The Paranoid Mod

Quote of the week

2011-06-12T20:25:00.001Z

"We plough on like steadfast shires, stopping only to lament the lost wayward years when a bottle of wine felt like an aperitif" - Jemima.

How the Future Dates

2011-06-05T22:48:00.014Z

I stumbled across the ISFDB tonight - where has it been all my life? Clicking around I was struck by how bad much of the cover art was, and thought I'd test this by looking at all the covers of Neuromancer - arguably the most influential SF novel of the last 30 years.

And boy, are they bad. With the exception of the classic Gollancz sleeve, and a couple of elegant later efforts, the future seems to be about bad haircuts and half-arsed video games. Spot on, you might say. So without further ado...

I don't remember starry-eyed mutant cat statues, but it's been a couple of years. Nice futuristic font, Gollancz.

Something about the abomination on the left reminds me of the dream representations in Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World, cutting edge graphics from a time when MS Paint was all the rage. As for Mr. Punky Widow's Peak (Ray Reardon, anybody?) and his discothèque bathroom tiles, well, points for effort, I suppose. The Standard miss the point rather, I think.

Mullets, wifi keyboards and cyberspace as a series of tubes leaking steam. On the other hand Molly's glasses are decent, and there's a sleazy street-level approximation of Chiba City.

Someone's been watching Terminator on the left. Not a lot of serifs in the future, evidently. On the right another decent stab at Molly let down by futuristic eggs with pictures of... what?... in them.

Rehashing the MS Paint classic for the 10th anniversary was a masterstroke, we can all agree. While the simplicity of the one of the right is welcome in comparison, it's just as well that some binary code warns people the novel might just be one of those geeky scifi things.

Ten years later the colour scheme is better and owes something to Dave McKean's Sandman covers. Oddly the cartoon Molly on the right is a bit Sandman-esque too, but too cartoony for what is anything but a cartoon future.

Case as demon about to launch into an interpretive dance. The future's so bright, etc... Again with the widow's peak, in both of them. I'm going to have to re-read it looking for descriptions of Case's hair. I'm fond of the latter cos it's the one I had when I first read it, but it's more of the same future-as-grid/light/sunglasses that seems to reoccur again and again.

In conclusion, go with Gollancz. If you can afford it.

Women, know your place

2010-08-25T14:11:00.007Z

No hammers for you...

A right knees-up

2010-06-22T12:44:00.002Z

Featuring lashings of ginger beer, banging tunes and finding international smugglers while lost in the K-hole...

King Kenny

2010-06-13T20:37:00.002Z

Why is Kenny Dalglish on the cover of this children's paperback? To make children want it perhaps? Worked for me...

Lucas Leiva

2010-06-08T17:12:00.004Z

In happier times Liverpool were on their way to play Athletico Madrid, travelling halfway across Europe by train because of that there volcano. Rafa was still the boss (for us), and some genius had put up a fake Twatter link pretending to be Lucas. It got taken down fairly swiftly, but luckily I'd archived much of it. Fucking genius...

Rafael told me that I was like the 'son he never had'. Was made up until I heard he told Dirk the same.

Zonal Marking 101 today. Rafa tried to explain it with chess pieces again. I was a pawn, that says alot.

Rafa was busy over lunch, so I sorted his food out. He called me a 'thin Brazilian waiter'. What sharp wit. I didn't get it.

Just helped back in a Lorry outside TJ Hughes in town. I feel like a bloke. Lucas is a bloke.

Is getting sick of training. I don't know what 'red arse' means but Jamie keeps telling me I have to 'take it' from the rest of the squad.

A nice scouse man referred to me as a 'useless escaped goat'. Must be a regional compliment. Lucas is a happy man.

Jamie and Stevie were straight into the back seat of the coaches and have taken my Apple Tango. I waited with Rafa for the front seats.

Dirks saying he 'bagsyd' the seat next to Rafa. Rafa says he is a respector of the bagsy system and so I'm going to have to sit by El Zhar.

Jamie intervened, apparently there is no higher authority than a 'bagsy'. Nabil wants to discuss the upcoming Election, Lucas wants some kip

I can see Dirk trying to get Rafa to watch episodes of Eurotrash on his iPod. Rafa isn't interested. Bet he doesn't respect bagsy now.

Ryan is in front of us, him and El Zhar are rapping together as the "Nabil 'n Babel" connection. God I hate Dirk. I'm Rafa's lost son. I am.

This is going to be a long journey. Maybe I'll just sit in the toilet. If I get really desperate though theres a seat next to Kyrgiakos.

Screw that, Soto has an industrial sized tub of Houmous. And no bread. Or spoon. Its like a drink to him. He's a monster.

@ANFIELDSCOUSE Bodmin motorway services. Popped in for a piss. Nabil bought Skittles Sours. He'll be bouncing off the walls.

Christ, hes off his rocker. Nabil is shouting '2012, 2012, they kept me hear till 2012' in fits of hysterical laughter waving a Morocco flag

Gone to sit next to Kyrgiakos, Nabil has lost the plot. Don't give that boy sugar. Soto is banging on about being an ancestor of Zeus again.

I lent on Sotos chair by accident. Big mistake. Apparently ive 'compromised Olympus'. He's now spouting poetry in Greek with his eyes shut.

Jamie just shouted "This isn't fucking musical chairs Lucas". I don't get it. I think he's still angry at me for nutmegging him in training.

Pepe : "Thats not volcanic Ash, its the dust off Lucas's durex". I don't get it, but Dirks laughing his head off.

Got a Galaxy Ripple & a Solero. Ate the Ripple 1st, stupidly. Soto is now saying that anything I lick he has to then lick - Greek tradition.

Its all settled down now. Dan Agger has his heavy metal on, Masch is shadow boxing, Dirks doing sit ups asking Rafa to 'watch me, watch me'

Big moment for me this, game of noughts and crosses with Dirk. Rafa has set it up. I see the winner of this gaining the seat next to him.

I won. But Rafa didnt offer me the seat. A moral victory to Lucas though, Dirk keeps punching himself in the arm muttering 'sorry boss'.

Aquilani and Degen have made a 'den' at the back of the coach out of sleeping bags. Sign on the front of it saying 'No Physios Allowed'

Dirks been giving Rafa wine. I can tell when hes drunk because he stares at me disappointingly saying he wishes he'd got a receipt for me.

"Where's the receipt Lucas. You must have it. There must have been one. Where's the receipt." These words will haunt my dreams.

Aquilani has hurt himself in the den. Typical. He can't move to get out and because of the sign, none of our physios can go in. Real dilemma

Its a papercut. He's out of Thursdays match. Looks like I'll be playing again. At least I'm not travelling all this way for nothing.

He's singing 'Que Sera' with his arm round my neck. This is just like I imagined it. Dirk is watching on enviously. 1-0 to Leiva.

Off to try and get some sleep now. Nabil 'n Babel still rapping in Dutch and French together. Kyrgiakos sleeping standing up, fists clenched about

was woken up very early this morning (6am) - by Kyrgiakos blowing his medieval horn.

He blew it, thrice, and shouted "and so signals the start of a new day", looked to the floor and bowed.

Carra threw his shoe at him & screeched "what fuckin time do you call this you Greek tit" Didnt seem to affect Soto, I think hes in a trance

Rafa was really hungover. Good job my mum packed the Calprofen, he called me a 'life saver'. I am Weak. At. The. Knees.

Its so hot because Kyrgiakos has turned the heating up to full. When questioned about it he replies with only : "This is a mans world"

Soto is doing his daily sermon. He's telling us that the Volcano was Zeus's vengeance for us allowing the obese to live.

Hes truly lost it now. Hes in the toilet frantically cutting his own hair, muttering 'survival of the fittest'. NGog trying to stop him.

Settled down now. Stevie is watching Steven Gerrard : Centurion on DVD, Aquilanis finger is in plaster, Rafa trying to beat himself at chess

Soto asking all passengers if they want their toenails cut by Machete. Says its the 'natural way'. God knows how he got it through customs.

Someones clogged the toilet up. Rafa has a guilty look. Must have been his beer poo earlier on. Stevie says he saw Dirk sniffing the seat.

Toilets humming. Sammy was about to use the air freshener, Soto stopped him - 'it is a pure and manly smell that must not be tampered with'.

Been trying to sleep for hours. Soto talks & smokes a pipe in his sleep. I dread to think what tobacco it is, but it smells like raw meat.

He doesnt just talk in his sleep, he has actual conversations. He seems to be arguing that there is no better smell than driving past a farm

El Zhar is also still up. Saw him drink a 3 litre bottle of Cherry Coke before so he'll be up till dawn.

He's gone insane, too much sugar. He's shouting at Rafa saying 'Why am I even here. Please tell me why' with tears pouring down his face.

Rafa was doing his best to ignore it but finally responded. "You shouldn't still be here. You were signed to make an agent happy". Silence.

Don't know who brought the football on board, Masch has started repeatedly trying to slide tackle it. Like a bull to a red cloth...

What a 24 hour trip. Really bonded the squad. Dirks been filling up his 'Benitez Bible' - a book of everything Rafa has ever said to him.

Rafa isnt impressed with such gimmicks. The way to his heart is a high passing completion rate & a warm wholesome meal. Those I can provide

Soto isnt happy. He's had to disrupt his annual April 4-day hibernation to come here. He keeps warning us theres electricity in his fingers.

5-a-side game this morning. Stevie said he had to be 'captain of both teams'. He chose Jamie first who shouted 'GET IN'. I was last pick.

Just spied Kyrgiakos' shopping list : 1. Whole Goat (recently deceased), 2. Flammable Trident 3. Blast Furnace. Freaky. Its written in blood

Been watching Soto a lot the last few days, he's been keeping what looks like a diary. He's left it unattended, going to go have a peek.

A small book made of black leather, bound with the spine of a Water Buffalo. Each page is hot to the touch & has the consistency of Papyrus.

The book is titled simply 'Sotirios'. The 1st half is drawings of constellations and the 2nd is horoscopes. He thinks hes his own star sign.

He's just caught me reading it. He's absolutely furious. He keeps punching the wall screaming 'The eyes of the impure will scald my words'.

We were all very subdued on the way back. Had to sit next to a furious Masch. His teeth started bleeding, that happens when hes angry.

Stevie setting his text ringtone as Andy Gray - "Lovely cushioned header, for..." then shouting "GERRARD!" himself. 23 times and counting.

All was quite relaxed. Suddenly all the lights went off. We didn't have a clue what was going on until Kyrgiakos emerged with Bagpipes.

Soto played the same note for 35 minutes without drawing breath. Then he sat down, cross legged, and prayed.

I need a long sleep. Invited Rafa round for tea at mine as I knew the missus would be out. He said no, already going to Dirks for an Amstel.

A Tale of Loaves, Fishes and Zombies

2010-05-18T12:33:00.000Z

Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom

2010-04-25T20:03:00.007Z

"Got more soul than a sock with a hole"
"A lot of bitches think he's overly chauvinistic"
"He's in it for the quiche, might as well not ask him for some free shit capiche?"
Rhinestone Cowboy

"Like a soup sandwich on a hand dish
Some say his language was way too outlandish
He did his thing, spoke in a jig slang
And translate Einstein's theory of the Big Bang"
Mr. Clean

"It's how son became a big man from a black boy
To name names, a really big fan of Dan Ackroyd"
Vaudeville Villain

"Oh and I know, You wanna see a wino bring the wine out"
"No, I haven't seen Kes Neelix
'Oh yeah? Just you stay away from her with those lyrics'
Please, ain't nobody fucking after her
I'm out of here as soon as I fix the flux capacitor"
A Dead Mouse

"Pick a crime he was out in the nick of time
To get paid another day and live to kick a sicker rhyme"
"The tests show lactose, ambisol, lecithin
Five types of aspirin and other kinds of medicines
Next time I'll bring my men who speak Mexican
And let the tek's spin
Make 'em contact the next of kin"
Lactose and Lecithin

Iconic

2010-03-24T10:43:00.003Z

Frank Sinatra, Capitol Records, it's post-war America in a nutshell.

Questions, questions

2010-03-16T18:39:00.003Z

Why does this 1970s paperback of Bulgakov's "The White Guard" have Clint Eastwood on the cover?

Maybe not

2010-01-06T09:07:00.003Z

I was googling Manic Street Preachers lyrics and was confronted by this option on some website...

I realise that it probably does that for every song in the database, even "Murder Your Children Using Chainsaws" by Pantera, but it still made me laugh. I almost wish I had a mobile so I could waste 49p on testing it out. Almost.

Never mind the over rate, what about my heart rate?

2010-01-05T20:14:00.003Z

Geoffrey Boycott is pissing me off at the moment. It's not like I was ever a fan, but he's reached new heights of useless twattery during this current South African series. Yesterday he was banging on about the rules of golf and how they apply to women, thus throwing some casual sexism into his already well-stirred mix of narrow-minded arrogance. Every other comment is prefaced with "As I may have said before" or "Well, in my day" before some tedious bit of self-aggrandising bollocks, as today when he said "I didn't make much, well, 60 or so".

Why the BBC haven't sent him to the knackers yard by now I don't know. The other commentators, particularly the English ones, seem to be just humouring him, feeding him leading questions so he can happily rant about his career while they get on with the cricket. I rarely shout "cunt" at the top of my voice but an unexpected "corridor of uncertainty" today made me do just that. It's easier to just turn the radio off for 20 minutes.

TMS is one of my favourite things in the world - witness Aggers' interview today with MCC President John Barclay, one of the most entertaining bits of radio I've ever heard (here from about 2:26 in) - and to go from that back to Boycott's boorish idiocy was so depressing. I can't seem to find the right amount of swearwords for a big final sentence so you'll have to do it yourself. Make a phrase using some or all or the following words (feel free to add your own):-
fucker Boycott wifebeating wanker cunt twat Geoffrey massive is arse a old git.

Feel better? Me too.

Wu Train

2009-05-06T00:06:00.005Z

If the Wu-Tang had signed to Blue Note.

Brings a tear to the eye

2009-03-26T21:35:00.001Z

AC Milan fans sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" during a minutes silence to commemorate Hillsborough...

Finally some good news

2009-01-06T22:17:00.004Z

From the BBC...
"Morris dancing could be 'extinct' within 20 years because young people are too embarrassed to take part, a UK Morris association has warned. The number of people taking part in the English folk dance is falling while the average age of the dancers is going up..."

Excellent. Although "embarrassed" is the wrong term, "too busy falling about laughing at grown men making twats of themselves" is perhaps closer to the truth.

I hate Morris dancers, always have. What is so good about banging bits of wood together while jingling pointlessly? I don't care if it's tradition, so was bear-baiting. One of the most annoying things in the world is settling into a delicious country pub pint in a quiet corner of Sussex only to be disturbed by a bunch of bearded saddoes fresh from a psychotic's dressing-up box. Many years ago I even witnessed a woman playing air accordion, wearing the kind of badge-filled jumper that marked her out as the kind of person who collects the beermats at beer festivals and loves helping out instead of drinking. I think that was the moment I decided to grow up to rule the world and immediately slaughter all the jingly people without mercy. Unless evolution gets them first, of course. Hopefully the youth of today have lives and I'll be spared all that conquering.

Back with deep thoughts

2008-12-13T19:14:00.003Z

Ha! Look! Dope in a can! hahahaha!

Make your bloody mind up

2008-10-25T15:40:00.003Z

Or, how being trapped in a bookshop with only tea for company can make you do odd things. Namely listing all the varieties of Longmans' imprints in our database...

1796 - Longman
1798 - T.N. Longman
1800 - Longman and Rees
1805 - Longmans, Hurst, Rees, and Orme
1806 - Edward Orme & Longman, Rees, Hurst and Orme
1806-15 - Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme
1812-23 - Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown
1824-31 - Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green
1837 - Longman, Rees, Orme, and Co.
1837 - Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman
1837-41 - Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans
1842-56 - Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans
1860 - Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts
1866-69 - Longmans, Green, and Co.
1868-77 - Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer
1869-1954 - Longmans, Green, and Co.
1959 - Longmans

No, I didn't have anything better to do.

How's your paranoia Charlie Brown?

2008-10-23T07:47:00.005Z

Been trying not to have this self-same thought myself...*

(*The new world order puppets thought that is, not the pumpkin patch one. That would be silly. CFR stands for the Council on Foreign Relations, apparently).

If I had a time machine

2008-10-02T00:08:00.003Z

I'd go back to Christmas 1967 and head for New York. I'm going through piles of old music magazines and have come across a picture of Tim Buckley standing in the snow in front of random gig hoardings. On Boxing Day you could escape the sober family atmosphere and check out the Ornette Coleman Trio with John Coltrane at the Village Theatre (tickets $2-4). Then if New Year's Eve turns out to be a drag (no pun intended) cheer yourself up (or not) with the Velvet Underground & Nico any night in the first two weeks of January over on W. 46th St.
Howlin' Wolf is also in town later in the month.

Who needs the court of Louis XVI or Restoration foppery? Jazz and droning violas, that'll do me. And maybe hunt Tim down and buy him a beer while listening to the Wolf at the door, too.

Orwell uber alles

2008-08-15T22:03:00.004Z

Maybe in slightly bad taste, that (been muttering the Dead Kennedys to myself today, y'see). Anyway. The Orwell Project. A bookmark for as long as it takes... So far it's yielded the fascinating tidbit that Orwell's dog was called Marx. Genius.

Things I didn't know a week ago

2008-07-18T17:53:00.003Z

Tortoiseshell is actually made from tortoises (don't know what I thought it was made from, but there you go).
In England and France lectern Bibles lay upper cover up, in Germany and Holland lower cover up.
The Stationers' Company didn't let anyone bind octavos or larger in sheepskin.
Remboitage is a good word.
The people on the 8.06 from Haywards Heath are actually dead - mentally, physically, culturally and any other way you could measure it (unless looking at blackberries is some kind of sign of life, that is).

Doesn't get any better

2008-07-13T19:12:00.004Z

I doubt I'll ever top this recent 3-move checkmate. Storming, and rather unlikely, too. Thanks to the poor chap who played me, I suppose.

(For those who care, the moves are 1. e4 f6 2. d4 g5 3. Qh5#. Nice, eh?).

Chuck Norris? Who?

2008-07-08T22:58:00.002Z

Much silliness from the Rawk forum...

Martin Skrtel is the leading cause of death in Eastern European centre forwards.
There is no ctrl button on Martin Skrtel's computer. Martin Skrtel is always in control.
Martin Skrtel can touch MC Hammer.
Martin Skrtel once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.
Every year on his birthday, Martin Skrtel randomly selects one lucky child to be thrown into the sun.

The Executive Colouring Book

2008-06-18T21:00:00.004Z

Link

Patriotism redux

2008-06-11T22:33:00.002Z

"What has kept England on its feet during the past year? In part, no doubt, some vague idea about a better future, but chiefly the atavastic emotion of patriotism, the ingrained feeling of the English-speaking peoples that they are superior to foreigners. For the last twenty years the main object of English left-wing intellectuals has been to break this feeling down, and if they had succeeded, we might be watching the SS men patrolling the London streets at this moment."
- George Orwell, from an essay on H.G. Wells, 1941.

He probably has a point. If there were a bunch of nazis bombing me every night I would undoubtedly rouse myself to feel something for this country, but until that happens I can't be doing with it. Holland and Spain play better football anyway.

The poetry of Bo Diddley

2008-06-10T08:23:00.002Z

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,
I use a cobra-snake for a necktie,
I got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made from rattlesnake hide,
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of a human skull,
Now come on take a walk with me, Arlene,
And tell me, who do you love?

Wild goose chase

2008-05-30T18:55:00.006Z

There are lots of cool books in this world. The limited edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 that's bound in asbestos, for example. The edition of Snowblind bound in mirrors. Or, less sensationally, anything printed by the Golden Cockerel Press.

However my favourite book ever in the world ever is, for utterly trivial reasons, Gerard's Herbal. First published 1597 and then reprinted in the 1630s, it's one of the most astonishingly illustrated books ever - more woodcuts than you can shake a 2B pencil at (and I should know, I've counted them). I know it's all important for its impact on contemporary botany and medicine blah blah blah, but I just like the bit where he very seriously imparts how barnacle geese hatch from barnacles...

"When it is perfectly formed, the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out and as it groweth greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangeth only by the bill. In short space after it cometh to full maturity, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowl, bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose; having black legs, and a bill or beak, and feathers black and white... For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repair unto me, and I shall satisfy them by the testimony of credible witnesses"

Or the testimony of pissed-up sailors, maybe. It's also illustrated by this rather wonderful and entirely unconvincing woodcut...

Facts? Who needs them.

Smart casual, Garden of Eden style

2008-05-28T19:55:00.005Z

Undoubtedly the most printed book in history is the Bible. It said so in the Observer book of half-arsed book facts last Sunday and everything. What was actually interesting was that Mao's little red book was in second above the Koran, in only half a century. The awesome power of a totalitarian book club.

Anyway, over time errors crept in and out, one of the most famous being the Breeches Bible. It's not actually a single edition, more a series of editions using the same text over a period of perhaps 80 years, mostly printed in Geneva from around 1560. We just got one in and it's very cool. See below in Genesis chapter 3, verse vii, how it got the name...

We've also got a very rare Hungover Typesetter's Bible that starts "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was, oh bollocks, this is all rubbish isn't it? I'm off for a pint. If the Bishop wants it by Friday he can print it himself. What's this? Snakes? Apples? You what?" and kind of goes downhill from there. But it's too fragile to scan, sadly.

Not big, not clever

2008-05-07T23:27:00.003Z

I don't care what anyone else says, I love Lolcats. Particularly this one...

Boo's Bloke is Back

2008-04-26T18:08:00.005Z

Increasingly these days I get puzzled and sometimes pitying looks when I mention that the Boo Radleys were/are my favourite band ever, usually from people who are perhaps a few years too young to remember Giant Steps and might just remember Wake Up Boo! as a sort of summer novelty single. Little do they know that this will prompt me into embarking on a well-practiced rant taking in everything from Coltrane to acid trips I've done, which boils down to the fact that the Boos were the bestest faroutest most risktaking and interesting band of the 90s and Martin Carr is up there with the best songwriters in the country.

So hurrah then, that having put his bravecaptain project to bed and disappeared from view for a year or two he's back with a myspace page and some new songs, sans laptop but with guitars and (yay!) some trumpets. Go listen...

They're stealing the skies

2008-04-20T23:42:00.004Z

Just when you think they* couldn't find new ways to piss you off, this. Floating logos made from I don't care what. And illustrated with the CND/peace sign, too, as if to say "we're groovy and we want to make the planet a better place". Er. No. You're just a pair of fuckwit fratboys who want to take one of the last remaining unspoilt things about this planet and cover it in corporate faeces. You cunts.

Hanging is too good. Drawing, quartering, repeated exposure to Metal Machine Music, this is all too good for them. What would Bill do? Something pretty damn violent involving shotguns, perhaps.

The only crumb of comfort is that they're in Atlanta. Let's hope they stay there.

(*I don't know who "they" are as a group. But they're out there, for sure).

True

2008-04-16T07:35:00.002Z

XKCD rocks. A few days ago he aped Calvin and Hobbes (or should that be tigered?). And this is nice and pithy. But hit the random button and you'll be away.

Coffee rant

2008-03-21T10:43:00.005Z

Now, I've always thought coffee was shit. It tastes horrible, it gives me headaches, it gives rise to these vaguely culty chains of coffee shops where ordering is more complicated than filling out a tax return. And it isn't tea.

So, I'm not a fan. But I never imagined that even weirdo coffee drinkers could stoop as far as to drink coffee made from the undigested beans that have been shat by a civet. What. The. Fuck. Do tea drinkers piss on their tea leaves before brewing up? No. Do gourmets insists that truffles are covered in pig saliva? No. Has caffeine sent the whole planet mad?! Clearly.

Although the palm civet is rather cute...

...it won't prevent me from seeing Starbucks and Cafe Nero as some kind of respectable front for copraphiliacs from now on. And thinking that coffee really is shit.

"See my car keys? You'll never get these"

2008-03-14T15:17:00.002Z

Yeah, boyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Tonight's Lesson from the Book of Eric

2008-03-03T23:09:00.005Z

"The two facts which even now are not very widely grasped, and which should be made the centre of all anti-war agitation... are:

1. That war against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
2. That every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac."

- George Orwell, New Statesman, August 1937.

Big Brother is not a gamer

2008-03-03T20:27:00.005Z

The beeb has a typically incisive report here about a new effort to locate terrorists online. Apparently it's inevitable that terrorists will make greater use of the internet. Who'd a thunk? And there's an increase in "horsepower" (no, really) in the attacks on the net's infrastructure. Those pesky equine jihadis.

Anyway. It's all much of a muchness, an article that was clearly written by an intern on secondment from the Worcestershire Dahlia Grower's Monthly. So hats off, then, to the subeditor that captioned this picture. Haven't laughed so much in ages...

No, they'll be playing Medal of Honor. As the bad guys.

A Space Warning from Sun Ra

2008-02-20T15:46:00.002Z

Found this in an old magazine recently. Apparent the earth is on the note of G currently. Well I never...

Overheard on the train

2008-02-07T18:23:00.000Z

Middle-aged woman 1:- "What does he know that we don't know?"
Middle-aged woman 2:- "Well, you just don't know, do you?"

Indeed.

Gerbil-jazz and other thought experiments

2008-02-03T15:19:00.002Z

Plucked from the ether using a theremin made of jam...

Sun Ra: You make lots of noise?
John Cage: Yeah, pretty much.
Sun Ra: What are you doing on Thursday afternoon?
John Cage: Well, I have to swing by the ironmongers to pick up some prepared pianos, but I can make it at 3.
Sun Ra: Excellent. How does the key of ecce-ptang strike you?
John cage: My favourite!

(Later...)
Sun Ra: I've made a new instrument out of my own mind.
John Cage: Does it sound anything like this?

(Silence for three days).

Sun Ra: Yeah... yeah it does.
John Cage: I like the way you think.
Sun Ra: Press record will you, my dear fellow.
John Cage: Let's not get too conventional here. I've invented a new recording process using gerbils and muscle memory.
Sun Ra: Wow! Did you know that the ancient Egyptians worshipped gerbils as the bringers of wisdom?
John Cage: Yes.
Sun Ra: Ok, so which end do I blow into? And which one's the alto?

(Musical interlude while Sun Ra blows a complicated series of triplets that spell "smug git" in Assyrian).

John Cage: Can I wear your hat?

(The hat is handed over with much mumbling of chakras).

Sun Ra: Why did the road cross the chicken?
John Cage: For the same reason that makes you wear the robes, i guess.
Sun Ra: Can i have my hat back please?
John Cage: Just another five minutes and twenty three and a half seconds, i promise.
Sun Ra: Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
John Cage: I liked the aeolian cadences in the third movement.
Sun Ra: Give me my hat back.
John Cage: Oh, sorry. I've sewn it to the cheeks of 3 of the gerbils. Let's see how they decide to notate that.

Jon gets half the blame, incidentally. Mod far out.

I hate Mancunians

2008-01-19T01:16:00.000Z

I'm watching a late-night music show on channel 4 about some chancers from Manchester called the Courteneers. Rainy-day Arctic Monkeys with Oasis haircuts. Seemed inoffensive enough, but then the main man said "I'd never write anything I didn't think was brilliant..."

Oh for fuck's sake. How low are his standards? Take some acid and spend some time with Martin Carr's record collection you idiot.

Amazing the prejudices Ian Rush has installed in me.

The Sun Ra Quilt of Joy

2008-01-16T23:16:00.000Z

Featuring...

and...

and who could forget...

That last one's a doozy. Can you imagine the racket they'd make?!

Mod out on the 12.53 Interstellar Spaceways local to Giza.

Top tunes of 2007

2008-01-03T23:35:00.000Z

Off the top of my head of an evening...

1. Rhinestone Cowboy - MF Doom. "A lot of bitches think he's overly chauvinistic" and other gems.
2. Candylion - Gruff Rhys. Nutter.
3. Rocksteady - Aretha Franklin. An alternate mix I found with souped up bass that takes it from being a pop song into a serious piece of proto-funk. (Or summat like that).
4. White Chalk - PJ Harvey. Comforting bedtime nightmares from scary aunty Polly.
5. Like a Summer Thursday - Townes Van Zandt. I've still got a long way to go before I know even half his stuff, but this is just perfect.

As for 2008, where are you Roots Manuva?

I knew it

2007-12-22T13:14:00.001Z

Tony Blair's a wanker,
Tony Blair's a wanker,
la la la la
la la la laaa.

Tony Blair's a wanker,
Tony Blair's a wanker,
la la la la
la la la laaa.........

Or Tony "I'd love to suck Jesus' cock" Bliar to give him his full title. Can't believe I ever voted for him.

Galaxies, sir, thousands of them

2007-11-24T21:41:00.000Z

No way are we alone in this universe.

Paul Simon singing Brian Wilson

2007-11-12T23:36:00.000Z

Ignore the annoying announcer bloke. This is just lovely...

Yep

2007-11-11T22:00:00.000Z

(From the Gibson forum).

"Whaddaya gonna do?"

2007-10-29T17:58:00.000Z

RIP Sopranos. Best. TV. Ever. (Even though the last series was a bit pants). Better swearing than the West Wing, better haircuts than the Wire, and less Lovejoy actors than Deadwood. Some of my random favourite things about it:-

1. Sil. The hair. The suits. The terrible Al Pacino impressions.
2. Paulie. Again with the hair. He loved his mum, the big cuddly psychopath. And the fact that he survived is kind of sweet.
3. Steve Buscemi. Turned an already genius series into the best goddam weekly fix that you've ever experienced.
4. The swearing. For me, the best swearing was one time when Tony was pulled over by a black cop for speeding. He tries to bribe him, but gets nowhere and a ticket anyway. As he pulls away and passes the cop he mutters "Affirmative action cocksucker". Not big, not clever, but it doesn't half trip off the tongue.
5. The music. The closing credits invariably had the perfect tune to come down off an episode with. If fucking Channel 4 hadn't trailed Big Brother and other shite over it that would have been perfect. Thanks, you idiots.
6. Lauren Bacall getting punched in the face. What other show could write that?!

And probably lots more. It got out just in time, the last series had a lot of padding but it picked up enough in the end to make me miss it now it's gone. Cheers Tony you fat fuck.

In praise of gambling

2007-10-21T13:20:00.001Z

Hurrah for the boks. For all the media hype about England's brave band of crocked old men, the best team in the tournament won it. I watched it with a friend who loves to gamble on sports. He's way more interested in it than I could ever be and has developed an approach that's left him significantly up after several years. Not enough to buy a yacht, but it's certainly kept him in beers. Rule number one is don't bet on horses, with baseball a close second, apparently.

The South African win last night was a triple whammy for him, and it's interesting to note what his winning bets were. He had a tenner on the boks from the beginning of the tournament at 9-1, which is fair enough, and then two other bets on last night's game, neither of which I'd have ever considered but both of which make perfect sense. Firstly England to not score a try (nice one, Mark Cueto's little toe), and then the total points scored to be under 38. Both no-brainers, really, when you look at the form. So, beers on him, then.

Any doubts I had about whether I'd soften my usual anti-England stance and support them even a little bit evaporated the first time they showed the princes. Fucking leeches. And what was with Gordon Brown, the French rightwing bloke and Thabo "AIDS isn't a big deal" Mbeki all up on the podium? Just weird. Surely Catherine Deneuve would've sufficed?

Is it just me?

2007-10-14T20:27:00.001Z

Front of the Observer Music Magazine today, Paul McCartney and Pete Doherty. Jesus. I don't know who to be more angry at. The Observer for printing this rubbish, Macca for being a publicity whore, or the smackhead for being a talentless, well, smackhead. What's the point? Who cares? When did this become worthy of an exclusive splash?

Ok, so the paper know people will buy it whatever they do. I do. But then I buy it for the crossword, and the sport. Macca knows it'll make him seem just a little less like a pensioner who spends too much on hair dye. And smackhead must just be a lunatic if he believes the hype.

Now, I admit, I never heard the Libertines. But they looked good, and made the right people make the right noises and fair enough. But since then what has he done? Where did he cross the line from tosser who's done a bit of music to troubadour in the lineage of Blake and Rimbaud? It's that bloody Kate Moss, that's who. The media now believe he farts Booker Prize winners. I wish he'd just overdose and put an end to it, frankly. Although that would lead to people calling it "the ultimate show of artistic self-expression" and putting him up with all the other corpses who punch below their weight, Morrison and Curtis and Cobain and so on. And that would that. The orthodoxy of iconography. And that would piss me off too. So I don't know. But he can fuck off whatever.

Enter the Thirty Twix Chambers

2007-10-12T11:53:00.001Z

No wonder Raekwon always looks a little chubby.

Don't Believe the Tripe

2007-10-11T18:41:00.000Z

This is what happens when you spend too much of your time down the pub discussing food-related hip hop puns. It could happen to any of us, I'm sure you'll agree.

Mr. Aesthetic Archetype

2007-10-08T21:44:00.001Z

So this bloke. Any ideas? He's probably northern European, he undoubtedly owns an Audi and has a thing for rimless spectacles and propelling pencils. He occasionally smiles to put small children at ease. He's old enough to think that black polo-necks are elegant and doesn't get out much on account of all the thinking he does. All his classical LP's are in date order.

The clue's in the picture, actually. He's Erno Rubik, inventor of the Rubik's cube, and doesn't he just look exactly like you'd imagine him? "Hmm, yes, if I put colours on the side of a cube I will create a most stimulating puzzle" he thought, tidying the paperclip drawer in his mountainside Bauhaus retreat, and the rest was history. He would definitely not approve of this cake.

The 25th World Championships was won by a Japanese kid in 13 seconds, incidentally. Bastard.

I think we should be told

2007-09-24T18:39:00.000Z

I've been bothered by a couple of resemblences for a while now. I wonder if they are by any chance related etc etc. First up, Mancunian drunk Mark E. Smith and wood engraver David Jones...

And secondly, rubbish painter Francis Bacon and Claudius the God...

So there you go. The first picture there is taken from the most pretentiously drammy picture I have ever seen. Kenneth Branagh on his own is quite annoying, but look at this. It's firing squad time...

Or maybe Claudius is idly wondering which wild animals will be tearing Branagh apart come Saturday down the Colosseum. It's a nice thought.

Season of pissed-up mellow fruiters

2007-09-19T18:45:00.000Z

It's damson gin time again. Four glass jars, about 5 litres of shit Lidl gin, lots of sugar and 2 carrier bags full of damsons. The liquid has turned purple already. Which is what passes for excitement round here.

In other news, the Guardian have been printing these little booklets of interviews with various famous types the last couple of weeks. This morning's was with Margaret Thatcher and of course it was in the bin before the end of the street. But yesterday's was with Hitler, whose rantings I was content to carry around in my bad all day. Now, it's not that I'm saying that I think Thatcher's as bad as a genocidal maniac, but one has to have some standards, eh.

Serves him right

2007-09-13T11:50:00.000Z

Today I have been mostly musing on how cross it would've made General Sherman, above, to learn that his name is mostly known as a euphemism for masturbation. Look at him. He'd be furious!

Would that all the gun-toting idiots in the world could be ridiculed in the same way, eh.

Reason to be cheerful no. 4,076

2007-08-31T22:10:00.000Z

Thelonious Monk playing table tennis...

Abso-cunting-lutely

2007-08-23T19:45:00.000Z

"The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or of a lack of verbal interest is just fucking lunatic" - Stephen Fry.

Whisky galore

2007-08-20T17:46:00.001Z

There are many reasons to visit Islay, there's the historic Celtic culture, there's the fluffy cows and there's the undeniably stunning scenery. But obviously for me it's all about the whisky. There are 8 distilleries on Islay and we visited them all. We only did tours of 4 of them, but we had a good look at the others and here are my thoughts, based on a completely futile and deliberately pointless scoring system.

The categories were: amount of stripped pine in the visitor's centre, quality of heritage photography, size of tour guide's beard, accent of guide, number of americans or japanese on the tour and pictureskewness, with bonus points for other things.

Laphroaig - 83% (50/60). Extra points for getting a taste from a cask and for being in the actual process of stripping pine to extend their visitor centre. Marked down for having a stairwell full of pictures of Prince Charles visiting in a kilt.
Lagavulin - 66% (40/60). My favourite whisky. Anytime anyone wants to give me a bottle of the 16 year old they'd be welcome. The mouldy shed full of casks quietly maturing will haunt my dreams.
Kilchoman - 66% (40/60). A brand new distillery that still hasn't produced any whisky, since to be whisky it has to be 5 years old. But plenty of stripped pine, charmingly small and owned by some of the islanders rather than a big company.
Ardbeg - 66% (20/30). Didn't do the tour but scored heavily on the quality of their steak and ale pie and for having waitresses in tartan flat caps.
Bunnahabhain - 66% (20/30). Wonderfully remote and staffed in part by a man with a wheelbarrow full of peat wearing a midge-net who looked like some kind of alien and gave me a right shock before he started talking in a broad accent. A barrel up the road says "Bunnahabhain" on one side and "other places" on the back.
Caol Ila - 50% (30/60). One of only two that were actually running, as they tend to close down in the summer for maintenance. This is because historically the workers would use the downtime to cut peat for their homes, fact fans. Crucially for this driver, the only one close enough to walk to from where we were.
Bruichladdich - 37% (11/30). The other Islay owned distillery and notable for having a much larger variety of whiskies in an attempt to get people interested, it only having been reopened a short time after being closed in the 80s. Barrels show the name backwards in the yard, inexplicably. But why not.
Bowmore - 33% (10/30). Definitely the poshest, as it's in the island's capital town. No beards to speak of.

Visitors to mod towers are advised to check pronounciations or they won't get any.

The youf of today

2007-08-04T09:23:00.000Z

The BBC website has a report on the rebranding of the Dandy, which is 70 this year. Nothing too unusual about that, even if the new publication, Dandy Xtreme, has a shit badly spelt name. Such is life. But here's what the Editor had to say...

"Following extensive research, we discovered The Dandy readers were struggling to schedule a weekly comic into their hectic lives. They just didn't have enough time. They're too busy gaming, surfing the net or watching TV, movies and DVDs... They required a guide, packed with the stuff kids need to know to stay in the loop - a lifestyle magazine attuned to their hectic lives, featuring all the latest trends, must-haves, must-sees and must-dos."

Phew. Those demanding kids, eh? Their lives are too hectic to read a few fucking words. I mean, it's a comic, the whole point of it is that it has fewer words and takes less time to read. The new issues appear to have the Simpsons on the front, which kinds of points to a lack of initiative and originality. I give it a couple of years before it folds because the kids are too busy buying the Beano.

Copy, right?

2007-07-26T16:47:00.000Z

Ok, so I shamelessly nicked the title from an MP3 blog of the same name (which is worth a look if you like cover versions), but anyway. The point is that I just found a link to the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft. Now I've never read any H.P. Lovecraft, but I'm aware that good and sensible people like Neil Gaiman have, and so here's the link. Link.

Rejoice!

2007-07-22T15:42:00.000Z

FIP's back on the air. 98.5FM, Brighton people. Thanks for drawing it to my attention, Mr. a_non, whoever you are! (And who are you?!).

A couple of things about the 14th century

2007-07-17T23:08:00.000Z

I've just finished a superb biography of Sir John Hawkwood, who started out a squire in Essex and ended up married to the daughter of the Duke of Milan and one of the most influential men in Italy. After his death the above fresco was painted in Florence Cathedral. He more or less achieved this by failing to go home after the Hundred Years' War (actual length, 116 years) and instead heading to Italy to start menacing cities with his company of mercenaries. Italian politics were so insane that this kind of worked, with Milan and Florence and Siena and the Pope (and the other Pope) all hiring and firing or otherwise capturing and ransoming him while he changed sides more often than you can count and acquired huge amounts of property and cash. It's all hugely entertaining from a distance of 600 years.

The two completely trivial things that really got me, though, were:
1 - Knights in battle were often electrocuted in their armour during thunderstorms.
2 - Popular belief at the time held that if you had sex with a menstruating woman the baby would be a leper.

Who needs fiction?

Because I have a mental age of 12...

2007-07-16T16:52:00.001Z

Another reason to hate Travis

2007-07-12T22:06:00.001Z

I have specific reasons for hating Travis that predate their dire years of being rained on. One night in 1996 while having a pint before seeing Beth Orton we were asked to move from our table "so the band could have their tea". Thinking, well, ok, we got up, and 4 spotty students sat down and started eating. "Where's Beth?" we thought. They turned out to be this stunningly average pub rock band who went down like a lead balloon as the support that night. "I bet they become successful just to annoy me" I remember thinking, pissed off that not only was I having to endure this shite, but that they'd also nicked my seat.

So just to add another layer of annoyance, they've gone and ripped off the above photograph of Sao Paulo, which I randomly found on the net last year and have loved ever since. It's by Rennee Burri, who also took a fantastic picture of Che Guevara, here. And what do Travis do? They walk across a rooftop in New York and try and grab some of the cool for themselves. Well, it isn't working, lads, you will forever be a mediocre bunch of whingers who give Coldplay a good name. Now fuck off and don't come back until you have an original idea.

Aaaahh. And relax.

Big and clever

2007-07-03T21:01:00.000Z

Some sweary highlights from tonight's "The Thick of It" on BBC4...

"We are going to ram you so hard up Tom's arse that he'll have to shit out of his mouth."
"Ok, twatweasle, you got that?"
"It sucks cock so deep that the bellend is wearing your appendix as a hat."
"You couldn't organise a bum rape in a barracks."
"Normally you're about as secure as a hymen in a south London comprehensive."
"I will personally eviscerate you. Obviously I don't have your education so I don't know what that means, but I'll start by ripping your cock off and busk it from there."
"Oh God, it's like a prostate consultant's waiting room in here."
"You don't leak. Well, not from the mouth, anyway."

My Pet Goat and other important state archives

2007-07-02T20:59:00.001Z

Fark had one of their photoshop contests to suggest designs for Dubya's Presidential Library (hallelujah, he's almost gone). I liked this one the best. Although honourable mention must go to this one, too.

An Army of Her

2007-06-30T01:11:00.000Z

Glasto kind of passed me by except for some late night telly. The Arctics were noisy and fun, the Who weren't half bad (Pete Townsend sure plays a mean riff), but what really got me was Bjork.

I'm not a huge fan, but I'm always interested to see what planet she's currently on. Last week she had this sound going on that rather obscurely reminded me of an instrumental on an old Elvis Costello album Spike called "Stalin Malone", all dissonant brass and warm tones underpinning her usual beats and odd stylings. It was amazing. And of course it looked wonderful, two rows of pixie women playing french horns and the like with stars on their brows and flags apparently flying from their dresses. Just the best thing I've seen in ages. Nice one BBC4.

Youtube has a few examples posted, here, here and here. Give it a whirl.

Mod chuffed to be back online!

Flogging a dead corpse

2007-06-27T11:42:00.000Z

I can't get excited by the recent Nick Drake release, Family Tree, which collects family recordings and includes several examples of his mother singing. When I first heard Nick Drake in the early 90s, there were the three albums and a fourth rounding up odd studio quality tracks and outtakes. That was really all you needed, and you could definitely make a case for only needing the three albums, each perfect in its own way. Pre-internet, it seemed enough.

But of course capitalism and the cult of youthful death will have their way. Since then his fame has grown exponentially, which is great for convincing people that Coldplay haven't made a single note of interesting music ever, but then so have the magazine articles, biographies, anthologies and craving for new material. The tragic poet who died without achieving fame and the legend of a finite oeuvre have become an overwhelming clamour. So we get some teenage doodles, a bad Bob Dylan cover and him playing the clarinet.

Nick Drake recorded three of the finest and most moving English folk albums and then died of an overdose of antidepressants. Just leave it at that.

Mod out.

PS In case anyone has no idea what I'm on about, buy Bryter Layer. Now.

Corporate English

2007-06-04T21:36:00.001Z

A friend of mine was sent this letter after complaining about a meal they'd had. One the one hand, it's admirable that a complaint should be answered when most companies of Wagamama's size could care less, but one has to ask, where were they when the punctuation was handed out? And is there some house style which bans the use of capital letters? They're obviously massive e.e. cummings fans.

Been making me chuckle all week. Mod out for random carriage return soup.

Welcoming Summer with the Candylion

2007-06-01T18:11:00.000Z

I've just bought some music for the first time all year. Which felt weird, I can tell you. Tom Waits and the Arctics do what they say on their tins and shout about strange fish meals and annoying people in clubs respectively. Both recommended.

But the album I think I'll be mostly playing in the sunshine this summer will be Gruff Rhys' Candylion, a typically idiosyncratic collection of ditties and gentle strums. Less ambitious than the Super Furry Animals' stuff with none of that scary techno noisiness, it's deliberately playful (the sleeve features 70s kids TV style instructions on how to make your own candylion... fluff!) and a totally ego-free experience. Refreshing and almost as catchy as Mwng. Download tracks using the Hype Machine here.

My only gripe is that I wish more than a handful of the tracks were in Welsh. For some reason that makes it doubly catchy.

Mod i maes, look you.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

2007-05-30T23:11:00.000Z

Bugger

2007-05-24T10:33:00.001Z

.

An appropriate expanse of black space to suit my mood...

There's more, there's more...

2007-05-20T22:30:00.001Z

God wallpaper

2007-05-20T12:34:00.001Z

And to continue the theme, a screenshot following a recent game of (oh, the shame) online Boggle.

Overheard in Brighton

2007-05-20T12:12:00.001Z

"I want to be a Goth! Can I buy these leggings?"

"When I worked at Fabric I got free alcohol, free drugs, free office space..."

More banners

2007-05-18T17:01:00.001Z

Nicked off the RAWK forum.

The Road to Athens

2007-05-16T20:10:00.000Z

The first in an undoubtedly irregular series of random Liverpool shit between now and next Wednesday.

Mod out in his brand spanking new Robbie Fowler scarf. Ooh. Which reminds me...

God has retired. Long Live God.

Spidey Ganesh Madness

2007-05-14T21:30:00.000Z

This one's for Ford...

Terrorism Sussex Style

2007-05-10T17:59:00.000Z

Someone I know was given one of these cards as he came out of Lewes station today. Obviously the investigation is not going well. As this article reports, since parking meters were introduced in the town in 2004 a steady stream of them have been vandalised and blown up by homemade devices. The last I heard was that police had done some DNA tests on a lager can found near the site of one attack, and managed to rule out a local wino. Fine work there, I'm sure we all agree.

Of course, this being Lewes, homemade devices are ten a penny. Half the town is involved in making things for the annual Bonfire celebrations, and the other half love the sound and fury it creates. So I don't think that CrimeStoppers are going to have much luck. It'll take more than cash to crack the omerta of the Bonfire Boys, after all they used to go to prison for their right to march.

The whole thing is alternatively hilarious and ridiculous. It's cool (I think) that people are taking the law into their own hands, and that a community as well-off as Lewes tacitly supports such activity. On the other hand, cars are shit and from my vantage point on the high street I have no doubt that the meters have made the town a lot less congested. So in conclusion, who cares. Only the Police...

The Scary Man

2007-05-08T19:58:00.000Z

"Bob Dylan reportedly scared the children at his grandson's kindergarten after treating the class to a live show. The singer has allegedly been dubbed the 'weird man' by children in the class, in the Los Angeles suburb Calabas, where his son Jakob Dylan's child attends.
A source told the New York Post newspaper: 'The kids have been coming home and telling their parents about the weird man who keeps coming to class to sing scary songs on his guitar.
He's been visiting the school just for fun, but the kids don't appreciate they are in the presence of a musical legend.
They just think of him as the weird guitar guy.'"

Link.

All puns gratefully received for a heading, I can't think of any.

Aretha

2007-05-06T00:31:00.000Z

Choons

2007-04-30T23:08:00.000Z

Twice a year Ford and I exchange compilations to keep us both more informed about the stupid amount of music we miss all the time. While I miss tapes and their 90 minute running time, I can't deny the future rocks, and since he's posted his compilation, I might as well post mine.

It's a broadly funky set, with only a small dip in the middle to allow for Jenny Lewis. Tracks below, get it here. And if you can't be arsed to wade through it all, I'd advise you to get on your good foot, fire up the P2P and download It's My Thing by Marva Whitney, cos not even JB himself can be that insistent and in your face.

Mother Popcorn - James Brown

It's My Thing - Marva Whitney
Change My Thoughts From You - Erma Franklin
Proud Mary - Solomon Burke
When The Meth Comes Marching In - dj BC
How High The Moon - Slim Galliard
Streetlife - Randy Crawford & The Crusaders
Bottom Of The World - Tom Waits
A New England (live) - Kirsty MacColl & Billy Bragg
Paradise - Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins
Liv pa Mars - Anni-Frid Lyngstad
Shinjiro ft. Mos Def - DJ Krush
Mr. Pharmacist - The Other Half
Memo from Turner - The Rolling Stones
Ya Ya - Lee Dorsey
Susie-Q - Dale Hawkins
You've Been Drunk - Champion Jack Dupree
Night Train - James Brown

Happy Birthday Speccy

2007-04-23T19:49:00.000Z

It was twenty-five years ago today that rubber-keyed goodness descended upon us. Clive Sinclair got a knighthood out of it before suddenly failing to invent anything decent ever again. At 8 I was totally blown away by games like Knight Lore or Alien 8, and while both the BBC and Commodore could be argued to be better, the Speccy looked way cooler, and was significantly smaller as well. I still sort of miss it.

10 Print "Mod Out"
20 Goto 10

Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out

Bastard Bastard American Bastard Bastards*

2007-04-22T15:26:00.000Z

Read this article from yesterday's Guardian. Go on. Written by one of the lawyers trying to help the prisoners in Guantanamo, it's a shocking indictment of how weird the US military is. Beyond the torture and the wider questions about how many of the men should actually be there, it details how hard they have made it for anyone to help them, let alone free them. Among the things he's prevented from taking into his clients are National Geographic and Runner's World; all his notes have to go via Washington where everything is censored, and they blatantly lie to him without seeming to care that he knows it.

What the fuck is their problem? This has gone so far through the looking glass and up the white rabbit's arse that I'm not even sure whether I know who to hate. Bush, Cheney, the US military, for sure, but what about the individuals involved at all levels? Don't they have a single bit of conscience? I guess you trade that at the door for a big shiny gun, and anyone who wants to be in an army is clearly psychotic to start with.

Although I do think that Runner's World looks dangerous. All those healthy people. It's not right.

*Not all of them, of course. Just the ones in uniform. And the rightwing ones. And the Dave Matthews Band.

New Yorker quote of the day

2007-04-17T21:50:00.000Z

I've just read a 4 page article on Kingsley Amis on the New Yorker website (like you do) and this made me laugh...

"Pornography was to British writers of the fifties what the Communist Party was to French writers of the time; they didn’t entirely approve of it, but felt that being attached to it would keep them from being seen as mere intellectuals"

Maybe you had to have been there.

What about Paul and Ringo?

2007-04-16T18:55:00.000Z

In scanning in graffiti photos for my fotolog, I noticed that I'd snapped two Beatles:-

It's going to really annoy me if I can't find the other two.

Fab Mod out.

Good weirdness

2007-04-12T19:45:00.000Z

My latest web-comic find is A Softer World, which has just started replacing Steve Bell in the Guardian while he goes off and trims his beard or whatever it is that he does. It's appealingly bleak and odd while little pockets of truth shine through and make you nod in agreement, and the photographic format is definitely a winner. So that's at least 3, if not 4, online strips I'm checking daily now.

Mod out to find a life.

The Eye of the Duck Storm

2007-04-11T21:09:00.000Z

David Lynch is doing weather forecasts. No, really. Every day on his site he sits there, peers up at the sky and announces the temperature, sky colour, passing cloud formations and other important data. Of course, being LA it's not very interesting weather, which is perhaps the point, but it's worth it for of his slightly out-there way of speaking and completely insane hair. I found it strangely comforting to be wished a good day by the director of Blue Velvet before I go to work.

Go see for yourself. It's the lower right button.

Beer and bonkers behaviour

2007-04-10T20:24:00.000Z

So I went to Yorkshire properly for the first time over Easter. There was a duck race, too much food and lots of good beer. Under the influence of said beer I found myself admitting that ok, sure, Yorkshire beer was better than the Sussex stuff. In particular Absolution Ale from Sheffield, which at 5.3% was both delicious and deadly and made me into a turncoat for my county. Oh well.

I can't say too much about the Pace Egg play, beyond what was obvious. Some kind of St. George related mummery, performed four times in increasing stages of drunkenness, a character called Toss Pot and a lot of in-jokes and heckling. The performance we saw was the third, and was notable for St. George accidentally getting twatted over the head during a (drunken) duel and blood rushing down his face. Luckily a local mother darted in with a wetwipe to save the country's national icon from having to go to A&E. And on it went, bad singing, lines being forgotten, plenty of shouting and a sword fight every 3 minutes. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed something as much. Maybe it was the beer.

Beardyman

2007-04-05T17:04:00.000Z

He's got a beard, he's the UK Beatboxing Champion, he's a Brightonian, and he cooks...
(arf).

FIP

2007-03-26T19:06:00.000Z

Nope, it's definitely gone now. Both on 98.5 and 91. The man has won. Oh well.

Mod off to download another two Bob Dylan shows.

Edit - oh, it's back. I'm going to stop going on about it now...

Pulp Fiction

2007-03-22T22:37:00.000Z

From a time when small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, the cover art of Ron Turner. More unlikely spaceships and angry Venusians than you could possibly need of a day. Gratuitous breasts, 1950s chrome-finned optimism, giant hands crushing the Empire State Building, it's all there. Magnificent. And isn't Vargo Statten is a superb name for a scifi writer?

Mod out to dust down his kill-o-ray and replenish the duodenium cells on his space hopper. Or something.

Dark Satanic Mills

2007-03-21T20:20:00.000Z

I went to Yorkshire for the first time on the weekend. It weren't bad. Not as good as Sussex, or indeed Lancashire, but not bad. Nice hills and stuff. But I was mostly taken by the massive cooling towers right by the motorway going through Sheffield (above), about as dramatic a view as I've ever seen. They'd never allow that down south...

Reep Feep

2007-03-08T20:37:00.000Z

One of the best things about living in Brighton (apart from the sea, the pubs, the overpriced everything, the Londoners and so on) is FIP. A French radio station which for years we've been mysteriously able to pick up on normal radios on exactly 91 FM. It plays everything from Billie Holiday to Wu Tang, and being French, they very sensibly play all the tunes with the swearwords left in. So refreshing. No ads, and almost no talking (and what talking there is is in French. Parfait). About one tune in four is actually French, and a similar amount are jazz, especially when you really need it on a Sunday afternoon. It's the sound of Brighton, they even come over and DJ in pubs and people sit round drinking red wine congratulating themselves on their taste. More than they usually do, that is.

But now it's gone. 91 FM is a wasteland of static, and I fear that maybe one of the urban myths about it was true; that some kind soul was boosting the signal in his loft, and he's just been busted. We can still listen to it online, but it's not the same as having it on a transistor radio in the park.

RIP FIP. Mod out to buy half of Maplins and put this injustice right.

Muse of the Month

2007-03-05T22:37:00.000Z

Well, the last 3 months, really. Basquiat Scrawls' post on Joanna Newsom got me wondering why I haven't given her the time of day yet. The same friend that fixed her up pressed a copy of that album into my hand a while back, with what sound like the same fairly exacting listening instructions. And what have I done? Nothing. Because of Jenny Lewis. I only have time for one bewitching cute genius in my life, you see.

"Have mercy, have mercy, have mercy on me
Let's pretend that everybody here wants peace..."

"And it's a Pink Moon..."

2007-03-04T01:14:00.000Z

Prague

No-one tells me anything. I was in the pub earlier when I noticed some people in the street pointing at the sky. Either it was the start of a bohemian production of War of the Worlds, or someone was naked up a lamp post. So I went outside and lo, it was a lunar eclipse in progress. Why don't people tell me these things?

All over the North Lanes people were standing outside pubs talking and looking at the sky, some trying, and mostly failing, to explain it to each other. I shared a Bonnie Tyler joke with someone while drinking a Lagavulin. Had to be done.

I was going to name this post after the Pink Floyd album. But then I went and sat on a bench across the street and watched it turning pink, or perhaps orangey-red if you're going to be pedantic, and thought of Nick Drake. Pink Moon's going to get us all, people...

Mod out to check on the celestial alignments for Doomsday.

PS Ok, so I can't resist it. "There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact it's all dark".

Billboard

2007-03-02T20:10:00.000Z

Lovely. C/o the Gibson board.

Francis Wheen's Top 10 Delusions

2007-03-01T21:37:00.000Z

Read this. He rants so much more elegantly than I ever could.

Pun of the day

2007-02-27T23:17:00.000Z

I went to a stamp meeting tonight. Don't ask. Really. But it was sort of a family obligation and it ended up being mildly interesting, if only because I got talking to this guy who'd been a botanist and lived for many years in Borneo.

Apparently there's a family of trees out there with the latin name Fordia - Fordia Splendidissima, Fordia Coriacea, and so on (google tells me). Apparently this chap's friend who was constantly discovering new species discovered a new member of this family, and named it Fordia Cortina.

Genius. And a joke that will only apply for a few more decades before no-one will get it. See Ford Prefect.

From Shaolin to the Big Easy

2007-02-26T20:09:00.000Z

I haven't checked out dj BC's site in a while, and there's lots of new mashed-up goodness to download there. Most thrillingly, Wu Orleans, a 10 track compilation of Staten Island's finest with various funky Louisiana grooves.

It's all a bit silly, but none the worst for it, and the final track "When the Meth Comes Marching In" does exactly what it says on the tin. Download it here.

I got the whole thing from a torrent, although it was sporadic and took a while to complete. In case anyone cares.

Mod out for gumbo, g.

PS In other news, I was right about 2000AD according to the BBC. And who else are you going to trust?