pizz+rock=no

25.6.2008

Hotel Review
Holiday Inn, Shepperton
What they say: Warm and friendly staff, Modern architecture set in 11 acres of grounds - 8 mi from London Heathrow Airport.

What we say: nice pool, sauna and jacuzzi and all that shit. too many men wandering around the dressing room in their birthday suits, conversing idly and nonchalantly as the bell tolls. dressing rooms did benefit tremendously thanks to shampoo, conditioner AND moisturiser dispensers. alas, none of this even comes close to the ingenuity of this hotel's piece de resistance. a miniature, 10 second tumble dryer for your soggy speedos. from soaking to smoking in 10 seconds. i shit you not.

the rooms were nicely air conditioned. bed was on wheels which allowed for tricky and exhausing but rewarding drives to and fro the rest room. nice biscuits and tea set BUT 2 biscuits per twin room seems a little, shall we say, stingey? yes, let's. luckily, i share with a vegan and most good biscuits are made with butter. victory is mine. the 11 acres, to be fair, were faultless. we perused their epic grounds for chitter chatter, sing alongs and it accomodated us graciously and comfortably.

staff were generally warm and friendly, with the exception of one gent with a chip on his shoulder and a superiority complex, that i presume is part of the genetic make-up of the glorified-bar-man job he occupied. it baffled the mind. just because we don't have briefcases (or did and didn't need to bring them on this occasion), he saw fit to treat us like imbeciles and miscreant youths. how rude! anyway, he made our lives a living, confusing hell when we tried to order food past the ungodly hour of 11pm. when shay actually claimed his £10 pizza, we discovered, in support of our suspicions, that 'authentic italian fire smoke oven', is actually sheppertonese or holiday innish for 'microwave'. monumental fail.

the breakfast faired better. the scrambled egg residue was intriguing, at best, however. there's a lesson to be learnt - don't cook egg in trays that are 1 cubic metre. i can't fault the hash browns. i ate 6 and each was as gloriously unhealthy and delicious as the last. the toasting machine wasn't so much a toaster as a machine that breathed hot air onto my bread for 1 minute before spitting it back out 1 degree warmer than it entered. the croissant was lovely and the lady who worked there gave me a paper. what a doll.

i can't dispute the fact that it is 8 miles from heathrow. it really is.

4/5.

so we spent our tuesday filming saturday. over and over and over and over again. it involved 4 costume changes; transcending the space/time continuum. you just can't beat a nice 16 hour day.

i don't want to spoil the video for you folks. it truly is a spectacle. wait until you see us in our 80s get ups. iain cuts some serious flashdance shapes and it's all a bit miami vice, with the exception of shay, who was a perm and a cock habit short of being julia roberts in pretty woman. my cuncertainty as to what espadrilles actually were, was alleviated when i was told i'd be wearing a bright yellow pair of them. they are, as i kind of suspected, those shoes i really hate. they were a necessary evil and compromise. the yellow espadrilles facilitated the salmon pink blazer.

we filmed in shepperton studios. apparently it's quite famous and they've filmed such stormers of brit-film such as notting hill, about a boy, bridget jones, a muppets christmas carol ... i rest my case. sadly, hugh grant wasn't wandering or loitering in the back seat of any cars with a hooker. so yeah, it was an informative and fun day.

we'll be doing an xfm session in london this friday, which will go on air at 5pm. tune in, tune on, check out.

aside from that, we're just hanging around writing new songs. we'll be in koko in london on july 6th. it's a show for itunes and every lucky person who gets into the show will get a free ipod! that isn't true at all, but it will be a bloody laugh.

speaking of laughs, we played a house show on saturday in cardiff. it was the 30th birthday of our dear friend, rae. please leave her birthday condolences here. she is now a really, really real adult. save your breath played with us and there were movielife covers flowing than quadruple vodka, cherry lambrini and cranberry cocktails. a cocktail i have sinced nicknamed 'from russia with cystitis'.

in the meantime, keep enjoying the summer. wear suncream if its sunny. wear a coat if it's raining. don't eat pizza if the base is not tomato. bbq sauce does not a real pizza make, heathen fuck. clean your fingernails if they're dirty. listen to haunts aaaand vote for us in best band, best live band, best single and best video at the kerrang awards. if they invent any other awards we could potentially win (longest blog by a band with little chance of winning anything else, for example). pretty please with gold bullion on top?! thaaaaaanks.

love you
aled
xxx