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19/10/2006 Miscellaneous

The Trouble with Comments

Sometimes I wish there weren’t so many options for ordinary folk to leave their responses on serious articles on newspaper websites. For example, I saw this today at the bottom of a brief, lightweight article on neuroscience in the Guardian:

Didn’t dinosaurs have two brains at one time? Where did the other brain go to? Didn’t human beings evolve from dinosaurs? Do human beings still have that second brain somewhere inside of them? If they do, what is it’s purpose?

Yes, indeed, we evolved from reptiles. That second brain is actually called the appdendix, and it controls the constriction and relaxation of the anal sphincter. Sadly, on some people the primary brain does not function, and the appendix has to take over.

19/10/2006 Film, Music

80’s Flashback

Morrissey

For no particular reason, other than I’m in the mood and some of this stuff is classic, here are a bunch of songs (with videos) from early eighties Britain which prove the first seven years of my life weren’t all bad make-up, pixie boots and synthesizers (not that there’s anything wrong with a good Moog or an ARP).

1: The Clash – Rock the Casbah
To break everyone in nice and gently and to set the tone.

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10/10/2006 Work Stories

Death Threat

Last night at the Varsity we showed Michael Winterbottom’s movie, The Road to Guantánamo, in conjunction with a local human rights group. The day before the screening one of the members of the group received a threatening phone call. Here is a transcript of that call:

Yeah, you commie socialist pig. Let me tell you something. I’m going to tell you something right now. You ought to take it right to the end. You’re putting up with these socialist people in Guantanamo Bay. I’m going to kill every one of you.

We informed the police and they sent a couple of officers to oversee the event. Needless to say, no-one died as a result of this rambling incoherence. I wonder what that loser did last night instead of massacring a bunch of Amnesty International members? Maybe he spent the night drinking everclear and pulling wings off flies. Pinko flies, darnit.

23/08/2006 Culture

Shh…

Silent Library has to be the greatest exploitative TV game show of all time. Any show with a round entitled "Old Man Bites Tenderly" ranks right up with Vic and Bob in the pantheon of TV surrealism. Click and watch!

21/08/2006 Travel

The Electric Lotus

Tesla Roadster

I was excited to read an article about the Tesla Roadster today. It’s essentially a Lotus Elise, but with subtle differences – the most significant being that it runs on electricity, not petrol. I think this is important because electric cars will not appeal to full-on car enthusiasts and petrolheads until there is an electric car they think is sexy; an object of desire like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, or slightly further down the scale, a Lotus.

There is a significant chunk of the population who will not take electric cars seriously until Jeremy Clarkson drives one and has his face rearranged due to G-forces, and I’m hoping this car is it. Obviously, I’m still in favour of reducing the number of cars on the road and the pollution they produce, but there will still be people who do not want to give up their own personal motor, either for practical or frivolous reasons, so the sooner they can and, most importantly, want to turn electric the better.

I initially thought that electric cars simply shifted the production of pollution to one centralised place – the power station – and that the same amount of pollution was created. However, I recently read that it is more efficient to have one large engine releasing the energy from whichever source you’re using and distributing it to where it’s needed than to have thousands or millions of smaller car engines making the conversion at the point of use. This means electric cars benefit the environment through being more efficient even before renewable energy reaches the point at which it can service the majority of our electrical needs.

I’m also really excited because I do enjoy driving, I enjoy moving fast, and to be able to do so with a clear conscience would be a marvellous thing. And it’s named after a cool crazy scientist, and it’s essentially a Lotus, and you can get it in racing green!

Links:
Wikipedia entry on the Tesla Roadster.
Tesla Motors official site.

14/08/2006 Music

An Indian Summer

I was going to call this my Summer compilation, but I’m not sure how much summer is left in the UK, where I guess most listeners will be, so here’s the hypothesis: it’s early September, and an Indian Summer has arrived. A warm afternoon mellows into a balmy evening. This is what plays on your stereo as you enjoy a few drinks in the garden. Of course, these tunes work just as well for an ordinary summer day. It starts with some storming afro-beat, sashays into some latin grooves, takes an electronic turn and turns folksy at the end.

Click here to listen to my Indian summer compilation (61.5mb quicktime file). I’ll remove it after two weeks, just in case someone takes issue with me putting tunes here.

The link has been removed.

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08/08/2006 Travel

Booked

I just booked a ticket to fly home for the festive season. I arrive in the UK on the 5th December, and leave again on the 3rd January. Yay!

04/08/2006 Music

Hurrah!

Victory for the Comic Muse album cover

There are few things that make me dance around the living room singing when I’m not already drunk, but I confess the arrival of a new Divine Comedy album is one of those things. I realise I’m a little behind, and that everyone back home is about three single releases ahead of me, but I’m surrounded by the uninitiated here in California. The album’s not even released in the USA, so last week I ordered it from a company based in Hong Kong.

So far it sounds like Neil Hannon’s most consistent piece since 1999’s Fin de Siècle but I’m only six songs in. It definitely starts strongly; I’m going to have to keep myself from singing "I don’t want to die a virgin!" in front of my staff at the cinema.

So far my favourite lyric is from Diva Lady

She’s got a famous boyfriend
They go out in style
She makes him look hetero
He helps her profile

02/08/2006 Culture

Time Trumpet

Mouse climbs out of Anna Ford's throat

The forthcoming Armando Iannucci series, Time Trumpet, looks like my kind of programme. It appears to be a nostalgia show set in 2031, in which celebrities reminisce about events like the shooting of Tony Blair, a beautiful fireworks display over Baghdad, the day Dale Winton exploded, and a home shopping channel that sells nothing but bacon.

A bit like the incontinent elephant on Blue Peter, but even more so. Golden memories!

31/07/2006 Miscellaneous

Book Challenge

From Dave’s blog (and all sorts of others before it):

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5.Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag three people.

I’m sitting in front of a bookcase, so about 250 are within arm’s reach. Reaching with my right arm, the closest to the tip of my middle finger is:

I enquire the way to the inn; but no one replied. I then moved forward and a murmuring sound arose from the crowd as they followed and surrounded me; when an ill-looking man approaching, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Come, Sir, you must follow me to Mr. Kirwin’s, to give an account of yourself."
"Who is Mr. Kirwin? Why am I to give an account of myself? Is this not a free country?"

Frankentsein, Mary Shelley

If you don’t like that you can have:

One of the more memorable examples of such verbiage is Ansel Adams’s description of the camera as an "instrument of love and revelation" Adams also urges that we stop saying that we "take" a picture and always say we "make" one. Stieglitz’s name for the cloud studies he did in the late 1920s – "Equivalents," that is, statements of his inner feelings – is another, soberer instance of the persistent effort of photographers to feature the benevolent character of picture-taking and discount its predatory implications. What talented photographers do cannot of course be characterized as simply predatory or as simply, and essentially, benevolent.

On Photography, Susan Sontag

I’m not going to tag anyone, but if this seems like a fun thing to do, please follow suit.

20/07/2006 Film

La Science des Rêves

Gael Garcia Bernal as Stephane inspects his woollen horse in The Science of Sleep

It looks like we’re seriously pursuing The Science of Sleep to screen at the Varsity in late August. I love Michel Gondry’s work, so I’m really excited. Check out the trailer here.

It looks as if both a French and English-language version were shot, which is unusual, but not unprecedented. I seem to remember a lame Gerard Depardieu comedy Mon Père ce Héros / My Father the Hero being shot in two different languages. Or maybe it was dubbed and my memory is inventing things.

19/07/2006 Music

Inside

Once in a while I discover a song which sounds like the inside of my head. The latest of these discoveries is from the Talking Heads 1979 album Fear of Music. Mind sounds much like a superior version of one of the tunes that my head creates but never expresses.

01/07/2006 Footy

One petulant stamping in the sensitive bits…

…and it was all over.

There’s still something to smile about, though. I watched a couple of games last week with my German friend Daniel, who provided entertaining translations of German players’ surnames.

Mertesacker – Daniel thinks this chap is from Alsace-Lorraine, or thereabouts. In this case, the merte part of the name is from the French merde. The sacker part is essentially what it sounds like to an anglophone, that is sack or bag. Hence Shitbag, or Crapbag, whichever you prefer.

It gets better.

Schweinsteiger – Daniel thinks this is a quintessential Bavarian name. Schwein, as we all know, means pig. Steiger, as Daniel told me, means to mount. When I looked it up on Babelfish, it told me steiger=riser, but I prefer Daniel’s version. Pig mounter conjures up much more interesting images.

Well, it made me giggle.

18/06/2006 Footy

La Copa del Mundo!

The World Cup is available here, albeit early in the morning. I’ve eschewed ABC and ESPN’s coverage, though, because their commentators are both patronising and inaccurate. For example, yesterday they claimed that the USA was essentially playing the same formation as Italy, when in fact the USA were playing 4-5-1 and Italy 4-4-2.

Luckily another broadcaster is carrying the matches; the Spanish language Univision. Univision is great. I can’t understand most of what they’re saying, so even if it is as stupid as the US commentators (unlikely) I can’t tell, but best of all, when a goal is scored the commentator screams “Goooool!” for about thirty seconds. Sometimes he mixes it up and throws in a repetitive “Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol!”. Most entertaining.

07/06/2006 Culture, Rights & Wrongs

Fuck me, America is weird

There has just been a tenfold increase in the fine federal government levies against broadcasters who violate “decency standards.” It used to be $32,500, now it’s $325,000, with a maximum of $3m for repeated violations.

Chris Langham as Hugh Abbot in The Thick of It

The rules do not apply to satellite TV or radio, or to cable TV (such as HBO, which makes the Sopranos). I don’t know why, but it does mean that my new favourite programme, The Thick of It, is being broadcast on BBC America (because the channel is available on digital cable and satellite only). For those who don’t know, it’s a political satire with a shitload of fucking good swearing in it. An example:

Hugh Abbot, minister of Social Affairs, has been savaged in the press by a reported call Simon Hewitt. He discusses the matter with his staff.

Hugh: So, how do we respond to this?
Terri: Right, we don’t exchange insults with bloody Simon arsepipes tittytwat.
Ollie: Is that honestly the best swearing you can come up with?
Terri: Or…
Glenn: This is a bucket of shit. If someone throws shit at us we throw shit back at them. We start a shit-fight. We throw so much shit at them that they can’t pick up shit they can’t throw shit, they can’t do shit.
Hugh: That’s top swearing, Glenn, well done.
Ollie: Watch and learn.

If only it were playing on conventional US TV, it would be the most expensive sitcom ever made.

18/05/2006 Music

John Barleycorn Must Die!

Cover art for John Barleycorn Must Die by Traffic

Today I picked up the appropriate soundtrack for the fast-approaching long weekend of drinking in the Catskill mountains with Courtney’s family. John Barleycorn Must Die is an ancient song which has a number of well-established interpretations. Most obviously, though, it’s a song about barley and the drinks one can make from it – beer and whisky.

Traffic’s 1970 version is highly regarded. I think it was in an issue of Mojo that I read Steve Winwood was reincarnated was Paul Weller without actually dying. The comparison is particularly relevant when you compare John Barleycorn… to Weller’s Wildwood. There’s a similar pastoral tinge, and Weller’s instrumentation is almost a direct lift – with bluesy piano, gutsy hammond organ and fluttering flute augmenting guitar, bass and drums.

Lyrics for John Barleycorn Must Die are the other side of the link below.

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17/05/2006 Books

First impressions of Black Swan Green

It’s very good for homesickness. I can see all the locations. I know Jason Taylor’s route to school. I remembered that he would have attended the Hill School (it’s called Upton upon Severn Comprehensive in the novel), and not Hanley Castle until he was older.

I’m amused at the way Mitchell has turned place names from the area into names of teachers: Mr Kempsey, Mrs Wyche, Mr Inkberrow. I wonder if I’ll start recognising some of the teachers? I’m also amused by the mention of “the pork scratchings factory in Upton on Severn.” I knew the manager’s son. The gossip was that he was illiterate, and his son certainly was.

I’ll post some notes on its literary qualities shortly, but right now I’m wallowing in the nostalgic smell of ashtrays in the school bus and the fear of being at the bottom of a pile-on on the playing fields.

Suddenly I’m reminded of how a friend of mine got barred from a Worcester music shop owned by one of our ex-teachers. My friend P walked in and was greeted by Mr. C with “Hello P, you’re looking fatter.” P wasn’t too impressed and responded with “Hello Mr. C, you’re looking balder.” And that was the end of that.

Back to the book…