Quotes and Catchphrases

“Can I have more than my fair share” (any time food was being dished out)

“It’s not the winning and losing, it’s the spoiling it for others that counts”

“Back of the fucking net” (at the top of his voice whenever his quiz team got one right)

“Get your poopoolalas out girls. This’ll make you damp.” (Charlies Mushrooms debut at Mean Fiddler Nov 94)

“You’ve got your health to consider” (when he wanted to finish the fag you were smoking)

“Can I tax your baccy?” (when your dog end was not enough)

Robbie's Cheesy Farewell - by Simon Parker

 I remember sitting in that van as we were leaving Coutance and Robbie poked his head through the door and said “it fookin stinks in here” and then preceded to smear Camembert all over the inside of the windscreen and then said ” now it’s gonna really stink” and then got into a different van to go home in, laughing with that infectious laugh that made it all fine. Great days x.

Shoulda gone to Robbiesavers

Once upon a time on a greyish summer’s afternoon, Robbie and the gang were sitting outside the Tart, drinking.  You can see a photo of this session on facebook.  It’s Robbie pulling a funny face while wearing someone’s glasses.  Someone’s broken glasses.  _My_ broken glasses.  The arm had been reattached by the hero of our tale some minutes before and that’s where my story…actually that’s the middle of the story.

See, if I had a quid for every time I’d been compared to Jack Duckworth in my life, I’d’ve amassed enough wealth to well, have my spectacles professionally repaired I suppose.  But we never had gaffer tape when I was little.  As a boy I was unaware of its magical properties so I’d used whatever was to hand: sellotape, lx tape, blu-tac.  Once I used gum.  Once.

Anyway, gaffer tape has been my bonding agent of choice for many years now.  Although I have only recently discovered that quotation attributed to Oprah Winfrey:  

"Gaffer tape is like the Force.  It has a light side, a dark side and it holds the Universe together."

My key rings have been fashioned from gaffer tape.  My trousers have been held up by it.  My car and countless other objects held together by it.  But today, we were stuck.  At least 2 musicians were present and not an inch of it did we have between us.  So Robbie took my glasses and said he’d fix them while I went to the bar.

When I returned, he placed the glasses on my face and they were straight and comfortable and sturdy.  I didn’t feel the need to check what had been done.  I was so comfortable that I forgot they had been broken when I went to bed and took them off.  The following morning I was on autopilot and continued that way for two months.  I went to work at my flashy job in the city.  I went to the pub with my flashy mates from my flashy job in the city.  I had a job review with my flashy boss at my flashy job in the city.

"Glasses are holding out well, Paul", I would say to myself.  "That Robbie Fraser seems to be able to turn his hand to anything", I introspectively remarked with warmth and admiration.

Then, one day, my glasses broke again.  I tried to put the arm back together the way Robbie had done it and that’s when I realised what he had used.

A fag end.

It may have been a new one.  Or lightly soiled.  But it was a fag end.  

All.  That.  Time.

The effectiveness of the fix is beyond reproach, lasting as long as it did but I know there was a part of him that was laughing his ass off every day he saw me that I still hadn’t realised.  

This is just an example of the light and dark sides of Robbie Fraser, the gaffer tape that held our Universe together.

Remembering Robbie Fraser Rip

Remembering Robbie Fraser Rip

http://theunknowing.tumblr.com/tagged/robbie%20fraser

here are some of my blogs about Robbie i made, you can reblog them if you want 

[.pd.: Tucker was this you?]

Deconstructing Paintball Fraserstyle

Deconstructing Paintball Fraserstyle

A few years ago while I was playing in a band with Robbie, our keyboard player Bill had his Stag Do and all of the rest of us bandmates were invited along.  Our pre-piss up activity that day was paintball, which for me at least was the first time i’d experienced it and I suspect there were quite a few others in the same position, including Robbie.

A few ‘games’ in and we were all starting to get the hang of it when the stewards announced that the next game would be bit of a ‘bloodbath’ so we would need to elect a ‘medic’ from our team.  The purpose of which was to ‘revive’ any player that was knocked out, by means of donning a white lab coat and wiping the paint covered player down with an old towel they’d be given, in order for the player to hastily return to the killing….

Or being killed was more likely, as it would appear that the next mission was to storm a very narrow bridge, behind which the other team was occupying very heavily protected firing positions, like an open air pill box!

No sooner had the briefing ended had Robbie leapt to his feet and started questioning the 2 stewards.  He returned to us a few minutes later with a broad gin on his face and a plan.  He was also wearing the white lab coat.

He had asked the stewards to elaborate on the mechanics of how the medic was supposed to work, the answer being given was that as soon as the medic had wiped off the paint and touched you on the arm you were ‘revived’ and could go back into the game again.  What Robbie had then posed to them was; IF you remained in constant physical contact with the medic and IF the medic wasn’t shot… would that make you invincible?

The bemused stewards could see no obvious flaws in his logic and had to agree that any player in contact with the (not dead) medic was afforded ‘invincibility’, by now they were curious enough about where this was all heading that they came over with Robbie to overhear the plan that he put to the rest of us.

Which was…. that he would crouch down and we would surround him as closely as possible whilst we approached the bridge, effectively creating a ‘Man-Tank’ round him which couldn’t be killed!  We would rotate slowly so that everyone took their turn at being pelted with paintballs and we’d just be able to walk straight across the bridge! 

I could see the stewards barely able to contain their excitement at the prospect of seeing this actually take place.  

A few minutes later as we were walking towards the bridge in tight formation and into the range of enemy fire I was still stunned by the fact that Robbie had actually managed to convince the group that this was going to be a good plan… AND that we’d had all actually gone for it!… Take what you will from that!

A few minutes further on after the whole team had dispersed and retreated, the plan having gone hideously wrong, I found I had learned a valuable lesson in life.  If you’re standing at the front of a Man Tank being twatted from all directions with hard little balls of luminous liquid and you’re expecting your fellow team mates to follow the fine details of an utterly lunatic plan, voluntarily rotate and take some of the heat off you… then you’re probably expecting too much!! 

Later that day Robbie’s interpretations of the rules scored us a win during a ‘Capture the Flag’ match… he’d asked whether the Blue armbands we were wearing to distinguish our team HAD to be worn on the arm… the stewards were clearly already aware of where Robbie was coming from after the events of the morning and told him that so long as they were ‘visible’ that we could wear them anywhere.

That game, on Robbie’s suggestion, we all wore our ‘Armbands’ around our ankles and successfully managed to walk directly into the enemy camp and nick their flag! If anyone there on the day can corroborate that it was actually Robbie himself that did the flag stealing i’d be grateful! (Even if not that’s the way i’ll always choose to remember it anyway!) 

Robbie vs Phones

I remember going to see Robbie at his home, as I arrived, he was angrily collecting bits of smashed plastic, circuit board, and keys from where they lay on the living room carpet. It was fairly obvious within seconds that he’d just finished a frustrating telephone call with somebody by smashing the handset into tiny pieces.


Feeling that there was still some tension in the air I tentatively asked if everything was alright? To which, in true Robbie fashion, he quickly dismissed it all as nothing really important and asked me to turn the kettle on. The familiar grin was already returning to his face as he reached into a drawer, where I could see a large plastic bag full of phones, selected a replacement and plugged it into the socket. 

He then went on to explain that he’d been going around charity shops recently buying up old telephone handsets and collecting them together for such times as this when he knew he’d be liable to take out his frustrations on another hapless phone. By now he was beaming at me and asking “Have you ever smashed a phone up? It’s the most bloody therapeutic thing you’ll ever know!”

[Posted by smurf?]