Ever feel that you're living in an episode of The Twilight Zone where things are just a tiny bit out of kilter?
Recent incidences of minor oddities.
• A cab driver without an A to Z and unable to program his sat-nav. Kind-of a chocolate tea pot
• A singer without a voice. Surely you'd know at the sound-check if not before?
• Spied at local café last Tuesday -- woman breast-feeding child in exact line of sight to café's blackboard menu making lunch selection awkward and killing appetite. Yuk
• Spied everywhere in N16 -- feral brats running wild in pubs. It doesn't happen round the corner in N1 where pubs are for adults, not day-care surrogates..
• Phantom-like fortnightly appearance of sacks of butchered bones on the Green. Christmas for the dog, but surely contrary to accepted FSA codes of practice in butchery -- i.e., illegal?!
• A council (Hackney) so whacked with Green Everything that it actively encourages its citizens to maintain woefully untidy streets with recycling bins and refuse bags strewn asunder
• Indeed, a whole national, regional and local political system so whacked with Green Everything, that education and crime are distant priorities behind worm farms, composting and bloody bicycling
• Chocolate tea pot -- no, really. For Easter eating, not brewing I'll wager -- unless you're a north London cabbie
• Urban foxes -- not sickly country cousins, but big, brash and bushy. Brazen
• The appearance of No Smoking signs inside the office. Smoking has always been banned at work and outside it since 1 July 2007. Why the extra reminder now?
• Cashly Cole -- there really is no point to the evil little gooner. 'Rested' on Saturday. Return him quickly to the Arse under warrantee
• Spied in the park on Sunday morning -- a woman, a leash and a ferret. Weird walkies..
Monday, January 28, 2008
Heaven knows I'm Miserable Now..
..Or when the presence of two of the UK's leading comedians and the country's pre-eminent television 'personality' just isn't enough.
"Steven Patrick Morrissey is unwell!"
So quoth arguably the funniest man in England.
"But that's OK, as David Walliams is going to entertain you instead".
And he weren't joking, neither.
On any other night the presence of Russell Brand, one half of Little Britain and Jonathan Ross on the same stage would be near sublime. But not last Friday. Last Friday, I was at the new, revamped Roundhouse in Chalk Farm to witness one night of a short, intimate north London residency by the fêted ex-Smith.
With limited space, tickets had sold-out instantly and to, it would seem, only the truly devout. I can't recall a pre-gig atmosphere so loaded with anticipation. Maybe, Joe Strummer's return from 'the wilderness' at The Astoria in '99 tops it, but only just.. Anyway, you can gauge the relative importance of these things by the (dis)proportion of celebs to humble punters milling around the bar. And by Friday’s turn-out in NW1 The Ivy, The Groucho, Annabel’s et al were in for a lean night.
At about 8:30pm it all seemed to be going so well.
OK, between them, my cab driver and his sat-nav couldn't seem to find their way across three postcodes and I had to complete the journey from home to venue via the northern line. But I made it there in plenty of time.
Easy through the ticket line, easy into the main space and easy to the bar. Easy to Red Stripe and easy then to good vantage point. All going swimmingly.
I missed the support (on purpose) and when I'd settled into my spot at 8:45pm, the pre-show entertainment was stock footage of '50s and '60s pop culture icons like James Dean and Brigitte Bardot. All so very Morrissey.
Bang on cue, 9:00pm, and the films end, stage light dim and The Man and his band take the stage.
A-D-U-L-A-T-I-O-N
Mozz opens with the Smiths' Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want This Time; then The Last of the International Playboys; then a couple of new songs. Then nothing. No Morrissey. No band. No nothing. Then ten minutes pass and messrs. Brand, Ross and Walliams appear with the terminal news. Moz ain't well.
I'd have preferred to be told a bit sooner, but ho hum. Shuffle out, hail a black cab (someone who ought to know where he's going) and track back Stokie-ward in time to catch the floppy-haired dandy's pre-recorded chat show.
Musically, this year really isn't starting very well. The date I chose from Carbon/Silicon's six weeks of consecutive Fridays residence at Ladbroke Grove was cancelled and now Mozza's lost his voice. Fingers crossed that C/S can make it third-time lucky for me on the 22nd and that the return to The Roundhouse doesn't conflict with anything very important and already diarised, like a foreign trip or a wedding..
Anyway, gig or no gig, the intense pre-concert back-catalogue run-through has ensured that Mo has been a firm fixture on That Tune In My Head –- all in all, a distinct improvement on crappy daytime TV theme tunes of a week ago.
"Steven Patrick Morrissey is unwell!"
So quoth arguably the funniest man in England.
"But that's OK, as David Walliams is going to entertain you instead".
And he weren't joking, neither.
On any other night the presence of Russell Brand, one half of Little Britain and Jonathan Ross on the same stage would be near sublime. But not last Friday. Last Friday, I was at the new, revamped Roundhouse in Chalk Farm to witness one night of a short, intimate north London residency by the fêted ex-Smith.
With limited space, tickets had sold-out instantly and to, it would seem, only the truly devout. I can't recall a pre-gig atmosphere so loaded with anticipation. Maybe, Joe Strummer's return from 'the wilderness' at The Astoria in '99 tops it, but only just.. Anyway, you can gauge the relative importance of these things by the (dis)proportion of celebs to humble punters milling around the bar. And by Friday’s turn-out in NW1 The Ivy, The Groucho, Annabel’s et al were in for a lean night.
At about 8:30pm it all seemed to be going so well.
OK, between them, my cab driver and his sat-nav couldn't seem to find their way across three postcodes and I had to complete the journey from home to venue via the northern line. But I made it there in plenty of time.
Easy through the ticket line, easy into the main space and easy to the bar. Easy to Red Stripe and easy then to good vantage point. All going swimmingly.
I missed the support (on purpose) and when I'd settled into my spot at 8:45pm, the pre-show entertainment was stock footage of '50s and '60s pop culture icons like James Dean and Brigitte Bardot. All so very Morrissey.
Bang on cue, 9:00pm, and the films end, stage light dim and The Man and his band take the stage.
A-D-U-L-A-T-I-O-N
Mozz opens with the Smiths' Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want This Time; then The Last of the International Playboys; then a couple of new songs. Then nothing. No Morrissey. No band. No nothing. Then ten minutes pass and messrs. Brand, Ross and Walliams appear with the terminal news. Moz ain't well.
I'd have preferred to be told a bit sooner, but ho hum. Shuffle out, hail a black cab (someone who ought to know where he's going) and track back Stokie-ward in time to catch the floppy-haired dandy's pre-recorded chat show.
Musically, this year really isn't starting very well. The date I chose from Carbon/Silicon's six weeks of consecutive Fridays residence at Ladbroke Grove was cancelled and now Mozza's lost his voice. Fingers crossed that C/S can make it third-time lucky for me on the 22nd and that the return to The Roundhouse doesn't conflict with anything very important and already diarised, like a foreign trip or a wedding..
Anyway, gig or no gig, the intense pre-concert back-catalogue run-through has ensured that Mo has been a firm fixture on That Tune In My Head –- all in all, a distinct improvement on crappy daytime TV theme tunes of a week ago.
Monday, January 14, 2008
It Must Be Love..
A few more observations on the brilliance of the TomTom..
• It figures out the route and is typically very accurate
• It estimates journey times and ETA -- again, quite accurately
• It gives me a long-range view of the journey -- how many miles to the next exit etc.
• It warns me when I'm approaching speed cameras -- about every 500 yards in London
• It tells me when I'm driving over the speed limit
• It provides a wide-angle view of the surrounding area -- lakes, countryside, intersections, and so on..
• It is negotiating a peace settlement in the Middle East, eradicating worldwide hunger and reversing global warming ..well, probably
It is, quite literally, the most wonderful thing in the world!
• It figures out the route and is typically very accurate
• It estimates journey times and ETA -- again, quite accurately
• It gives me a long-range view of the journey -- how many miles to the next exit etc.
• It warns me when I'm approaching speed cameras -- about every 500 yards in London
• It tells me when I'm driving over the speed limit
• It provides a wide-angle view of the surrounding area -- lakes, countryside, intersections, and so on..
• It is negotiating a peace settlement in the Middle East, eradicating worldwide hunger and reversing global warming ..well, probably
It is, quite literally, the most wonderful thing in the world!
Friday, January 11, 2008
Spend, Spend, Spend
No Drogba, no Shevchenko, no Kalou. Can't really trust Pizzaro as lone striker. Mmmm, what's a little ol' Siberian oligarch (and his YTS manager) to do?
..Let's have an Anelka.
He may have been a Gooner once, but I'll forgive hime that -- we've still got Cashley after all :-(
Nicky-boy's been all over -- Bolton (of course, for about 3 minutes), Liverpool, Man City, Real Madrid and Fenerbahce -- and at 28 still has a few good years left. Oh, and he's scored 11 goals in 22 games.
Hey, if he can keep that up, £15m is well worth the four or five weeks we really need him.
Welcome Nic.
OK, now for Micah Richards, David Villa, Daniel Alves, Modric ...and don't forget Ronaldinho!
Carefree
..Let's have an Anelka.
He may have been a Gooner once, but I'll forgive hime that -- we've still got Cashley after all :-(
Nicky-boy's been all over -- Bolton (of course, for about 3 minutes), Liverpool, Man City, Real Madrid and Fenerbahce -- and at 28 still has a few good years left. Oh, and he's scored 11 goals in 22 games.
Hey, if he can keep that up, £15m is well worth the four or five weeks we really need him.
Welcome Nic.
OK, now for Micah Richards, David Villa, Daniel Alves, Modric ...and don't forget Ronaldinho!
Carefree
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Arrested Development
This Christmas was a lurch backward some 30 years. But unlike the fictional DI Sam Taylor, my return to the 1970s was one of choice. Moreover, making such a nostalgic trip to childhood had a high likelihood of let-down and disappointment. After all, what one recalls fondly of three decades past at the age of nine or ten, is unlikely to hold in (near;-)middle age.
This year I asked Santa and sundries for a series of Dan Dare comic books, all accurate reprints from the original plates used in the strip's initial run in the 1950s Eagle comic book.
**See detail below on Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future.
Far from disappointed, I've been very happily surprised, not only by the quality of the graphics, but of the sheer imagination in the storylines. And given that the strips were produced in the post-war austerity of 50s Britain, their ethics are decidedly enlightened.
Set in the near future 1990s, earth is a place of universal equality and hunger has been eliminated. In these stories, earth's threats lie somewhere in outer space (the Solar System) -- notably the Mighty Mekon of Mekonta hailing from the north of Venus. While somewhat 'whitebread' and patriarchal (our hero is terribly British, stiff upper lip and all), there's a strong female lead character too, Dr. Jocelyn Peabody, chief scientist, no less, a character of pluck and resource and far from simpering love interest. Ethnicities (green) are covered by a good Treen or Venetian, Sondar, who turned against the wicked Mekon.
Another graphical blast from the past which might have proven more troublesome ethically was the gift of a compendium of 12 of the best Commando comic strips.
All set in WWs 1 and 2, these stories are of brave Tommies overcoming the pesky Hun. All "Achtung!", "Gott in Himmel!", "Donner und Blitzen!" Well, on the face of it anyway... Actually, all the stories -- exceptionally inked btw -- are more about personal decency, honour and goodness than sticking it to Fritz. Battles (land, sea and air) against the Germans are merely a foil for characters to undertake personal journeys of test and discovery, a latter-day Gawain or Launcelot if you like.
OK, "Die! Englischer schweinhund", is extreme and bang out of order today, but again, like Dan, these strips were written in the 1960s, a very different time.
Once past the occasional post-war lapse of reason, and these too are damn fine -- nay meaninful -- entertainments.
This year I asked Santa and sundries for a series of Dan Dare comic books, all accurate reprints from the original plates used in the strip's initial run in the 1950s Eagle comic book. **See detail below on Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future.
Far from disappointed, I've been very happily surprised, not only by the quality of the graphics, but of the sheer imagination in the storylines. And given that the strips were produced in the post-war austerity of 50s Britain, their ethics are decidedly enlightened.
Set in the near future 1990s, earth is a place of universal equality and hunger has been eliminated. In these stories, earth's threats lie somewhere in outer space (the Solar System) -- notably the Mighty Mekon of Mekonta hailing from the north of Venus. While somewhat 'whitebread' and patriarchal (our hero is terribly British, stiff upper lip and all), there's a strong female lead character too, Dr. Jocelyn Peabody, chief scientist, no less, a character of pluck and resource and far from simpering love interest. Ethnicities (green) are covered by a good Treen or Venetian, Sondar, who turned against the wicked Mekon. Another graphical blast from the past which might have proven more troublesome ethically was the gift of a compendium of 12 of the best Commando comic strips.
All set in WWs 1 and 2, these stories are of brave Tommies overcoming the pesky Hun. All "Achtung!", "Gott in Himmel!", "Donner und Blitzen!" Well, on the face of it anyway... Actually, all the stories -- exceptionally inked btw -- are more about personal decency, honour and goodness than sticking it to Fritz. Battles (land, sea and air) against the Germans are merely a foil for characters to undertake personal journeys of test and discovery, a latter-day Gawain or Launcelot if you like.
OK, "Die! Englischer schweinhund", is extreme and bang out of order today, but again, like Dan, these strips were written in the 1960s, a very different time.
Once past the occasional post-war lapse of reason, and these too are damn fine -- nay meaninful -- entertainments.
**Dan Dare is a classic British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson for the Eagle comic story Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future in 1950.
Although the stories were set in the late 1990s, the dialogue and manner in which all the characters interact is reminiscent of British war films of the 1950s (it has been described as "Biggles in Space" or the British equivalent of Buck Rogers). Dan Dare was distinguished by its long, complex story lines (sometimes lasting for over a year), snappy dialogue and meticulously illustrated comic-strip artwork by Hampson and other artists.
Dan Dare first appeared on the cover of the first issue of the weekly comic strip magazine Eagle, on 14 April 1950. There were two large colour pages of this story per issue. The artwork was of a very high quality, being the product of a team of artists working in a studio system. This included scale models of spaceships, and models posing in costume as points of reference for the artists.
Attention was paid to scientific plausibility, with the science fiction luminary Arthur C. Clarke acting as a science and plot adviser to the first strip. The stories were set mostly on planets of the solar system, which were presumed to have extraterrestrial life and alien inhabitants, as was common in science fiction of the era before the space probes of the 1960s proved that the most likely worlds were really lifeless. The first story, for example, begins with Dan Dare as pilot of the first successful flight to Venus.
Dan Dare (full name Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare) was chief pilot of the Interplanet Space Fleet, stated as having been born in Manchester, England in the year 1967. Although not a super-hero, he would sometimes pull off exceptional feats of piloting, and often proved to be extraordinarily lucky. He excelled at hand-to-hand combat using jiu jitsu, but he would most often find non-violent solutions to his predicaments. He was bound by a strong sense of honour to the extent that he never lied, and would rather die than break his word.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
TomTom Club
Eeks December has been a busy month. Anyway, enough of that as it's all work and rather dull..
2007 rounded-out just as it does every year with frantic car-filling and hours and hours on the nation's motorway system tracking from one family gathering to another and back again.
This year though Santa, my erstwhile navigator on such journeys, decided to resign her duties and instead buy me a TomTom satellite navigator.
Woo ho. It's love at first instruction. Straight outta the box, the little beautie works a treat. OK, it did tell me a few wrong 'uns in North London, but soon corrected itself. The real test was its effortless negotiation of the hell that is Milton Keynes' system of roundabouts. All done with aplomb. No shouting or swearing from me and plain sailing, so to speak, all the way there and home again.
OK, it is a little bossy, but firmness is what's required.
Strangely my ex-navigator began to show signs of jealously of the disembodied female 'BBC English' voice of direction -- and with map in hand began proposing alternative routes home. How very old meedja if a little quaint.
No chance, love. You had your chance and now I trust the brilliant little device to get us calmly and accurately from A to B and indeed, anywhere else through a figurative alphabet of destinations.
2007 rounded-out just as it does every year with frantic car-filling and hours and hours on the nation's motorway system tracking from one family gathering to another and back again.
This year though Santa, my erstwhile navigator on such journeys, decided to resign her duties and instead buy me a TomTom satellite navigator.Woo ho. It's love at first instruction. Straight outta the box, the little beautie works a treat. OK, it did tell me a few wrong 'uns in North London, but soon corrected itself. The real test was its effortless negotiation of the hell that is Milton Keynes' system of roundabouts. All done with aplomb. No shouting or swearing from me and plain sailing, so to speak, all the way there and home again.
OK, it is a little bossy, but firmness is what's required.
Strangely my ex-navigator began to show signs of jealously of the disembodied female 'BBC English' voice of direction -- and with map in hand began proposing alternative routes home. How very old meedja if a little quaint.
No chance, love. You had your chance and now I trust the brilliant little device to get us calmly and accurately from A to B and indeed, anywhere else through a figurative alphabet of destinations.