Speaking with the behemoth

I called Microsoft tech support Wednesday. I was working on my laptop when I received a pop up notice telling me I needed to activate Windows. Not strange? Well it is, as my laptop is over a year and a half old and I activated Windows when I bought it. I tried the activation and received a message that I was using an invalid Windows key; the key is on the bottom of my laptop and is perfectly valid.

I first called HP as was recommended in the message, the PC is of course out of warranty so they didn’t care. “Call Microsoft” was the very unhelpful reply “it’s not a hardware issue”. So I called MS.

You can imagine my trepidation calling the corporate monster that is Microsoft, but actually it was OK. The HP guy had given me the wrong number of course and I was transferred to the Key Generation Department. I explained my issues and after some time was given a new Key by a very helpful person….that didn’t work. I was transferred again to someone not so helpful who disconnected my call. At this time I started to believe the tech support horror stories, but I called back anyway and was given the tech support number.

The operator gave me my options:

1) Call HP….yeah, I did that and they sent me to you.
2) Look for solutions on line……did, didn’t get one.
3) Pay a small fee for technical support….OK; guess that’s my only option. (I suppose that this is a good time to mention that Windows 7 was being delivered the next day, and I wouldn’t be able to upgrade unless my current Windows version was active).

So, after just a minute or so I got to speak to a real life Microsoft support technician. This is where I was surprised, he was very helpful!

It took a while but he identified the problem, it seems my registration files had been corrupted during a software install (I’m guessing it was the Java update that had happened a few hours before). I gave him access to my PC, he re-installed the files and asked me to enter the new Windows key and hey presto……it didn’t work. He explained that the key had probably been used too many times and expired, put me on hold, and went to get a new key. The server was down he said….it would be about an hour but he would call me back.

Sure enough, about an hour later I got a call with the new key. I entered the key nervously and….well…..IT WORKED! I thanked the nice man and went on with my life.

Windows 7 duly arrived the next day and has installed wonderfully. I’ll see how it goes and write in the future, but thus far it’s very nice!

Radio Radio

I never listen to the radio anymore; there are a couple of reasons for this.

1) The radio here in the US is far two specialized and politicized to be of interest. Music stations play only one kind of music, i.e. “Modern Rock” or “Country” or “College Rock”. I find this most annoying. One thing about radio in the UK when I was younger was that it was very eclectic. You could here five songs from five genres in a row and not find it odd.

The talk radio stations are the same. Conservative or Liberal they are designed to allow people to listen to only what they already agree with. This leads to a culture of mistrust and schismatic attitudes. It’s a “throw them some meat and watch them fight over it” way of selling advertising time. Very distasteful.

2) I tried internet radio. This includes the likes of Pandora (which I have given my opinion on previously in this forum), and UK radio, particularly BBC 6Music (which was great in the early days but has now homogenized into blah.

Pandora and its ilk is again too specialized, you select Captain Beefheart and that’s what you get (even when Captain Beefheart isn’t on, via hi many art rock clones). Live streams can be better but the chance of getting quality when you need it is pretty slim, especially with time zone issues.

So what to do. Well switch off the radio and make a point of discovering interesting things yourself. I find Emusic very useful for this; it forces the browser to be made aware of music never before heard of. And don’t be afraid to listen to new stuff, you’ll be surprised how much fun the world outside your comfort zone can be.

Building up The Walls

Yes! The walls are finally up! I drove the last drywall screw and started taping the joints yesterday. I thought I would never get there (at one point I thought I would run out of drywall and have to buy more, but was rescued by some leftovers from a previous project). I have cleaned up and now have to dispose of the scraps of wall board that are left.

This weekend I hope to get some joint compound up and look to purchasing the trim. I started looking at flooring today too. Hello! Are you still awake?

Jiggery Pokery in VA

The Virginia trip went well and a good time was had by all. I did manage to have a very short blast of Bruce as we hit the New Jersey turnpike in the closing minutes of Friday night which was most exciting, although the Duckworth Lewis Method was far more dominant in playing time.

Our friends were as wonderful and generous as ever as we stayed at their place for two nights, feeding us well and providing copious amounts of beer and wine. On Saturday we went to Wegmans supermarket in Fredericksburg, what a shop!!! It’s no secret that I am a foodie and this place was heavenly. We purchased two large rockfish that, some wonderful lamb and the juiciest filet mignon that you have ever laid your starry eyes upon, I later grilled the lot and oh what a bountiful feast it was. We bought sushi for lunch and I stuffed myself silly. I would seriously consider moving south just to have regular access to this gastronomical wonderland; they even have a seafood restaurant bang in the middle, complete with raw bar and wine tasting!

Sunday we went for a trip to the Luray Caverns in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. The caves are huge with amazing formations, being a tourist attraction it was of course expensive to get in, but the little one did get in for free. Besides, my dear friends had been so generous over the weekend that this was pretty much the only time I spent any money.

All in all it was a fantastic trip. We had some traffic issues around about New York City as you would expect, but the GPS proved its value. We also got to drive trough Harlem and The Bronx on the way back, how exciting!

Today - LBW

This week I downloaded The Duckworth Lewis Method, what a corker! The name applies to both the record and the band, the band being Thomas Walsh of the band Pugwash (of whom I know absolutely nothing), and Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy (of whom I am a big fan).

Another concept album, I seem to listen to little else lately, its theme being cricket (yes cricket) and is very Divine Comedyesque indeed. I’ve not listened to the whole thing yet, but the standout track for me so far is Jiggery Pokery, a wonderful piece of commentary concerning a sneaky young Australian bowler and an out foxed experienced batsman. “Out for a buggering duck” must be one of the most expressive lines ever written, and it mentions Dickie Bird as any good cricket based pop music should. Get this record.

Last Friday

Another weekend approaches. A busy one coming up, that bloody room still needs finishing (I have started putting the walls up) but there always seems to be something else to do. When I do get going on the work it’s never as easy as I thought it would be, I know, a surprise right? A one hundred year old house is never square, and by that I don’t mean that it’s a hep cat daddyo. No, there are weird angles and a wall is eighty six inches high at one end and eighty five and a half at the other. This means that everything takes longer than it should, and is very VERY frustrating!

But I am getting there, and will fight the stupid walls until I have won!

In 275 Miles Turn Left

Got a GPS this week and joined the SatNav generation. We are travelling to Virginia to visit friends soon and I didn’t want to end up in The Bronx on the way south.

It’s funny how my perception of distance and time has changed since moving to the US. In the UK you can travel across the country in 5 hours. Towns and cities that are twenty minutes apart can be radically different culturally, with completely different accents and customs. Here in the US any trip under ten hours is considered a local visit, my Texan friend informs me that he thought nothing of driving for fourteen hours from Austin to see a band!

I still get jittery at the thought of an eight hour trip, which is the Virginia run. But this country is so big that a change of perception is a necessity. You can fly of course, but apart from the ridiculous price of internal flights, the wait at the airport each end can result in eight or nine hours travel anyway. Then there’s the travel to and parking at the airport to consider.

So it’ll be on with the Garmin and a blast of Bruce as we cross New Jersey. Even now I get a twinge of excitement travelling to and through places that were only in movies and songs when I was growing up.

What did Delaware? Why, her New Jersey of course.

W1

Out of pointless curiosity I was browsing properties for rent in West London. The first place I looked at was a mere £25,000 per week, YES, WEEK!

I should imagine that this would make a nice little shack for an oil magnet or over pampered rock or movie star. But even if you wanted to lay out the silly sum of 25K per week, how could you sleep there? I mean, knowing that this was probably one of the debauched dens frequented by Keith Richards during his opiate singed frazzle fests in the late 60’s. This place is probably the site of the (in)famous Marianne Faithful incident, and I’m sure that in one of the pictures you can see truncheon marks on a door that London’s finest lads in blue had burst open.

Seriously though, £25,000 per week? This is a year salary for most British folk and an extravagance that should have died out with the God forsaken Thatcher years. I suppose the land on New Labour isn’t so radically different to the land of Neo Conservatism after all.

Now, where’s that letting agencies telephone number?

Tearing Down the Walls

I have been remodeling the spare bedroom in our house. We are expecting a second addition to our family in February, and also the room had water damage due to a chimney leak.

The remodel involves taking out the horse hair plaster and slats that make up the wall (our house is a hundred years old), this is a very unpleasant and dirty process. So, we hired a dumpster (Br-Eng Skip) and I proceeded to demolish. Four days and a ton of materiel later the room was stripped to the studs ready for re-build.

I am in the process of insulating and should start getting the walls up this weekend. I am against the clock, winter and a new baby are on the way. More to come.....

Most animals are trained young, some of us never lie down

The Liberty of Norton Folgate by Madness is a joy. This record is released when the band have been performing for thirty years or more. Simply put this is the record of the year, as well as being the bands album of their career.

I came to this record late, after hearing the odd comment here and there about the quality. I’m always weary of hype, which is what drew me to this, the lack of hype. It’s a quiet masterpiece, which passes my biggest quality test, that after the first listen you feel that you’ve known these songs all your life.

I suppose it’s a concept album, something that has become somewhat less embarrassing to admit than when I was a teenager. Jim Bob’s albums these days seem to be concept albums too. The difference with these, as opposed to the self indulgent pap of the 1970’s, is that a point is being made and not pushed. Madness clearly love London, and when Suggs sings “We Are London” he’s right.

Madness have succeeded in producing something that is hard to produce these days, an entire album. Radiohead (who I love) seem to have given up on this medium.

Thom Yorke stated after the recent free download release of Harry Patch (In Memory Of) that albums have just become a “drag” for the band. I assume that he means they would rather record and release songs as and when they feel like it via the web. This is fine by me; I would download a recording of Radiohead burping God Save The Queeen, but is it the same as a complete album, or LP as I still like to think of it?

An album to me is a collection of songs (usually a mix of good, not so good, and awful) that captures a band / artist at a moment in time. OK Computer is a perfect example of this, I listened to it again recently and overall it’s not as good as most people remember it to be. But it does capture Radiohead at that time.

An odd song here and there may actually produce a higher quality output, but all sense of time and space is lost. The big thing about getting a record home was sitting down for the first time and listening to it all the way through. This is a dead concept, something not lost on most of todays artists, it’s all about the quick hit. Thankfully Madness have rejected this premise and and made a classic. God bless ‘em!

Don't Count

How many times a day do you check the time? I am a clock watcher, always have been. I was wondering today how much time I spend checking the time. Probably hours every year.

This led me to wondering how much of my life has passed while I was doing nothing. For instance, being a tech geek I have spent many hours staring at a computer screen, counting the percentage bars as I installed the latest version of Windows or some other unnecessary piece of software. And as for Windows, how many more hours have I wasted sitting and waiting for Microsoft’s devil child to start up?

I take the train each day, around two hours round trip. That’s ten hours a week, or five hundred plus hours a year sitting on a train. I am on that very train as I type this. At least I am doing something semi constructive by writing this.

And if you are reading this, you have just wasted a few precious minutes that you will never get back. Depressing? Well no not really, we have limited time on Earth but even if we were busy all the time it would still be worthless in the end. As I always say, in a hundred years no one will care what any of us did. Now that’s depressing.

Boston, Wales

Cardiff is a wonderful city and there are many things I miss about not living there. Two of the most missed are good pubs and kebabs from Caroline Street. These cravings can both be satisfied now though in Boston. The pub issue is covered by JJ Foley’s in downtown, the kebab by Sultans Kitchen on State Street.

Foley’s reminds me somewhat of The Park Vaults in Cardiff, although not quite as smelly and dingy. You can get a decent pint, yes a real pint not measured in ounces as is the annoying norm here. They even have cider on tap, usually when cider is asked for here you get presented with a glass of cloudy apple juice. This is to be expected of course, it’s a tomay-toe tomahh-toe thing, rather like when a friend of mine from Rhode Island visited Wales with us and asked for a glass of lemonade. They also serve a decent pint of Guinness, something that you expect for a Boston pub but not always true.

Sultans Kitchen is run by a Turkish fellow and serve all manner of Turkish and eastern med food. The doner kebab is a little extravagant compared to the Caroline Street meat based delicacy, coming as it does with rice pilaf and having a description of what the meat actually is! You can’t wander in drunk at 2 AM of course, but hey, you can’t have everything right? Besides, I live thirty odd miles south of Boston so that wouldn’t be possible anyway.

So there you have it, the world is shrinking and is seems that nothing is out of reach anymore. It’s like going on vacation / holiday and taking the laptop, you’re never out of touch. As was mentioned on The Word podcast, there’s always somewhere with Wi-Fi.

Oh yeah, I do miss my family and friends too of course. Sorry!

Ted Kennedy

Ted Kennedy died yesterday age 77. A giant in Massachusetts, US and world politics his shadow will be cast over us all for a long time to come.

He was the last of the legendary generation of the Kennedy family, outliving by many years the iconic John F. and Robert. His brothers shone brightly only to have their lives stolen away too soon by fanatics, Ted carried on their work however and has changed the US forever for the better.

RIP Teddy. The world is a better place because of you.

Y-E-T

There are a number of commonly used words in the English (and I should imagine other) languages that when repeated or over analyzed begin to sound rather odd.

This struck me again when I used the word “yet” just the other day. Strange indeed that the continued use of the word “yet” only serves to make one wonder if it is being spelled (is that right or is it spelt? ahhhh) correctly.

Yet (see) I wonder why this should be. Such a basic common word as “yet” should cause little confusion surely. It is used many times during conversation, prose and reportage and yet (starting to see it yet?) messes with the brain.

For such a simple word it also has a number of distinct uses, i.e. “Are we there yet?”, “Yet another use of the word “yet””, “Yet I fail to see the purpose of this nonsense”.

Another example of this strange effect is “sew”. Surely this should be spelt (spelled again…ahhhh) “sow” if used in “I’ll just sew it up” or “Sewing needle”. But there it is again, “sow” is of course not pronounced “so”, “so” is. “Sow” is pronounced s-ow (I can’t think of a better way to spell s-ow phonetically.

Annoying isn’t it, yet strangely compelling.

There are of course thousands of these, although I am far too lazy to go into it any further at this time. I would however encourage all to be very careful to avoid over analysis of everyday language, for fear of driving oneself insane. Please take these things with a grain of salt (or a spelt of wheat).

In the words of Samuel Beckett “ ”.

Equestrian Rock’n’Roll

The recent expansion of e-music is a wonderful thing. I have been a member for a couple of years now, and although the range of music available for my $12 a month was huge and fitted my needs to a tee, it is nice to be able to access more commercial music. It is also giving me an option to expand my collection of classics.

I recently downloaded and have been continually listen to Horses by Patti Smith. Although I am intensely aware of the influence of this record, and very familiar with its content, I hadn’t actually listened to it in what must be 25 years. It is of course a work of genius.

Gloria is probably one of the greatest opening tracks of all time, and still sends shivers down the spine, sounding as fresh as ever (this was recorded in 1975 remember, and could sound dated).

Redondo Beach is bloody marvelous, although I had become more familiar with Morrissey’s version in recent times.

Throughout the whole album Patti is inspirational and scary, loving and aloof. I haven’t followed her music, being so young at the time there was so much else to hold on to. Because The Night is still one of my all time favorites; but then I’m also a Bruce Springsteen fan so…

And yes, e-music does now have some Springsteen. I just downloaded Nebraska. Is there no end to the riches?

Back to Reality

Another long hiatus, this is not laziness though; I have been exceptionally busy this past month.

A had a three week vacation / family visit to Sao Miguel in the Azores, most enjoyable and only a little stressful (travelling with an over energetic three year old son is always interesting).

Sao Miguel is the largest of the Azores islands smack in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, not the usual sort of vacation spot, but being blessed with a wife who was born there has given me a reason to visit what is one of Earths more beautiful places. It reminds me a lot of Wales in that it’s very green and covered in farms. Unfortunately my Portuguese is not yet as advanced as I would like, which means that I still cannot communicate as well as I would like. Many of the younger population speak excellent English though, so I could have meaningful conversations either directly or by translation

My wife’s family was in good spirits and health throughout the whole trip, and as accommodating and kind as ever. It was difficult to spend money, something that is in theory a good thing, but after a couple of weeks being fed and provided with free beer I started to feel a little limpet (or Lapas) like. We therefore went out for a meal with various cousins and I paid for the meal which made me feel slightly less of a hanger on.

It was a hard transition back to normality after such a long break, but I dived right in to work the next day. All in all it was a wonderful time, even with the small stresses involved. Right, where to next then?

Who is Virgilio Anderson?

Richard Herring has had his identity stolen! Well his name anyway, some bloke by the name of Virgilio Anderson in Macedonia has titled his facebook page with RH’s name. Bizarre. If you are here in the US, visit www.richardherring.com/gb/ and show that support for young Mr. Herring is transatlantic.

Anyway. The Word podcast this week is particularly fascinating if you are a music geek like me. Paul Du Noyer is talking about his new book “In the City” a history of London music. What interested me most is the content concerning music hall, a subject close to my heart. I have managed to pull together quite a collection of music hall recordings thanks to the internet, it’s a fascinating genre and a snapshot of British (especially London) working class life at the end of the Victorian era.

The Word Podcast along with the Collings & Herrin Podcast ROCK!!!! Check them out every week; you’re a silly bugger if you don’t!

Been a long time

OK, so it’s been a while. There’s been a lot of stuff going on and this has been pretty low on the priority list.

I finally got hold of Goffam by Jim Bob, another classic indeed. Vey lo-fi this time around, to me this is a good thing. I like huge arrangements and classy production in its place, but these songs just beg to be recorded on the mono portable tape recorder of old. The type my sister used to use to record Top of The Pops by holding the mic in front of the TV speaker.

First track “The Golden Years of Lonely Old Dears” sets the tone right from the start, Jim Bob has always expressed disgust at the plight of senior citizens and the way we throw them on the scrap heap. The sentiment of “I didn’t live through a war to die of cold” is something that should be fiction, but as we all know it happens every day.

“Teenage Body Count” should move you to tears; if it doesn’t (or at least make you think about crying) you are beyond hope. The chorus “Oh what a world we’ve made for our children, a world to get killed in, a world without love.” is striking. If you are a parent, it terrifies you. If your not, you may consider staying that way. The song concerns knife crime, a major problem among youth in the U.K. Here in the US where guns are lying about for all to grab, it makes you want to keep your kids hidden away.

I’m not going through the record track by track; I don’t work for Rolling Stone or the NME. If I did Jim would be where he belongs, on the cover.

God bless Jim Bob, God help us all.

Erie

Just spent two days in Ohio at a hotel on Lake Erie. It’s a beautiful part of the world, but being there on business I didn’t really get to see much of it.

We took a ride out to Port Clinton through roads flooded with eighteen inches of water due to thunder storms. The town is right on the lake and feels like a coastal town, the sheer size of the lake makes you feel like you are at the ocean.

We went for dinner and ate some fish called a Walleye. Never heard of it before, apparently it lives in the lake. The funniest thing was a note to fishermen at the bottom of the menu; “Feel free to bring in your days catch and we’ll cook it for you”. I don’t know if I am jaded, or maybe have seen to much litigation, but it struck me that should someone bring in a fish they caught that then made them sick would they or could they sue the restaurant? They either felt this was not a risk or were very naive. I didn’t see any small print.

Anyway, I got to see a very nice part of the world; this was my first visit to the Midwest. Glad to be home though, I felt like I was in Fargo (the movie not the place). Oh, and it was nice to be offered some Pop to drink, it’s been a long time!

Hey! That’s my medal!

Standing next to me at the station this morning waiting for the train was a very loud woman with terrible hair. She was telling a man there about her work, how they make her work in groups and she is the only one that does anything. She never gets the credit for the work of course, because she has to share the glory with the lazy scumbags in her “team”.

She let everyone around know how unfair this is. She strives night and day, her boyfriend nearly left her because of all the hours she worked, and all the other lazy clowns in her group just suck up the credit. She doesn’t say anything to her manager of course, God forbid she should look like a non team player (what with this PC attitude that everyone is equal and should work together!). She complained how when she told a co-worker of the stress that her sole commitment was causing her home life, the co-worker simply said “you should have told me, I would have helped out more”. She shouldn’t have needed to say anything right? Where were the standard psychic abilities required of a modern employee?

And where was the manager? Four employees sitting around drinking coffee and surfing the internet while poor miss bad hair was struggling to complete all their work, he/she should be fired. It’s not like the stress doesn’t show in the horrible state of little miss pains terrible appearance and awful clothes.

So there you go; another example of what is dragging the western world into the toilet. “I’m the only one that does any work”, how do we survive?

Microsoft did something right?

I installed Windows 7 this weekend…..well well, it’s good innit!

I installed on my seven (yes that’s 7!) year old desktop and she’s got a new lease of life. The whole thing is faster, smoother and more enjoyable to use than Vista. I “upgraded” to Vista from XP Pro because, as you may remember, Microsoft gave away a bunch of Vista Business DVD’s as a promotion before the full release. It’s been a pain ever since.

The good thing that came out of the Vista upgrade was that I updated some hardware (RAM, video card, printer) and the whole system is now much better. These upgrades are needed for Win 7 anyway so no loss, no foul right?

I still use my newer (year old) laptop for the real stuff; my dear old PC even in its rejuvenated form can’t handle any real processing. But for web, word processing and music she is back to her old self and better!

At last Microsoft makes a right move; I never thought I’d say it again. Still getting a Mac next time though!

Bugger!

Tranmere Rovers 1 – Scunthorpe 1, so ends another year.

My heart sank at the news, I really thought we would make the play offs this year. Of course I’m used to this disappointment now, but the sting is still there.

Right, 09-10 then!

Que horas são?

I am in the process of learning Portuguese with Rosetta Stone (the language learning software that is, not the ancient Egyptian Google Translate 1.0). It’s hard.

I am pleasantly surprised with my progress however; I seem to be retaining more and more without even noticing. The most difficult issues for me as a native English speaker are the pronunciation (an R, to me ,is an R and not a flem generating exercise) and the male / female word concept (although being Welsh I do have some appreciation of this from, umm Welsh).

I hope to one day be able to wax lyrical in my new language, confident in my ability to tear down national divisions by the power of my linguistic gymnastics. For now how ever, it seems satisfying to be able to ask what the time is.

Suffice to say I would recommend Rosetta Stone. Like The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, I’m not one for endorsing products (the only Cola I’d support would be a human C.O.L.A. cost of living allowance). But this works.

See you at the Camões debating society meeting!

Garden Party

Marillion, now there was a band! A bunch of aging long haired bricklayers, apparently touched by the magic of early Genesis. I can admit it now, because no one cares, I bought Script for a Jesters Tear. Yes, go on, laugh.

I like Gabriel’s Genesis and it seemed like a good idea at the time, youth is no excuse I know, but I was very young. It’s a bloody awful record by the way.

The singer was called Fish (no, I don’t know why. Look on Wikipedia you lazy bugger!). He thought he was Peter Gabriel, but looked more like Lou Ferrigno with a mullet. The falsetto whine never seemed quite right and the songs were rubbish. Apparently Fish left and they replaced him and got more “rock”. I can’t be bothered to find out.

None of my friends ever knew I bought this atrocity of a record, or that I do actually like ELO. Can you not tell anyone please? I turned the record into a flower pot by the way; old rubbish prog rock vinyl records make great flower pots. This was the best fate for it.

Other records turned to flowerpots include:

Supertramp live in Paris
Barclay James Harvest live in Berlin
The Baron Knights comedy record
Paul McCartney Give My Regards to Broad Street

And many more!

2% Proof

I’m reading Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee. The book seeks to establish what it is in the 2% of our DNA which separates us for Chimpanzees that makes us human.

Diamond is very good with this sort of topic. He lays out in graphic detail our propensity for self destruction, genocide and xenophobia, along with our genius for art, language and love. What is proved I think is that we are really not that different from other members of the animal kingdom.

Art for instance, which most of us think of as a great human feature is not at all uncommon. Diamond tells us of birds in New Guinea that build large beautifully decorated nests to attract mates, which on first site appear man made.

The most disturbing section for me concerns our justification and tolerance for genocide. The final solution of the third Reich is of course (almost) universally decried. But what of the annihilation of Tasmanian and mainland aboriginals by European settlers in Australia? Or the calculated attempt at extinction of Native Americans in both North and South America? What of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden? Diamond reminds us that history is (re)written by the winners, and you can justify anything to make the facts less obvious, and to increase your comfort level. He also reminds us that we are actively seeking our own total destruction by global decimation of Earth and pursuit and use of weapons of mass destruction.

Diamonds work is essential. Guns, Germs and Steel is startlingly enlightening, Collapse is not as good but still very insightful. The Third Chimpanzee however should be on every schools required reading list.

With people like Jared Diamond among us, we still have some hope.

Jim Bob’s new record is out. It’s called Goffam and is, it seems, a concept album about a city in decay, I don’t have it yet as I am hoping to get it on e music, but the reviews, including this one by Andrew Collins, seem good.

Jim should be a huge star, but he can’t even get on the radio. I have been a fan since Carter were in their infancy and may be biased, but I have played his solo records to people who were not (and haven’t even heard of them) and the response is always very positive.

I will comment more upon hearing, but if it is at least as good as his previous efforts it will be wonderful.

Speaking of people who should be huge stars, I have been listening a lot to old Felt records recently. These records are amazing, in fact they sound better now than they did back in the 80’s. Lawrence is a genius, unfortunately as with many other genius’ he is also very self destructive. For those who do not know, Felt released ten albums and ten single in ten years during the 1980’s and then split up (an act of genius on it’s own perhaps?). They never achieved the heights of their peers (I’m thinking the likes of The Icicle Works and The Bunnymen) which I still believe to be criminally unjust.

Lawrence went on to Denim; Back in Denim is another lost Masterpiece. And is now known by Go Kart Mozart, the genius still shines through.

Stop Making Sense

I am sitting here in the office listening to two people separated by a common language. One person is talking about something, the other person is talking about the same thing, and neither of them has any idea what the other one is talking about.

There is a lot of talk in meetings about filters, i.e. viewing the world from your point of view and disregarding other people’s points of view. I am not a big fan of this sort of talk; it is usually a job creation method for people who don’t do the real work. The filter thing makes sense though; it is very hard to see past your own experience / knowledge.

I try to overcome this by reading and listening and learning, this has helped me a great deal. I grew up in a very insular world and had to teach myself everything about the wider world, I certainly had a very thick filter to view through. This is not to say that I am open to all viewpoints, God forbid I should ever wimp out and be one of those that sit in a room agreeing with the local right wing nutcase and left wing blubberer simultaneously.

Opinions are good, some filters are good. We should be proud of our outrage at mediocrity and extremism. But we should not allow the filters to transform us into the mediocre or extreme.

Irrelevant Pop Stars

Stop already! I’m talking to you Neil Young and Prince!

For goodness sake, a record every three years would do. And please edit your output somewhat! The quality of your records is awful; do you just release everything you record? Of course you do, and you record everything you write. This leads to awful triple albums of fifth rate rubbish, which your misguided fans feel compelled to buy.

Fork in the road is the new album by Neil Young. A concept album about cars and stuff, that seems to be an extended commercial for canola oil as our energy future. Prince is apparently releasing three albums this year! What in the name of God is a Lotus Flow3r anyway? I’m amazed that these people’s arses are big enough to take their giant heads!

Another piece of news for NY&P (hmm good name for a band), albums are irrelevant anyway, a triple album is just 30 or so MP3’s purchased and listened to (or not) in no particular order. Neil may want us to listen to a bunch of songs about cars that double as deep fat fryers, but the one good song (if there is one), is just going to end up next to Like A Hurricane in our MP3 player.

Well they are not getting my money, first of all they are not on e music and even if they were all my downloads for the next few months are booked for Felt and Jim Bob.

I am The Curious Orange

I’m a big fan of Richard Herring (link over on the right there), I have been since the 90’s and his work for On The Hour. His most well known work is Fist of Fun and TMWRNJ.

Mr. Herring’s comedy (I may have mixed him up with his father there), can be very uncompromising and challenging to hear. Something that is once again sadly lacking in comedy. Youtube is full of his stuff, check it out.

There was a brief point in time during the 80’s and 90’s when comedy was vicious and inventive, I’m thinking of the likes of Bill Hicks and Andy Kaufman. Britain had more than it’s share, The Young Ones (and various spin offs), The Day Today and Brass Eye (also various spin offs), David Baddiel & Rob Newman and the aforementioned Richard Herring and erstwhile companion Stewart Lee.

Comedy should not be nice, it cannot be nice. When it tries to be it ends up boring, forgettable and completely unnecessary (think Last of the Summer Wine, Chef , The Vicar of Dibly, Mr. Bean and Ben Elton).

So, listen to the Collings & Herrin podcast (link to this is over there too!), and search for TMWRNJ or Richard Herring on Youtube (watch him rip a heckler apart, it’s priceless!). I assure you, your life will be better for it.

Let me know if you want more suggestions, I have wonderful taste you know!

Edible Sea Insect

I have been craving lobster. This could mean one of three things:

1. I am pregnant and craving unusual foods
2. I am turning into an aquatic mammal of some sort
3. It’s been a bloody long time since I had lobster

The answer is of course number three (I hope. I don’t see any flippers or odd belly lumps appearing).

Food cravings are odd things. For no apparent reason a food that you haven’t thought about in eons suddenly becomes vital to survival. This could be some sort of biological alarm clock, maybe my body is lacking vital chemicals that can only be found in lobster meat. It could be that I have the subconscious urge to boil a living creature alive, but I don’t think so. I’ll stick with the biological alarm clock thingy.

Alcohol is clearly a very potent catalyst in this chemical reaction. You can have a very nice meal before you leave for an evenings drinking and be full as an egg, two pints later there comes a desperate need to devour the spiciest, saltiest food you can grab. A plate of buffalo wings perhaps, or 2 bags of salt’n’vinegar crisps (that’s potato chips for the Americans). A curry probably (mmmm curry!) or any sort of Indian / Middle Eastern meat based product.

Whatever the reason or catalyst may be, enjoy your cravings. They prove you’re still alive.

And I felt....

I was reading about Richard Hell today. The man is an icon and an obscurity, this is all too often the fate of risk takers and inovators.

Richard Hell's career reminds me of an old tv comedy sketch about Orson Wells, he starts as a young man with fame and fortune (War of the Worlds and Citizen Kane), and grows into an oversized parody of himself doing crap commercials for cheap sherry.

Television are rightfully legendary, The Heartbreakers a mistake, and The Voidoids a genius piece of flawed failed art. Blank Generation is a masterpiece.

And I felt....slightly sad for old Richard Hell, but then I realized, he is still a genius. Just a quieter one.

Bloody Pandora II

So, I was using Pandora again the other day (I know, I know!! But it’s easy and I’m lazy!). I was outside giving my nice big grill (barbeque for all you non-Americans) it’s first clean of the new year. It was a beautiful spring day and the time seemed right so there I was.

Anyway, I had the laptop outside listening to the Lloyd Cole & The Commotions station on Pandora. Lloyd asked me his age old question as to whether I was ready to be heart broken, leading me to think about Camera Obscura (the wee twee Scots). “I really like Camera Obscura” I said to myself, as if I didn’t know, and continued to clean the grill.

Next up was Half A Person by The Smiths, I had forgotten how wonderful this song is, making the Pandora hate fade and then surge back as my predictability again shone forth. The funny thing is that Pandora then went on to play like six Smiths / Morrissey songs in a row, causing me to wonder if maybe I had changed the station. Let’s face it, if I had set up a Morrissey / Smiths station it would have played anything but Morrissey and The Smiths right? Thankfully Forest Fire then came a blasting through the speakers and I knew I was back in Lloyd land.

So, is Pandora as evil as I thought? Well, yes. But even evil things can be appreciated as bloody clever. My love / hate relationship with this IE shortcut on my desktop shall continue to evolve I suppose.

I'm only happy when it rains.....Garbage. No, it was by Garbage silly. The song that summed up the glorification of depression in the 90's. Garbage was Butch Vig's band, Butch always sounded more like a wrestlers name than that of a grunge pioneer to me. But hey.

The culmination of all this Prozac Nation type obsessiveness was the suicide of Kurt Cobain, not a pretty closing image. And they said that 80's Goth's were miserable.

I loved grunge of course, the NME told me to. I also loved Acid House and Public Enemy. Where is it all gone? How did we get the Jonas Brothers for God's sake?

Still, it's out there if you look, Google "Lawrence Go Kart Mozart".
Wake up world!!! Oh, you did, sorry I was taking a nap.

Oh no, not again!

Funny thing the digestive system. When it's running well you have no knowledge of it, then it breaks. This is why I have not written for a couple of days, not easy to blog on the toilet (twitter would be OK I guess, but that's just creepy). Oh well, back to the lav.....

Footlights Review

Several years ago I began noticing a strange trend in myself, I was getting older! How could this happen? Surely I was still 29 and rather slim, just like Bob Mould*.

The reason I mention this is that my good friend Mr. Jones sent me a wonderful old photo today of himself. Mr. Jones was clearly one of the cool kids – I didn’t meet him until the “late 9tees” – He has quite spectacular hair in the picture, as well as a very nice tie. I was a hopeless soul with grey jumpers (gray sweaters for you Americans) they were originally black but ran in the wash, and an over long fringe (bangs for you Americans). I still have the same pair of Doctor Martins Boots – well they look the same.

Age of course is relative, my relative age just happens to be quite old. Old relatives belong in nursing homes, which is where my relatively old relative age belongs, if that makes sense.
Anyway, I digress. As I was saying, I’m still 29 right? Old enough but young enough? Well my residual self image (to quote the poncy cod philosophy of the May Tricks) is still 29. The reflection in the mirror, the real self image, is 43- 50 if I drank too many Newcastle Brown Ales the night before - and looks alarmingly like my father!

The point of all this, well as always there is none - you really expect me to make sense? But thank you for the picture Mr. Jones, you definitely had much better hair than me.

*Bob Mould is also old and fat now by the way!

Shed

Been cleaning the shed.

Winter is a creationary force, this is proved by the fact that there is crap in my shed that wasn't there before the winter. I believe that the odd little things that metamorphose from the universes nada must be spontaneous.

The mower of course needs servicing, otherwise Sears cannot make a fortune by selling parts to service your mower. Sears you see has a switch that Mr. Sears hits once a year making your mower crap. Paranoid? Maybe. But at forty three years of age I have learned one thing, warranty is retail for life expectancy.

You Too?

Have you listened to “Grandmaster” Flash and the Furious Five lately? I have, The Message of course. There is a subtext to this song. Apart from the (excuse pun) message, concerning the evils of cocaine and an unfair American justice system, there is an uncalled for attack on a young Irish band trying to make their way in the post punk maelstrom...listen again, "don't push me ‘cause I'm close to”...yes, The Edge. “I’m trying not to lose my head”.

The insinuation seems obvious, should someone (Bonobo perhaps) accidently push the aging rapper into the young Mr. Edge (who, in the view of the “Grandmaster”, being Irish must be homicidal lunatic), a knife would be pulled causing decapitation of said rapper.

Why the unwarranted fear? Well clearly The Egde at this time was not dressing in large, foil covered shoulder pads, maybe this was a fashion based audio hate crime. Perhaps the “Grandmaster” was jealous of the youthful fuzz box assisted guitar punksters ability to make one song sound like ten different songs. Whatever the cause of this anti Irish vitriol, it was clearly uncalled for.

While we’re on it, why was the “Grandmaster” standing so close to the young Edge anyway? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about this, but the cocaine libido link springs to mind.

Bloody Pandora

I recently started using an internet radio station by the name of Pandora. On first use I was most impressed. It was easy:

1. Pick an artist and generate a station of like artists.

I entered Carter USM, there it was, Carter! Great right?

2. Wrong!

I suddenly realised that all my "cool" taste and "clever" music knowledge was being calculated by an application on some distant server. This was extremely depressing, one thing I never thougt I was that predictable. Sad.