‘Milk’ – Garbage (1996)

What’s this? A limited edition hologram sleeve (01485, number fans). 

Looks better in real life. Garbage always did wonderful covers in the early days.

"I am lost,

So I am cruel.

But I’d be love and sweetness,

If I had you."

What’s she getting out of that carrier bag? Please don’t let it be food. Please don’t let it be food. It’s food!! Argh. Food at the cinema. Heresy.

But, hang on. That looks like cheese. And more cheese. And, yep, there’s some more cheese. Next thing you know she’ll be pulling out a board to put this all on. And she is! She’s brought a cheese board to the cinema. Who brings a cheese board to the cinema?! Well, this woman, obviously.     

This is going to be distracting. How am I supposed to concentrate on Clooney and Kidman tracking down stolen Russian nukes when I have an elderly lady slicing cheese beside me? This is meant to be a "breathless thriller", not a tasting session at the deli counter.

Now Charlotte’s noticed. Raised eyebrows. Yes, I know. Cheese. Furrowed brow. Exactly. Now we’re both distracted. There’s a car exploding on screen, but all our attention is focused on a lump of Gruyère.

The film’s ruined. Yes, it was hardly a masterpiece anyway, but Cheese Woman hasn’t stopped eating for two hours. I’m bursting to talk about this with Charlotte. But first the credits. Ok, credits over, let’s leave. Out on to Haymarket. Turn around. Cheese Woman is behind us! Charlotte’s noticed too. Ok, best not talk about her cheesy weirdness yet. Hop on to the tube for Hammersmith. Charlotte nods to my right. It’s Cheese Woman again. She’s on our carriage. This is too odd. At least she’s stopped eating.   

Jump off at Barons Court (no apostrophe, grammar fans). She’s still behind us. This is ridiculous. Charlotte and I are now communicating in worried glances and barely audible whispers. The odious swinging cheese bag is making more noise than us as we listen intently to hear if the footsteps behind stop or change path. And finally, after cutting through the cemetery, they do. And we finally risk a glance back. Cheese Woman is gone. Never to be seen again. But visions of Camembert still haunt me whenever I think of George Clooney.

Spotify linkys :

Garbage – Milk - Re-mastered 07

Garbage – Milk - Massive Attack remix

‘Friends Of P’– The Rentals (1996)

“If you’re friends with P,
Well then, you’re friends with me.”

Who doesn’t dream of meeting Mickey Mouse when they’re a child? Oh … that’s quite a lot of you. Well, anyway, it had always been my dream, but I had to wait until I was 25 for it to come true. (No, that’s not too old. Stop shaking your head.)

My Dad and I arrived in Florida to fireworks in the night sky – exactly how everyone should arrive in America. It was my first trip there and everything seemed magical and colourful and big and new. Here I was eating Chinese out of cardboard boxes like I’d seen Cliff Barnes do in all those episodes of ‘Dallas’!

MTV played ‘Ironic’ and ‘Champage Supernova’ over and over and over for those two May weeks. But it was this song by The Rentals that caught my ear. I’d never heard of them (and haven’t heard much of them since). I found the CD in a small record store in Orlando and it became my holiday song. (This is the same day I found my dad sitting in the windows of Hooters claiming he was unaware of the many scantily clad waitresses parading around him.)

And, how exciting was it finally meeting Mickey? Very. (Yes, even more so than my visit to Hooters.) As you can see in the pic below. (Yes, it was perhaps a little too hot to be wearing black every day.) I’ve met him many times since, with friends and family, in California and Paris. He never remembers me. Bit rude. But he still makes me smile every time.

Spotify linky:
The Rentals – Friends Of P.