This Song Will Make You Happy

The Voluntary Butler Scheme is one jingly jangly man named Rob (look, he's got balloons!). Rob has written a joyful collection of low-fi indie noise that you should just adore: they make you feel young, sunny and... happy. Yes, these tunes will make you happy. 'Breakfast, Dinner, Tea' will be speeding me on my way to London today, and because of it I'll be bobbing in my seat, daydreaming out of the window and crucially all thought of what junction and where will be forgotten.

Never mind. Everything is lovely. Incidentally isn't The Voluntary Butler Scheme a great name; it's one of those concepts, like Saki's occassional garden, that you just wish existed.

• Voluntary Bulter Scheme The Eiffel Tower & The BT Tower

Fun Thing #881 - Public Transport

I cannot drive. I can barely walk without tipping over - straight lines in a four wheeled chariot of death? No chance. I rely on public transport and in penance I constantly maintain a thwarted expression. Last weekend, thanks solely to my super skills of organisation (i.e. writing lots of stuff in a notebook), and admittedly a friend coordinating the actual important things, such as pre-booking late night taxis, travel went so smoothly that I felt I must be dreaming. This weekend normal service resumed with avengence.

Saturday night instead of going to see Mesrine parts I & II, I ended up forking over £7 to see cookery orientated chick-flick Julie & Julia recommended by A.- a man who treasures the Dawson's Creek soundtrack in his record collection. Taste is not quite his strong point. I owe him though: I'd put him through Sunshine ("For Seven Years I talked to God... " absolute drivelling pile of ludicrousness), and do I ever hear the end of it? No, so I'm waiting for him to slip up.

Julie & Julia: directed and written by Nora Ephron, starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci.

Julie & Julia, is... okay, a bit of a strange mix between fussy and fluffy. It's based on two true stories; one of Julia Child's rise to cooking glory, and one about a very thin woman who not only seems to constantly eat butter with no ill affects, but also cooks her way through Child's recipe book, blogs about it, and becomes famous. Damn her.

It has Norah Ephron's typical and tedious generalisations about differences between the sexes crowbarred in, but it's endearing enough in parts. Stanley Tucci and his marvellous voice are a pleasure, and once you get over Meryl Streep's impression the film bobs right along. The downside includes the quirky and narcissistic Julie character, and the two stories are sometimes awkwardly segued together - Ephron's commitment to the parallel lives conceit is slightly grating.

My favourite moment was when Julie's husband suggested she write a blog about how she adores living in Queens, which was of course my original impetus behind '1001 Fun Things'- a plan that quickly disintegrated when I realised I didn't have enough bile to constantly hate Aber and write about how much I hated it too. And I moved.

Anyway, the film, yes, it's okay - it's something safe and inoffensive, your mum would probably like it. Though I'm sure it leaves bloggers everywhere wondering why movie rights haven't been optioned for their solipsistic thoughts, and lastly where did she buy that magic fat free butter?

Here endeth the review and begineth the aforementioned chaos.

A. and I left the cinema, it was late on a Saturday night, we had no time for a drink and post film discussion because the respective last trains were due -in any case the pubs were all full of leering drunks who would love to spill drinks over me. So off we went to the station where A. (who'd travelled 44 miles just for the pleasure of seeing Julie & Julia with me) learned three valuable lessons:

• Cardiff - Doctor Who set by day -a special kind of bedlam on Saturday nights.
• As the capital of a purportedly developed nation, Cardiff has all the usual indications of progress; tall buildings, lots of shops selling designer kitchen gadgets, asymmetric hair on young men. However these are no guarantees of an efficient public transport system, or in this case any trains to Bristol later than 10pm (I'd checked and found one at 11, but alas... on Monday to Fridays only).
• Drunken weirdos flock to the train and bus station like zombies to top-hats.

I in turn learned that my train had been replaced by a bus. Great. I hate all trains, but that is nothing, nothing compared to the unadulterated sheer loathing that I reserve for buses (and Aberystwyth). We journeyed back to my home via the joys of the rail replacement bus, and not just any rail replacement but the last replacement of the night, every seat of which was filled with absolutely tone deaf piss-heads. All of whom were determined to work their way through the soundtrack from Grease. Bastards.

Death by buses continued on into the next day too -sadly there weren't enough replacements to cope with the demand to get out of Bridgend, or some stupid football match in Cardiff was on or something, so we remained stuck in misery-ville, eating blackberries and taking in the odd castle. Eventually A. fled, bemused at the terrible consequences of trying to do something as simple as going to the cinema on the wrong side of the Severn.

I'm sure there's a film in here somewhere, and I'd like either Kate Winslet or Jennifer Connelly to play me please.

You Pronouce it Tinmuff. Really.

4th September: Teignmouth*

What an unforgettable weekend; I shared a pint with some lovely people, including the great grandson of Harold MacMillan (a thoroughly nice chap), repelled any potential vampire attacks with late night garlic friend rice, crawled through some medieval tunnels, and found myself agog at a breathtaking performance by Muse. It was all achingly good and now I'm back to the green laserless skies of drab reality.

The guys from Muse can't walk down the street without winning some sort of live award, and quiet rightly so: love them or hate them, it's undeniable that they pour their hearts, souls, and three truckloads of equipment into their performance. However the homecoming gig in Teignmouth (pronouced Tinmuff, which like Aber, smells of chips) wasn't so much about the light show, the punch and judy set up, the funky videos, or even Matt's Kaoss Mansun (a guitar with a touch pad connected to a Korg Kaoss pad - sounds a bit like a theremin). Quite simply the band returned triumphant and their music was amazing. Muse played their rock socks off.

Andy, the taxi driver who took our party back to Exeter, was less impressed. He regaled us with tales of ferrying Chris the bassist home from Heathrow. Chris was heading back Teignmouth jubilant at the cutting of a new album; it's fair to say that he can be imagined jumping into the taxi with a certain amount of swagger, though this was soon diminished after hearing the news that his driver ( a skiffle man) had never listened to any Muse tunes. Eager to rectify this sad state of affairs Chris popped the newly made disc into the cd player. After a brief listen the taxi driver's words of consolation were "oh well, you've got a riff to yourself, ay, that's nice isn't it." He cheekily disclosed to us who should know better that "it's a load of old crap" and that he'd lost the copy Chris gave him in a move.

For those who are interested, it's on the Radio 1 and the red button tonight, but here's a clip of my favourite moment, a new arrangement of 'Cave'.

*From the flickr photostream of Olly-Og

It's Only Words...

I have a challenge and I'm afraid it takes some explaining: I'm looking for a word to sum up all of the below:

A. is decluttering, he took into work some old quiz books and gave them to his friend (who happens to be his boss), this made his friend/boss extremely happy. A's aim was to make his friend happy, but he has also benefitted as he has decluttered, and has of course scored some brownie points with a senior work colleague. Now surely there has to be a word, much like the concept of schadenfreude to describe a benevolently selfish act?

Points to remember -

• The self interested consequences of the act remained unknown to the other person

• The intentions of the act were equally please another as well as to benefit selfishly: the huge amount of joy felt by the recipient only served to exacerbate the joy in having secretly served a selfish purpose.

Either a real word (from any language) or a very good made up term. Surely there has to be something?