The good news is I got a sweet price on an old caravan that we are going to park outside on the weekends and sell pies out of. The bad news is that it was rotten to its core and requires a slightly fuller restoration that originally planned.

Here is a photo of Garry grinning beside the caravan after we have had just bought it off a gypsy.

And here is a photo of Greg grinding rust off with a drill while wearing no eye or ear protection. Not to mention all the shit he was breathing in. Next week we will patch up the holes with spit and newspaper and paint the chassis a shiny silver.

Please note that the caravan is being hilariously held up by a forklift so that he can get under it properly. We decided that the tragedy for our family would be too great if we were both killed when the thing fell off the fork, so took turns, one lying under and working while the other acted as a spotter.

So, over the summer when you are enjoying a pie and a Bodgie, think of Greg, lying in a puddle and making bad metal appear safe.

Good pubs need Steves.

When I used to run a bar in Luton with my sister Anna, it was Steve Dillon who once drunk 32 pints of Guinness on St Patrick’s Day, concluding at 4am on March 18 with his swinging a bar stool around above his head and shouting “Alright, I’ma cunt I’ll admitit…”

The point is: Good pubs tend to have a Steve. This has led to me starting Goodbye Blue Monday’s Steve of the Month Award.

The inaugural winner is Steve Tyerman who plays fiddle and drinks cask wine. Steves interests include discussing whether Ulysses is readable, drinking cask wine and stating “Laurie Anderson is so American  that she’s part of the problem“. Steve plays in excellent local covers bands the Hicks and the Black Velvet Band and drinks cask wine.

Congratulations Steve – you’re Steve of the Month.

You may remember a posting regarding our collaborative novel. The concept was that sitting on the bar we would have a book that all the bright minds who came to the bar could contribute toward. At the end, we would have this awesome novel that represented the narrative of the group.

I am sad to report that the experiment was a failure. By the third paragraph, the protagonist was holding his dick whereby the plot immediately descended into menstruation, ice on nipples and an 11-year-old opium dealer with “post millennial tension.” Soon afterward the obligatory cock-and-balls was scrawled across the page and then the thing began to take on the appearance of a bus seat/ public toilet wall.

Group novels are a bad idea. “Too many chefs spoil the broth” and all that sort of stuff. Instead, I will concentrate my attentions on my own novel “11 Handy Tips for Riding a Small Motorscooter in the City” due out in January 2011.

Another sold-out Dr. Sketchy’s last night with an awesome 1950s science fiction theme. This time around we got to see boobs, which was a real treat, but that’s all I’m going to say about that as after my last Dr. Sketchy’s posting my mother called me a “misogynist” can you believe?

The enormous paper mache alien really set the tone for the event and lots of people dressed up in all sorts of wacky outfits.

Here’s a tip for all you aspiring creeps. Go to life drawing classes and craft events if you want to be one of the few men in a room. And do you know who has already worked this out? DJ Mark Catley with is excellent hair cut.

The Hayne gig afterward was well attended with a bunch of metal heads drinking bourbon and going collectively deaf. Lots of men with hair and body odour and very loud music. And congratulations to Hayne for managing to get 9 people on that tiny wee stage. Those guys sure know how to party.

Thanks to Emi for getting into the spirit of things and dressing up to match the back wall…

A wonderful performance of Christmas songs last night which had the crowd bouncing. Comments I overheard included “that’s a pretty good version of that song” and “why do they make everything so sad and depressing?”

I like to think of this crowd shot as a visual depiction of just how exciting Tim and Marlon’s performances are.

Readers of this blog will have noted that as well as cutting wit and purple prose, it is always well edited with no tpyos or major grammatical errors. This is not due to vigilance by this writer who subscribes to the Kerouacian “first thought, best thought,” edit later approach.

No… This is due to the fact that other than the lovely chaps at Deflux who set up and host the site, Vanessa Coxhead has the admin password and she gets in occasionally and tidies up all my indiscretions.

Any mid-career artist in Christchurch will know who this puppet-master of the arts is, but for those of you who don’t, Vanessa is part of the team that keeps that wonderful institution the Physics Room going.

So for all you scruffy bastards who get things half-done, I highly recommend having a Coxhead in your life. And to Vanessa… “Thanks”.

On a final note, once when I had a noise meter I clocked V. Coxhead at 110db (by comparison a jet boat is about 105db).

Tim has been so sad since his pheasant was stolen that I have decided to locate some new birds for him to stuff.

As his attention span is fairly short, we are looking for small dead birds like sparrows, tuis etc. Our plan is to stuff a whole lot of them and hang them from the ceiling like a museum that sells booze.

So, if you find a freshly dead bird, bring it in and we will swap it for a pint of lovely Bodgie Beer. The caveat here is that if I suspect you are killing birds to trade for beer you will not get your pint, a bird holocaust is the last thing I need to get involved with.

Another excellent poster from Nick White… Voted among the top three he has done.

This month’s back wall has been described as “among the most visually striking yet” and praise like that don’t come along every day.