Guitarists From England

"At parties, sometimes, for a laugh, I introduce myself - people say 'What do you do?' and I say 'I'm Aled Jones, its all gone wrong for me. No, look, I've still got it! (drunken bawl) I'M WALKING THROUGH THE AIIIIIIR, HAAAAAAHAHAHA.' Ch. 19, 32:55"

"I'm amazed by how compliant people are in this country. They go into service stations - 'cathedrals of despair', as I call them - where baseball-capped ghouls of the night lord it over their congealed bean kingdoms, their fried-bread twilights, their neon demi-mondes, tempting you to enter to become them, undead. "Ooh, beans on toast, £18.95, very reasonable. Oh no, I'm not going to complain. They probably pump them up from London in special tubes." God, £18.95? If that was the price, for my money, each bean would have to be carried over in a heron's beak and laid on an orchid and then placed on a very rare train set and carried all the way to my table on the train set and then pinged off by a tiny little rare vole and it rolls onto a beautiful silk leaf and I eat it with a Fabergé egg. Then you'd get your money's worth. Ch. 16, 26:40"

"I'm English, and as such I crave disappointment. That's why I buy Kinder Surprise. Horrible chocolate; nasty little toy: a double-whammy of disillusionment! Sometimes I eat the toy out of sheer despair. I call them the Eggs Of Numbing Inevitability. And when I buy them, I always ask for them in the third person: "Bill Bailey would like the Eggs Of Numbing Inevitability." I did that the other day and it answered me back, and he said to me: "No, I am Bill Bailey. You are not Bill Bailey, you are just a mere doppelgänger. I am the true Bill Bailey, in another dimension." And I went, "Oh, I hadn't planned on that." Then I thought the only way to solve this, I have to run at my doppelgänger, then we will be fused forever. So I ran full-tilt at it, and just before I got there I realised it was the highly polished side of the cheese counter. Ch. 12, 21:57"

"The national [Welsh] dish, cheese on toast, that's fantastic. "That's no bother". "We're having a big ambassadorial reception." "All right, I'll get the grill on shall I? You want a bit of chutney on it?" "No, don't go mad Rhodri, it's only Fiji." I think though that it has actually hampered Wales's cultural diversity, because if you think of the other national dishes, like Ireland - Irish stew, bubbling away for hours on end, during which time poems are written, plays are written, fine linen is crafted, the whimsy is spun; Scotland, you have haggis, many many days it takes to pulverise the eyes, lips and all the toes, every [part] of the animal, the hooves, the shirt, the trousers, the abbatoir worker's laundry, everything goes in there, and it's bubbling away for days on end under the ground in the lung of a small burrowing animal, during which time electric light is invented, penicillin, a fine legal structure, those little things you lick, press down and they ping back up, 'Oh, I forgot about them, oh yeah'; England, roast beef, roasting away for days on end, during which time poor, defenceless countries around the world are brought under the relentless yoke of imperial oppression; Wales, cheese on toast, "Right...oh, it's ready. Shit." Ch. 9, 17:43"

"The Chaucer Pubbe Gagge"

"Arbroath; it was the scariest heckle I ever had. Arbroath, I don't know if you've ever been - very very cold throughout the year, and I was pacing up and down, primarily to keep warm really, I was freezing. And this chilling voice came from the back of the room, it just said "Stand still"... [mimes holding a rifle] Ch. 4, 08:18"

"BB: I'm actually from the West Country... [solitary cheer from audience] BB: Hypnotized, or actually? What are you doing here? Audience member: I had to come. BB: What do you mean you had to come here? What, you were on some dark purpose? Ch. 4, 07:38"

"A lot of people say there's a fine line between genius and insanity. I don't think there's a fine line, I actually think there's a yawning gulf. You see some poor bugger scuffling up the road with balloons tied to his ears, he's not going home to invent a rocket, is he?"

"Aldous Huxley took the drug mescaline and then chronicled his experience in the book The Doors of Perception. Now, I don't actually think that's the first thing he wrote: he probably wrote 'my brain is melting' ten thousand times, but it was the book that the critics latched on to."

"Nostalgia: How long's that been around?"

"Toughest job I ever had: selling doors, door to door."

"I am a confectionary-based existentialist."

"Three blokes go into a pub. Something happens. The outcome was hilarious! Episode 1, 1:36"

"Three blokes go into a pub. Well, I say three; could be four or five. Could be nine or ten, doesn't matter. Could have been fifteen, twenty - fifty. Round it up. Hundred. Let's go mad, eh - two-fifty. Tell you what, double it up - five hundred. Thousand! Oh, I've gone mad! Two thousand! Five thousand! (adopting auctioneer persona) Anyone? Five thousand, six thou, six thousand, ten thousand! Small town in Hertfordshire goes into a pub! Fifteen thousand blokes! Alright, let's go - population of Rotterdam. The Hague. Whole of Northern Holland. Mainland U.K. Let's go all the way to the top - Europe, alright? Whole of Europe goes - I say Europe. Could be Eurasia. Not the band, obviously, that's just two of them. Alright, continents - North America! Plus South America! Plus Antartica - that's just eight blokes in a weather station. Not a good example. Alright, make it a lot simpler, all the blokes on the planet go into the pub, right? And the first bloke goes up to the bar and he says "I'll get these in." What an idiot!"

"Who photographs kebabs?"

"And just as he said that a feminist jumped out of a manhole - just jumped up and oh, and she didn't like that. That she didn't like that."

"But our country's equivalent of gritty reality is more like "Look out Sarge, he's got a shooter!""

"I'm quite lucky, because I've got a small, decorative concrete pig."

"What I'd like to do now - well, what I'd like to do now is grow my beard very long, weave it into my pubes and strum it like a harp."

"Kylie Minogue is just a demonic little idiot as far as I'm concerned. She gets cool dance producers to work with her for some bizarre reason, I don't know why. She doesn't even have a good name. It's a stupid name, Kylie, I just don't get it"

"Is anyone here prepared to say / Just what they mean or is it too late / For anyone here to try to do / Just what it takes to get through to you Let's all make believe / That we're still friends and we like each other Let's all make believe / That in the end we're gonna need each other Strangle my hope and make me pray / To a God I've never seen but who I betray""

"Day by day there's a man in a suit / Who's gonna make you pay For the thoughts that you think and the words / They won't let you say I don't believe in magic / Life is automatic And I don't mind being on my own."

"Take the time to make some sense / Of what you want to say / And cast your words away upon the waves Dance if you wanna dance, please brother take a chance / You know we're gonna go which way we wanna go / All we know is that we don't know how it's gonna be, please brother let it be / Life, on the other hand, won't make you understand / We're all part of the masterplan. I'm not saying right is wrong / It's up to us to make the best of all the things that come our way"

"All your dreams are made of strawberry lemonade / And you make sure I eat today""

"I hate that Alex and Damon. I hope they catch AIDS and die."

"We need each other / We believe in one another / And I know we're gonna uncover / What's sleeping in our souls""

"When I was young I though I had my own key / I knew exactly what I wanted to be / Now I'm sure / You've boarded up every door While we're living / The dreams we had as children fade away""

"My body feels young but my mind is very old So what do you say / You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway / You're half the world away I've been lost, I've been found / But I don't feel down""

"I haven't seen your face around since I was a kid / It's bringing back the memories of the things that we did""

"We live a dying dream / If you know what I mean""

"I'm over my heart's desire / I feel cold, but I'm back in the fire Love is a litany / A magical mystery / And all in good time""

"I still don't know what I was waiting for / A big love to fall down from the sky Heaven must have sent you / To save me from the rapture""

"Gold and silver and sunshine is rising up""

"Suddenly I found that I'd lost my way in this city / The streets and the thousands of faces all bleed into one I'm having trouble just finding some soul in this town It's all they can do to be part of the queue 'There'll be no tomorrow' they say / Well I say 'More's the pity'""

"My girlfriend called me the other night / She said 'Boy, you lazy I don't mind / As long as there's a bed beneath the stars that shine / I'll be fine I can't get a life if my heart's not in it I lost my faith in the summertime / 'Cos it don't stop raining I begged my doctor for one more line / He said 'son, words fail me / It ain't your place to be killing time' / I guess I'm just lazy""

"I've waited for a thousand years / For you to come and blow me out my mind The world around us makes me feel so small If you can't hear me call / Then I can't say, Lyla / Heaven help you catch me if I fall""

"You get your mucky fingers burnt / You get your truth from the lies that you've learnt Fed up with life in the city / 'Cos all the phonies have blown my mind It's all mine!""

"We dream our dream alone with no resistance / Fading like the stars we wish to be True perfection has to be imperfect My God woke up on the wrong side of his bed Little by little / We gave you everything you ever dreamed of / And little by little / the wheels of your life have slowly fallen off" **"

"Why you scared? / You'll never change what's been and done All of the stars / Have faded away / Just try not to worry / You'll see them someday / Take what you need / And be on your way / And stop crying your heart out""

"You look like a faded picture / I see the cracks forming on your skin For smoking all my stash / For burning all my cash.. It's all over town that the sun's / Going down on the days / Of your easy life""

"God gave me a soul / And your rock 'n' roll In and out my brain / And running through my vein / You're my sunshine / You're my rain""

"When yer lonely and you start to hear/The little voices in your head at night/You will only sniff away the tears/So you can dance until the mornings light And in your head, do you feel what your not supposed to feel? You need more time / 'Cos your thoughts and words won't last forevermore""

"You know that feeling you get / You feel you're older than time? Do you keep the receipts for the friends that you buy? And I hope you know / That it won't let go / It sticks around with you until the day you die. I hope the tears don't stain the world that waits outside."

"What tongueless ghost of sin crept through my curtains?. My family don't seem so familiar / And my enemies all know my name. You better get on your knees and pray / Panic is on the way My eyes are dead / My throat's like a black hole / And if there's a God / Would he give another chancer / An hour to sing for his soul?""

"Thank you for the sun / The one that shines on everyone / Who feels love."

"Is it any wonder why Princes & Kings / Are clowns that caper in their sawdust rings / When ordinary people who are like you and me / Are the builders of their destiny."

"It's a bit early in the midnight hour for me / To go through all the things that I want to be Take me away / 'Cos I just don't want to stay / And the lies you make me say / Are getting deeper every day If you're lost at sea / Well I hope that you drownd" Please don't cry / Never say die"

"Maybe the songs that we sing are wrong / Maybe the dreams that we dream are gone / So bring it on home and it won't be long / It's gettin' better man!"

"And I want to be there when you're coming down / And I want to be there when you hit the ground Don't go away / Say what you say / Say that you'll stay... because I need more time just to make things right Damn my education / I can't find the words to say Me and you, what's going on?/All we seem to know/Is how to show, the feelings that are wrong"

"Would you maybe / Come dancing with me / 'Cos to me it doesn't matter if your hopes and dreams are shattered""