Things I learnt this week
- Weird instruments are the future. Check out the Portico Quartet – they are doing for the Swiss flying-saucer-crossed-with-a-barbeque instrument, the hang, what the Beach Boys did for the theremin. I saw them play with the Basquiat Strings last week (who were also very good), and the beauty of the hang’s sound managed to help me through their other fondness for the soprano sax (an instrument sadly rendered unlistenable for me by Kenny G).
- How to successfully shatter the illusions of the work experience kid at the office. Whilst my colleagues worked on finishing off what Ricky Gervais started, I merely explained the concept behind demographic profiling and storecards (i.e. there is a big database, lots of big databases in fact, with all your information and your postcode area’s details on it). I’d never seen anyone look so shocked. Beat that teacher training ads. It’s not alkali metals that blow teenagers’ minds, it’s Tesco’s customer database.*
- Poetry is the new cool. Or so says the PR person I met at a poetry event this week. She was there hoping to find some hip, new young poets and writers to lend some credibility to a corporate brand. So there’s another way for tortured soul Pete Doherty to get some much needed extra exposure.
- People still like Oasis. Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory were voted numbers 1 and 2 respectively in a ‘best British album poll‘ for Q magazine. So Oasis are better than their much drivelled on about heroes the Beatles are they? What kind of deranged and non-ironic readers does Q have?!
- Jam jars make fine drinking vessels. Well, they do for the staff at the Chinese embassy who processed my visa application this week. Perhaps over-expenditure on the Olympics has led to tight cut backs on the glass and mug budget for Chinese government staff. In retrospect, I should have offered round my chapstick as I imagine that those jar rims could be quite irritating on the lip after a while.
* I don’t have a particular interest in alkali metals. Every morning at the moment though I stare at an ad for teacher training at the station. It’s hook is ‘Remember when you first discovered alkali metals’ alongside a picture of some kids looking totally amazed. Sadly, I don’t remember being so impressed by anything at school other than the fact that my history teacher saw Patti Smith fall off the stage once in a drunken stupor…