The Penny Black Remedy

Dearest Old Chum,

The Penny Black Remedy are playing The Enterprise, in Chalk Farm, this New Year’s Eve and we would be unutterably delighted if you could come and join us. We shall be onstage around 11pm, which means we shall be bringing in 2010*, possibly with a cleverly re-jigged version of one of our notoriously festive tunes. Please note that the time-honoured NYE tradition of singing-along whilst holding hands shall be obligatory**.

This show is part of the annual Chalk Farm Jamboree, which involves three famous Camden venues: The Enterprise, The Monarch and The Barfly. £15 gains you entry to all three venues for the entire night, and £5 gets you entry only to The Enterprise, but for the whole evening. The evening starts at 7pm with records being spun by our very dear chums, the wonderful Bloody Awful Poetry DJ’s.

To get your tickets, go to www.bloodyawfulpoetry.com.

We very much look forward to seeing you on said evening whereupon bells shall be rung, songs shall be sung and erm, strings shall be strung.

Big, big love and socially responsible amounts of heavily distilled beverages with one, maybe two, branded pain relief tablets on the bedside table ready for the first and inevitable crushing rays of sunlight on New Year’s Day. To paraphrase the wisdom of Jurassic Park, nature always finds a way to come and crush you like a fossilised bug.

Keith

Et al @ The Penny Black Remedy


* To avoid any unnecessary and/or irksome confusion around a certain, but crucial, point of the evening i.e. midnight, please do feel free to bring an accurate watch and a bell of any kind (preferably one that can be heard over drums and a PA system). You may recall that I stated this last year, but for some reason can’t remember how effective the simple watch/bell system worked. I am often struck with a debilitating memory loss around this time of year. It really is most peculiar.


** In these difficult days of super-bugs and made-up, but deadly, farm-yard diseases, it would be irresponsible of me not to advise the wearing of a face-mask and the application of a skin-eroding and annoyingly expensive, but psychologically protective, hand-foam. Please avoid contact with the eyes. Both the hand-foam and the face-mask could induce temporary blindness should one fail to comply with this rather vapid and head-slappingly obvious instruction.

Dearest Old Chum

All of us here at The Penny Black Remedy would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our very dear and chummiest of chums (ie you) unfeasible amounts of merriment and frivolity this Christmas and an emotionally opulent and wish fulfilling New Year*.

2009 has been an incredible year for us, with too many unexpected and wonderful surprises and highlights to mention. We would like to offer an overwhelming and unashamedly gushing thank you to your good self for being an enormous and crucial part of it. It gives us non-metaphorical goose bumps when we consider how lucky we are to have such consistently supportive and inordinately lovely chums as you**.

We very much look forward to spending 2010 in your unutterably divine and joyous company.

Big, big love and behemothic flagons of your favourite festive tipple with a prodigious amount of curiously comestible cold roast potatoes on the side.


Keith

Et al @ The Penny Black Remedy

* There are many ways of fulfilling your wishes. Some are easier than others. If Jimmy Saville weren’t so weird these days, I might have recommended contacting him as a possible fast track option ala his terrible ‘family’ TV show in the 1980’s in which he gave hope to children by chain smoking cigars in front of them and wearing dodgy shell suits, subsequently inspiring an insidiously hideous and highly flammable clothing fad in the 1990’s. These days I reckon you’ll achieve a much higher rate of success by closing your eyes and hoping for the best. After all, I’ve lived my life by that rule, with relatively good results. Although, I won’t go into explaining what those good results are actually relative to, simply for fear of defeating the purpose of stating such a ludicrous thing in the first place.

** This paragraph was initially much, much longer and considerably more gushing, but was brutally edited to avoid embarrassing you just that little bit too much. I’m considering releasing it in its entirety at a later date in the future, when I understand people are expected to be less chagrin by wild displays of affection.

Dearest Old Chum

Just a quick reminder that you are invited to The Penny Black Remedy's official Christmas bash in The Charlotte Street Blues Bar this Saturday 12th December.

We are delighted to announce a very special guest appearance from the truly wonderful Nick Marsh (http://www.myspace.com/nickmarshmusic). We thoroughly recommend that you get down a bit earlier to catch his set, which shall be around 8.15pm. We shall be onstage around 9pm, whereupon we shall proceed to play all your very favourite Christmas anthems*. As I mentioned before, this event is getting filmed, so do feel free to join us in sellotaping as much tinsel as is humanly possible on one's body-coverage** whilst simultaneously not giving a hoot for one's own personal dignity.

Tickets are £8 on the door. The offer of £5 for adv tickets is now sadly no longer available.

We look forward to seeing you there preferably with excessive branches of mistletoe visibly dangling from your hat***.

Big big love and pleasingly enormous glow in the dark cups of frankly rather random herb infusions with a sickeningly sticky slice of sultana strudel on the side.

Keith
et al @ The Penny Black Remedy


* This sentence could be misleading. In the sense that we most likely won't be playing any Christmas related songs, anthemic or otherwise. Don't get me wrong, we are very much fans of the traditional Christmas anthem, but we are also terrible procrastinators when it comes to learning seasonal songs, which can of course lead to some very obvious and embarrassing problems especially around specific holiday themed events such as this.

** This is another word for clothes. It's not widely used in this part of the world, but is extremely common in others. Particularly in the fictional parts which I make up on a daily basis in order to avoid the discomfiture of being exposed as a heinous word maker-upper.

*** This is not to encourage random acts of smooching. I just didn't want to say 'baubles' and 'dangling' in the same sentence. As you know, I've never been one to go for a cheap laugh.