Recommend: Toby Hadoke, ‘Moths ate my Dr Who scarf’

My bro took me on a surprise birthday outing to Greenwich Theatre yesterday to see Toby Hadoke’s one man show ‘Moths ate my Dr Who Scarf’.

Toby Hadoke’s website & tourdates

If you get the chance, you must go see – it’s both funny and heartwarming (without being sentimental) and is about one man’s obsession with Dr Who and how his dedication to the programme over the years has caused him both pain and joy (and mockery).

You don’t even need to be a Dr Who fan to enjoy the show – all Dr Who fact deployment is done with the right level of self deprecation and humour, and are used to support the anecdotes and routines that structure the show.

Like I say, it’s great – go see!

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Cock! Flavoured Soup!

Ha, ha – oh my – take a look at this picture I took this morning:

Ha, ha! Did you spot it? …the “Cock Flavoured Soup”?!?!

The thing is… “cock” is often used colloquially to mean “penis”!!

You just can’t make this stuff up. What a day!

Maximum Security Toothpaste

As used in the Guantanamo Bay Bad Place:

But I bet you still can’t take it on aeroplanes…

from Times Online

O HAI, CAN I HAS MEME?

If LOLFATCATS.com, created by my chums The Flippers, doesn’t get in B3ta this week then I will need to reassess my understanding of the world.

Update:
Phew, my understanding of the world is correct:
lolfatcats got top billing in this week’s b3ta: b3ta Issue 379
Well done Flippermen and colleagues at Poke!

Indeed

The shuttle Atlantis transiting the Sun

Apparently one of the Atlantis crew members stared at the sun too long, went mad and then turned into a burnt crisp person and chased the other crew members around the spaceship until he fell into a gravity well. Oh – hang on, that was that other documentary Sunshine, wasn’t it?

Venus of Hohle Fels

The Times: “A piece of Prehistoric pornography”

The Telegraph: “Could be seen as bordering on the pornographic.” (quoted without attribute)

The Guardian: “Erotica through the ages”

The Irish Independent: “Porn from prehistory”

The Independent: “Erotic art for cavemen discovered”

So, the Venus of Hohle Fels is declared ‘pornographic’ by the quality press. How predictable and depressing. Presumably that’s how these journalists are used to assessing images they find on the internet…

Apart from the difficulty of speculating on the uses and reasons behind something 35,000 years old, surely this object is more likely to be a fertility object of some sort rather than ‘masturbatory accessory’ as they seem desperate to imply.

Have these journos never heard of the Venus of Willendorf, of which this object would seem closely related to?

What is even sadder is that the World’s Greatest Media have focussed entirely on this one, rather unattractive object, when in fact there have been other far more beautiful objects found at Hohle Fels, and which give even more an insight in the creativity and artistic impulses of human beings in the neolithic period:

The head of a horse:

Water bird:

(This is exquisite. If you’d rather look at an ugly figurine with big tits, go for it)

(the above two from: archaeology.about.com)

Lion-man?!

(Geo.de)

Humour, skill, artistry.

And yes, sex is important too, but the relentless obsession…?

Gets tired. Move on press people.

Fruity Boots

done a bootleg innit? With a DJ.

Of Little Boots, ‘Stuck On Repeat’.

So called it Little Bootleg (ha, ha, good one!)

Featured on Electroqueer this morning:

ADAMAX, ‘Little Bootleg’

Little bit of electrohouse to wake you up of a Thursday morning.

Singin’ in the Brain

People of the World, you are all invited to a concert!

I am doing some singing at the Barbican on June 8th as part of a 200 strong choir singing baroque classics like Handel’s Zadok The Priest, The King Shall Rejoice and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen. (Stop giggling it’s a song Purcell wrote for a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream)

It’s all super awesome lovely stuff from when music was just getting the hang of harmony and melody and using them to maximum effect. Check out this youtube of Zadok The Priest…you’ll see what I mean:

Tickets are £5 from Barbican Box Office:
https://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=9049

(Actually they’re £15 on the website, so you’ll need to call the box office on 020 7638 8891 and quote promotional reference The Fairy Queen to get the £5 tickets)

See you at 7:30pm on Monday June 8th!

Carnyx, Trombones and the South Sea

Splendid day yesterday.

Attended one of the finest lectures I’ve ever been to. If someone had told me before that I could be held in thrall for almost two hours in a slightly too hot conservatory for a talk about the history of the trombone, then I would have asked that person politely, but firmly, to kindly move away from my general vicinity.

But I was in fact held in thrall as John Kenny did exactly that. Beginning the lecture by marching into the conservatory playing a piece of music that managed to make the trombone sound more like an mistreated Moog synthesizer and then taking it apart bit by bit – whilst still playing the bits that remained  – until he was playing an invisible trombone, it was one of most lunatic beginnings to a lecture I’ve ever seen. It was very well done and very funny (The piece was called ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and I wish there was a Youtube video of it)

He then went on to discuss the development of the instrument and how it was unique amongst the wind instruments in it’s ability to play glissandi and microtones. (Playing the following intervals: a semitone, a quartertone, a sixth tone and then, rather incredibly (and only just detectably), an eighth of a tone)

Not only that, but a conch was played (very loud) and an extraordinary instrument of the Celtoi – the Carnyx. See the pic below. It’s a replica of an actual instrument found in Scotland dating from around 200BC.  It is extremely loud and was probably used as a war instrument, with it’s boar head acting as the bell of the instrument (complete with wobbly tongue!)

Not a great pic…here’s what the thing really looks like:
(http://www.carnyxscotland.co.uk/about-the-carnyx)

The Carnyx

The one thing I need to investigate is how different pitches are made using a single length of tube. As far as I understood it, by changing the raspberry blown through the tube one can play the different resonant frequencies of the tube, which will be limited to the natural harmonic series.

But he was able to play a quite complex melody on the alp horn. Given that it was a 12 footer  with a fundamental of low Bb, if I understand correctly that would allow the following pitches on the natural harmonic series to be played:  Bb1, Bb2, F2, Bb3, D3, F3, Ab3, Bb4, C4, D4, E4, F4, Gb4, Ab4, A4, Bb5..etc. Not a bad selection, but I’d be interested to know if those were really the only notes, or whether he was able to extract any others. I should have asked about this at the time…

Oh, and we now know that Handel wrote for the Sackbut, an early incarnation of the trombone. Oh, and the didgeridoo is a much more interesting instrument than I’d previously given it credit for.  (The trombone, John explained, conventionally just  plays an ‘ah’ vowel, whereas the digderidoo is able to convey all the vowels – and any other shrieks and vocals gestures you wish to amplify. Giving a huge range of sound possible)

So yeah, tons of info to process, but I’ll stop writing about it now.

South Seas? Just watched the first installment of the new BBC natural history series The South Pacific. Extraordinary nature photography seems to be almost routine these days (at least for the beeb), but somehow it still manages to be breathtaking, even if you expect it to be breathtaking. If you know what I mean.

I Know What I Did Last Summer

Whilst on holiday I like to take an 800 page history of science and translate all the scientists and their achievements into a massive wall chart. I mean, who doesn’t?

Below are 4 sheets of the 19 sheet behemoth, all blessed with last summer’s beautiful Tuscan sunshine. Click to enlargen a scan of it beyond the size of your puny monitor!

[Click to enlargen]

The book in question was John Gribbin’s History of Science, and I can’t recommend it enough. On Amazon UK