Year end is a good time for the witty, waggish, wry, warm, wasted, wonky, weird, worthy, wondrous, wealthy or wise wordsmiths of the world to neatly wrap it all up in the boxes we've come to know and love as the top ten list. Or a variation on the theme of.
Something I'm partial to myself.
Traditionally I've compiled my ten favourite movies, albums and gigs.
And I see no reason for changing.
Nor can I be arsed to.
So here they are. I may add some 'liner notes' in order to clarify any worries you may still have that I'm losing it big time. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time, or to have got these lists badly wrong.
I'll start with movies since that's a long standing conversation with an old school buddy that took place yesterday.
1) Doomsday. Just in case you thought I had any sense left Neil Marshall's homage to the early films of Romero, Miller and Carpenter entertained me no end endlessly.
2) Lars And The Real Girl. Funny. Very funny. Very very funny. And human.
3) The Dark Knight. Those who didn't think The Joker was a tour de force were wrong. Just wrong. Totally, utterly and unequivocally wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. Wrong.
4) Hellboy 2. Imagination at work.
5) Juno. For the Argento.
6) The Mist. Bleak, dark, twisted, fucked up fantastic.
7) Burn After Reading. Like I said, favourite, not best.
8) Persepolis. Even though it's 20 minutes too long.
9) Indiana Jones and the very long title. Not because of LeBeef, Lucas, Spielberg, the CGI or that stupid fucking monkey chase. Actually I don't even know why but it was fun.
10) Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. There's nothing like watching a movie where everything starts off going south and then gets worse.
Honourable mentions should go to No Country For Old Men, The Wackness, Gone Baby Gone, Southland Tales, Iron Man and the first 45 minutes of Wall E. Honourable mentions also for The Mummy 3, The Nines, The Strangers, The Invasion, The Rocker, Wanted, Colverfield, Sweeney Todd and that Shyamalan movie about the trees for being the most Godforsaken turgid vomit-ridden wank I've been unfortunate enough to bother sitting through. Utter fucking garbage each and every one, with all those involved deserving a good waterboarding. Please don't do it again.
As far as gigs go it would be best to assume, even though I avoid that word as often as possible holding to the dictum that assumption is the mother of all fuck ups, it would be good to assume that placing in listing is dependent on quality of sound, performance, set list, and entertainment value (in no particular order). Maybe you were there, maybe you weren't.
1) Okkervil River @ The Scala (February)
2) R.E.M. @ Twickenham (August)
3) Shearwater @ St Giles-in-the-Fields (November)
4) Elbow @ Porchester Hall (March)
5) Iron Maiden @ Twickenham (July)
6) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds @ Hammersmith (May)
7) Okkervil River @ Shepherd's Bush (November)
8) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds @ HMV (March)
9) Radiohead @ Victoria Park (June)
10) R.E.M @ The Royal Albert Hall (March)
And as for the albums? How about a one word description, just for the hell of it? That way I don't have to make any seeming sense at all, and I can publish this post and get off to buy some food for the beastie.
1) R.E.M. - Accelerate. Return
2) Shearwater - Rooks. Finally
3) AC/DC - Black Ice. Different
4) Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid. Curtains
5) The Wildhearts - Stop Us If You've Heard This One before Vol 1. Remembering
6) Imperfect - Tales From The Caravan Of Experience. Learning
7) Death Cab For Cutie - Narow Stairs. Random
8) The Hold Steady - Stay Positive. Springsteen
9) The Duke Spirit - Neptune. Boots
10) Okkervil River - The Stand Ins. YouTube
Done. See ya.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
As she laughed and danced through the field of graves
It's been eight years now since I started compiling my top tunes of the year as a substitute for a Christmas Card. Production values have improved somewhat, but the rules remain the same. All albums have to have been released in that year, and no more than one track per album, one album per band.
I think the idea originally came from Cameron Crowe, in an interview around the time Almost Famous came out, who said that he used to make mix tapes for each year so he could always remember what he had listened to.
That and the idea that some songs do 'soundtrack' salient moments in your life, whilst others just sit around and keep you company on your travels.
A quick scan of what's on offer will reveal that this year it's been mainly rock music or melodic indie Americana. And whilst I've listened to a great deal of 2008's musical offerings, with each passing year I'm less and less tempted by what's out there. Little of what I hear grabs me enough to warrant a second listen, most times I know if something's for me within the first few minutes. I no longer have the patience or desire to spend time with music I don't connect with (maybe better choice of phrase than like or dislike), and consequently what I have bought this year has been much more selective than in the past.
I tend to find that about 50% of the time, I hear a track and know it'll end up on the CD. And 50% of the time (for the statisticians amongst you), I don't. Some days I know where it'll sit in the order, or what it needs to sit next to. The flow seems to come easier each year.
Usually I add some brief sleeve notes, but not this year: a consequence of not having Photoshop to play with. So perhaps, now everything's in the post, it's time to reflect on my choices in as far as I can. So for 2008 these are the songs I liked most, this is the music I stop and listen to.
1) Bon Iver - Re: Stacks (from the album For Emma, Forever Ago). I'd been hearing about the Bon Iver album for months before I finally heard anything by him. When I did it was on Okkervil River's Stand Ins YouTube channel playing Blue Tulip, a track that will reappear later. I'm not a huge fan of For Emma..., even though I rushed out to buy it after watching the video, but I do love this song. It's the last track on the album and I had to chop about 45 seconds of footsteps off the end to make it work as the first track. So essentially it's an edit.
2) R.E.M. - Living Well Is The Best Revenge (from the album Accelerate). After a well documented run of decreasingly decent records I was well psyched when I heard Supernatural Superserious (or Supercilious as the Evening Standard so spectacularly called it, congratulating the band on getting supercilious into a song title). When I say psyched I mean jumping up and down in my chair, playing it to everyone who wandered by and playing it over and over and over again. I have a thing about new R.E.M. singles that I may have spoken about once.
When I first heard Living, a short clip off their website, it practically blew me off my chair. By the time the album came out I'd heard everything on it and seen them at the Royal Albert Hall. Rolling Stone said there were two post Bill Berry R.E.M.s. The touring version and the recording version and that Accelerate was the first album released by the touring band. I concur.
The Albert Hall show was good, not great, a warm up. By the time they rolled into Twickenham in August they were on fire, a whirlwind of staccato energy with a light show to match. Country Feedback, Perfect Circle, These Days, Orange Crush, End Of The World, hard to think anyone could have complained about the set list; except for the couple on the station platform complaining that they only knew two tracks?
The title is a quote from George Herbert (1593 - 1633), a poet, orator and priest (c./o Wikipedia). From what little I know he sounded like a decent human being. Accelerate came out whilst I was on holiday in Cyprus with my friend Annie. Cyprus was a much needed holiday, my first in years, and one of the high points of the year. It fell between me finally leaving publishing and three fairly soul destroying years in my previous haunt behind (a high point), and joining The National Archives, another high point! If I was feeling less than charitable I'd dedicate this to those in my previous life who so kindly reminded me on far too regular a basis that my project was considered less than important in the great scheme of things. But quite frankly they don't deserve the credit.
So yeah, this is one of the soundtrack songs, a memory of pivotal moments, new directions and swimming pools in the sun.
3) Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Albert Goes West (from the album Dig, Lazurus Dig!!!). No one does "na na na naaas" better than Nick Cave, and this world needs more of them. I saw him twice this year and he didn't play this at either show. Still, it was fun queuing up in the cold outside HMV to get to see him at an instore, along with grabbing myself a signed copy of the disc, and his Hammersmith show was stunning. This song cheers me up no end.
4) AC/DC - Rock 'n' Roll Train (from the album Black Ice). There are only two words that can describe this song: genius. Black Ice was a rare thing this year, a big release that didn't disappoint. The Angus and Malcolm Young guitar sound is one perhaps the most distinctive in rock music, and something that's led critics to snipe that AC/DC have been simply writing the same album every year since dot, a typically example of lazy condescending music-journo snobbery, or maybe just me being a fan. Still, knocking AC/DC for what they do is a bit like knocking banks for being greedy. Far better to accept that to not like this song is intensley pointless, and to bask in its wondrousnessness instead.
5) Death Cab For Cutie - Grapevine Fires (from the album Narrow Stairs). I'm not a massive DCFC fan but there are always a couple of tracks on each album I totally fall in love with. Narrow Stairs came out early in the year whilst I was still high on changing jobs and full of positivity for the road ahead. I remember someone (I'm not saying who) saying to me they thought that last year's CD was a bit depressing, and at the time I genuinely thought that this year it was going to be different, uplifting. So the refrain "everything is going to be alright" fit right in.
6) Okkervil River - Blue Tulip (from the album The Stand Ins). So, here's Blue Tulip again. Essentially part 2 of last year's The Stage Names, this has to be my least favourite Okkervil River album, and it took it's own sweet time for me to fall for it. It still ended up being a tough call between this and Calling And Not Calling My Ex as to which one would see it through the knock out stage of compilation. Blue Tulip won through after a stunning rendition at Shepherd's Bush.
They remain one of the best live bands I've ever seen, again, twice this year. Their Scala show back in January was up there with the best I've ever seen, despite my gig-buddy suffering from extended jet-lag. Along with Shearwater they're about all I've played for the last two months.
7) Mogwai - Scotland's Shame (from the album The Hawk Is Howling). Nothing to do with the behaviour at last year's Glastonbury. The more Mogwai go space rock, the more I like 'em.
8) Sigur Ros - Góðan Daginn (from the album Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust). Some days there's nothing sweeter than the sounds of high pitched pixies ooooooohing in Icelandic.
9) Shearwater - Lost Boys (from the album Rooks). I found Okkervil River through Shearwater, and I found Shearwater by mistake. Both bands became instant favourites, and in their respective ways deliver what I love most about music. 2008 was the year I finally got to see Shearwater live and happily blew me away being everything I wanted them to be and more. Even though this track wasn't on the set list.
Rooks managed to slip out without me noticing, unsurprisingly. I should join a mailing list or something.
10) Kings X - Alright (from the album XV). The return of some old friends I've been away from since University, nine albums ago. They were the first band I saw at the Astoria and this is one of those songs that sat in the 'happy' frame.
11) Howlin' Rain - Lord Have Mercy (from the album Magnificent Fiend). They apparently do make 'em like this anymore.
12) The Gutter Twins - Idle Hands (from the album Saturnalia). I always thought that this would make a great soundtrack to the zombie apocalypse.
When it comes.
I'll be ready.
Or at least I'll have some great music to play.
13) Willard Grant Conspiracy - Phoebe (from the album Pilgrim Road). I'm not sure if this a happy song or not. But it is beautiful. I was going to make a gag about always finding space for WGC but I'm not sure how many of you would get it.
14) The Duke Spirit - Into The Fold (from the album Neptune's Call). Pretty much always a live favourite, even if this year's show didn't quite cut the mustard. I'd managed to avoid listening to this album to any great degree until I came to rebuild the kitchen and then it got some serious air time whilst I happily went insane trying to lift a washing machine two feet into the air on my own. Another one of those tracks I didn't get to hear live!
15) The Hold Steady - Lord, I'm Discouraged (from the album Stay Positive). You could say that the key points of the year so far had been leaving BMC, going on holiday, starting at TNA (sorry Natalie), and doing the kitchen. All brought great change for me. There were three more things waiting around the corner for me that would define 2008.
Despite being a miserable song, this was musically my favourite track on the album. Until we were sitting in the pub having lunch after seeing Mum in hospital for the first time and it came on the radio. The line about "sutures and bruises" suddenly grew a horrible visual relevance and I couldn't get it out of my head.
It was the first of the three occasions and it would come back to haunt me each time. The second was when Ed died, and the third when Annie's partner Martyn died; all within a month of each other. The end of the year has been an emotional clusterfuck of epic proportions.
I dedicated this collection to Ed and Martyn, although I spelled Martyn's name wrong, a mistake I've constantly made over the years. It's the second time I've dedicated one of these compilations to someone no longer here, and was nearly the third. I wonder if I should have really dedicated it to Amanda and Annie. In truth it's for those who've gone and those they've left behind. And to all those who've given me counsel these past few months - they have been many and their words and ears have been appreciated far beyond a batch of songs, no matter what they mean to me.
I should say that this slot was almost going to be one of the extra tracks, Two Handed Handshake, which would have been a much more positive ending. However the three extra tracks were all grouped as one which pissed me off no end and I couldn't be arsed splitting them all. And by then everything else had happened.
16) Elbow - One Day Like This (from the album The Seldom Seen Kid). This may seem like a cliche now, but when I heard it for the first time at Porchester Hall, ahead of the album release (cheers for the tickets Ken), it was another pivotal Elbow live moment, a communal sing-a-long, a huge shit eating grin, a warm musical hug, a smiley face, a lover's tender kiss on the cheek. A small moment turned into an epic sweep. If you haven't experienced Elbow in a large room full of people you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. If you have and you disagree then I don't want to talk to you anymore.
Elbow brought me light in dark times, tears when they were ready to fall, and a smile when needed.
17) The Wildhearts - Carmelita (from the album Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before Vol 1). You can't have enough Wildhearts in your life. You can't have enough Warren Zevon in your life. So what better way to round off than this?
So that's it. There were a couple of songs that fell off the end because of timing, principally Goldfrapp's Little Bird, Last Of The Outlaw Truckers from The Dandy Warhols, Black Mountain's Tyrants and Imperfect's S.O.S. Maybe one year I'll do an extended MP3 version so I can fit everything in. And by the way, the cover image is of mountains in Germany taken from the plane on the way back from Cyprus.
I haven't mentioned the friends I saw the gigs with, or played the tunes to at various times. But they're all in there somewhere.
And I know that not everyone likes the CDs, but then again, I don't like the pictures on every Christmas card I get. But I guess if one person buys a record off this, I'm happy.
So that's me almost done for Christmas. That's about all I'm going to say on what's happened this year now. I suspect I'll have my top tens up in a week or so, and then it's on with the nine.
Happy fucking Christmas everyone.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
One hundred and eighty!
I've not been feeling much like writing recently, so here's Shearwater from a couple of weeks ago.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Come tomorrow, maybe a soldier
I seem to have given evidence against myself, prior to being shot for desertion.
It reminds me that I was sitting on the crapper when the announcement for the two minute silence on Armistice Day echoed through the building. 120 seconds later there was a chorus of flushing.
No matter how earth shattering (at least if not literally) an event, all around the globe folks will be talking, walking, arguing, discussing, fucking, eating, sleeping, reading, watching, listening, pondering, pissing and shitting as normal.
Life goes on.
It reminds me that I was sitting on the crapper when the announcement for the two minute silence on Armistice Day echoed through the building. 120 seconds later there was a chorus of flushing.
No matter how earth shattering (at least if not literally) an event, all around the globe folks will be talking, walking, arguing, discussing, fucking, eating, sleeping, reading, watching, listening, pondering, pissing and shitting as normal.
Life goes on.
Monday, November 17, 2008
There's plenty of light still left in your eyes
When I got home on Tuesday after the Okkervil River show, the almost full moon was casting an ethereal lavender glow across the stillness of the land.
Okkervil River are one of only two bands I've seen in living memory when during the quiet bits you can't hear some fucking idiot loudly proclaiming their irrelevance on this planet.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
I feel the ocean
Iona was right, it really was the TGV.
I have a text message on my phone from a close friend I'd just spent the day with on Thursday, 48 hours after she'd been told her boyfriend of 9 years had died, also aged 38. It is full of questions that have no answers, requests that can not be fulfilled. It is a primal scream of grief, and the waves of immediate unfettered loss pour out of it.
It broke my heart.
Of all the emotions I've been through these past few weeks, it's the helplessness that's been the worst.
Listening to Shearwater's Winged Life
I have a text message on my phone from a close friend I'd just spent the day with on Thursday, 48 hours after she'd been told her boyfriend of 9 years had died, also aged 38. It is full of questions that have no answers, requests that can not be fulfilled. It is a primal scream of grief, and the waves of immediate unfettered loss pour out of it.
It broke my heart.
Of all the emotions I've been through these past few weeks, it's the helplessness that's been the worst.
Listening to Shearwater's Winged Life
Sunday, November 02, 2008
When you tip your head to the side does it sound like rain stick?
Autumn sounds like screeching gulls and smells of woodsmoke.
So the Bishop of Lewes has suggested that the ol' credit crunch is 'God's punishment' for our materialistic over-indulgences. OK, fine by me; who am I to argue against a higher power?
But I do have a couple of questions.
Firstly, if we're all being punished, why are there still going to be so many big banking bonuses again this year? I mean, surely that's a reward for being very good at excessive materialistic consumption, not punishment.
Second, considering the wonderful litany of murder, war, destruction, oppression, murder, slavery, exploitation, our general concession to all this, not to mention the ongoing devastation of this lovely rock God has designed for us, and more; how come it was a bunch of over-suited bipeds that pushed Him / Her over the edge into action?
It's been a good week for the clergy in the news. After all, what better word(s) could precede the headline "...hospitalised with potato up his bum" than 'Vicar'. Other than 'Russell Brand'. And talking of Amy Winehouse's evil twin, have you wondered how differently things would have worked out if they'd only called Jeremy Clarkson instead?
I wonder if anyone checked to see if this fella wasn't some kind of Trojan Horse, full of tiny Lego figures waiting to spill out and take over the country.
I hope so.
Anyway, a belated Happy Halloween to y'all
So the Bishop of Lewes has suggested that the ol' credit crunch is 'God's punishment' for our materialistic over-indulgences. OK, fine by me; who am I to argue against a higher power?
But I do have a couple of questions.
Firstly, if we're all being punished, why are there still going to be so many big banking bonuses again this year? I mean, surely that's a reward for being very good at excessive materialistic consumption, not punishment.
Second, considering the wonderful litany of murder, war, destruction, oppression, murder, slavery, exploitation, our general concession to all this, not to mention the ongoing devastation of this lovely rock God has designed for us, and more; how come it was a bunch of over-suited bipeds that pushed Him / Her over the edge into action?
It's been a good week for the clergy in the news. After all, what better word(s) could precede the headline "...hospitalised with potato up his bum" than 'Vicar'. Other than 'Russell Brand'. And talking of Amy Winehouse's evil twin, have you wondered how differently things would have worked out if they'd only called Jeremy Clarkson instead?
I wonder if anyone checked to see if this fella wasn't some kind of Trojan Horse, full of tiny Lego figures waiting to spill out and take over the country.
I hope so.
Anyway, a belated Happy Halloween to y'all
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
This violates the axiom of transitivity
So it was going to be like this:
Not last Sunday, but the one before I was going to post on how I'd achieved an ambition of sorts, of how I'd played guitar in a band, with an audience. How after two rehearsals a disparate bunch of musicians (bass, guitar, drums, keys, 2 singers, melodian and me) played Green Onions, Brown Eyed Girl, Surfin' USA, Daytripper and Summer of '69 to an appreciative (and hopefully forgiving and forgetful) group of colleagues at The National Archive's band Night.
At best I hope we were like the band when first mentioned here. I still make no claims to be able to do anything other than bang out a few chords but it was an absolute fuckin' hoot, and if we ever get the video I'll post it up.
Then on Saturday with my arm halfway down my chimney, my Dad calls to tell me Mum's been rushed into hospital for an emergency operation and that she's going to be in intensive care and that no-one quite knows exactly how serious it is. She's home now, almost a week, and watching her recover so quickly has been a tonic in a week when tonics were going to be much required.
Because it wasn't going to be the first time that week I was going to be spending a day in an ICU. It's tough beyond belief seeing your Mum blurry on morphine, needles piercing her wrists and neck, tubes criss-crossing her, bruised and battered and in pain. Thankfully with each passing visit the tubes disappeared, the clarity returned and the pain receded. We'll still be having a very quiet Christmas.
Back in work on Tuesday I get a call to tell me one of my friends from the mooring has fallen whilst with his boat, which was out getting her hull scraped. On Tuesday night he was apparently woozy, but conscious and aware. We were waiting for the bandages to return and much jovial finger waving and laughing.
Ed's actually far more than just a friend form the mooring. I've known him since we were 9, explored Dungeons and battled Dragons together, got pissed on two continents together, I tried to sleep in an airport baggage cart at his wedding and he's responsible for two significant turning points in my life: first dragging me up to Tooting from Brighton, and second, dragging me out of Tooting and on to the mooring by convincing me to buy Chuffy when she came up for sale. He's also scraped me off the wall in dark days more times that I can remember.
Life delivered one of it's unforseen gut-punches when his wife rang me on Wednesday morning to tell me something had gone wrong over night and that the doctors didn't think he was going to make it. We waited all day, as machines pumped his heart for him, for the consultants to confirm that whatever it was that made Ed, Ed, it was never ever going to return. Ed as I knew him ceased to be that morning, and the rising and falling of his chest was merely an optical illusion of science rather than life.
He's gone. I walked beside his coffin into the crematorium yesterday morning. But it's hard to fathom that I'll never again see him ambling by. And it makes me so sad that he'll not see his son grow up, that his son will never know his father, and that his wife has lost her soulmate, his mother her son. I don't believe in any God whose judgement I can either question or find solace in (and quite frankly, if you can give me some omnipotent reason why Ed's gone and Dick Cheney's still allowed to walk this earth free from crippling daily torment then that's a God who needs a serious fucking kick in the teeth). Whatever forces govern this rock have no words for good or evil, beauty or ugliness, truth or lies, have no sense of judgement or morality. They merely dictate that with life comes death.
And no more.
What happened was a shitty, fucked-up, tragic accident. I wish it hadn't happened but it has. Those of us who cared about him will each find our own ways of coming to terms with what happened. That is what we do.
There seem to be so many people involved in the practicalities and beauraucracies of death: doctors, nurses, ministers, funeral directors, and all, throughout these past ten days, that I have met with have been exceptional human beings. Their sensitivity and understanding on a daily basis really marks them out amongst us.
And there are those who simply by association get dragged into the proceedings. I've always thought that when you're told someone's died and you have to give friends or family your condolences, that it sounds so empty, trite. But of course, you still have to. A friend expressed this same sentiment to me a few days ago whilst doing just that. Now on the receiving end, I've learned that the words really don't matter - quite simply there are no words to alleviate the kind of hell you're going through. But knowing that someone's thinking of you, and there for you (whether you'll ever need to take them up on it or not) means everything. I'll not worry next time I'm on the delivering side.
The love and support my friends have given me has been overwhelming, has bowled me over.
To say thank you would sound, well, trite.
Thank You.
So in the immortal words of Ringo Starr: please stop sending me all your shit.
Sorry, I mean: Peace and Love x
Not last Sunday, but the one before I was going to post on how I'd achieved an ambition of sorts, of how I'd played guitar in a band, with an audience. How after two rehearsals a disparate bunch of musicians (bass, guitar, drums, keys, 2 singers, melodian and me) played Green Onions, Brown Eyed Girl, Surfin' USA, Daytripper and Summer of '69 to an appreciative (and hopefully forgiving and forgetful) group of colleagues at The National Archive's band Night.
At best I hope we were like the band when first mentioned here. I still make no claims to be able to do anything other than bang out a few chords but it was an absolute fuckin' hoot, and if we ever get the video I'll post it up.
Then on Saturday with my arm halfway down my chimney, my Dad calls to tell me Mum's been rushed into hospital for an emergency operation and that she's going to be in intensive care and that no-one quite knows exactly how serious it is. She's home now, almost a week, and watching her recover so quickly has been a tonic in a week when tonics were going to be much required.
Because it wasn't going to be the first time that week I was going to be spending a day in an ICU. It's tough beyond belief seeing your Mum blurry on morphine, needles piercing her wrists and neck, tubes criss-crossing her, bruised and battered and in pain. Thankfully with each passing visit the tubes disappeared, the clarity returned and the pain receded. We'll still be having a very quiet Christmas.
Back in work on Tuesday I get a call to tell me one of my friends from the mooring has fallen whilst with his boat, which was out getting her hull scraped. On Tuesday night he was apparently woozy, but conscious and aware. We were waiting for the bandages to return and much jovial finger waving and laughing.
Ed's actually far more than just a friend form the mooring. I've known him since we were 9, explored Dungeons and battled Dragons together, got pissed on two continents together, I tried to sleep in an airport baggage cart at his wedding and he's responsible for two significant turning points in my life: first dragging me up to Tooting from Brighton, and second, dragging me out of Tooting and on to the mooring by convincing me to buy Chuffy when she came up for sale. He's also scraped me off the wall in dark days more times that I can remember.
Life delivered one of it's unforseen gut-punches when his wife rang me on Wednesday morning to tell me something had gone wrong over night and that the doctors didn't think he was going to make it. We waited all day, as machines pumped his heart for him, for the consultants to confirm that whatever it was that made Ed, Ed, it was never ever going to return. Ed as I knew him ceased to be that morning, and the rising and falling of his chest was merely an optical illusion of science rather than life.
He's gone. I walked beside his coffin into the crematorium yesterday morning. But it's hard to fathom that I'll never again see him ambling by. And it makes me so sad that he'll not see his son grow up, that his son will never know his father, and that his wife has lost her soulmate, his mother her son. I don't believe in any God whose judgement I can either question or find solace in (and quite frankly, if you can give me some omnipotent reason why Ed's gone and Dick Cheney's still allowed to walk this earth free from crippling daily torment then that's a God who needs a serious fucking kick in the teeth). Whatever forces govern this rock have no words for good or evil, beauty or ugliness, truth or lies, have no sense of judgement or morality. They merely dictate that with life comes death.
And no more.
What happened was a shitty, fucked-up, tragic accident. I wish it hadn't happened but it has. Those of us who cared about him will each find our own ways of coming to terms with what happened. That is what we do.
There seem to be so many people involved in the practicalities and beauraucracies of death: doctors, nurses, ministers, funeral directors, and all, throughout these past ten days, that I have met with have been exceptional human beings. Their sensitivity and understanding on a daily basis really marks them out amongst us.
And there are those who simply by association get dragged into the proceedings. I've always thought that when you're told someone's died and you have to give friends or family your condolences, that it sounds so empty, trite. But of course, you still have to. A friend expressed this same sentiment to me a few days ago whilst doing just that. Now on the receiving end, I've learned that the words really don't matter - quite simply there are no words to alleviate the kind of hell you're going through. But knowing that someone's thinking of you, and there for you (whether you'll ever need to take them up on it or not) means everything. I'll not worry next time I'm on the delivering side.
The love and support my friends have given me has been overwhelming, has bowled me over.
To say thank you would sound, well, trite.
Thank You.
So in the immortal words of Ringo Starr: please stop sending me all your shit.
Sorry, I mean: Peace and Love x
Ed 30/04/70 - 15/10/08
Monday, October 06, 2008
I won't be held responsible, for my actions
Being that this whole global economic collapse is really beginning to bum people out, I thought I'd pass on this explanation of how it all came about.
Stick figures and swearing make the horrible truth so much more palatable.
I also want to give you this:
because I love you all, and I care about your spiritual well-being.
Listening to Afraid of Christmas 2008 October Mix
Stick figures and swearing make the horrible truth so much more palatable.
I also want to give you this:
because I love you all, and I care about your spiritual well-being.
Listening to Afraid of Christmas 2008 October Mix
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Now I have a tongue tattoo
The Duke Spirit are one of those bands where I don't listen to their CDs a great deal, where I don't know what half their songs are called, I have no idea what the names of the band are without looking them up (except for Leila of course and I usually end up spelling her surname wrong) but I've seen them live 7 times (3 support, 4 headlining). I've also taken a few snaps of them along the way.
I think they're genuinely one of the better live acts out there at the moment, so it was good to trot down to The Astoria on Tuesday (hopefully not for the last time) to catch up with Ms Moss and the boys. Can't say it was the best show I've seen them do (I think that may have been this one), although it was still a fine night out. Took a couple of songs to kick in, and every once in a while it felt like they just slipped out of gear for a while.
After some pondering I've come to the conclusion that what they needed was more smoke.
Anyway, we left a couple of songs early because I have to be a responsible working person these days and I figure I have a few tunes in credit with them.
Still, I greatly enjoyed listening to a woman loudly and at length complaining about how annoying it is when people talk through gigs. Bugs the shit out of me too.
It was good to be back in The Astoria again; reminded me what a great little venue it is. Hope it sticks around for a little longer.
In other news, I dropped a drill on my foot rehanging some curtains on Saturday, which I'm sure you'll all agree was a really stupid thing to do.
Fire's on.
I think they're genuinely one of the better live acts out there at the moment, so it was good to trot down to The Astoria on Tuesday (hopefully not for the last time) to catch up with Ms Moss and the boys. Can't say it was the best show I've seen them do (I think that may have been this one), although it was still a fine night out. Took a couple of songs to kick in, and every once in a while it felt like they just slipped out of gear for a while.
After some pondering I've come to the conclusion that what they needed was more smoke.
Anyway, we left a couple of songs early because I have to be a responsible working person these days and I figure I have a few tunes in credit with them.
Still, I greatly enjoyed listening to a woman loudly and at length complaining about how annoying it is when people talk through gigs. Bugs the shit out of me too.
It was good to be back in The Astoria again; reminded me what a great little venue it is. Hope it sticks around for a little longer.
In other news, I dropped a drill on my foot rehanging some curtains on Saturday, which I'm sure you'll all agree was a really stupid thing to do.
Fire's on.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The hawk is howling
I would have spent the weekend listening to the new Mogwai if I hadn't found the new Lambchop.
Oh well.
Apparently we've run out of natural resources this week. Which is ironic I suppose because we've also run out of money too.
It was definitely curtains for me. Lots of new curtains. Where the doors should have been. And very smart they look too. Good to see the folks too.
This is a top idea. So why do I have a nasty feeling inside that some might see the opportunity for a game of human Weebles too much to resist. Maybe it's just me.
Autumn's here, hooray. The gulls are circling and New Labour's just become Old Labour. I'm off to see the Duke Spirit again next week. If you're really really lucky I might just tell you what it was like.
R.I.P. Paul Newman, damn fine actor and top salad topping man
Oh well.
Apparently we've run out of natural resources this week. Which is ironic I suppose because we've also run out of money too.
It was definitely curtains for me. Lots of new curtains. Where the doors should have been. And very smart they look too. Good to see the folks too.
This is a top idea. So why do I have a nasty feeling inside that some might see the opportunity for a game of human Weebles too much to resist. Maybe it's just me.
Autumn's here, hooray. The gulls are circling and New Labour's just become Old Labour. I'm off to see the Duke Spirit again next week. If you're really really lucky I might just tell you what it was like.
R.I.P. Paul Newman, damn fine actor and top salad topping man
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Tragic croutons floating in a bowl of poo soup
I bet the banking industry is currently wishing the world had ended last week when the boffins turned on their inter-dimensional transmogrifier. It's a shame the banks forgot to read their own small print. Y'know, all that stuff about if you can't pay back what you borrow then they're going to take all your shit away. Still, as a concerned citizen and tax payer, I'm glad to be helping out with the democratic ideal that the sins of the few shall be visited upon (and paid for by) the many. I hate to think of all those highly bonused executives left struggling after the weight of such responsibility. I mean, what else can we do? Take them out and beat them to death with their own wallets live on tv?
Of course not.
I've also been amused as to how the potential VP of Disneyland thought it was a good idea to compare hard-working women to a species best known for being bred for mindless violence by feckless fascist fuckwits. Is that better or worse though than not being able to distinguish the difference between a Pit Bull and a Pig? Regardless, I'm definitely not going round theirs for Sunday lunch. At least she's not a technophobe, unlike her boss, although she may want to read our very own Data Handling Review for some useful tips and pointers. That the old timer doesn't use email is probably a good idea, however, as it's one less thing for the White House to lose if the 'Publicans do get in again.
Equally amusing, but with less global impact was the Madonna Wembley gig. Apparently the Madonna crew refused to hook up the sound to Wembley's own top tier PA, so no wonder no-one could hear. Her spokesperson shrugged it off with a wonderfully modern take on the Koan: "I was at the gig and the sound was fine." In other words, if your fans are having a shit time and can't hear, and you can't tell (because you're in the good seats), are your fans really having a shit time and unable to hear anything? This 'spokesperson' is quite clearly an imbecile of astronomic proportions. Their excuse for the late running of the show was just as good, "stage times are only guidelines". Reminds me of the Zimbabwean train timetable we found that stated the departure times were the times before which the train may not leave. Oh, that was back in '89 btw. So although I'm sooooooooooooo pleased that Madge has adopted London as her physical home - hey neighbour, cup of sugar? - quite clearly someone has forgotten to tell her about our transport system, buses, trains, tubes etc, engineering works, no way out of Wembley after sunset. Never mind.
Perhaps she should hire Mark Owen-Lloyd as her spokesperson, whose only crime was to tell it like it is. Which is of course a bug fucking mistake in these enlightened times. I'll gladly add my name to all those official figures who labelled his comments as "inapproprate", because I truly feel that the potential suffering and possible deaths to some suffering from the rising cost of energy bills is indeed, inappropriate.
Reading: Charlie Brooker's Screenburn
Of course not.
I've also been amused as to how the potential VP of Disneyland thought it was a good idea to compare hard-working women to a species best known for being bred for mindless violence by feckless fascist fuckwits. Is that better or worse though than not being able to distinguish the difference between a Pit Bull and a Pig? Regardless, I'm definitely not going round theirs for Sunday lunch. At least she's not a technophobe, unlike her boss, although she may want to read our very own Data Handling Review for some useful tips and pointers. That the old timer doesn't use email is probably a good idea, however, as it's one less thing for the White House to lose if the 'Publicans do get in again.
Equally amusing, but with less global impact was the Madonna Wembley gig. Apparently the Madonna crew refused to hook up the sound to Wembley's own top tier PA, so no wonder no-one could hear. Her spokesperson shrugged it off with a wonderfully modern take on the Koan: "I was at the gig and the sound was fine." In other words, if your fans are having a shit time and can't hear, and you can't tell (because you're in the good seats), are your fans really having a shit time and unable to hear anything? This 'spokesperson' is quite clearly an imbecile of astronomic proportions. Their excuse for the late running of the show was just as good, "stage times are only guidelines". Reminds me of the Zimbabwean train timetable we found that stated the departure times were the times before which the train may not leave. Oh, that was back in '89 btw. So although I'm sooooooooooooo pleased that Madge has adopted London as her physical home - hey neighbour, cup of sugar? - quite clearly someone has forgotten to tell her about our transport system, buses, trains, tubes etc, engineering works, no way out of Wembley after sunset. Never mind.
Perhaps she should hire Mark Owen-Lloyd as her spokesperson, whose only crime was to tell it like it is. Which is of course a bug fucking mistake in these enlightened times. I'll gladly add my name to all those official figures who labelled his comments as "inapproprate", because I truly feel that the potential suffering and possible deaths to some suffering from the rising cost of energy bills is indeed, inappropriate.
Reading: Charlie Brooker's Screenburn
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Send lawyers guns and money
Fuck
Almost 2 months to the day since I last posted
That's bad
The days were once long and drifted by
But it's easy to get distracted
And that thing I was going to do tomorrow is now a month ago
Or maybe two
I remember watching house martins pissing about outside the office window
And coots chasing their young from the nest
(thinking mother nature must look like Anne Robinson)
And the days when Bonnie and Clyde brought the kids round
I remember bbqs on the mooring
And one on top of a boat
I've sat in the sun on Chuffy's roof
And gone a little mad working on the kitchen
(Note to self, I go a little more crazy every time I work on the boat)
But I can wash my clothes again
2 weeks off work well spent
And work's been fun
Busy
Very busy at times
But it's hitting all the buttons I wanted it too
They're a damn fine crew (just in case they ever read this!)
I've caught up with some old friends
But not all
Spent some time with my beautiful monsters
But not all
I've seen some great movies
Some I enjoyed when I didn't think I would
And some class-A putrid stinking piles of time-wasting effluent bollocks
I've picked up some fine new tunes
And rediscovered Warren Zevon
I've seen some great shows
And I'm looking forward to this one
I learned a new chord
And forgot it (but it's something to do with F)
There's probably more
And no matter how much time I may have wasted
I didn't waste one fucking second of it watching Big Brother
All is not lost
Normal service may resume, if I ever figure out what normal is.
Almost 2 months to the day since I last posted
That's bad
The days were once long and drifted by
But it's easy to get distracted
And that thing I was going to do tomorrow is now a month ago
Or maybe two
I remember watching house martins pissing about outside the office window
And coots chasing their young from the nest
(thinking mother nature must look like Anne Robinson)
And the days when Bonnie and Clyde brought the kids round
I remember bbqs on the mooring
And one on top of a boat
I've sat in the sun on Chuffy's roof
And gone a little mad working on the kitchen
(Note to self, I go a little more crazy every time I work on the boat)
But I can wash my clothes again
2 weeks off work well spent
And work's been fun
Busy
Very busy at times
But it's hitting all the buttons I wanted it too
They're a damn fine crew (just in case they ever read this!)
I've caught up with some old friends
But not all
Spent some time with my beautiful monsters
But not all
I've seen some great movies
Some I enjoyed when I didn't think I would
And some class-A putrid stinking piles of time-wasting effluent bollocks
I've picked up some fine new tunes
And rediscovered Warren Zevon
I've seen some great shows
And I'm looking forward to this one
I learned a new chord
And forgot it (but it's something to do with F)
There's probably more
And no matter how much time I may have wasted
I didn't waste one fucking second of it watching Big Brother
All is not lost
Normal service may resume, if I ever figure out what normal is.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Too much time on my hands
Spring has turned to summer, we've had the longest day, we're over halfway through the year and the Yard arm has passed the mizzenhead. Or something like that. I should be spending a weekend in a field listening to music and drinking tequila for breakfast.
But I'm not. Not this year. This year might have been my 9th Glastonbury ( and 10 years since my first). But it wasn't. It's certainly the first year I've ever put my work before getting communally muddy. It's also good to have a rest.
So instead I enjoyed the dubious "Jay-Z controversy" and laughed at all the idiots proclaiming Glastonbury to be a 'guitar or rock' festival. They've obviously never made it to the Jazz World stage, or the green fields, or the circus area or wandered around the hybrid city that surrounds the pyramid stage. Perhaps they'd forgotten about the crowds who gather at the Sunday afternoon 'oldies' slot, giving the most rapturous reception to the likes of Dame Shirley Bassey, The Revd Al Green, Rolf Harris or Jimmy Cliff. Perhaps they'd forgotten that Rod Stewart once headlined.
What really made my day was that Noel Gallagher was one of the most vocal opponents of Eavis's plan to hippety up the G-Bury. The man who's band played possibly the worst show I've ever seen at Glastonbury and certainly one of the worst out of all of them. Keeping it real for da kids eh Noel?
There's no doubt that Glastonbury is changing, and that for some the direction is not a popular one. But Glastonbury is always changing, and yet it retains the small town sized muddle of madness drug addled open to all boot camp atmosphere that makes it unique and special amongst festivals. The detractors can rant and rave to their hearts content while they completely miss the point that Glasto is what it is for everyone who wants it to be.
From what little I saw on the tv, it looked like Jay-Z played a blinder.
Anyway. I did manage to spend an evening in the open air watching Radiohead at Victoria Park and enjoyed the mini-festival proceedings for a few hours. For many years Radiohead were a band who sounded better the bigger and more open stage they were on. I can't help feeling though, that with their focus now on the post Kid A years, the music requires a few walls to contain their new darker, urbanised, sound. Still a good show though, and a perfect sound, probably the best I've heard at an outdoor event.
Not so for Iron Maiden's Twickenham show last night where the winds blew guitars all over the place, like Eddie personified as some malevolent force of nature. Much as I hate Twickenham as a venue and its crappy sound, it's good to be able to nip round the corner for a gig and be home by 11 without having to leave early.
I can't imagine there was a great reason to have missed the Powerslave tour first time round. But it was about as magnificent as heavy metal theatre has ever been. Live After Death is one of the few live albums that's worth listening to more than once, as is the concert video (now DVD). The chance to finally get to see a 20 foot zombie mummy Eddie burst through that giant sarcophagus above Nicko's drum riser was to good to miss.
And so here they are, doing the greatest hits of the greatest hits, dusting off some of the old furniture. To the casual observer, participation in Maiden show might look to be somewhat ridiculous. Everyone standing up the moment the PA kicks in, shouting, punching the air, singing along really badly and realising you're only ever going to hit the high notes in Run To The Hills if you let an enraged gibbon work out its frustration on your balls with a pair of pliers and an eagle-eye Action Man. I felt a little out of place just being in the 1% of the crowd who hadn't bought a t-shirt.
But being at a Maiden show, and I have been to my fair share, is not about carefully studying anything other than your neighbour's beer stained armpit. The rules of cool don't apply here, so don't worry; throw them devil horns, and relish in the sheer beauty that so many are still so devoted to taking being silly so seriously. Bruce bounces around the stage like an eccentric English Tigger on a tea high, seemingly physically oblivious to the fact he first played some of these songs over 25 years ago. The rest of the band fulfill all those great rock cliches like throwing shapes, being really good at what they do, playing as hard as they can and making a show of it. They all seem like genuinely decent human beings who have earned their status by playing shit loads of shows, writing shit loads of great tunes, and never really letting it get to their heads.
Backdrops change, lighting rigs drop and tilt, Bruce plays the parts, and Eddie still stalks the stage thank God. It's everything you want from a Maiden show, and it is as marvelously fucking entertaining as it at times absurd. It's not Powerslave 2, more a joyful indulgence that celebrates the good old days without recourse to posthumous navel gazing. It's going to net them huge new bank vaults of wonga, and yet you never feel totally exploited watching those worms drop from Eddie's finger tips, because that's exactly what we came for and how can you be ripped off when they're delivering in spades? Although about that £50 ticket price and shitty sound...
But I'm not. Not this year. This year might have been my 9th Glastonbury ( and 10 years since my first). But it wasn't. It's certainly the first year I've ever put my work before getting communally muddy. It's also good to have a rest.
So instead I enjoyed the dubious "Jay-Z controversy" and laughed at all the idiots proclaiming Glastonbury to be a 'guitar or rock' festival. They've obviously never made it to the Jazz World stage, or the green fields, or the circus area or wandered around the hybrid city that surrounds the pyramid stage. Perhaps they'd forgotten about the crowds who gather at the Sunday afternoon 'oldies' slot, giving the most rapturous reception to the likes of Dame Shirley Bassey, The Revd Al Green, Rolf Harris or Jimmy Cliff. Perhaps they'd forgotten that Rod Stewart once headlined.
What really made my day was that Noel Gallagher was one of the most vocal opponents of Eavis's plan to hippety up the G-Bury. The man who's band played possibly the worst show I've ever seen at Glastonbury and certainly one of the worst out of all of them. Keeping it real for da kids eh Noel?
There's no doubt that Glastonbury is changing, and that for some the direction is not a popular one. But Glastonbury is always changing, and yet it retains the small town sized muddle of madness drug addled open to all boot camp atmosphere that makes it unique and special amongst festivals. The detractors can rant and rave to their hearts content while they completely miss the point that Glasto is what it is for everyone who wants it to be.
From what little I saw on the tv, it looked like Jay-Z played a blinder.
Anyway. I did manage to spend an evening in the open air watching Radiohead at Victoria Park and enjoyed the mini-festival proceedings for a few hours. For many years Radiohead were a band who sounded better the bigger and more open stage they were on. I can't help feeling though, that with their focus now on the post Kid A years, the music requires a few walls to contain their new darker, urbanised, sound. Still a good show though, and a perfect sound, probably the best I've heard at an outdoor event.
Not so for Iron Maiden's Twickenham show last night where the winds blew guitars all over the place, like Eddie personified as some malevolent force of nature. Much as I hate Twickenham as a venue and its crappy sound, it's good to be able to nip round the corner for a gig and be home by 11 without having to leave early.
I can't imagine there was a great reason to have missed the Powerslave tour first time round. But it was about as magnificent as heavy metal theatre has ever been. Live After Death is one of the few live albums that's worth listening to more than once, as is the concert video (now DVD). The chance to finally get to see a 20 foot zombie mummy Eddie burst through that giant sarcophagus above Nicko's drum riser was to good to miss.
And so here they are, doing the greatest hits of the greatest hits, dusting off some of the old furniture. To the casual observer, participation in Maiden show might look to be somewhat ridiculous. Everyone standing up the moment the PA kicks in, shouting, punching the air, singing along really badly and realising you're only ever going to hit the high notes in Run To The Hills if you let an enraged gibbon work out its frustration on your balls with a pair of pliers and an eagle-eye Action Man. I felt a little out of place just being in the 1% of the crowd who hadn't bought a t-shirt.
But being at a Maiden show, and I have been to my fair share, is not about carefully studying anything other than your neighbour's beer stained armpit. The rules of cool don't apply here, so don't worry; throw them devil horns, and relish in the sheer beauty that so many are still so devoted to taking being silly so seriously. Bruce bounces around the stage like an eccentric English Tigger on a tea high, seemingly physically oblivious to the fact he first played some of these songs over 25 years ago. The rest of the band fulfill all those great rock cliches like throwing shapes, being really good at what they do, playing as hard as they can and making a show of it. They all seem like genuinely decent human beings who have earned their status by playing shit loads of shows, writing shit loads of great tunes, and never really letting it get to their heads.
Backdrops change, lighting rigs drop and tilt, Bruce plays the parts, and Eddie still stalks the stage thank God. It's everything you want from a Maiden show, and it is as marvelously fucking entertaining as it at times absurd. It's not Powerslave 2, more a joyful indulgence that celebrates the good old days without recourse to posthumous navel gazing. It's going to net them huge new bank vaults of wonga, and yet you never feel totally exploited watching those worms drop from Eddie's finger tips, because that's exactly what we came for and how can you be ripped off when they're delivering in spades? Although about that £50 ticket price and shitty sound...
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
As a species we're fundementally insane
I noticed this afternoon that The London Paper offset the news of the first female British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan with a large picture of Kate Moss in a near see through dress.
Obviously London's commuter traffic hasn't seen enough of Ms Moss's tits yet.
Obviously London's commuter traffic hasn't seen enough of Ms Moss's tits yet.
Monday, June 16, 2008
When the wind picked up, the fire spread
I finally heard the new Coldplay album yesterday. Most folks I know are driven into a near apoplectic rage at the mere mention of the C word, but me and the boys go back a ways, we even have mutual friends, so I'm always willing to give them a chance.
My first contact was about 3 in the Saturday afternoon on the Glastonbury second stage. It would be a surly fucker indeed who would deny that the energy and determination with which they tore the place apart made them one of the highlights of that sunny weekend. Later that year, once Parachutes had installed itself in the collective British psyche like a harmonic ebola virus, I saw them again at their Christmas show in Shepherd's Bush which was so dull I think I left early. Their end of tour performance at V was a dreary shambolic mess and best forgotten.
Now Coldplay do have a knack for writing big stadium pop anthems, like Yellow. Unfortunately Darwin's theory of cool states that those who don't like such anthemery are genetically disposed to want to kill all those who do. And for a while all people seemed to play was Parachutes to the point where I'll gladly dynamite into oblivion the sorry lives of the next fucker who dares put it on whilst I'm within listening distance.
On the other hand, I still think Rush Of Blood's a corker. And I still love Clocks. Coldplay's Glastonbury main stage debut was on of the best headline performances I've seen on those hallowed boards, unlike their X&Y follow up which was merely good enough. The step up to the superspaciousurroundsound of number 2 probably saved them from being mid-term acoustic whingers and sewed the seeds of their own destruction all at the same time. It might have been different if X&Y hadn't been another step in the same direction and I'll freely admit with hindsight that I might have been over-kind at the time. Great show at Koko though. That's 3 good, one ok and two stinkers.
On top of all those mobile waving singalong chart toppers, there is of course, the earnestness that feels a little like they're trying too hard, which is a shame because I do think they mean it. And Chris Martin's limelight stealing fractured by self-doubt schtick does in many, hit the same emotional frequency that, as a sound makes dogs shit themselves. Although I still love the (alleged?) story that he lost his virginity to the members of female punk band, Bellatrix - Almost Famous style, back in the pub toilet days.
To some degree Viva La Vida's their most interesting effort yet. An attempt to eschew the big hits for an album that reaches into new territories whilst still maintaining a grip on the globe's MORodomes. Much of this is done through Brian Eno's Unforgettable Fire like production. Unlike the songs which veer more into How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb territory, i.e. really quite dull. It's not terrible by any means, but I have no desire to ever hear it again, bar a couple of decent tracks, none of which are as good as the new Death Cab for Cutie album which I'm listening to now.
Death Cab For Cutie's Narrow Stairs
My first contact was about 3 in the Saturday afternoon on the Glastonbury second stage. It would be a surly fucker indeed who would deny that the energy and determination with which they tore the place apart made them one of the highlights of that sunny weekend. Later that year, once Parachutes had installed itself in the collective British psyche like a harmonic ebola virus, I saw them again at their Christmas show in Shepherd's Bush which was so dull I think I left early. Their end of tour performance at V was a dreary shambolic mess and best forgotten.
Now Coldplay do have a knack for writing big stadium pop anthems, like Yellow. Unfortunately Darwin's theory of cool states that those who don't like such anthemery are genetically disposed to want to kill all those who do. And for a while all people seemed to play was Parachutes to the point where I'll gladly dynamite into oblivion the sorry lives of the next fucker who dares put it on whilst I'm within listening distance.
On the other hand, I still think Rush Of Blood's a corker. And I still love Clocks. Coldplay's Glastonbury main stage debut was on of the best headline performances I've seen on those hallowed boards, unlike their X&Y follow up which was merely good enough. The step up to the superspaciousurroundsound of number 2 probably saved them from being mid-term acoustic whingers and sewed the seeds of their own destruction all at the same time. It might have been different if X&Y hadn't been another step in the same direction and I'll freely admit with hindsight that I might have been over-kind at the time. Great show at Koko though. That's 3 good, one ok and two stinkers.
On top of all those mobile waving singalong chart toppers, there is of course, the earnestness that feels a little like they're trying too hard, which is a shame because I do think they mean it. And Chris Martin's limelight stealing fractured by self-doubt schtick does in many, hit the same emotional frequency that, as a sound makes dogs shit themselves. Although I still love the (alleged?) story that he lost his virginity to the members of female punk band, Bellatrix - Almost Famous style, back in the pub toilet days.
To some degree Viva La Vida's their most interesting effort yet. An attempt to eschew the big hits for an album that reaches into new territories whilst still maintaining a grip on the globe's MORodomes. Much of this is done through Brian Eno's Unforgettable Fire like production. Unlike the songs which veer more into How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb territory, i.e. really quite dull. It's not terrible by any means, but I have no desire to ever hear it again, bar a couple of decent tracks, none of which are as good as the new Death Cab for Cutie album which I'm listening to now.
Death Cab For Cutie's Narrow Stairs
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Every time I kiss you girl, you taste like pork and beans
My last post sparked a couple of comments, to which I'll say that the answer to Dan's first question is, err, kinda. I don't particularly feel that the chapters of my life are in anyway fluid, or overlap. If I look back in a strictly chronological manner, I find, like Hazel, simple convenient blocks that stack up individually and I don't feel that these blocks have shifted at all over the years.
But then again, that's less a set of memories and more a timeline. Within each block are multiple unique memories at which point I'd agree with the comment that: "memories are not something we have, so much as remembering being something we do; it's an active process." As I see it, the way we experience each moment in our lives is determined by where and who we are, an ever changing process, interdependent on all other experiences; as diverse as the sum total of all our knowledge to date to how much we had to drink the night before. Each moment we recall is then in itself, written by not only those events around it, but a myriad of other factors that may be vastly different from those we experienced when we were in the moment itself. The ultimate truth of our recall is inevitably utterly unique and unquestionably questionable.
It's illustrated quite nicely by a scene in a Robin Williams movie I watched recently. The basic premise for The Final Cut, is that at some point in the future we'll be able to graft organic cameras to our retinas that record our every experience. When we die, 'cutters' (Robin Williams) go through the tapes, cutting together a montage for family and friends to be played at a remembering ceremony (essentially the funeral). After one such screening, the deceased's brother questions a boat they used to play in thinking that it was a different colour from the one he saw. Where the images may reveal the ultimate truth of the event, they can't recreate the experience, devoid of the emotions behind the eyes. It's not a bad movie, flawed, but worth a look.
I spent the weekend away with the family and so missed the last night of drinking on the tube. Thankfully. Sounded like the party pretty much played in to the hands of the naysayers, no matter how badly organised the mechanics of the ban may have been. Never let it be said that we don't have the propensity to turn ourselves into a bunch of useless fuckwits given half an opportunity.
Talking of useless fuckwits, whoever decided to use graphic images of violence to deter young kids from stabbing each other somehow managed to miss the point that images of violence and bloodshed are often quite appealing to teenagers (boys especially), be it Friday 13th or GTA 4.
Anyway, here's a picture of chicken
Sampling the music of Old Crow Medicine Show
But then again, that's less a set of memories and more a timeline. Within each block are multiple unique memories at which point I'd agree with the comment that: "memories are not something we have, so much as remembering being something we do; it's an active process." As I see it, the way we experience each moment in our lives is determined by where and who we are, an ever changing process, interdependent on all other experiences; as diverse as the sum total of all our knowledge to date to how much we had to drink the night before. Each moment we recall is then in itself, written by not only those events around it, but a myriad of other factors that may be vastly different from those we experienced when we were in the moment itself. The ultimate truth of our recall is inevitably utterly unique and unquestionably questionable.
It's illustrated quite nicely by a scene in a Robin Williams movie I watched recently. The basic premise for The Final Cut, is that at some point in the future we'll be able to graft organic cameras to our retinas that record our every experience. When we die, 'cutters' (Robin Williams) go through the tapes, cutting together a montage for family and friends to be played at a remembering ceremony (essentially the funeral). After one such screening, the deceased's brother questions a boat they used to play in thinking that it was a different colour from the one he saw. Where the images may reveal the ultimate truth of the event, they can't recreate the experience, devoid of the emotions behind the eyes. It's not a bad movie, flawed, but worth a look.
I spent the weekend away with the family and so missed the last night of drinking on the tube. Thankfully. Sounded like the party pretty much played in to the hands of the naysayers, no matter how badly organised the mechanics of the ban may have been. Never let it be said that we don't have the propensity to turn ourselves into a bunch of useless fuckwits given half an opportunity.
Talking of useless fuckwits, whoever decided to use graphic images of violence to deter young kids from stabbing each other somehow managed to miss the point that images of violence and bloodshed are often quite appealing to teenagers (boys especially), be it Friday 13th or GTA 4.
Anyway, here's a picture of chicken
Sampling the music of Old Crow Medicine Show
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
And I was thinking I'll never get older
My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on Sunday; coincidentally, the fourth anniversary of my moving on to Chuffy. Not that the two are related in any way other than without the one, there would not have been the other. It was a good day.
I can't yet imagine 40 years on the planet, let alone 40 years of marriage. It's been 20 years since I left school, so I multiply that and it still seems a way off. The population of the earth has maybe doubled during this short time.
Whilst home, I found myself flicking through some old photo albums, inspired perhaps, by a photograph my aunt had of my Mum holding me as a small baby. I was struck by how pretty she was and how happy she looked, holding this small fleshy creature that turned into me.
I don't think back much to my earlier days, I'm content with my place in the world, an whatever paths I took to get here. What did strike me was how broken up my past feels, as if each section is a separate chapter, each one a new story in its own right, and somehow not much flow between them. Is it like that for everyone?
The rapid pace of change in the last 37 years has no doubt rent asunder whatever specific hopes and dreams my Mum may have had for me on that day as the sun shone down on her smile. Other than perhaps to live a good life and be happy. I'm willing to argue the meaning of 'good' in this case...
Someone once old me that there was no real secret to bringing a child into the world: "love them unconditionally and let them be who they're meant to be". I wonder if these thoughts will ever be shared by the man mentioned in an email I was sent today.
"oh Jesus I'm so depressed - there's a guy on our teleconference who's wife had a baby a couple of hours ago and he's apologising for not being able to connect his laptop and view the powerpoint from the hospital!!!"
Listening to XV by Kings X
I can't yet imagine 40 years on the planet, let alone 40 years of marriage. It's been 20 years since I left school, so I multiply that and it still seems a way off. The population of the earth has maybe doubled during this short time.
Whilst home, I found myself flicking through some old photo albums, inspired perhaps, by a photograph my aunt had of my Mum holding me as a small baby. I was struck by how pretty she was and how happy she looked, holding this small fleshy creature that turned into me.
I don't think back much to my earlier days, I'm content with my place in the world, an whatever paths I took to get here. What did strike me was how broken up my past feels, as if each section is a separate chapter, each one a new story in its own right, and somehow not much flow between them. Is it like that for everyone?
The rapid pace of change in the last 37 years has no doubt rent asunder whatever specific hopes and dreams my Mum may have had for me on that day as the sun shone down on her smile. Other than perhaps to live a good life and be happy. I'm willing to argue the meaning of 'good' in this case...
Someone once old me that there was no real secret to bringing a child into the world: "love them unconditionally and let them be who they're meant to be". I wonder if these thoughts will ever be shared by the man mentioned in an email I was sent today.
"oh Jesus I'm so depressed - there's a guy on our teleconference who's wife had a baby a couple of hours ago and he's apologising for not being able to connect his laptop and view the powerpoint from the hospital!!!"
Listening to XV by Kings X
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Good morning, good afternoon
I'm told I don't blog enough these days.
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the death of Sandy Denny, once a citizen of these parts, and, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest, if not the greatest female singers this country has ever produced.
I didn't come to her music until last year, although unknowingly, I'd first heard her voice in my early teens on Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore, and her songs covered by others. I blame Dan, who sent me a copy of Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief, for a rapid spending spree on her four solo albums, two Fairport albums, and the very beautiful Live at the BBC boxed set.
Since then, they've been on near constant repetition, the good and the not so good, spread out amongst them, some of the loveliest music I've heard. And although who Knows Where The Time Goes is considered to be her best tune, Like An Old Fashioned Waltz is the song that melts me every single time.
There's been a recent batch of retrospectives, and Bob Harris' Radio2 documentary I'm listening to at the moment, remembering her career. Wikipedia sketches out the basics of her fairly tumultuous and ultimately tragic life.
But you'd be better off just listening to her songs instead.
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the death of Sandy Denny, once a citizen of these parts, and, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest, if not the greatest female singers this country has ever produced.
I didn't come to her music until last year, although unknowingly, I'd first heard her voice in my early teens on Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore, and her songs covered by others. I blame Dan, who sent me a copy of Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief, for a rapid spending spree on her four solo albums, two Fairport albums, and the very beautiful Live at the BBC boxed set.
Since then, they've been on near constant repetition, the good and the not so good, spread out amongst them, some of the loveliest music I've heard. And although who Knows Where The Time Goes is considered to be her best tune, Like An Old Fashioned Waltz is the song that melts me every single time.
There's been a recent batch of retrospectives, and Bob Harris' Radio2 documentary I'm listening to at the moment, remembering her career. Wikipedia sketches out the basics of her fairly tumultuous and ultimately tragic life.
But you'd be better off just listening to her songs instead.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
The good life...
...is surely not measured by its length in years, but by the intensity of the joy and good consequences of existence.
I'm a fond believer in the idea that our lives are stories briefly scratched in time. Most chapters are merely ebbs and flows in the storyline, with only occasional plot twists that change your very direction both inside and out. If this is the case then one chapter has ended, another begun, and in between has been one of those inter-chapter bits usually written in italics.
What follows is the italics bit, written from the balcony of our room at the Hotel Kapetanios, Limassol, Cyprus on Saturday 6th April, although I've edited my notes to clean them up slightly.
I left BMC the way I guess most people leave jobs like mine; in a final flurry of trying to do everything, and in the end settling for whatever you've done being enough. After having had two months to think about my leaving speech, I managed to miss most of what I wanted to say. Not a bad metaphor for the weeks of (no doubt self-induced) stress that consumed me in the run up to day 0. And then, like that, it was done. The door closed, the chapter ended, the final full stop was placed.
I stand by my assertions that as a species, we're mainly solar powered. So a week in the sun seemed like a great idea to fill in the gap between chapters. Not least to recharge a few batteries. I have one of my oldest, dearest and best of friends and travelling companion to thank for that. That and a list of numbers off Teletext and a couple of hours on the phone.
The 3 hour delay leaving Gatwick was annoying at the time, but paltry compared to the Hellmouth unleashed upon travellers by BA that has been named Terminal 5. It was 6am when we finally climbed in to our room, and at 7 we were woken by thunder, lightning and torrential rain. 5 hours later when we woke again, there wasn't a cloud to be seen.
The hotel is situated off the main coast road, at the far end of Limassol's tourist drag of 4 and 5* chains that litter the grey sandy beaches, and close to the old town. Perfect for the slow, ambling walks we took in either direction. It would be a churlish fellow indeed, who might complain about our neat and tidy compound, where the 3*s on the box were raised an extra point by the staff and service.
Other than the aforementioned walks, our days have consisted of sitting in the sunshine, a cooling breeze keeping the clouds at bay, reading, sleeping and taking the occasional lunch in a local cafe where the free glasses of wine may have been taken as an apology for the hair in the food. For my part, I've tried to spend as much time as I can immersed in water: the bath, the sea, or dutifully plowing up and down the hotel swimming pool for an hour or so each day in the shadow of the palm trees.
The evenings are spent in conversation, sipping cocktails and playing backgammon at the bar, watching the dining room slowly fill up with the steady flow of new arrivals we otherwise never see.
Cyprus has been a welcoming host this past week, the people friendly, the weather perfect, finches, martins and sparrows chattering over the almost continuous hum of traffic along the coast road, whilst splashes of colour litter the trees and hedgerows. Whatever the doctor may have ordered, this has been perfect. I certainly never needed the hot stone massage I treated myself to, although I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Since that time we suffered at the hands of the April snow, adding 5 hours to the journey. With tiredness and frustration boiling over, looking back it was but another annoyance (funny how they all happen UK side), and from some of the stories I heard, we got of lightly.
It was more frustrating trying to get my pictures up on flickr.
I was asked before I left my old job, if anything would bring me back. After 3 days at TNA, I would say that I'd need to royally fuck things up to want to leave there for anywhere else right now. I haven't yet started work proper, we're in an intensive week of introductions, inductions and training, but it's like a dream come true...
Reading: Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon
Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Life In The Emerald City
James Lovelock's The Revenge Of Gaia
Stephen King's Duma Key
James Lovelock
I'm a fond believer in the idea that our lives are stories briefly scratched in time. Most chapters are merely ebbs and flows in the storyline, with only occasional plot twists that change your very direction both inside and out. If this is the case then one chapter has ended, another begun, and in between has been one of those inter-chapter bits usually written in italics.
What follows is the italics bit, written from the balcony of our room at the Hotel Kapetanios, Limassol, Cyprus on Saturday 6th April, although I've edited my notes to clean them up slightly.
I left BMC the way I guess most people leave jobs like mine; in a final flurry of trying to do everything, and in the end settling for whatever you've done being enough. After having had two months to think about my leaving speech, I managed to miss most of what I wanted to say. Not a bad metaphor for the weeks of (no doubt self-induced) stress that consumed me in the run up to day 0. And then, like that, it was done. The door closed, the chapter ended, the final full stop was placed.
I stand by my assertions that as a species, we're mainly solar powered. So a week in the sun seemed like a great idea to fill in the gap between chapters. Not least to recharge a few batteries. I have one of my oldest, dearest and best of friends and travelling companion to thank for that. That and a list of numbers off Teletext and a couple of hours on the phone.
The 3 hour delay leaving Gatwick was annoying at the time, but paltry compared to the Hellmouth unleashed upon travellers by BA that has been named Terminal 5. It was 6am when we finally climbed in to our room, and at 7 we were woken by thunder, lightning and torrential rain. 5 hours later when we woke again, there wasn't a cloud to be seen.
The hotel is situated off the main coast road, at the far end of Limassol's tourist drag of 4 and 5* chains that litter the grey sandy beaches, and close to the old town. Perfect for the slow, ambling walks we took in either direction. It would be a churlish fellow indeed, who might complain about our neat and tidy compound, where the 3*s on the box were raised an extra point by the staff and service.
Other than the aforementioned walks, our days have consisted of sitting in the sunshine, a cooling breeze keeping the clouds at bay, reading, sleeping and taking the occasional lunch in a local cafe where the free glasses of wine may have been taken as an apology for the hair in the food. For my part, I've tried to spend as much time as I can immersed in water: the bath, the sea, or dutifully plowing up and down the hotel swimming pool for an hour or so each day in the shadow of the palm trees.
The evenings are spent in conversation, sipping cocktails and playing backgammon at the bar, watching the dining room slowly fill up with the steady flow of new arrivals we otherwise never see.
Cyprus has been a welcoming host this past week, the people friendly, the weather perfect, finches, martins and sparrows chattering over the almost continuous hum of traffic along the coast road, whilst splashes of colour litter the trees and hedgerows. Whatever the doctor may have ordered, this has been perfect. I certainly never needed the hot stone massage I treated myself to, although I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Since that time we suffered at the hands of the April snow, adding 5 hours to the journey. With tiredness and frustration boiling over, looking back it was but another annoyance (funny how they all happen UK side), and from some of the stories I heard, we got of lightly.
It was more frustrating trying to get my pictures up on flickr.
I was asked before I left my old job, if anything would bring me back. After 3 days at TNA, I would say that I'd need to royally fuck things up to want to leave there for anywhere else right now. I haven't yet started work proper, we're in an intensive week of introductions, inductions and training, but it's like a dream come true...
Reading: Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon
Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Life In The Emerald City
James Lovelock's The Revenge Of Gaia
Stephen King's Duma Key
Sunday, March 09, 2008
This song happens on the highway
I caught Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at an HMV in-store last week. The next day I put the few pictures we took up on Flickr, and by the next morning had over 50 views.
I was quite surprised by this.
A number of things resulted:
- I started following the increasing views like the last minutes of a desperate eBay bid
- I bought myself a new camera
- I came up with the probably unoriginal idea of the Flickr band popularity rating
So I decided to work out how popular each band is based on how they fare on Flickr. The simple, and no doubt highly mathematically suspect equation for this is to take the number of views per band and divide them by the number of pictures. All figures are accurate as of about an hour ago.
I have 184 shots of 28 bands with 1288 views so far (the views don't include my own, or there's no way Kasabian would be up there at 3). The most shots I have is for Elbow at 35, and the highest number of views is Nick Cave at 257 and rising. But apply the maths and it's a very strange story indeed. So without further ado, on with the results. And the winner is:
Band / Shots / Views / Rating
1. Eels 1 / 34 / 34
2. The Mooney Suzuki 1 / 27 / 27
3. Kasabian 1 / 26 / 26
4. R.E.M. 6 / 143 / 23.8
5. Nick Cave 12 / 257 / 21.4
6. Weird War 1 / 11 / 11
7. Part Chimp 2 / 17 / 8.5
8. The Who 10 / 81 / 8.1
9. Okkervil River 22 / 162 / 7.3
10= Four Day Hombre 2 / 14 / 7
10= The Marshalls 1 / 7 / 7
12. Broken Family Band 3 / 19 / 6.3
13. Shirley Bassey 1 / 6 / 6
14. The Duke Spirit 27 / 146 / 5.4
15= Sun O))) 3 / 16 / 5.3
15= Earth 3 / 16 / 5.3
17. Elbow 35 / 161 / 4.6
18= Tinariwen 2 / 8 / 4
18= Ordinary Boys 2 / 8 / 4
18= Secret Machines 1 / 4 / 4
18= Mycodenamis:milo 1 / 4 / 4
18= Arcade Fire 1 / 4 / 4
18= Air 1 / 4 / 4
24. Maximo Park 16 / 53 / 3.3
25. Iced Earth 4 / 12 / 3
26= Lamb Of God 4 / 9 / 2.25
26= Super Furry Animals 4 / 9 / 2.25
27. Heaven & Hell 17 / 30 / 1.7
And yeah, I know I could have built a nice little HTML table to line everything up.
Anyway, that was fun. For me. Maybe this will take off. Maybe someone will develop a nice little Flickr tool to do the analysis using complex algorithms (or should it be algorhythms...) rather than a calculator.
My new camera should have arrived yesterday. It didn't.
Listening to: Neil Young's Greendale
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Living well's the best revenge
Friday was a tough one.
My final clearance arrived last Saturday, and on Tuesday I agreed a start date for my new job with the National Archive. I've been sitting on this for the last month, waiting for the clearances to go through, and it's not always been easy carrying on like nothing was happening, making plans that won't ever be realised, at least not by me.
It took a couple more days for the stars to fall in to alignment, at least, for my manager to be back in the office, and then the deed could be done. I handed my notice in. After 8 years in STM publishing (science-technical-medical), and 3 and a half at BMC (give or take a sabatical), I'm off and out in to the rest of the really real world.
It's a great job, great prospects, a huge challenge. It's not so much a step out of my comfort zone, more taking it apart with a Polaris missile. And yet I know this is the right move because at no time have I ever experienced any hesitation about taking it on. I have more trouble deciding what pants to wear in the morning.
None of which made telling either my team, or my friends there any easier. Judging from the looks on their faces, this was not expected. I've been on the flip side too many times not to know the score, smiley congratulations on the outside, feeling righteously pissed off on the in. Still, as Bryan said, there's never a good time to leave, but at least this is the least bad time. I still felt a little guilty though.
OR has been my baby. I may not have been there at conception, but I carried it, gave birth to it, nurtured it, and watched it grow. I was there when it took its first steps, when it said its first words, and watched it blossom into something none of us ever expected, beautiful and amazing.
But now, I'm afraid, mummy and daddy don't love each other any more, even though we still love the children. We'll remember Christmas and birthdays and we'll still talk, we just won't be seeing each other as much.
And if that duck outside keeps on quacking like it's doing, it's going to end up in a fucking sandwich.
My final clearance arrived last Saturday, and on Tuesday I agreed a start date for my new job with the National Archive. I've been sitting on this for the last month, waiting for the clearances to go through, and it's not always been easy carrying on like nothing was happening, making plans that won't ever be realised, at least not by me.
It took a couple more days for the stars to fall in to alignment, at least, for my manager to be back in the office, and then the deed could be done. I handed my notice in. After 8 years in STM publishing (science-technical-medical), and 3 and a half at BMC (give or take a sabatical), I'm off and out in to the rest of the really real world.
It's a great job, great prospects, a huge challenge. It's not so much a step out of my comfort zone, more taking it apart with a Polaris missile. And yet I know this is the right move because at no time have I ever experienced any hesitation about taking it on. I have more trouble deciding what pants to wear in the morning.
None of which made telling either my team, or my friends there any easier. Judging from the looks on their faces, this was not expected. I've been on the flip side too many times not to know the score, smiley congratulations on the outside, feeling righteously pissed off on the in. Still, as Bryan said, there's never a good time to leave, but at least this is the least bad time. I still felt a little guilty though.
OR has been my baby. I may not have been there at conception, but I carried it, gave birth to it, nurtured it, and watched it grow. I was there when it took its first steps, when it said its first words, and watched it blossom into something none of us ever expected, beautiful and amazing.
But now, I'm afraid, mummy and daddy don't love each other any more, even though we still love the children. We'll remember Christmas and birthdays and we'll still talk, we just won't be seeing each other as much.
And if that duck outside keeps on quacking like it's doing, it's going to end up in a fucking sandwich.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
I like it here
I've managed to catch up with quite a few old friends so far this year, which is more than I can say for my blogging. Anyway, it's been good to be out and about a little more than usual, traversing the country from Norwich to Cambridge, down to Finsbury Park and on onwards through Streatham to Crawley.
The only thing wrong with being both a non-driver and catching up with old friends is that you're subject to Sunday public transport. Or more accurately, traversing through the gaps in the schedules left by the various bouts of engineering works that currently blight my life like the thirteenth plague.
Getting home often involves a squirrel-like ingenuity combined with a level of strategic planning that's rarely applied to major global conflicts. It's not simply a case of things not running, it's all those shifting timetables you've missed seeing, and the often varied interpretations of what exactly is meant by every half an hour.
The great wildcard is, of course, the rail replacement bus. When will it leave? How often do they run? How long will the journey take? Of course, it only stops at the main stops. But that often seems to mean it takes the worst routes. So what if I take this tube to here, or an overland to there? Then I grab the other bus. But what if I miss the connection? Am I going to spend the best part of my day just trying to get somewhere, even anywhere? And is it really worth worrying about? Or should I just sit my arse down for however long it takes, plugged in to poddy, with the copy of 'Kevin Smith Speaks' that Gaz lent me? But then again, I don't want to spend any more time standing in front of Clapham Junction than I unavoidably have to.
Once I would wait patiently for hours on the side of a road, trying to thumb a lift.
Listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
The only thing wrong with being both a non-driver and catching up with old friends is that you're subject to Sunday public transport. Or more accurately, traversing through the gaps in the schedules left by the various bouts of engineering works that currently blight my life like the thirteenth plague.
Getting home often involves a squirrel-like ingenuity combined with a level of strategic planning that's rarely applied to major global conflicts. It's not simply a case of things not running, it's all those shifting timetables you've missed seeing, and the often varied interpretations of what exactly is meant by every half an hour.
The great wildcard is, of course, the rail replacement bus. When will it leave? How often do they run? How long will the journey take? Of course, it only stops at the main stops. But that often seems to mean it takes the worst routes. So what if I take this tube to here, or an overland to there? Then I grab the other bus. But what if I miss the connection? Am I going to spend the best part of my day just trying to get somewhere, even anywhere? And is it really worth worrying about? Or should I just sit my arse down for however long it takes, plugged in to poddy, with the copy of 'Kevin Smith Speaks' that Gaz lent me? But then again, I don't want to spend any more time standing in front of Clapham Junction than I unavoidably have to.
Once I would wait patiently for hours on the side of a road, trying to thumb a lift.
Listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
And I feel myself slipping away
Apparently I am:
37.55 years or
451 months or
95928 weeks or
13704 days or
328896 hours or
19733785 minutes or
1184027076 seconds or
118402707612 milliseconds old.
As of today.
I'm not sure about the minutes bit.
Listening to The Rainmakers' Skin
37.55 years or
451 months or
95928 weeks or
13704 days or
328896 hours or
19733785 minutes or
1184027076 seconds or
118402707612 milliseconds old.
As of today.
I'm not sure about the minutes bit.
Listening to The Rainmakers' Skin
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
One day a year like this should do me fine
And so the festival of Saint Valentine is upon us once again: a beautiful celebration of love between two (or more) people, or a hideously over-commercialised rampage through the flower beds of the world. If you've ever seen the roaring trade in icons in and around the Vatican, you'd think the Catholic Church would be happy to endorse the latter.
I'm still uncertain as to the level of my ambivalence towards this day. On the one hand I think it's good to indulge in a little over-indulgence with your partner, all cynicism aside. On the other, if you're having to cram that in to just one day a year, then I suggest you take a long hard look at the state of your life and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. But if there's money to be made and a song and dance to be had, then we're there.
So now the media can't give you enough ways to please your lover this February 14, to avoid that hideous predicament of the crushing blow of mis-managed expectations. Because get it wrong and the only people laying pipe round your way for some time to come will be the water board. No pressure folks, we're only hinting that your future happiness lies in how you fulfill your duties on this most auspicious of days, we don't really mean it. No wonder so many seem to think that switching off is the only safety net you have, and rightly so. Unfortunately, the anti-Valentines market seems to be an equally pointless kick in the other direction, and as someone wise once said: surely you should fight fire with water.
Now if you are single, well how's that for a comment on your sad, stinking, lonely, and very possibly grotesquely ugly existence? But that's ok, because there's a columnist out there waiting to jump to your defence with another 2000 words on how you're really comfortable with who you are, which is why you'll be renting SS Experiment Camp and eating cold pizza from your arse with some friend you really fucking hate, explaining to everyone you know how you're really comfortable with who you are, because you can't tell them that you'd rather be sitting at home sharpening knives, one for each member of the opposite sex that has done you wrong.
As usual, there's nothing more likely to make you feel different, than having it made VERY CLEAR to you that you're really not different at all.
Bitter? Not me. Love's about the only thing that really is better than sex. I'm waaaaaaay behind that one. But right now it feels like everyone's on the defensive, singles and couples. We're fighting a losing battle to meet the unholy expectations (and profit margins) of Messrs Hallmark, Thortons and InterFlora, not to mention their buddies in the luxury hotel market. Some days these fuckers tell more lies and cause more misery than Philip Morris.
Of course, there are loads and loads and loads and loads of folks who will just get on with their lives, unflustered by the blog posts, clippings and social instructions. I'm more than happy to get home tomorrow, stick a movie on, cook some food, ignore my email and go to bed. Although, I may cook first, then watch the movie, unless of course there's something good on the telly. I may or may not feel a twinge of sadness that there won't be (or at least is very highly unlikely to be) a naked body climbing in to bed next to me that I haven't procured Burke and Hare style. But perhaps no more than any other random day. To all those brandishing their trophy bouquets of undying and unrequited love, I wish you well, I truly do.
It is of course, far too much to ask that next year, we just let everyone get on with it, possibly only massive global nuclear devastation will sort that one. I'd like to think that we have the capacity to realise that if we stopped chasing someone else's idea of how we should be happy, we might just get on and be happy. But then again, I also own a copy of Poison's Greatest Hits.
Watching Elbow at Porchester Hall
I'm still uncertain as to the level of my ambivalence towards this day. On the one hand I think it's good to indulge in a little over-indulgence with your partner, all cynicism aside. On the other, if you're having to cram that in to just one day a year, then I suggest you take a long hard look at the state of your life and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. But if there's money to be made and a song and dance to be had, then we're there.
So now the media can't give you enough ways to please your lover this February 14, to avoid that hideous predicament of the crushing blow of mis-managed expectations. Because get it wrong and the only people laying pipe round your way for some time to come will be the water board. No pressure folks, we're only hinting that your future happiness lies in how you fulfill your duties on this most auspicious of days, we don't really mean it. No wonder so many seem to think that switching off is the only safety net you have, and rightly so. Unfortunately, the anti-Valentines market seems to be an equally pointless kick in the other direction, and as someone wise once said: surely you should fight fire with water.
Now if you are single, well how's that for a comment on your sad, stinking, lonely, and very possibly grotesquely ugly existence? But that's ok, because there's a columnist out there waiting to jump to your defence with another 2000 words on how you're really comfortable with who you are, which is why you'll be renting SS Experiment Camp and eating cold pizza from your arse with some friend you really fucking hate, explaining to everyone you know how you're really comfortable with who you are, because you can't tell them that you'd rather be sitting at home sharpening knives, one for each member of the opposite sex that has done you wrong.
As usual, there's nothing more likely to make you feel different, than having it made VERY CLEAR to you that you're really not different at all.
Bitter? Not me. Love's about the only thing that really is better than sex. I'm waaaaaaay behind that one. But right now it feels like everyone's on the defensive, singles and couples. We're fighting a losing battle to meet the unholy expectations (and profit margins) of Messrs Hallmark, Thortons and InterFlora, not to mention their buddies in the luxury hotel market. Some days these fuckers tell more lies and cause more misery than Philip Morris.
Of course, there are loads and loads and loads and loads of folks who will just get on with their lives, unflustered by the blog posts, clippings and social instructions. I'm more than happy to get home tomorrow, stick a movie on, cook some food, ignore my email and go to bed. Although, I may cook first, then watch the movie, unless of course there's something good on the telly. I may or may not feel a twinge of sadness that there won't be (or at least is very highly unlikely to be) a naked body climbing in to bed next to me that I haven't procured Burke and Hare style. But perhaps no more than any other random day. To all those brandishing their trophy bouquets of undying and unrequited love, I wish you well, I truly do.
It is of course, far too much to ask that next year, we just let everyone get on with it, possibly only massive global nuclear devastation will sort that one. I'd like to think that we have the capacity to realise that if we stopped chasing someone else's idea of how we should be happy, we might just get on and be happy. But then again, I also own a copy of Poison's Greatest Hits.
Watching Elbow at Porchester Hall
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Everybody here comes from somewhere
Seems to have been a very musical start to the year for me. I've picked up Sandy Denny's 4 studio albums, Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy and the new Black Mountain, and I've listened to more. I've seen Thistletown in a folk club in Euston, The Broken Family Band at the Cambridge Barfly, Okkervil River at the Scala, Dropkick Murphys in Norwich (don't ask) and hopefully Elbow this Tuesday in Queensway (cheers Ken). Okkervil may have laid down the benchmark, a stunning show, as passionate as Neil Young leaning into Old Black, but the sight of a stage full of student girls dancing up with the Murphys will keep me smiling for a while!
But somehow, I can't stop listening to the new R.E.M. single.
Listening to R.E.M.'s Supernatural Superserious
But somehow, I can't stop listening to the new R.E.M. single.
Listening to R.E.M.'s Supernatural Superserious
Saturday, February 02, 2008
An epiphanic vomiting of blood
I've just seen one of the funniest song titles I've come across in some time. It's off an album by some dirge-like noisemongers called Gnaw Their Tongues. The song's called: My body Is Not a Vessel, Nor a Temple. It's a Repulsive Pile of Sickness
Genius.
Genius.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Next year - there will be - many flowers
I was bored, browsing my phone on a homeward bound commute last week when I found this note. It doesn't say when it was written or how drunk* I was when I wrote it:
Iron maiden new york new job londonist wood boat ducks swans sleep madness music love
If this is some kind of todo list, then I'm not doing too badly so far.
* I know I must have been drunk because there's no punctuation.
Listening to: Sandy Denny: Northstar Grassman and the Ravens
Iron maiden new york new job londonist wood boat ducks swans sleep madness music love
If this is some kind of todo list, then I'm not doing too badly so far.
* I know I must have been drunk because there's no punctuation.
Listening to: Sandy Denny: Northstar Grassman and the Ravens
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Crying out again as my bones break
There's no better way to ruin a perfectly good holiday than to go back to work and I've been humming a bad case of the back-to-work blues of late.
At least we haven't flooded. Mother Thames has been running high and heavy, hard and fast. The water somersaulting around my head at night has been simultaneously keeping me awake before driving me to the deepest of sleeps. We'll see what rain the week brings, perhaps I'll be able to call work to say I can't come in as I'm stranded.
I'm less inclined to laugh at the rising tide after watching When The Levees Broke, Spike Lee's moving documentary on the events and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I'm left thinking yet again how nature Is. The mark of any natural disaster then, surely is not the force of the destruction, but our reaction to it. If only there were a God, for how else will the 'righteous souls' in the Federal Government be adequately punished for their actions; or rather lack of them. What was it the guy said again about planks and eyes?
Daisy Scissorpaws, once resident of these parts.
Listening to Feeder: Yesterday went too soon
At least we haven't flooded. Mother Thames has been running high and heavy, hard and fast. The water somersaulting around my head at night has been simultaneously keeping me awake before driving me to the deepest of sleeps. We'll see what rain the week brings, perhaps I'll be able to call work to say I can't come in as I'm stranded.
I'm less inclined to laugh at the rising tide after watching When The Levees Broke, Spike Lee's moving documentary on the events and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I'm left thinking yet again how nature Is. The mark of any natural disaster then, surely is not the force of the destruction, but our reaction to it. If only there were a God, for how else will the 'righteous souls' in the Federal Government be adequately punished for their actions; or rather lack of them. What was it the guy said again about planks and eyes?
Daisy Scissorpaws, once resident of these parts.Listening to Feeder: Yesterday went too soon
Monday, January 14, 2008
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