NEVER MIND THE ANT BOX

What was it all about then? To put it simply, it was just an Ant quiz in a London pub, one Friday night in late October 2008. However, it wasn't that simple. There was a tremendous amount of planning behind the scenes and yet so many things could have gone wrong despite all of that. And some things indeed did go wrong, as you will discover if you choose to read on. A brief background first.

Ant Lib had planned their annual bash for Saturday October 25th 2008. The newest Ant gang on the block, the Family of Noise, had cleverly planned a low key gathering at the Walkers of St James pub, in Piccadilly the night before. Normally, we all gather in the Euston Flyer on the Friday, but the FoN mob needed to launch themselves offline.

I came up with some wacky idea of hosting a quiz based on the BBC TV panel game, Never Mind The Buzzcocks. It was meant just to be that - wacky idea. But it was crazy enough to work - probably. I was told we would not have a PA system, which meant no mics, which meant possible difficulties being heard by the attendees. Also including music and video rounds were a gamble for similar reasons. So if it was to fall flat on its face on the night, at least it had to look hot....along with with promoting it as a some crazy quiz that could not be missed - the buzz had started. All the ideas for rounds had started. Some based on the TV show, and some stolen from other panel games - others from ideas for pages on cartrouble.nl which never made it online.

The FoN team were eager for lots of information about the quiz - info I didn't have, and some I was keeping close to my chest. In steps FoN member Cleo to be the mediator and in turn, became in integral part in delivering the new NMTAB baby to the world. I have to admit to being protective of NMTAB as my own baby, which was a struggle in the beginning of the Family planning stages, but I had the birth certificate at the ready. NMTAB was not just a new child of mine, but a weapon which I intended to use a raised middle finger to a certain 80's pop icon for not releasing a singles box set on the 30th anniversary of the release of Young Parisians.

Yes I took it personally. Personally enough to plan to remove my site from the Internet completely! It was my site, my hard work, and I had lost interest in all things Ant and it had even rubbed off on my desire to concentrate on The Wolfmen. It had to go. I had to go - out with a bang. Never Mind The Ant Box was the perfect opportunity for me to bow out leaving smiles on faces, as opposed to the looks people had from my online grumpiness.

Enough of the politics! On with the fun! As mentioned earlier, to me NMTAB had to look the biz. The 'brand' had to be implanted on everyone's brain before the event. And even moreso on the night. I wanted it huge - everwhere. If anyone could re-create a hot logo for me, it had to be my in-house graphic designer (and FoN staff member) Annet. The logo was superb. I wanted big banners, t-shirts, mugs, pens, hats, questions cards, headed paper - all the merchandise you could think of, to use as props on the night. It was show time!!

The idea of an online merchandise store was floated about, but I had no intention of profiting from the brand. So in the end, I donated the logo to the FoN team to set up a NMTAB store at cafepress so that people could get their hands on some real goodies. A great memento of the night, and great way for the FoN to raise some coffers for their future Ant projects. It was their night after all and it was called The Family Reunion. The original plan was for the quiz to start around 6pm, when the evening began, but it was soon changed to 9pm, which was a great time for me. I have to say, the hours leading up to the quiz were quite tough for me. It was time for me to pop the Carty mask on and fake some smiles.

I needed a hot theme tune. I thought of mixing the TV quiz theme tune with some Ant tracks, but that theme is awful! Then an old, unreleased Wolfmen track came on the iTunes player and that was it. I had already told Marco that Taliban Sam was fantastic and just had to ask if I could use it for the quiz. He gave me his and Chris' blessing, all I had to do was extend its length from the one-minute monster it was so that it could be used as a filler during the quiz. In the end, I remixed Family Of Noise using the new theme as well, but never used it for the quiz as no-one could hear any music from my poor laptop.

I even created a 5 second montage of Adam singing "Never Mind The Ant Box Here's The Sexpeople" taken from other Ant songs for the quiz. All the above sounds appeared on the limited NMTAB CD which was given away as part of the FoN goodie bag to the first 20 people through the door. Then the rounds - oh the bloody rounds! If there could be no music or video rounds, I had to have other rounds prepared. And I did. Enough to last for quite a few hours. And it did too. In fact, I had a whisper in my ear from Maz who said that the manager wanted me to wrap the quiz up as they wanted to play music again in the pub. What was I to do?...I had so many great rounds to do. A corker called Walker The Stalker, a round on what the first and last three tracks were on the albums, more filthy Antagrams, IdAntity Parades, and the infamous Next Lines Round which ends the TV version.

This threw me right off my flow as all my quiz notes were sliding all over the floor due to the plastic wallets holding the pictures for the ID parade. It was time quickly do the ID parades and the final Next Lines Round. I was rushing, but the teams were pissing about with blow-up Steves and not getting on with the quiz. After the scores were finalised (just half a point in it), the winners and losers were presented with their special certifcates.

Then it was time for the moment I had done all of this for. For me to effectively resign from running my site. But where was the envelope with my announcement? On the floor with the pile of other Q cards and notes at my feet. I scrambled around for it, but it was not there. I felt the eyes on me as if I was on a treatment of acupuncture. This was the most important part of the night. My exit. Once I had found it, and composed myself to read it (which was the toughest thing I have ever had to do publicly), I just sat there.

I wanted to cry and just leave, but I just felt paralysed. The next thing I remember is being hugged and being told "thank you" in my ear. I knew that voice. It was Tex. She knew that my initial plan was to wipe cartrouble.nl off the face of the earth and the weekend before the quiz, she let rip. That row hurt me deeply, but it made me think - alot. On the day of the quiz, I still didn't know if I was pulling the site down, or leaving it there as an archive. I had two speeches written. Tex was right to act harshly. Annet was right to agree with her when she saw how upset I was on that Sunday night.

As I started to pack up my things, I began to feel incredibly uncomfortable. I turned my FoN name badge over and wrote "TWAT" in place of "Carty". I was either saying goodbye to Carty or feeling like my new name. Very strange experience. So one week on and what do I think of the quiz now? Personally, I loved the intros I wrote for each team member. I loved not having to do anything with the scoring. Sod that! Thanks to Cleo for doing a sterling job - I dread to think what happened to the scores when Maz took over from Cleo at one point!

I loved the drumming of Kings we all did. Unfortunately the pub govenor put a stop to that as he was worried about damage to his tables. (That was another three rounds I had to scrap after that!) I loved the fact that James Maw kept jumping from team to team - I never saw the bugger move! One minute he was on my left, then on my right. I must add at this point that James wanted to say something on the mic, but he was too quiet (even I had to shout to be heard). He told me he was immensely proud to have been asked to sign copies of his Official Adam Ant Story book for the first time in 25 years. A truly amazing guy, and well done to the FoN team for inviting him there.

Marco was there too, but fortunately I was told he was outside when I came to do the rather insulting Fat Fun round. I had to do this round as it was Millie's cue to come storming over and kick me out of the chair and take over the quiz! One of my secret weapons and it worked. It was all about fun and entertainment and not about knowledge - even though some of the questions were tough for our panel of nimwits.

And so we're at the end of my first Carty Blog. This will be the only thing that will probably remain as an updated medium. As I move out of the Ant spotlight, the site will become more and more irrelevant to Ant fans. Yes, there will be some tweaking here and there of the old pages, and the odd quiet update if a new Ant CD comes along. And maybe the Carty Mixes section will live on, albeit in a less of an insect influenced way. There may even be one of those podcasts - but with less of an Ant flavour as I unplug the jukebox for the final time.

Antmusic remains in my heart, but not in my blood anymore. I still love the music, but not the stage. I no longer have that drive that I have had for the past 28 years. I love my Ant friends, and will continue to hover around them like a fly around shit, but it's time for me to step aside and let the new royal family take over. Namely Monk at the family of officialdom, and those wonderful people at the Family of Noise.

Carty, November 1st 2008