RANDOM PICTOGRAMS

Some pics that don’t really justify an entire post of my waffling…but collected together as one post…well, they still don’t really cut the mustard.

Des (bass player in Cassette Electrik) looking cool in rehearsal. Gig next Saturday @ 333 Club. Be there! (Especially you, Des)

Stage and set for Causcasian Chalk Circle

The tech before the first performance:

Splendid angle of the arch at Richmond theatre. I took this picture. Me!!!

Have you noticed this recent trend for young men (or ‘nincompoops’ as I like to think of them) wandering around the transport system in their football gear in the late evening time? Yes, me too.

Nice Hollywood style theatre lights. Nary a footballer in sight.

It’s not often you get to stroll around taking pictures on the Old Kent Road flyover just south of Elephant and Castle. But when the road is shut, it’s possible to sneak up on a road bicycle without being spotted by the police and outraged citizens. I can now exclusively reveal what a road looks like with no cars on it:

(Perez Hilton – cos I know you read this blog -  eat out your heart with a tiny golden spoon: this is my scoop)

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So I went into HMV the other week for the first time in ages. Racks of CDs…just seems so…old fasioned now?

Extraordinary and dilapidated, but functioning, Wilton Hall on Cable Street, Wapping. Really want to see a performance here of something – the atmosphere would be incredible. They’ve got a great bar there too – profits go towards the restoration of the building and theatre.

London Lite’s out – Maybe?

We can only hope.

“”Despite reaching a large audience with an excellent editorial format, we are concerned about the commercial viability in this highly competitive area.” said  Steve auckland, MD of AN Free Division

Interesting re-definition of the word ‘excellent’ to mean ‘focussed entirely on minor celebrities falling out of clubs late at night’. I suppose it did excell at that. Well done LL for so relentlessly  purpetuating the crap end of culture. Good bye!

 

 

 

Kooky is not Funny

Warning signs:

[ ] hilariously arch dialogue
[ ] hilariously unfunny non-sequiturs
[ ] music used as shorthand for emotional content
[ ] painful and unconvincing references to pop culture
[ ] bill murray

All the above have bored and irritated me beyond belief. I won’t and I can’t and I won’t let it happen again, after having wasted 86 minutes yesterday on the tedious and embarrassing ‘Juno’. What the heck did that win it’s oscar for?

The Oscar for trying way too hard to have a kooky and off-beat soundtrack accompanied by embarrassing references to Sonic Youth this year goes to…

Windows 7 – host a party!

“In a lot of ways it’s just a house party, but with Windows 7 as an honoured guest”

Yey! A house party with all my friends…to do  some worksheets around a new operating system….er, yay!

This is not a spoof ad. This is a real ad made by one of the world’s richest companies.

It’s very strange. Perhaps I have fallen into a weird trap and they have done a Derren Brown on me here. (After all, I did buy 153 copies of Songsmith)

       “It’s nice to end the party by showing them http://microsoft.com/help. It makes a nice wrap up”

For a company with a mahoosive budget, they sure have a weird take on advertising.

 Old lady:  ”Some activities require custom equipment”
Black chap: “yes, for example, you’ll need two computers if you want have a web chat”
All: “HA HA HA HA HA HA”

Yes, HA HA HA HA.

Silly Microsoft.

Sidechain compression musing

Was playing around with Side Chain compression yesterday on the bassline of an electrohouse track, and it sure does give a track movement, dynamics and energy.

I wonder if some kind of inadvertant compression & limiting of that sort is what made pop of the 50s & 60s sound so good. Equipment was so basic that there had to be some of kind of crude compression and pumping going on, which they probably got the hang of to enhance the sound.

Listen to Bo Diddley’s ‘Bo Diddley’. Although I think it’s more of a tremolo on the guitar than actual deliberate pumping compression, it don’t half give it a nice a groove. And in this case the tremolo isn’t that different from the effect of heavily pumping compression.

Just a thought!

Too easy.

1) Richard Tinmey, the Home Secretary’s husband, caught claiming pornography on parliamentary expenses.
Times Article

2) Jacqui Smith, the Home Sectrectary, caught designating her sister’s house in London as her ‘main residence’, allowing her to claim £116,000 on her Redditch constituency house, her actual family home.
Times Article

3) Derek Conway, under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for standards for paying his teenage son £11,773 to ‘work’ for him.
Times Article

No – to whatever it is!

I have done no reading around the subject, I know nothing about the aims of the loose coalition of anarchists, enviromentalists, anti-capitalists, families, Tony Robinson, communists, socialist workers, neo-cons, and anti-war protesters, so what follows might be very unfair. 

But it does remind me of this:

“Careful now” /  ”Down with this sort of thing”

What exactly are people protesting against? Is it some woolly idea of the ‘modern world’ that’s the problem? Are they protesting about the fact that the leaders of the biggest economies are getting together to try and figure out a solution to the current economic situation so that as many people as possible keep their jobs, homes, etc, and countries to find a better way of trading with each other?

And if they feel so strongly as to march the streets of London (and put some turf on a statue of Winston Churchill no doubt) where were these protesters where when the economy was booming?

Do these learned global financial strategists  have any suggestions about a better  system could be implemented – or are they just marching for ‘better financial regulation’ and a law to get ‘Sir Fred’s money off him?

And should I perhaps not come into work wearing my pinstripe, bowler hat and walking cane?

Just wondering!

The Charm of Squirrel

…and with a coat made of Giraffe kid, you too can obey Fashion’s Slimness Decree this spring.

Oh – this is from 1927, before all you young gals dash down to Selfridges for the sale of the century.  What a swizz!

Is Roger Scruton Beautiful?

No.

I gather Mr Scruton & David Starkey convincingly lost the debate on Thursday “Has Britain become indifferent to beauty?”

I further gather that Germaine Greer & Stephen Bayley knocked them into a cocked hat. Would have been quite fun to see. I last saw Mr Scruton being knocked into a cocked hat at the debate “Would we be better off without religion?’. With Christopher Hitchins, Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling on the one side and R. Scruton,  Nigel Spivey and the  Rabbi Julia Neuberger on the other, the motion didn’t stand much chance. Good knock about fun, and here’s a write up of it from someone on the losing side: http://mail.psychedelic-library.org/pipermail/theharderstuff/20070612/003392.html

Anyway, is Britain indifferent to beauty? The question is very badly phrased because to agree with it would be to say that no one in Britain ever thinks about beauty or would like more of it. That would be nonsense of course, so the motion was quashed. A better question might have been “Is there too much ugliness around” (probably yes), “could Britain afford to spend a bit more time thkning about beauty and making it a higher priority?”. Again, yes, hard to disagree with.

However, Screwballs and co seem to just dislike everything about the modern world and everything it stands for. This is a bit pathetic…as annoying as Hollyoaks, advertising hoardings and Lada GaGa are, you can’t just give up and dismiss everything, as there is also Punch Drunk, Arthur Ganson and On Rails out there.

You just got to look a bit harder Screwy, and widen your perspective beyond the late 19th century, yeah?

Guardian article

I present you with a cycling lol.