Month: May 2020

In these strange and unprecented times (I don’t think anyone has called them that yet, I think I’ve coined a term that all the cool cats will be using before long), people have been doing unusual things to keep themselves entertained.

Most of these unusual things involve nominating people to do things on Facebook with no explanation.

Some of these unusual things are quizzes. I can’t fathom where the quiz addiction has come from other than it being a form of interaction which you can do via video. I quite like quizzes so I’m not complaining.

One thing that some friends and I did was invite each other to virtual museums. This requires a small amount of backstory…

In 2016, the world went to shit. Also, we went on holiday to the Lake District to climb Scafell Pike. Whilst there, we discovered there was a pencil museum nearby. We were all rather excited to visit. Imagine our dismay when, upon arrival, we discovered that it was closed due to flooding. Actually, you don’t need to imagine our dismay because it was captured in a photograph.

It is only now whilst writing this that I discovered visiting the pencil musuem was not on my bucket list, a fact that I have just rectified.

We did manage to find another museum, The Puzzling Place, which for just £3.50 each gave us many delights. Such as this amusing photo of us all in a weird perspective.

And whilst it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, it never quite made up for not seeing the world’s biggest colouring pencil. Anyway, ever since whenever we have gone away on one of our intrepid adventures, we have sought out the most amusing and frivolous museums nearby.

When the lockdown hit, we were all very concerned that we would not be able to go on our holiday in September and so to get our museum fix, we all created museums out of the things available in our houses. This made for a very enjoyable evening.

Adam and Alice created a Boozeum, with a quite frankly astonishing amount of alcohol. I have been to their house on many occassions and I can’t work out where it has all been hidden.

Louise and Matt created a Loo-seum, where they curated several exhibits of mainly bathroom items and exhibited them on a wooden plinth.

We created a Mugseum, because we have more mugs than any one household could use in a lifetime. We do quite like tea in our house, and have been given many mugs as gifts. We organised these into categories and displayed them for the visitors to our museum.

Afterwards we did have to admit that perhaps we have more than we need.

Anyway, if you’re bored during lockdown, I can recommend creating a museum for your friends to visit. It’s great fun. If you do, bung me a free ticket, yeah?

Band: Less Than Jake
Album: Anthem
Released: May 2003
Favourite Track: The Science of Selling Yourself Short
Favourite Lyric: “So I’m looking tonight for some peace of mind maybe then I’ll find some strength inside”

Having played for many years in a ska-punk band there had to be one ska-punk album on my list. Less Than Jake are by far my favourite ska band and (although it is now difficult to isolate just one band out of the many that I love) probably my current favourite band.

Now, I am not for one moment saying this is the best Less Than Jake album (it’s not, that’s Hello Rockview) but it’s the first one that I bought when it came out and therefore listened to over and over in a short space of time.

Less Than Jake are just one of the best bands to watch live. They’re so much fun and if I could only ever see one band again, I would have no hesitation in picking them.

Also, they cover the Spongebob Squarepants theme tune.

Band: Hell is For Heroes
Album: The Neon Handshake
Released: Februrary 2003
Favourite Track: I Can Climb Mountains
Favourite Lyric: “Can’t seem to judge the distance between my hands and feet quite literally”

Once upon a time there was a band called Symposium. The were a sort of throwaway pop-punk band. They achieved moderate success but were never going to do anything groundbreaking. They split up and then I heard stories about some of the members of the band being in this new band called Hell is For Heroes.

I’d heard their live shows were great and that their upcoming album would be amazing. It seemed to take ages for that album to arrive but when it did it showed that it was worth the weight.

This is one of those albums where nothing is wasted. It is a straight up awesome rock album with hooks, punches, screaming… all the good shit.

I have seen the band perform this album in its entirety twice (although the first time I missed half the show and I’m still upset by it). The last time was in 2018 which was one of my favourite gigs of all time. I wrote loads about this then so I may be just reiterating som of what I said.

Band: Fountains of Wayne
Album: Utopia Parkway
Released: April 1999
Favourite Track: Denise
Favourite Lyric: “Will you stop pretending I’ve never been born now I look a little more like that guy from KorN”

This is a great pop album with amusing witty lyrics. That is why it is on this list. When you’re a teenager who just listens to rock music with simple and/or depressing lyrics, finding something like this can be a game changer.

Most people will just know the band from Stacy’s Mom which got them their 5 minutes of face but (and this isn’t just long-term fan elitism) it is probably one of their worst songs.

This album is a concept album about life in suburbia and feels very cohesive for this fact.

I only saw the band once but they were great fun and one of my abiding memories of the show is that they explained that the song Hat and Feet which had previously been quite confusing was about a piano falling on a cartoon character, with all you can see being their hat and feet.

Bassist Adam Schlesinger sadly died recently due to COVID-19 and it wasn’t until he did that I realised how much he had done outside of the band including vast amounts of song writing for other artists and films including That Thing You Do and Josie and the Pussycats.