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

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.

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...

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.

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