to be seen. Oh Jesus, they aren’t are they? Oh Christ, they are – they’re using a backing tape. There then followed 90 minutes of god-awful covers of the likes of ‘Love Train’ and ‘Build me up Buttercup’ (sorry Rakky, didn’t mean to remind you of the horror), all done with the ‘band’ swaying in perfectly synchronised, finger clicking harmony, in front of their specially constructed backdrop advertising the band’s name and how you could contact them…

I'll admit, they were OK vocally, I just can’t stand that type of entertainment – it’s glorified karaoke. To while away the torture (in my mind anyway, I’m well aware that most of the people in the room seemed to be enjoying it), I plied myself and the sweary one with overpriced bitter and cigarettes on the balcony, and prayed for the disco to come. During the break for the buffet, the DJ started playing some surprisingly well considered tunes (again, in my opinion – I’m not oblivious to the fact that I don’t have a monopoly on good taste). Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Human League, Soft Cell, Vapours, New Order, Smiths, Blancmange – and my soul perked up a little. This could be good.

To be fair, he did play some good stuff during his stint. The trouble was, in his bid to get through all of his requests (or maybe because he was just a cunt), he only played about 90 seconds of any given track, before segueing seamlessly into the next one. Much like (and here comes the tenuous link) those bloody irritating ‘medley’ compilation tapes you used to get like ‘Ultimate dance party vol. 3-fucking-hundred’ Which meant that by the time you’d fought your way to the dancefloor, having negotiated your way through a sea of carelessly discarded chairs and children, you were just getting into your groove when Rick Astley would come on and totally ruin the bastard moment.

In the end we just decided to talk to anyone we could find and laugh about it all.
Length? About five hours of quietly thinking ‘Oh for fuck’s sake’.

Cost? £800 quid for the ‘band’ apparently, and that was with a discount for ‘mate’s rates’… Jeez, I’ve got a mate who’s in a proper band with guitars and everything and they charge £250. You just can’t put a price on talent these days…

*EDIT* We did have a good night though, you make the most of these situations and we had the opportunity to chat properly to a very nice couple we'd met briefly on the stag and hen weekend. And one of my best mates had the happiest day of her life, that I was very proud to be part of.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Tue 12 Feb 2008, 9:59, Reply)

Imagine my surprise…

I was carrying two scripts. One was for a 1999 play by Stephen Belber, the other for a 2001 by Stephen Belber. Lorks-a-lordy, I tripped and dropped them both! – The pages fell into a sweet alcoholic paste, (common throughout much of East- and Southeast Asia) that I was cooking…

In other words…

Mixed tapes (look it up if you can be arsed)

Then…

I put my GALEORHINUS GALEUS into my dome shaped Buddhist shrine by my grove of mango trees.

Oh yes,

Mixed Topes.

Then, I thought I’d try a couple of versions of one thing, and combine it with different versions of another…

Mix types

Then I apologised to everybody, went back into my cave, sat in the darkened corner, hugged my knees and waited until Thursday.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Tue 12 Feb 2008, 9:36, 2 replies)

Mixed tape gambling!
I once made a mixed tape, i made alot of them for myself to enjoy on my walkman (oh how old!)I left one of the tapes in my then boyfriends car. Now my ex and his friends were always methodical about making tapes, always putting the same genre of songs together, 2 or three songs from the same singer together ect... all very organised. Me on the other hand makes hotch-potchs so i never know whats next. So alice cooper goes next to Immortal and then some random classical music.

Ex took my tape into the place he worked and set up a gambling game with it. He wrote down all the songs on it in no particular order and got his friends to bet which song would be up next. It made him a tenner too...
(Serbitar Has a furry shit canon called Whitey., Tue 12 Feb 2008, 9:14, Reply)

Taped off the radio mix specials!
I had a tape that I made up of stuff taped off the radio. Now, of course, the DJs talk over one end or the other for various (mostly copyright/PRS) reasons just so people *can't* tape off the radio. Aha, but I was a clever little sod, wasn't I, and had a few tapes on the go at once, so if the DJ talked over the start of M.A.R.R.S. - "Pump Up The Volume", then I'd cut it and splice it with one where he'd talked over the end, thus giving me a super-long 7-minute mix of it (assuming I wasn't careless with the razor, and spliced it in seamlessly on the beat).

Never did figure out what do do with the B-side of the tape though.
(gordonjcp, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 8:21, Reply)

I was poor and it got me laid.
Well, I'd just started going out with this chap and as chance would have it, his birthday was coming up. Now I was horrendously short on money, to the extent that ethiopians were coming up to me in the street and offering to lend me a few pence*. So I wondered on what the fuckery to buy that would a) impress and b) not cost many sheckels. I hit upon the idea of a mix tape. I decided to whip one off iTunes (the source of much of my financial enfuckerance) and presented it to him together with a handcrafted sleeve. I got laid. It's now 2 years later. We're buying a house together. He doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to propose to him for his next birthday, and he'll get something even shiner than a CD.....

Woo, yay and what the hell...maybe a little hoopla?

* not even remotely true. And a horrendous racial sterotype. Shame on me. Click I like this and I may think about donating some money to them, before deciding not to.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Tue 12 Feb 2008, 5:39, Reply)

Tormenting "The Goat" With Mix Tapes
In the sixth form at school, I was the one of the first to pass my driving test and get a car (a cool metallic gold fiesta). Therefore I used to pick my nearest mate up every morning and we would merrily drive from Ewell to Wallington listening to loud music on my "portable cassette player", as the motor only had a "wireless". It was a 40 or so minute drive which was perfect for one side of a C90 tape.

Anyway, after a few weeks, I was pressed into also picking up another kid in my area. He was the same age, and the son of "family friends". Me and my mate had nothing in common with this kid....he was very religious, we were not....he looked astonishingly like a goat, we did not..(hence we called him The Goat).

After several days travelling, The Goat decided to bring along his own mix tape to listen to in the car...it included a lot of Whitney Houston, Mel & Kim, Salt n' Pepa etc etc. Suffice to say this ended up out the window before we got to Cheam Village.

As punishment for this terrible taste in music, for the next six months we made The Goat hold the ghetto blaster for the entire duration of the journey with it on full blast. I still chuckle recalling his grimacing, goat like face, almost in tears as the car roared with such classics as:

1) "Debaser" by The Pixies
2) "Wave of Mutilation" by The Pixies
3) "Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden
4) "You're Crazy" by Guns n Roses

His reaction never failed to amuse us...gingerly gripping the stereo..faced turned up in disgust...he must have had a headache for six months....sweeeeet.
(Mandrill, Tue 12 Feb 2008, 3:32, 2 replies)

Car tapes
Our car doesn't have a CD player so we have to make tapes of our favourite songs. The only problem is that we all enjoy different music. So we all were allowed to make our own tape and on long journeys could play one.

Now there doesn't seem to be a problem with this...apart from the fact my dad was heavily into amature dramatics at the time. The main part on Journey's end, a loud war play.

A long journey to Skeggy, mum puts in the mix tape. All we hear is silence, then the sounds of bombs, airplanes and my dad's dulcet tones reading his lines from the play.
( squiddylyd Once you pop you can't stop!, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 23:31, Reply)

One day
I got tasked witht he chore of painting the spare bedroom at my dad's. I had a couple of choices of colours to pick from. Upon closer inspection, there was not enough of the grayish-brown to do the room and not quite enough cans of the warm gray to do the job either. Being the enterprising lass I am (or once was), I poured both paints into a large bucket and went to work.

Several hours later, slightly woozy from the fumes, I was done. I yelled for dad to come see my lovely dyi work and he actually screamed at me upon seeing the now badly dark coloured room. His words still haunt me this day, and probably until I die....

"Dammit Kate, I've told you never to mix taupes!!"
( kitty minion Babies ate my dingo!, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 23:15, Reply)

Low
When I was about ten I was a bit stuck as to what to get a mate for his birthday. We were both massive MC Hammer fans at the time, and I had a copy of the album so I decided to tape it off for him, using the wonders of modern technology. I even went to the library and photocopied the sleeve into horrible black and white, and glued the two sides together as I couldn't figure out how to get it to copy double-sided.

Even my mum thought this was a bad idea, and suggested I got him something else. "Nah, he'll love it, he loves MC Hammer!" thought I.

On his birthday I awaited his reaction to my gift with baited breath. He opened it and I suddenly realised that it did look a bit cheap. He looked kind of disgusted, but thanked me anything. What made things worse was that one of his other mates had got him the real tape.
We weren't really friends after that.
( krang, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 22:42, Reply)

One time at band camp
there was this almighty asshole of a boy
we'll call him Chuck
Now Chuck for unknown reasons went NOWHERE without a jar of peanut butter to munch on, and a cassette recorder to record any ridiculous thought he had at the time
Now, Chuck had a way of getting on everyones nerves, and therefore a plan was devised
Another friend, we'll call him Logan, waited until Chuck went into the shower one morning, and snagged the peanut butter and cassette recorded. He proceeded to record himself loudly fertilizing the peanut butter jar, and when he was finished he stirred it all up and replaced the peanut butter in Chucks bag, keeping the recorder

a half hour later sitting at the breakfast tables we watch as chuck slathers peanut butter all over his toast and bitches to us about his missing tape recorder
right on cue, Logan pulls out the tape recorder and hands it back to him
A suspicious Chuck presses play and the entire table shits itself with laughter as
"OH YEAH RIGHT IN YOUR PEANUT BUTTER, YEAH THAT FEELS SOOO GOOD"
blasts out

cue projectile vomit across the table, all over a laughing Logan, which in turn causes us to laugh all the harder
(Rum Blumpkin, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 21:21, 1 reply)

we had a tape
in our house that under no circumsances could anybody use to tape something.

why?

because this was Mick's Tape
(suboftheday, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 21:02, Reply)

Uhh...
I know I don't post here, ever, but ffs, this qotw is shite

mmkay, back to lurking
(Lovefist233 Bothering Sheep since..., Mon 11 Feb 2008, 20:17, 3 replies)

Mixed Rape

(__, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 19:09, 2 replies)

John Peel
Have we made it this far through the week without anyone mentioning taping the festive fifty? That was the highlight of my year when I was a miserable teenager.

*shuffles off back to student bedsit*
(middleofnowhere, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 18:55, Reply)

lol
I have a blog and the whole thing is themed with tracks which in someway express me feelings towards my embittered Ex.

And I aint telling anyone here the URL for the site either.

It's way too self indulgent and whiny, and you'd all laugh!
( Fire & Forget it's the only way to be sure, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 18:46, 2 replies)

Made for me
When I was a kid I made mix tapes and called them Fav's 1, 2, 3...etc. This was songs from "Now thats what I call music" and other compilation tapes I had. Recorded using "high Speed dubbing" on to another tape. Newer songs I didn't have on tape compilations such as "China in your hand" and "you can call me Al" I had to recorded off the radio. Without recording any Dj, a tricky task.
( BindiBaji, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 17:25, Reply)

a...hum
a female friend of mine,who was sweet,albeit into the most paralysingly odd music,gave me a mix tape for sexums.
Now,do some of you rate your bedroom prowess by how many songs on the tape/CD you can get through in one stint?We-ell...
She liked Dream Theater...oh dear.
For those unenlightened by Portnoy and Petruccis wandering three-hour solos,the into to Systematic Chaos is nine minutes long...nine minutes...
The only time when sex has left me dangerously bored.
(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Mon 11 Feb 2008, 17:16, Reply)

Oh dear oh dear :(
Last year I had quite an infatuation with a barmaid working across the road. I never gave her any reason to believe that I was obsessing over her, in fact I was showing the exact opposite even though I had a crush on her for almost a year. A few people told me not to even bother as she was apparently "self centred and stuck up", but I wasn't prepared to believe this 2nd hand information, it's always best to find out for yourself.

Anyway, I DJ for a hobby and one day I decided to do a mix just for her, consisting primarily of uplifting house, the mix basically says "I wanna fuck you", but it was done with a bit of innocence, honestly!

You can have a listen here...

It's become one of my favourite mixes, but anyway, to the point. About a month after doing it I still hadn't even given it to her as I just turned into a car crash every time I went to talk to her, one day I eventually cracked and sent her a fucking huge bunch of flowers with my mobile number... Things didn't really go according to plan...

The morning on delivery of said flowers I was doing some house work and missed my phone, the second I noticed that I had an answerphone message I checked to have a listen. I couldn't really work out what she was saying be something along the lines of,

"Thanks for the flowers ... *girls giggling then shouting* ... fuck off"

I didn't really know what to make of it so I called her number, heart thumping away. She didn't let me speak she just said

"I said I was interested, not that interested."

Then hung up, which was nice of her! And also mighty confusing of her. I spent most of that day feeling sorry for myself and getting shit faced in random locations until I could build up the bollocks to go to the pub. I eventually got around to it at about 6pm. She had stopped working there for the day but noone actually knew who the flowers were from, until I spoke to another barmaid.

Anyway, it turned out some other twat called Nick had claimed that the flowers were from him! Cheeky bastard! I ended up sending a few texts, and getting a few replies from her which cleared up the confusion and I asked her if I could give her the CD that I had done during the week, she said yes and seemed cool about it.

The day I went to give it to her she completely snubbed me and stuck her nose up, refused to serve me as if I was diseased or something. I got the barman to give her the CD in the end and decided to not put any more "effort" into her...

Coincidently enough I have thought of her a few times this week (wondering what she is upto these days, not whilst masturbating), and I'd still give her a mighty portion if she so wished ;-)
( Firkinfedup last shat on your wife's tits at, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 16:43, Reply)

b3ta mixtape (redux)
Inspired by Frankspencer (below), what about the best possible mix tape?

I'll start the ball rolling with possibly the single best song ever by anyone: My Sharona by The Knack. Dunno if that counts as a guilty pleasure... but it is ACE.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 11 Feb 2008, 16:30, 16 replies)