Quiet round here, eh?

That’s cos I set up a shiny new website for my musicking activities here: olifreke.co.uk

If you *must* know what music I’ve been doing / listening to / hating on, then there’s the place to go!

Fiona Banner at Tate Britain

Wasn’t expecting big aircraft at Tate Britain when we popped in today, but they seemed to have some.

HARRIER

Although the caption was going on about it being a Harrier aircraft and looking like a dead bird, we thought it looked much more like a dead shark being lifted out of the sea. And painting a sort of feather effect on the wings and fuselage we thought was over egging the pudding a bit.

But that apart from that, you can’t deny the impact of a decommissioned warplane hanging vertically in an art gallery!

JAGUAR

Meg patiently stood by the archway so I could take my ‘arty’ shot. It was well worth the effort, yeah?

Anyway, it was a good exhibition and the TB has more good stuff in than I thought, including modern art….the Tate Modern hasn’t nicked it all, after all!

Protected: Cassette Electrik – songs for Sparks & Embers

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avɑ̃ɡaʁd

First Boris…

…and now this.

Well done idiots!

Steampunk (without the punk)

Visited Kew Bridge Pumping Station today. Very nice indeed if you like a bit of steam whooshing around, powering huge but finely engineered lumps of iron and brass. Here are a few snaps to give a flavour of the place.

Not an invented Steampunk set of dials, but a real set on a triple stage 1910 steam engine:

Big bad machinary (painted a nice green)

It’s important to have Corinthian columns in your massive steam machinary.

Giant wrenches for when the telly goes on the blink.

BUT WHAT IS THE STATUS OF THE BYPASS VALVE FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE?

Are you sure?

This was a lovely machine. Enormous, but virtually silent except for pleasing whirrings and hummings.

Machinery.

Very Large Beam (Two of these, driven by 90 inch diameter cyclinders pumped drinking water round London in the 19th Century and early 20th)

A fascinating visit & highly recommended. Check the dates to make sure the biggest engines are running when you go for full impact.

http://www.kbsm.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kew_Bridge_Steam_Museum

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)

–

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.