July 26th, 2010
I couldn’t get to sleep the other night. Even Mondo’s trusty old method of counting down an A-Z of some boring topic like ‘indie bands from 1991′ wasn’t working. I just remained frustratingly wide awake. So I went to the book shelves to see what I could find to soothe my sleepless misery and my hand seemed to be drawn to a book I haven’t read since 1986: Mary Norton’s The Borrowers.
And boy, it was good.
It’s odd re-reading a dimly remembered book from your childhood. Of course I remembered the vague outline of the plot, but the details were long lost so the story was relatively fresh. I probably enjoyed reading it as much as I did when I was 11.
However, it didn’t feel the same. I seem to remember that once upon a time I became absolutely immersed in a book, I couldn’t put it down, I lived in there with the characters and wanted it to go on and on and on.
I spent hours reading. I read before school, I read in the car and I read under the bed clothes at night. I read my way through the shelves of both my school library and the local library. I read everything from the classics like What Katy Did and Anne of Green Gables, to every fad series going, from the Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew to Sweet Valley High and Choose Your Own Adventure. I read my Grandma’s girls’ boarding school books from the 40s and the 70s/80s teen equivalents by Judy Blume and Cynthia Voigt. I read trash fantasy series by David Eddings and distressing sci-fi by Kurt Vonnegut. I just read. All the time.
But not any more. I rarely read any fiction these days. I’m not sure why. It’s not that I couldn’t make the time if I wanted to. I think it might be that a precarious combination of cynicism, a long neglected imagination, the stress of everyday life and a seriously limited attention span means that I just can’t sit there and be properly lost in anything any more. It’s not the same as when I was 13 and pathetic as it may seem, I’m kind of sad about that.
Tags: dirty nostalgia, woe is me
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July 21st, 2010
Five Thirty
13th Disciple
In one of many ongoing attempts to free up some space in our crowded flat, I recently took the radical (ha!) decision to transfer all of my CD singles to itunes and stash the originals away in the trusty old loft.
Ah, the CD single – what a stupid concept! When I bought this one by Five Thirty back in 1991 I thought I was being pretty cutting edge – a wizzy new music format which was absolutely guaranteed to surpass scratchy old 7″s within the blink of an eye and a trendy new band with cool hair who were due for big, big things.
Well, I was wrong on both accounts.
But ‘13th Disciple’ is a great song. I’ve always thought so and thankfully, in this issue of The Word, Steve Lamacq agrees (well, that’s what I’m reading into his article anyway). Just wish I’d bought the damn thing on vinyl.
‘13th Disciple’, Five Thirty, 1991
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Tags: song of the week
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July 20th, 2010
‘Good girl’ said the dentist ‘I can see you’ve been looking after your teeth – even if you haven’t seen me for two whole years.’
‘Yes’ I think, silently stewing as she scrapes away at my teeth like a chisel-wielding maniac, ‘they have invented toothbrushes now, you know.’
How can these people be so patronising? Do they actually think that making me feel like a ten year old will get me to make regular visits? Or is it the power of having someone trapped in the chair beneath them, the threateningly bright lights and the sucky thing?
Yes, I’ve been to the dentist this morning.* It wasn’t unpleasant, just annoying. From the quite frankly bizarre selection of magazines (Attitude, The World of Interiors and Lancashire Life**) when you arrive to the ‘And you’ll be making your appointment for six months time?’ breeziness of the receptionist when you leave, the whole experience just irritates.
I think that it is, like with my old friend the optician, the expectation that you should troop off to see them and their ilk at regular intervals (even if you have absolutely no need to) and that they don’t hesitate in reminding you of this fact. Oh, it’s for your health and all that, but who has regular visits to the doctor just for the hell of it?
So I want to get to the bottom of this once and for all. Does anyone actually go to the dentist and/or hygienist every six months? Is this number plucked from the air in the hope that you might go at least once a year? It is just opportunistic scaremongering isn’t it? Or am I being cynical as usual.
* at this point I’d like to reassure you that I have done more interesting things than go to the dentist during my recent blogging absence. Really.
** no, I haven’t moved to Lancashire.
Tags: mindless minutiae
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June 23rd, 2010
I think I may have identified another 21st century ‘illness’ – password fatigue.
This became apparent to me last night when, straight after locking myself out of my online banking for failing to remember the 11th digit of my 14 digit password, I then attempted to buy some tickets for the National Theatre and discovered that I needed to set up yet another account with yet another ‘unique’ password. I felt like screaming. Why can’t I just buy the damn tickets?*
I think I have at least 50 accounts which require passwords – from Amazon and our work’s Flickr page to this blog and the Barbican. Of course, they’re not all completely different and they have varying degrees of complexity, but this doesn’t make things any easier. I still have to remember which password it actually is and which complicated recipe of numbers and £$%£^’s I cooked up at the time. And the less I use the account and password in question, the harder it gets. God knows what my password for ebay is, its been that long since I used it, but I know I’ve got one.
Being a paranoid and cynical type of person who believes that identity muggers really do lurk around every corner, of course I never write any of them down. So all the passwords are residing in my head and as Betty Everett once sung ‘it’s getting mighty crowded’.
* ok, I work in marketing and I know exactly why they don’t allow this, but that’s not the point.
Tags: modern life is rubbish, technology crisis
Posted in Random | 17 Comments »
June 21st, 2010
Esquivel!
Johnson Rag
I cannot believe that I have been writing this blog for 2 1/2 years without mentioning Mr Juan Garcia Esquivel, or Esquivel! as he apparently preferred to be known. This was a man who was not put off by silly lyrics, odd instruments or experimentation with weird arrangements. No, he embraced them whole-heartedly – only to create the ultimate in big band ’space age pop’.
File under: the sound of 50s summer
Goes with: a Mai Tai
‘Johnson Rag’, Esquivel, 1960
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Tags: beat that Glenn Miller, song of the week
Posted in Records | 5 Comments »
June 18th, 2010
I’m sick of football, my head is full of hay-fever and the council are digging up the road outside my office window. But things could be worse. I could work for the insurance company I spent several hours with the other day.
Along with various other organisations, I had been invited by this particular company’s beleaguered HR department to an afternoon aimed at encouraging employees to make the most of all that the city around them has to offer – lunchtime music concerts, talks and walks, gyms and sports clubs, libraries and short courses, massages and spas, volunteering opportunities and in-house social clubs etc. etc. The clichéd work/life balance may have been the message, but there were loads of interesting things to do.
But well, you know what I’m going to say next.
Were the employees interested? No, of course not. They just drifted around looking faintly bored, if not perplexed, by the whole thing. As one man told me ‘We don’t have time for this kind of stuff. I go to work and don’t have time to do anything else other than watch TV’ and another ‘Why would I want to do a course for fun? What’s the point?’. But mostly, they all just looked non-plussed.
Admittedly, some people were interested in life outside work and commuting, and to give them the benefit of the doubt, others may have been put off by the continuous loop of background ‘motivating’ music featuring the likes of ‘Happy Talk’ from South Pacific and C&C Music Factory’s ‘Gonna Make you Sweat’.
Perhaps the world of insurance just attracts boring types, but really?! Life must be tragic for some people.
Tags: boredom... b'dum b'dum
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June 15th, 2010
The Bamboos
Keep me in Mind
This song doesn’t have an original bone in its body. From the two-note piano solo and classic horn runs to the strangely predictable melody and boring female backing vocals it is same old – same old nu-soul. In fact, I can’t think of anything remotely interesting to say about ‘Keep me in Mind’ other than that the label it’s on, Tru Thoughts, is a top Brighton-based indie who generally release way more interesting music.
But it’s great. Song of the week I say!
‘Keep me in Mind’, The Bamboos, from 4, Tru Thoughts, 2010
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Tags: song of the week
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June 14th, 2010
Usually the National Film Theatre/BFI over there on London’s sunny South Bank is a sedate place. People go in to the cinema sans popcorn, talk to each other in low voices, watch the film quietly and leave swiftly (usually after dutifully watching all of the credits). It is, in short, not the Wood Green Cineworld.
But last week something different happened at the NFT, an event so rare that I need to share it with you. Particularly since it happened, not once, but twice:
1. Drunken Angel
This is one of Akira Kurasawa’s ‘modern’ films (i.e. not a samurai epic). The film tells the tale of an ‘unlikely friendship’ between an alcoholic doctor and a gangster with TB, a death wish and hey, a keen interest in booze as well. Although quite grim in places, I would say that Drunken Angel is pretty enjoyable and definitely compelling. It is, however, certainly not the sort of film where you expect to see snogging couples indulging themselves in the seats in front of you. After a while though, I came to unfortunately recognise that there was indeed an emotional connection between the tongue-wrestlers and the film – as the gangster’s plight became more desperate so did their passion. Probably because they’d long given up on reading the subtitles.
2. Bronco Bullfrog
This British film from 1969 about a group of miserable mono-syllabic 15-year-olds living a life of petty crime and violence in East London is not the sort of film I previously expected to appeal to the cinema snogging type. OK, there is a blossoming romance between the two main characters* and I personally found this story of non-swinging London a strangely touching portrayal of youth, but clearly there is more to the film than that. The bleak streets of late 60s London make a perfect accompaniment to cinema fumbles. Well, for the couple near me anyway.
Well, it makes a difference from the usual straight-laced cinephile types I suppose. Any other unlikely snogging at the cinema tales to tell?
* Sample dialogue from when he first goes round to her flat to ask her out:
‘Is your daughter in? I don’t know her name, but she’s medium size with long hair.’
‘I’ll get her for you…’
[girl arrives at door]
‘So do want to go out with me on Saturday?’
‘Yeah.’
‘See you then.’
[boy leaves]
Tags: j'aime le cinema
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June 2nd, 2010
A little while back I wrote about the joys of the e-cigarette and now, you’ll be delighted to know, I’ve found the ideal accompaniment to it. It’s Le Whif inhalable coffee.
Inhalable coffee is perfect for the busy person who doesn’t have time for a coffee break or who is just plain tired of having to repeatedly lift those damn cups to their mouth and swallow pesky liquid. No, with the Le Whif, you just raise the convenient pocket sized aerosol spray to your nose once and take a sniff.
And with one quick hit containing as much caffeine as an espresso, inhalable coffee is also a handy reminder that you’re a lazy, joyless sod with an addiction problem.
Tags: I still can't figure out whether this product is a joke or not, the incorrect use of science
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May 31st, 2010
Joglaresa
Stella Nuova
I’ve been keeping myself busy with an evening course on Early Music recently. Since I know practically nothing about any music from before 1900 it has been enlightening and educational to say the least.
One thing that I have learnt is that not all ‘early music’ involves Greek Orpheus types plucking lyres and monks chanting spooky exhortations to God. No, sometimes there is rippingly upbeat stuff such as this.
‘Stella Nuova’ is an Italian tune from around the 12th century and like say, this year’s German Eurovision winner ‘Satellite’*, is annoyingly catchy.
‘Stella Nuova’, Joglaresa, from Stella Nuova: Celebratory Songs of Medieval Italy, 2005
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* You did watch it didn’t you?
Tags: song of the week
Posted in Records | 9 Comments »
