Archive for February, 2009

6 times 6…

Saturday, February 28th, 2009


It was my birthday so we went to visit James in Almost-Warrington…
chintz
Hotel Chintz still had the amazing decor. The flowery borders had flowery borders.
Cat
James with Bonnie the cat who reminded me of Anne Robinson. She winked at me but nobody saw.

We had a lovely pub dinner where I discovered that a Super Side Salad is not all that super (thanks for asking), I was given a lovely pen and chocolate bar, we played a lot of rounds of Buzz! and watched several old episodes of Liquid News

All you get on BBC Three nowadays is Sheridan Smith’s tits (my own Google Analytics Chartbuster!) and shows where people with low self asteem get naked. Damn you!

Peak District
On the way home via The Scenic Route of the Peak District. Peaky indeed.
road
Peaks! And roads and arrows. We then stopped off in Chesterfield where we bought some organic food for we are snobby bastards. Then we came home. The end.

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Bong!

Friday, February 27th, 2009


Some ‘news’ highlights from today’s Mail. I am too lazy for a bigger blog as I am going to actually leave the house today for a trip “Up North”, whatever that means…

doggie
Cancer Dog sniffs out cancer but you’ll have to let him get rather intimate with all your bits.
coffee sun
If you do not own a Cancer Collie, I recommend smearing cappuccino on yourself before going out. No sprinkles please.
radioactive
Radioactive Paedophile really should have been an illegal immigrant too.
ivf
Lesbians only pay Gay Taxes so cannot use the NHS for IVF like proper girls.
Romeo
I would have gone with “Homeo and Juliet” personally.

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London Conversations (no, not that album)

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009


I went to London today and felt old, not in a “woe iz me I iz old” way. Got off at Tottenham Court Road and saw the Zavvi had gone… I remember when it was a Virgin Megastore that had a comics section on the first floor which must surely have been in the 80s. Bloody hell! Walked around the corner to find the top part of Charing Cross Road had now all been closed to make way for the new Super Station thing so no more Astoria (in a ‘seeing indie bands’ sense, never a ‘fun night at G.A.Y’ sense) , no more Orbital Comics with funky stuff in that basement next to the kebabby place, no more useless cybercafe that used to be the bookshop where I got all those Preachers (the graphic novels, not a shouty fire & brimstone man) in the mid-90s. Added Murder One to the list of deceased indie bookshops (I still miss Comic Showcase and its funny smell) but we paid a visit to the new Orbital Comics (in what was The Photographers’ Gallery! What?) which made up for all the melancholy. It was like being in a Saint Etienne song or something.

Bah. I am 36 on Saturday but quite happy.

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Nazi Handbags At Dawn!

Monday, February 23rd, 2009


So here’s the thing: Mad Mel Phillips calls the BNP “odious” and I have to agree with her for the first time in my life. Even though she added all her usual tiresome waffle as if by magic article-writing formula… Cue a bombardment of Mail readers disagreeing with her in the comments section and any mention of them being dodgy unpleasant fascists shouted down…

1
They have a Jew? Then they cannot possibly be racist. I wonder what their Jew thinks of the whole holocaust denial case and wanking over photos of Uncle Adolf?

2
10 Irony points for Arthur.

3
I like Emma. She really tried. 471 thumbs down is very impressive.
I had to have my say:

4
They didn’t like that. But then I have been brainwashed by ZaNuLieBore or whatever they are called today.

5
Who’s being raped? By which parasites? Sounds rather deviant to me. More irony points for the emigrate or vote BNP choice. Hardly cake or death.

My pal the writer bloke joined in…

6
I have far more red thumbs than Mark. I win!
I even have my own non-fan:

7
That’s me told then. Good day to you, sir.

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Welcome to the Dollhouse…

Monday, February 23rd, 2009


New telly!
Dollhouse

Dollhouse episode 1 was merely adequate and didn’t really grip me like it should. Episode 2 was much better and could almost have been the premiere, if a couple of those pilot scenes had been added. Much more interesting stuff with back story on the dolls, the Very Bad Thing and some nice running, jumping and arrowing. It seems like most of the old Buffy boffins are involved in this show and this week featured not one but two Galactica actors (you’ll have to watch to see who the les-publicised second one was). With Katee Sackhoff currently playing a resurrected season 1 Kara Thrace with similar issues over in Nip/Tuck and Jamie Bamber being a main star in the British Law & Order starting this week I feel like the BSGs are everywhere. Dollhouse still feels a bit wrong, what with the premise of the show being a bit dumb and it looking like Wolfram & Hart’s LA offices had a bit of a makeover and have now branched out into imprinting false personalities onto people for peculiar reasons. I’ll stick with it as I have faith. No pun intended.

Next week’s episode looks a bit camp and stoopid:

United States of Tara is a new show from Showtime about a woman who has multiple personalities (or dissociative identity disorder to be more scientific) played by Toni Collette (who will always be Muriel to me) and her family who behave in that Showtime kind of way (see Weeds for what I mean) and is created by Diablo ‘ Juno’ Cody aka the less evil sounding Brook Busey.
United States of Tara
Reviewed via Facebook:
19:52 Dan is watching the first episode of that Diablo Cody show from Showtime and going “um er erm…”
19:55 So far… the personality is annoying. 19:55
19:56 The personality is actually an annoying teenage girl. Hmmm…. what range.
20:00 Oh no! The teenage daughter is going out with an Alan! (and why am I treating Facebook like Twitter?)
20:09 Next personality: Redneck gun loving man…
20:39 Episode 2 is better. Buster from Arrested Development is the English teacher…
20:48 2nd Eels track! 3rd personality: Stepford wife.
22:21 Episode 4: Gay son has a crush on sinister dude, Stroppy teenage daughter gets a job in a resturant… I am still watching it…

Episodes 5 and 6 were good too, with a scarily realistic family meal/confrontation. Whoops.

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Another musical meme: edit!

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009


I did the 15 albums that changed your life meme on Facebook yesterday but chose 50 as a they all affected my life in different ways. I tried to edit it to the stated level…

Oh no, only managed to trim to 20. Oh well… and with mini notes:

Tori Amos: From The Choirgirl Hotel
I had always liked Tori but this made me love her and spend a bit of cash on obscurities.

Antony and the Johnsons: I Am A Bird Now
Expanded my musical brain but I did not go all transexual.

Bjork: Debut
That woman from the Sugarcubes made a record, I even bought the t-shirt.

Neneh Cherry: Raw Like Sushi
Like someone stole my thoughts and created my perfect popstar.

Ani Difranco: Dilate
Student years:latter days, discovered via my flatmate’s impressive collection.

Eurythmics: Savage
The perfect blend of synth pop and mad wigs.

Everything But The Girl: Walking Wounded
A little bit of drum and bass transformed an “I don’t mind” into an “I bloody love.”

Human League: Dare
My first album. Still brilliant.

McAlmont & Butler: The Sound of McAlmont & Butler
Just bloody brillaint old-new-sounding record. Together much better than their still-good separate sounds.

Aimee Mann: Bachelor No. 2
Some songs from that Magnolia soundtrack, swoon.

Massive Attack: Blue Lines
I was a bit obsessed with them before they went mega. Still play this on scratchy old vunyl.

Pet Shop Boys: Actually
Gotta have a PSB on the list. I got a tape of this from someone at school.

Propaganda: A Secret Wish
Germanic scary synth music that worried my parents.

Saint Etienne: So Tough
Love most of their albums but this reminds me of learning to drive.

Sia: Colour The Small One
SOme of my favourite songs in recent times.

Soul II Soul: Club Classics Volume One
The album of 1989. Loved their radio show too.

Suede: Coming Up
I got into them late. Played at all the gay indie clubs when it was released.

Tricky: Maxinquaye
Bests Portishead, slightly. Went to an early gig, friend crashed his car, some of us still attended and I bought him a t-shirt as a consolation prize.

Rufus Wainwright: Want
Poncey but great. Got into him late too.

Patrick Wolf: The Magic Position
Another latecomer but this got played to death, I blame the mp3 bloggers.

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Another musical meme

Saturday, February 21st, 2009


It’s another one of those memes from Facebook. Here are the instructions:

Think of 15 albums, CDs and/or LPs that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the wazoo, literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean. Then when you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you’re it!

I really tried to pick 15 albums. Ended up with 50, and that was after a big edit. Damnit!

In alphabetical order because that’s how I found them in the massive CD piles in the house today:

Ryan Adams: Heartbreaker
Tori Amos: From The Choirgirl Hotel
Antony and the Johnsons: I Am A Bird Now
Bjork: Debut
Boy George:Cheapness & Beauty
Kate Bush: Hounds of Love
Neneh Cherry: Raw Like Sushi
Ani Difranco: Dilate
Divine Comedy: A Secret History
Dubstar: Disgraceful
DJ Shadow: Endtroducing
Siobhan Donaghy: Ghosts
Eels: Beautiful Freak
Eurythmics: Savage
Everything But The Girl: Walking Wounded
Goldfrapp: Seventh Tree
Gomez: How We Operate
Human League: Dare
Janet Jackson: Janet
Keane: Perfect Symmetry
Lamb: Lamb
Luscious Jackson: Natural Ingredients
McAlmont & Butler: The Sound of McAlmont & Butler
Aimee Mann: Bachelor No. 2
Massive Attack: Blue Lines
Moloko: things To Make and Do
Morcheeba: Big Calm
Roisin Murphy: Overpowered
Meshell Ndegeocello: Plantation Lullabies
Pet Shop Boys: Actually
Pipettes: We Are The Pipettes
Portishead: Dummy
Prince: Crystal Ball
Propaganda: A Secret Wish
Pulp: This Is Hardcore
Radiohead: The Bends
Raissa: Believer
Robyn: Robyn
Saint Etienne: So Tough
Sia: Colour The Small One
Soft Cell: Non Stop Erotic Cabaret
Soul II Soul: Club Classics Volume One
Rachel Stevens: Come and Get It
Suede: Coming Up
Tracy Thorn: Out of the Woods
Tricky: Maxinquaye
Rufus Wainwright: Want
Amy Winehouse: Frank
Patrick Wolf: The Magic Position
Zero 7: The Garden

It’s more of an ‘albums you played to death’ list but the quantity is most definitely related to the quality for me. I could have written notes about each one but that would have been a bit much…

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Albums Club!

Friday, February 20th, 2009


Been buying stuff again…
War Child

Warchild’s Heroes album is here! It’s a nice load of cover versions for charity but in a way that once again makes for a good CD that is well worth buying. I remember that first Warchild album and feel momentarily old again. This new one has some duff ideas (The Kooks do Victoria is totally unnecessary but then it is The Kooks) but some lovely pop moments are here: Scissor Sisters do Do The Strand in a sparkly way as you would expect, Lily Allen hits the spot again on Straight To Hell with Mick Jones and Greg Kurstin, Duffy (star of this wek’s Duffy Awards) does Live And Let Die with a bit of McAlmont and Butler magic, Rufus Wainwright does two songs for the price of one (from Brian Wilson’s Smile) in the usual Rufusy style …but I can take or leave Peaches as usual though. The woman not the fruit. Or that Geldof bint. Or that song about millions of them. Or…

Panto

One of the other new albums to arrive through the letterbox today is Empire Of The Sun’s Walking On A Dream. It’s very pretty in a slightly becoming tiresome wanking over the 1980s way, but it’s got some good tracks that I had heard quite a lot already (Walking On A Dream, We Are The People, Standing On The Shore). Some of the lesser known ones are a bit average but I like the weird one (Delta Bay) that sounds like a cartoon theme in places and reminds me of Sir Bernard Chumley for some reason. It’s a good pop album for those retro-inclined types such as myself, I just wish the image wouldn’t get more attention than the sounds.

Et

Finally: Saint Etienne’s London Conversations is here! Totally recommended even if you have the albums as it exists in a lovely hardback book with 2 CDs and a DVD format. Perfect present for anyone who likes good pop music, a lovely bit of musical melancholy or even anyone who has ears. Also good for those people who like to see music videos gradually get more expensive after starting out endearingly cheap.

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Cancer of the Facebook

Thursday, February 19th, 2009


What a golden Daily Mail Thursday this is…

Zoinks!

Cancer!

Social networking sites such as Facebook could raise your risk of serious health problems by reducing levels of face-to-face contact, a doctor claims. Emailing people rather than meeting up with them may have wide-ranging biological effects, said psychologist Dr Aric Sigman.

Hang on. Apart from being balls why is this psychologist going down the “I reckon” path about biological effects?

Increased isolation could alter the way genes work and upset immune responses, hormone levels and the function of arteries. It could also impair mental performance. This could increase the risk of problems as serious as cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia, Dr Sigman says in Biologist, the journal of the Institute of Biology.

Dr Sigman thinks that it’s Facebook or go outside, sit at a computer or move around, black or white. He may not be right. He thrn reckoned things about physical interraction being on the decrease, which is the fault of those evil interwebs.

“In less than two decades, the number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled. Parents spend less time with their children than they did only a decade ago. Britain has the lowest proportion of children in all of Europe who eat with their parents at the table. The proportion of people who work at home alone continues to rise. I am worried about where this is all leading.”

I have a table but no children. I am bloody well doomed.

Meanwhile, it was more doom and gloom to go with my Facebook Cancer…

wine cancer
No wine for me then. Mail readers were not amused:

I give up. I might as well stop eating or drinking anything as all the medical researchers have said at one time or another they are all unhealthy. Over the past decade or so it seems that every week there’s another U turn on life style choices to the point that people might as well ignore these so called professionals. Would the medical profession please go away to a remote island somewhere and do some serious research for a change. When you’re absolutely certain just what we can or can’t eat or drink to remain healthy, come out of hiding, publish your results and leave it at that. Thanks !
Click to rate Rating +85 Mike, Alicante, Spain, 18/2/2009 11:14

Rather than go on a hunger strike like Mike I’ll just take the Express’ advice:
express
Two coffees a day cut the risk of a stroke. I call that a fair deal!

Also: Diana is back! Secret letters are never going to be shown to anyone! Because we made it up!

When is He Is A Fanatic Now Get Him Out Of Here coming to ITV?

Duffy! Lady! Blonde! Reasonably Attractive! Awards! Yawn!

Back to the Mail:
gay city roller
LOLz all round for the headline there.

You couldn’t tell he was gay by his photos. He could be the Marlboro man with all his ruggedness. I hope his wife can stand by him as no fool would marry such a flamboyant man without having some suspicions. Hopefully they can make it work.
Rating +1 Jess, Arizona, US, 18/2/2009 17:56

That’s that sorted then.

vera
This is a bit embarrassing as the readers all seem to be raving BNPers who thumb down any nice people:

Oh the irony. Songs we associate with a war to defeat an unspeakable evil being used to promote a party who would crush Britain beneath their own jackboot. This is not what the WW2 generation fought and died for.
Rating -303
Rich Edwards, Leeds, UK, 18/2/2009 12:48

303 red thumbs down?

I’m surprised at Dame Vera. I thought she of all people would be above this sort of politically correct nonsence. Besides, the song was written to rally the hearts of the British….is that now so terribly wrong?
Rating +263 Kathy Gilbert, Yorkshire., 18/2/2009 13:12

Are we still allowed to refer to them as the WHITE cliffs of Dover, then?
Rating +318 Pierre de Rochefort, La Rochelle, France, 18/2/2009 13:26

Bonus LOLz for the excellent pseudonym there. Mr Cheese from the place in the Tricolore textbooks. I know it’s a real place too (a friend comes from there) but what wit!

And finally, Mad Melanie Phillips decides that the police were never institutionaly racist because she is white and knows so:
mel

It is nothing other than institutional intimidation, a kind of McCarthyism which, because it is based on a fundamental lie, can produce an Orwellian state of affairs where truth and lies, right and wrong are turned on their heads and injustice, far from being stamped out, actually increases. So it has proved.

She’s going gaga for the big words again.

To protect themselves from the dread taint of racism the police turned themselves inside out to become the coercive arm of the culture of political correctness – which meant downplaying crime by minorities on the grounds that they were the victims of racism and targeting instead white people on the grounds that they were institutionally guilty of racial hatred.

Is this remotely true? As usual Mel does not show her workings.

Commenters went a bit doo-lally over this:

The Police are no more institutionally racist than any other organisation in the UK. Which is not to say that they are not. This country, like so many others (France and Italy in particular) has a problem with race. It’s an ingrained way of thinking that is not going to go away in 10, 15 years. Give it a hundred and see where we stand. The latest twist in it is the nonsensical claim by people who say that now white people are the only ones to suffer racism at the hands of institutions. People feel disenfranchised, and so they lash out at others they perceive to be receiving a better deal. They have not walked in the shoes of a young black male who is stopped weekly by the police, or an asian female who can never make it through customs without being body searched.
Rating -134 Kelly, London, 18/2/2009 13:00

134 red thumbs down. Well done.
All our public services are institutionally racist – they hate white people born of English parents.
Rating +145 Steve Jacks, London, 18/2/2009 14:05

145 green thumbs up. I am so angry about all the horrid racism I face every day for being white so I can sympathise.

If the Police are racist then surely it has the Black Police Association to thank, after all there is not a White Police Association.
Rating +126 Pickles, Lincolnshire, 18/2/2009 14:25

My favourite old “I’m not racist but…” argument! 10 points for originality and brains.

Tomorrow: Those records that came through the letter box – Any good?

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Twitterings…

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009


I am addicted…
1
2
Hurrah for Twitter, the geek’s natural environment.

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