thegillspatch

Anyway, the actual point of the post. Last week I got a phone call from some random number.
"Hi, Shaun Shackleton here, from the Guernsey Press"
Trying to keep the words "Oh", "Fuck", "Rita" and "Skeeter" out of my head, I agreed to "have a chat" with him yesterday. Well, he wasn't actually how I expected a Press guy to be on the phone - the first thing we talked about was Queens of the Stone Age, and he not only did he know them, but he knew the lead singer's name. So I figured it wouldn't be too bad.

I knew this blog has had a non-negligible number (whey, alliteration) of hits, but I didn't realise that its humble and rather-too-long URL had reached the offices of the local paper. Now I must admit that I don't actually read the paper (newspapers are so 20th century), so to hear that someone from there had read some of my writing came as a bit of a surprise. I suppose I should feel honoured, though I suppose that it could also be a sign of their desperation for stuff to fill column inches (gripping headlines such as "Mrs. le Pelley outraged at missing milk delivery" are not unheard of).

Anyway, yesterday, a bearded bloke rang our front doorbell, a smile on his face and a notebook in his hand. I'd say "it was business time" but the additional connotations that Flight of the Conchords have given the phrase make me refrain from using it. We sat down, had a cup of tea and he asked me some questions. It was almost like an interview.

And today, he returned with a guy with a camera, who took various photos of me doing various things. I've not actually seen the photos, so I have no idea what it'll look like, and I'm not entirely sure if I want to know. Anyway, those of you reading this who are priveliged enough to be within the Guernsey Press's circulation may see my ugly mug wasting otherwise perfectly good newspaper some time in the near future.

That isn't all though. The eagle-eyed of you may have spotted Tricia's comment on my previous blog post (essentially, the QOTSA concert tickets didn't constitute my "wish", so I could still wish for something. Don't ask why, because I don't know). I thought she was joking, but the forms actually did arrive in the post, so I "wished" for a new camera, not expecting to hear from The Powers That Be for a while. But along with Shaun and his photographer buddy (sorry, didn't catch your name) someone arrived with a carrier bag containing a brand new camera. That, along with the fact that I only have one more chemo trip to Southampton to go (on April fools' day...not worked out the significance of that) certainly means the future's looking bright, if not orange.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, the reporter also brought round a local band's album that he thought I'd like. He was right, so if you're into Kyuss, QOTSA, Unida or similar bands, check out Teaspoonriverneck.