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Friday 19 December 2003

on the other other hand, i'm just a silly microphone crumb.
on the other hand, some of that boomkat list (see below) is a bit cheesy for its field, e.g., ulrich snauss and the notwist especially (the notwist pah)
like Dan was definitely swooning over the boomkat list.

remember you didn't read me calling them here a few days ago and so you aren't entitled to mail me shouting i'm a hypocrite.
like the next person one can't get with the programme re. criticisms of 'hey ya' but i do feel the writeup there is a little too strident.
there again, you need a generalist S/FJ style write up = all guns blazing = for the general reader don't you, not nerds like us, so there again i suppose fair enough like.
having only heard the new albums through about twice must say they certainly won't be in my lists, but 7 million people (and counting) can't be wrong.
some bloke at work is wearing a portishead top.

word assoc.: drear, etc.

GAH!

let's all BITCHSLAP
/
i know i arselick Pete Baran a lot but that opening paragraph is really just faultless.
at least gin is honest haha!
i really like their new font.
Dave will be pleased to know i just had a big double sausage and egg barm for my breakfast, plenty of red sauce (well it is a friday)

yes, well over 12 inches of red meat in abundance, i love a good gobble me i offered some to another bloke but he was full up.

all the girls where i work enjoy early morning sausage too they tell me.

anita was saying if she's really hungry it doesn't even touch the sides.
i told her i should hope it does in the middle of the night.
hello

melismata (whatever that means me)!

strength in depth!

a sense of poetic verve!

well you won't find that here, try her instead.

haha
loaf takes a swing at a sacred cow.

though i must say i really enjoyed this in between trawling around the bay
me and a couple of the spikey chavs chavved it were enjoying an excellent pub lunch once after a full morning spent here and one of us chavs mentioned how Richter had amusingly set about critics on was it the south bank show by maintaining critics who read too much into his work were also, well, chavved it.
and consequently not to be listened to as hey, what do that know etc.
again, quite right
quite right
truly good points about the rapture
bad news

relative deprivation was one of the reasons behind the Burnley riots (though the ones in Oldham were worse than either the Burnley riots or Bradford riots, it must be said; see here for an Auntie wrap-up).

the words of the Derby council leader that we are housing 1,750 asylum seekers, or refugees, or whatever you want to call them is not the most helpful phrasing and one was thinking of that as one read this.
=
it's a cheap shot but to note but quite a lot of those attacks took place in whitebread areas (e.g., Stoke, the Northeast, the Southwest, the South coast) as you may notice.
that is a fair analysis of what happened in Wrexham though.

Thursday 18 December 2003

alright, one more thing yes, there's some decent stuff in the stylus top 20 singles innit
let it alone a little
of course it should be made clear i got nothing but bare juice for both 'if i die in a combat zone' and i wanna get my hands on 'northern lights' (O'briens' first published novel, apparently)
obviously i know that part of the last post that was me was dodgy and bang out of order, but hey it's me.
Still, not as bad as the recent byline in the Independent on Sunday which claimed “Vietnam had one positive effect. It inspired some of soul’s greatest sounds.” Oh so it was ALL RIGHT THEN. Great! What will we expect next week in the Etc. of Life Etc.? “The Holocaust had TWO positive effects. Schoenberg wrote a cool cantata and David Axelrod did this weird concept album which gave birth to some awesome breakbeats. Pity it wasn’t TEN million, because then the Beatles might have done a triple boxset concept album about it, and then we wouldn’t have had to suffer Coldplay.
_ Marcello

that's right that though isn't it. some rag once did a special on music and fillums and books to be inspired from the American quagmire in Vietnam and it was all rather 'well, we got a little touch and go with that Agent Orange shyeat back there, but hey! Country Joe and the Fish, Tim O'Brien and 'Mercy Mercy Me' came outta this - COME ON PEOPLE!!'
yeah as my mate said jack stripe is certainly a vocalist, but really 'seven nation army' is a wonderful stomper that it can't help but be a grower one supposes.

i know the transporting dirge/bukka white mauling of '...what to do with myself' is part of the point of that other stripes tune which i didn't use to feel (well apart from the video heh-heh) but one does now, well i mean not anything special but the otherness of the place they take it to, that's something to stick up for.
fantastic
me and a mate were just actually bigging up the gritty noir and windblown americana (apart from when it's selby jr./pellecanos-indiana and fourth/type fare you can almost always hear the tumble weed rite...) that constitutes the best fiction in uncut's end of year lists, and he was telling me about a discussion he and a mutual friend of ours were having about 1984, where the friend thought big brother was a more interesting character than our protagonist (if smith is anymore than anyone else, such as it is, FWIW) but this mate disagree a tad saying he didn't think he was underwritten as a character, as this was only serving to bring out the impact and the poignancies of the everyman characteristics.
etc.
good points, well made with nuance and a beating human heart, one tinks.

just because, big up all the 'ckin excellent
tufluv
stelfox
acidhouse
house (although it's all good what auspicfish is saying in that spat, i think i'm more with carmody cause - well - it's all freewheeling goodness innit but not that i'm a completely clueless tosspot, but really am feeling stelfox more on this ol' context/dancehall bizness)
bodyparts
androturtle
and of course the quite startling (i don't use that word lightly, truss me truss me) peking 0

also a big hello to Jon HAVE A TIME in Melbourne mate!
my mother has had to cancel seeing her bezzie tomorrow for what i think was gonna be drinks-related evening larks possibly, as said best friend is comforting a younger colleague.

the colleague's twelve year old son, who was handicapped with cerebal palsy, died on monday.

{memo to self: be less of a tit}
yeah that is pretty damn cool.
somedisco in recylcing old material shock
i'm sure the last time i posted these results Mafff was ranked higher...
legend
geez
mack daddy
more cheerful news
Joschka Fischer criticises the fence
Tokyo will not arrest orgy men
ULFA "overrun"
Iran 'to sign'
HRW accuses Jakarta
Iran "owed billions"
Centropa contributors
Mbeki and Mugabe in talks
excerpts from Chirac's speech
-he's not let the holiday proposals for Jewish and Muslim dates go forward either.

guardian comment

Wednesday 17 December 2003

two hrs of fighting
~
and Chirac has banned headscarves.
Leave a good name behind in case you return

-proverb.
RUSSELL SIMMONS AS SAMMY DAVIS, JR.

nelson george sub-chapter heading, 1998, penguin.

{read and write, keep your notebooks, observe, listen well, that's all}
it's bloody loud that telly.
Bloomsian struggles to displace one another, canonical forays, polymorphous perversity from ripping off Freud (odd as he doesn't like him), it's all good fun too.
the agon between SR and Kodwo E. it's quality that, well top like innit.

i enjoyed back in the day when Davis and Ingram were at each other's throats in a comedy manner, i hope you can tell i'm always biting loaf these days, trying for that conciseness, of course it never comes off, but you can tell people are internalising the loaf lessons it's all useful and good i'd say, just a good thing to do like.
some links to manifestos, firstly a cutie little 'un here (via the lovely companion again, actually; in a 'be all you wanna'' be/chant for uniqueness and shabby wonder' way)
and then the daddies.

not a manifesto, but Simon in unutterably lavverly/expectant with pregnant pauses mode, and of course there's always, well, him (arkhiv mode see). the best there is~
squaring the circle
so there was some of this rough bark right and only they were on a training mission.

they had the camo stuff smeared all over their cheeks, makes you want to cry, picking up some Cypriot pine-cones, smell of the old country's forest, taking them back to Paphos beaches '78, year of the fury.

and the way it was smeared on made their faces irritated; itchy tiny tears welled up in the corner. that's what the rub was. and it was rub too...

or dancing like no's one watching etc. and other platitudes__

what?! i can't write you say Doctor - well, is it terminal? oh, since i was a bairn?!
gah...
i shall retreat into my Red House Painters records_
i've been up dance before

good to go~

further to Ingram banging on about barrel-chester Jim in Bethnal Green, it behooves me to give a shout to FLOSS MODE
yes that is good news
more allowance for troops
confession: never heard any DJ Screw.

admission: want to.

personally: like the sound of him better than post-rockers Codeine, who one is familiar with...

conclusion: do yr mints.
i wonder what it feels like to be Josh Wink?

'being josh wink' - i think i'd have enjoyed that more than 'being john malkovich'
one supposes that figure will perhaps rise.
Bhutan claims to have killed 'about 90' ULFA fighters.
in order to try and ameliorate some of my snidey/hip/mean-spirited cunt-type vibes, here's a link to some pictures of cute doberman puppers.

:-)
and the not so real-world

'it's not quite Dame Vera'
and in the real-world

letter? what letter
god! i'm a pompous twat me. haha.
still on the AuspicFish subject, Nick Southall is (rightly) peeved at the NME albums of the year list.
I'd hoped the whole bigoted indie mentality ahd died out long ago, but it seems it never will is the conclusion which is of course a heartening one as it's basically the case so it's useful to be reminded.

i ordinarily would not bother discussing all this, as it's a bit like kicking a puppy innit (what one always sez but still true dat) but i thought the 1995 list was a laff, let alone the y2k.3 one Nick is railing against.

look at it, (it's linked above) : -

Palace Music's Viva Last Blues, Tilt, Post, the Gorky's debut, Leftism [not a fan these days but hey], even Throbbing Pouch are all apparently not as 'good' as (What's the story) morning glory?
this is a particularly fine example of wrong-headed canonical efforts, that's fer sure.

my absolute fave tho', is that liquid swords is at 30, ...cuban linx 29, but the s/t (i don't use the word "eponymous" ever since Rob Young slated its usage and Jon Dale called me a dowager) garbage album at 19. classic!

to be honest, i hadn't heard of Blumfeld in that list (it's always quite cool to be confronted with your own ignorance), though a quick AMG-ing reveals that the corel kew seem to think they're something of a German Pavement (a Teutonic Pavement maybe so ja; think about it...) so not the bag in one's brew, to be frank...

on balance, at least they got number 1 right for '95. was gonna write some smart-arsed comment about their number 1 choyce this year, but perhaps should stay mum.
i showed someone else at work tufluv's latest on Screw and, well, nice 'im up.
BLOODY ELL, Jon wit tha manifesto

go man GO
provocative
but Lauryn Hill deserves bigging up.
apparently the fundamentalists have been slagging her off, well i know who we're with_
yeah but the Papal aide is unimpeachably good right so that's his job?
well, that's that
I'm gonna put on a iron shirt chase satan out of earth
below are hyperlinks to three drinks i can cane.
(yes this is self-absorbed but bugger it)

- Jura

- Abbot

- Laphroaig

- i don't know anything about red, i just like Rioja or any old cheap Merlot and your usual suspects.
my luvverly mate Ello went for his office meal at some posh Italian restaurant in city centre Mcr, a turkey theme he had.
THREE HOURS he rates it was, all in all, THREE SMEGGING HOURS.

i mean, bloody hell, christ, what are they doing? did they have to pluck the birds themselves?
i'm like the charles barkley of blog-watchers me, with shit and puke-encrusted on my clothes, stirring up trouble with my nul (well, near enough heh) readers, but one must say this spat i've just publicised to myself between Auspisfish and House, it will be interesting to see any replies from man like Carmody that would be good to read.
well, i mean only an unsympathetic shit would be unamenable to Southall here but ol' Nick does seem rather to be misreading Westwood (not that i'm a fan or owt but hey) and quite possibly extrapolating a lot of positions from one thing Carmody sez.
still, here's to blogging disputes provoking clarification (like Jon Dale says, don't be knowing people from one or two things they say initially) and off-the-bat observations inspiring greater understanding, peace, brothas and sistas ETC.
yes, it would be nice if any trial could bring old strategic allies to the table, get British and American chums involved too (that would be good, and welcome).
of course, more than anyone else, get the French at the party too.
you'd honestly be shocked - i'd posit - by the amount of chats with ignorant chums we've had over the last few days seemingly forgetting Paris' role in providing succour and more to the old regime. perhaps one is being naive and we all know this and it's not worth pointing it out, even on such a puerile heat&bluster place as a personal homepage?

frankly, one suspects that, on more than one occasion this is partly down to good old-fashioned anti-americanism (ooh, i'm not anti-american people, just their government policies, ooh etc.)
~
at the time [back in the 80s school-daze, for one], François Mitterand insisted that French assistance was aimed at ensuring Iraq didn't lose the war.
nice to know who your friends are eh
ha-ha quality

Tuesday 16 December 2003

to be honest, i could really do with a dump.
FITE FITE!
one had already thrown up a link to Emerald Jim going shopping, but with tufluv approvingly reckoning Sounds like what people have told me of Blackmarket circa mid-'90s; the record shop as hub of scene activity. Big tings a gwan i simply must add a few penn'orth more (inspired by Jim's observation that this scene is living breathing and vital, a far cry from many of the bloodless hipster boutiques I normally blow my wedge in).
now, you may or may not know, but manchester has the best provincial record stores in the uk, lots of quality and choice, differing across the board. one i do like is pelicanneck recs (that link is to their online site named boomkat.com whose advert you can see in the back of the wire each month); there are few nicer ways to spend a rainy, lazy weekend afternoon than eating a slice of some pastry exotica and drinking a mug of jumbo organic hot choc in the kitsch little caff attached to pelicanneck in the heart of the northern quarter, sniggering at the love-struck indie boys perving at the fit continentally-accented waitresses (what a hive of bad grammar this blog is!) and leafing thru the modern art monographs on the formica counter.

howevah, do want to agree with the spirit of Jim's assessments about "bloodless hipster boutiques". i'd say any such place that is playing SAW 85-92 whilst one chows down on their (very tasty) coffee cake qualifies as hipster, especially if half the clientele are...oh nevermind.
it just certainly fits the bloodless bill: wanky IDM, dream-pop, the right kind of reggae reissues, not enough vibey bizness for my tastes.
nevermind.
gah! flailing around with smug electronica kids bah (enough about me...)_

having noted that, my favourite record shop is probably Daddy Kool.
the best ones in Mcr city centre are probably places like spin inn and obviously beatin rhythm. i didn't go into vinyl exchange for ages (either branch) and then i went in once and Ray (main man with specs) had a big Will Oldham beard. still i've not been in for ages recently so perhaps he's got rid of it.
vinyl exchange male stuff are funny, there's a surly one, that small one who resembles MES (in my mind) and then the geezer that was in metal hammer as a top Anthrax fan...
well, that is premier league.
saw a frozen marshmallow this morning, on the subway floor.

then i saw a bloke looking sorry for himself, sitting on some steps, muttering vaguely.
a can nearby.

bloody cold(ish) too.
big up
chest ya's

Ingram continues to make me laugh

need the Nakajima Photo Gallery in one's life {via totally fuzzy}

Symphony X [classical blog only just discovered round my way]

Oliver Craner, you are the DON

Emerald Jim goes shopping

Tom Ewing gives Cliff what for

astonishingly lovely watery evocations from tufluv

Stelfox really rather moving on the geezer below

Marcello qualifying his lists

silverdollarcircle likes clouddead

HUA HSU BLOGGING!!!!! (via a streamlined Matos)

music blog {SWSL} mentions Kerry Dixon

some good sort called Karen in LA lists her favourite rock shows in the City of Angels this year

Edward writes

guardian endofyear architecture wrap-up

the GREAT Pete Baran on martinis

loaf writes about the war and Chris Hitchens and Noam, dodgy dreams with talking cats and the like, and yet STILL NO CUNT will employ him as the LRB poet-in-chief

Monday 15 December 2003

i wonder if there's a place in britain where the train station isn't in the shit part of town.

Friday 12 December 2003

excellent start (via tufluv)
Tom Magic Feet, start a blog! reckons Dave Stelfox.

well, i'd second that, for one...

_on a similar note, just imagine how mouthwatering a Kodwo E. blog would be? quality! [i believe SR thought aloud about that once before, actually]

right i'm off, any talk of Bosvelt and Sibierski playing is just ridiculous (Eyal would be okay mind), and if those Sun rumours are correct (Schmeichel playing) City are in trouble.
well, heck, we're in trouble anyway.

playing Bosvelt (well, apart from the small problem of him being shit) would be no good as anyone who recalls his horror tackle back in 1997 on then-United defender Dennis Irwin during a Feyenoord-Utd European match will know the passions roused. bad idea.

if you don't know what i'm on about, see, there's this quite important soccer match being played in northwest England tomorrow dinnertime and unfortunately the team i support (City) are in danger of being tonked.
well, TTFN.
that last bit was a joke obviously any legal undergraduates that might bizarrely be happening to read it
mr blunkett must surely realise that accountability/ protecting the rights of others we might find personally distasteful thereby emboldening society/strengthening civil institutions and the rule of law/yadda yadda/safeguarding the rights of others for the benefits of all/blah blah, can be wholly compatible with______________________



















_- his role as Home Secretary (boom-boom, who says political humour is dead eh...).

there's certainly no need for him to consider quitting amnesty over this; one's almost surprised they haven't booted him out before now but that's another matter...
International law? I'd better call my lawyer
now, that IS a tad cheeky.
i know i've been slagging off the French on the secular issue but at least The report also recommends that Yom Kippur - the Jewish Day of Atonement - and the Muslim Eid al-Kabir festival be celebrated in state schools is something.

still, overall, the whole thing is definitely more like an attack on a general basic freedom/expression ting with the odd sop, from this bunk.
ah well/
i've given it some thought and Monbiot (yesterday's link) presupposes too many things for my liking.
i just read, in the new york post, that the French were the enabler of the Rwandan genocide.


the USA were no slouches either.
essential reading, as ever, from HRW.
glad to see Maff has alphabeticised.

when i finally do work out how to use a links bar (can anyone help on this one? - i'm such a clown i can't work it out...), i'm gonna do his trick of putting our boy Newham at the top by putting it as he puts it on his address bar, i.e., that squiggly thing, it dun't actually say heronbone does, i've often marvelled at that.
cause i'm sad etc.
anyway
(Still I’d much rather hear this than one of those fucking lame indietronica MBV rehashes á la Manitoba’s last one or the other shite on that label.) Dale bites.

yes to the Collins of course, that's incredibly important and anyone who knows knows that that Raincoats find is very significant to Jon/ hurrah!
directed towards this by the lovely companion. must say, my initial reaction too is to lean towards the bloke who's not the 'daft rightwing sod' as well...

Thursday 11 December 2003

GUTTED to learn - via tufluv - about the closure of sleaze, but especially burnitblue.
try typing www.burnitblue.com/ into your address bar and see what happens...
...a sad loss/
here is a useful guardian report on mr Blunkett's initial white list (of ten countries).
of course, as cheering as that recent Australian legal decision was, it just reminds one all the more of the shameful placing - by the British government - of Jamaica onto the so-called 'white list' of safe countries.

the 'white list' is a list of countries from which asylum applications are deemed to be generally false, thus guaranteeing it's virtually impossible for any national of a country on the list to successfully claim asylum in the UK. Jamaica was placed on the list not that long ago.

as any one with half a brain might tell you, the risk to gay Jamaicans from fellow Jamaicans acting on widespread and virulent homophobic views is significant.

David Blunkett must not have considered that too much at the time, we can only presume.
absolutely fascinating (brief) write-up here to the gay Bangladeshi asylum-seeker story that surfaced Down Under.
interesting and tricky
man alive i enjoy being a pompous twat on this blog.

i just saw a bloke walk past he looked like a Tory backbencher! another colleague looks like Urian Rennie.

the camaraderie of workmates, the swearing you wouldn't do elsewhere, the values, the mordant humour, it's superb.

it's going dark already.

anyway, probably get back to yous on the nana ting.
obviously chest'ya marcello for that list in addition to the ones below.

ONE THING THAT IS GOOD
- alan patridge singing 'wuthering heights'

another thing that is good

- stickers on bananas.

MORE ON that 1 LATER.
football goss

fans of english soccer will doubtless be aware of the rumours linking man united midfielder nicky butt to leicester, to newcastle, to spurs, to everton (him plus 8 million for Rooney in Jan., say some united fans i know, tho' Moyes would be stupid to take that obv.)
but DID YOU KNOW

the reason why united boss alex ferguson is gonna rest wunderkind cristiano ronaldo for that purported three week break is because during a bad tackle in training, Butt is alleged to have then twatted Ronaldo?
certainly gives credence to all those 'decks are being cleared for Butt on his way out...' stories circulating pre-derby weekend
there have been some absolutely superb lists on the nerdosphere (i suppose here is the only place that still uses that term) of late.
so re-enthusing for jaded twats like myself.

so far, MASSIVE shouts to -

Jess
Matt
Mickey Tufluv (is it mickey sorry mate?!)
Stelfox

also nice to see AusPicFish represennin for Dave Douglas there

obviously one list is best, y'all know who...
whatever happened to vive le difference?

can they not chant for the glory of heterogeneity, freedom of expression, cheery arguments done often and well, the pride (& beauty) of uniqueness?
strange indeed______
[via silverdollarcircle]
this monbiot article i've previously linked to is all fine and dandy on the whole if a little too 'woo! i'm hard being a realist' but the last paragraph is a straw meeting some clutching hands waving at it.
costs versus benefits is a moral argument to have its true but monbiot's rectitude and surety leaves a little to be desired.
don't get me wrong though good lad for stating some things plainly.

saw monbiot speak at a people and planet conf. at warwick once and to be honest was not that impressed. of course we were looking forward to it but his darling of the environmental left status makes for the odd casual statement that deserves rigorous challenging (of course the rub is he wasn't).

david korten has always been rousing whenever i've seen him (to be reasonable, so has Arthur Scargill)_
BUSHWHACKERS!
bushwhackers.
i thought it would be zany to mention world wide wrestling combo the BUSHWHACKERS immediately after a post discussing the un-led sanctions on Iraq.
must take issue with Cohen (see link in previous post) on one point however.
Infant mortality in the Kurdish independent statelet in northern Iraq, which was protected from Saddam by the RAF and USAF, was half the rate of the rest of Iraq, even though it had to cope with the same UN sanctions.
now Cohen probably does know the score here actually he just doesn't bother explaining but everyone knows the reason why the stats were better in the north was because there were far more NGOs operating there. all those agencies wanting to help has something of an ameliorating effect (whatever your views on the nu colonialism of the big aid agencies etc., any politically suspect compromises therein)
Nick Cohen on the sanctions

an interesting read, but unfair on some on 'the Left' - John Pilger was anti-war true, but didn't Cohen see his series of programmes for ITV disdaining the sanctions regimen?

of course, the noble CASI were the original and best.
mind you, it's not like the French or the Russians have the moral authority to lecture anyone ('cept perhaps BAT and the like...) on matters pertaining to international trade/sanctions busting, etc.
i'm not sure about Marcello on dubplates tho, you have to reward the eager-eyed truffle hunter, it's no good bolshy types EVERYWHERE else going 'tut tut tut London-centric tosser!' it's not someone's fault if they ARE at the source, and that should be included.

totally agree about downloading though, that's just all a tad jejune ain't it (yes, maybe i'm a snob, or just ironic, who can say heh), far too many numpties i know do that without the old thrill of the chase.
[a dinosaur writes...]
anyway it's all academic innit obviously shirley collins or anne briggs are topranking
reading Marcello's lists reminded me of a formulation here ah it's all tongue in cheek fun of course so no worries.
it goes like this, it's a coolness quotient

you have normal female s/s -
joni mitchell
carole king

middlebrow -

laura nyro
jane siberry

hipster -

linda perhacs

just because something is cooler doesn't mean it's better, eg 'blue' the joni album not the rock band or the boyband (\although that's fair enough like) remains better than anything nyro did for instance, not that i have a copy of blue these days but nevermind.
anyway i could have fun with all this stuff i rate.
cons for Yanks riding roughshod Iraqi construction offers: -

lack of transparency,

free trade?!

pros for them: -

the security sitch line i actually buy, how naive i am?! the opponents cry heheh

victors pay for the reconstruction (historical rule, in general, ergo...

CONCLUSION:-
bit cheeky really, still doesn't exercise me as much as their attitudes to the ICC
[paraphrase]
-what's the political situation like in Jamaica at the moment?
-the political situation in Jamaica at the moment is, not to put too fine a point on it, nicely fucked up
_______
- yard
also the recycling in JA etc.
ideas, people, material
what's all this flaggelating nonsense from Jon Dale about only dowagers read his blog?!

everyone hearts his astute and idiosyncratic psych-freakery stylings!

i'm not a bloody old widow, i'm a swearing provincial buffoon!

i demand an apology!

i should stop shouting!
it was really foggy yesterday; everywhere, tendrils creeping all over the place.

eerie.

i wonder if it's this scary on the set of 'sleepy hollow' (i saw master and commander the other night, which was a laff - i've seen loads of the films in UNCUT'S list of films of the year, and i won't be ranking most of them in my faves muahaha and there was a trailer for ewan mcgregor in the new tim burton, does auteur mean static and staying the same {perhaps he knows when he's on to a good thing actually...} as his aesthetic just doesnt seem to change_).

today it's just pissing it down.
i can see where Carmody is coming at in his attack on Stelfox's views, and i wonder if Barthel (clapclap) will make similar points.
but i suppose Stelfox is appealing for clemency in wanting to link context with specifically JA music
you don't really need to know about anything about anything to appreciate it, that's not what they're saying,
but perhaps a little insight into JA politics can help you aid the wondrous madness that is Stelfox's vibe, whereas listening to a Canterbury Scene artist or some crew from Dunedin will not necessarily be enhanced by having spent time on the dole in Kent or the South Island.
it's the poverty etc innit, tho this is all simplistic and i'm just backchatting really
immigration LIVEJOURNAL debate good comments, some more loonyiesh (via the wise Weaver)
i obviously like cooke me but his sounding a tad hawkish always manages to make me a feel a tad queasy, even when one agrees with him!
And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesmal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.



_Pablo Neruda
instances of not being worthy

Marcello's round up, pt.1

e crunk is disappointed

Matt offers out Beatniks (what would Jon D. say?)

he really is too good innit

i'm pleased to see the stelf-ox and others taking a more critical look at jay-z's reputation. you know, when a rapper keeps on telling you he's the best to ever do it, it's worth taking his claims with a pinch of salt. it's a fact that jay-z would struggle to make it onto a list of the top ten MCs working today. (certainly if i was compiling it) also people are confused about his strongest album. it's not volume three and it's not the blueprint. the order goes-volume two, volume three, reasonable doubt, the blueprint. he's got a genius for spotting trends and upcoming producers, his beats set the hiphop agenda for that year, a genius for writing hooks and is often astonishingly good at getting his words to hug the beat, liten to 'n***a what, n***a who', liten to that beat, how fucked it is, then listen how he just rides it perfect, that is sick, i'm listening to it now, you listen to that and you say, ahhh, jay-z is BIG! then you listen to all other things and go, yeah, but he's still shit. you see what i mean? he's talented, he can do things a lot of people can't do, he's got a few good lines but his voice is annoying, he's a lazy lyricist, and his crew is shit, plus he's got a bad attitude, i don't like him. from Luke it all has to be quoted in full, tho have to agree to differ, reasonable doubt my fave hova elpee, still he knows more than me and is better, so really i'm acquiescing.

later on i might post some more TRUE apologies for being lax and shite of late i NEVER DO POST WHAT I WANT at this crapola
still it beats a shitty stick being stuck to your fuzzy duffle-coat (thats if you've got one, i don't hold with them myself indieboy cliche in my experience)

Wednesday 10 December 2003

Qasim wants to know if you pushed Avril Lavigne's nose down, would it make a honking noise?

someone somewhere must know the answer to that one.

she does remind me of someone from a cartoon version of Lewis Carroll, i must say.
doesnt Kelly Osbourne talk posh.
y'all know it by now, but here's the guardian on 'the scream'
science proves what's crap.
well done.
fairy nuff
three more items from the Beeb (i do spend a lot of time asskissing them, apologies) from round my way

the good

the bad

er, the quirky

i'm tempted to describe the last item as 'go on my son' but my brief has said i'm enough trouble as it is following the Dunwoody Incident.
strewth
oh dear

Tuesday 9 December 2003

i like this blog
if you're in Albany, NY right now it really is SNOWY huh?
the uk is a special case

one really is a clot.
incidentally, how funny did i find claps (accurate) musings on bigname electronica-leaning tings
the way is still too long
glorious schtuff
however,
me and a mate who saw Macca many times were respectfully discussing him last night over calzone and carbonara, it must be owned.

still~
below is some Rilke.

interesting to think on, maybe.

how shall i keep my soul
from touching yours? how shall
i lift it over you toward other things?
ah, i would like to lodge it
in the dark with some lost thing
on some foreign silent place
that doesn't tremble, when your depths stir.
yet everything that touches you and me
takes us together like a bow's stroke
that from two strings draws one voice.
across what instrument are we stretched taut?
and what player holds us in his hand?
o sweet song.
whoah nelly
after all, Birmingham England has rasta coppers, but not NYC.
might go and watch a soccer match on the tv now, but before one does, here's a quick NOTE

world of stelfox's initial thing about dancehall and context etc. i read and thought not too much more of, very interesting though as he always is, then read a clapclap reply.
because i'm such a huge fan of mike clap the way he phrased his stuff well, that was quality to me.
but then read tufluv's views which were put gloriously, so alive, and to top it all off, dave's second piece on the issue (wonderful stuff, irish catholic liverpool, beating human heart, political, context, inclusive, all that).
now i notice - at time of writing - another reply may be forthcoming from clapclap.
it's all good fun. can't wait.

my own two penn'orth might be that reggae in the UK is a special case, purely because of proportionately (and possibly actually, for all i know) higher rates of migration between Jamaica and the UK modern-historically, than between the USA and Jamaica. realise that's a bit of a daft, exclusionary thing to observe, but have been thinking about it before, must say.
have to hand it to toasters though.
double glazing, that's over-rated too.
luddite true, but don't feel the newlook hotmail that much either.
is it me, or has the blogger template been pissing its life away as of late?
now i feel mean about the Pluramon record...predictable? moi....;-)

haha!

(via Dan)
and THE SAGE.
and Ramblin Tim come to that.
how blessed are we to read Jess H.?
good eggs Geeta

(1) hurrah!

(2) actually now convinced me the other end
over Marcello and Rob Young, 'fraid.
a {short} review of popular beat combo, Blur, my rocky bruv.
Blur, superb as ever, Damon good with the banter too "Last time we played here, it was with the JAMC, Dinosaur Jr, and MBV, we were bottom of the bill and we got bottled off stage". Ended again with "This is a low" off Parklife, a quality number.

a [short] review of some other ‘things’, including popular beat combo/dour leftist comedians, Radiohead (ibid).

Went out into Fallowfield after, to meet S and L, but they were with some of S’s workmates, and fuckin everywhere in Fallowfield is NUS only on weekends, so just ended going back to this blokes flat in Chorlton-turns out he was a big City fan and he let me leaf through this book "City's 100 greatest ever players", purely one guy's opinion but nicely illustrated and great pen pictures-we could do with some of these blokes-Colin Bell, Roy Paul, Peter Barnes now in the bloody team.
Satday, got up and SP and me met M in the refubed KG at 1:30, we had buy one, get one free on Carlsberg so that was cool. Interesting banter with Kenny, trying to explain about the poor woman who got hit by the fireworks at Wolves before they kicked off against the toon. Then the place was getting to full up with horrible yellow shirted scousers so we retired to our bar, Krony in there is very much to my liking. Gate was 711, Scouseport must had 100 there-no City or Utd yday probably helped. Still shows our support for our level is excellent-second highest gate by far in the Trophy yday. (Weymouth first with 876 and they are top of the Doc Martens too). We were full value for 1st half lead, they threw everything at us in 2nd but with Coburn in net we just look a lot more solid at the back really. Chants of "Yellows, yellows" from then under the Golf Road in the 2nd (not enough people there for segregation really) but aside from that sod all, good vocals from our boys as ever. As soon as game was over, KT picked me up from outside then back to Nottm, went to sleep when we got back to KT's and didn't actually leave hers til 8:15 tho luckily found parking space well near Arena. Walked straight in and the 'head were already on-slightly surreal but good,missed ADF as support tho. Played lots of good old stuff "Street Spirit", "The Bends", to temper the new electronic bleepings.


The guinea fowl outside the security fence are a good alarm, because they start making a noise at 4.45 am
_David Evans, 38, farmer, northern Zimbabwe.

High Fat Cat Content
Triple Cream
Glaxo Smith Kline
2000 Jobs Lost!
Share Price Down!
NO PAY HIKE FOR GARNIER


sorry this blog’s been so shite of late (what do you mean, of late?), got shifted sideways at work (well, am a temp) and internet access not really anymore, and other than that, just being a shite poohead. apologies all round, to any one that still bothers to read this.

Well Fuck, just watched blues piss their lives again, still was lost in the 1st leg really, quite blatant anti-City commentators (as with BBC3) ON C5 it would seem, they seem to think we should be the rags or Chelski, then they be just as biased, cunts.
Off to Rileys later and Mike the selfish cunt is not driving so he can drink, will certainly make him pick you up from the station - it’s just self, self, self with him…you can't escape the fucking rags tho’ there are more lurcals who are Scousers in Hull. Funny moment last nite went to the pub with Diebs n Alf, Diebs left early to go to AU nite at Uni and happened to mention to Alf you were coming up soon, he then asked what we'd be doing, said Piper on Fridy nite (without thinking) Alf then says "Oh I won't be going there then" OH NO, What a fucking loss that isn't.


Alf got barred from the Piper for – I SWEAR I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP but he is from ROMFORD which the Norfolk Windmills posse would remind us is not discussed enough during musicological debates about the ardkore continuum – breaking the actual ceramic seat of the lav. he’s a big, strong guy, but he clearly must have used the toilet roll holder or something, i mean otherwise his foot would be broken.

Joss Stone actually supporting Erykah Badu on Erykah’s current tour, fancy that!

Qasim was telling me about diver scallops, these are the ones where they dive for them individually and suchlike, no dredging for these beauties, all that nasty sand. a bit of a rum do perhaps but i should imagine a quick feel of the quality is all you need.

also, what was that puffpiece written by Bob Geldof’s daughter about ‘Thirteen’, it’s an average to nothing specially good film about teen issues and actually not done that cop (oh! but she’s thirteen! - RIMBAUD), we’re not talking ‘Tokyo Story’ here. speaking of ‘Tokyo Story’, the Sunday Telegraph film critic Anne Bilson (dunno if that’s right spelling; needless to say, a personal fave film crit, very nice lady) apologised – or rather said she had no need to apologise – in her magazine listing for recommending two Japanese films in the same night on her weekly televisual listings section comment bit.
one wouldn’t feel the need to apologise for offering up two American flicks, so why bother with Japanese. for shame.

Well, a 1st rate weekend as ever spoilt by City, tho I hear at least we were unlucky and played a lot better than recent games, unlike the rags who were crap from start to end-we gave Chelski a much harder game at the Bridge, Diego Forlorn living up to his nickname, ridiculous pre-game hype in the MUEN I saw yday, big headline about "Chelsea's mercenaries", utter shit as usual from that one eyed twat Mathieson. Seems to think that people sign for Ragworld PLC for noble reasons and not for huge pots of cash, a club that manages to spend £28m on "His name is Rio, he misses the drugs tests" more of the United myth, bollox.

[Stuart Mathieson is the completely biased Manchester United correspondent for local paper, Manchester Evening News.]
to be fair, i thought United were alright in what i saw of them at the Bridge (only caught up to Lampard’s goal and then the last few minutes), there was one schoolboy error from Ferdinand, but apparently Terry made mistake after mistake.

actually heard quite a bit of the Joss Stone debut and do really like it (certainly a lot better than the undeniably talented by half Alex Parks sadly getting done over by her company getting her to release an album of largely unfortunate covers, presumably in time for Christmas), but did i read Marcello (plus points for mentioning Murnau btw) right? trounces ‘Dusty in Memphis’ did he say? not sure, not throwing that out as an accusation or anything, but that is certainly a claim (not accurate of course, if that were the case). still, ‘appen.

The building was in terrible condition and I couldn’t imagine how they could live there. They were basically living on bread and potatoes. I think the father had gone, looking for work.
_ Beso Uznadze.

find it slightly seedy, some of the online comment one can find about Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth?
not going to link to anything here but you can probably find yourself easily enough – if you’re bothered – reams of ‘classic’ comments on the issue on the sort of message boards everyone knows and lovingly laughs at. generally particularly enjoy people from, say, North America, who like to say things (glaringly simplified parody for satiric effect AHEAD) such as ‘why is Britain behaving like a bunch of colonialists again, bossing around a bunch of Africans?’
of course it’s not worth arguing about on an online forum (well, obviously it is, but you know what i mean…), but don’t you just want to shake such people by the virtual lapels sometimes? empty a virtual bucket of icy water over their heads? well, alright, maybe just me…
would like to ask questions such as ‘yes, but do you actually know what goes on in Zimbabwe? do you know what the government there has been doing to ordinary people, to its opponents? what do you know of the economic and social situation for the average Zimbabwean? can you actually locate Zimbabwe on a map of the world?’
i apologise if this sounds like frustrated, and possibly puerile/naïve losing of temper, but there we have it.

QUEER EYE apology
spotted the following one line advert (rough paraphrase follows) It’s the Eighties on the phone. They want their haircut back..
excellent!

Henry Cooper hit me so hard he didn’t just shake me, he shook my relatives in Africa.

- Muhammad Ali.

my favourite Ali poster HAS to be the ‘First round, first minute’, y’all know the one.
as for Ali postcards and smaller prints, i do like the ‘I’m so fast that last night I switched off the lightbulb and was in bed before room got dark’ type one, which’s good dat.

LONG OVERDUE
EQUALLY IMPORTANT BUT NOT PIGS BLADDER bread and circuses
Wednesday were poor and their away support of over 3,000 very quiet. When Plymouth came they
bought 3,500 and did not shut up even at 3 0. I am hoping that we can pull away from the also rans now. Kevin Gallen is being watched by Ireland and so likewise is Martin Rowlands. Good win for Alty as
well.


that’s right you know. Alty won again the other day, 4-1. their current form is nothing short of startling. conceded about 2 (well, you know, but something daft like that) in the last 11, and not lost in that time. heh-heh.

~GOOD AFTERNOON GENTLEMEN, THE NAME’S BILL GARDNER.

The last Grapes gig was fantastic. Really interesting use of songs v electronics by Corringham / Cusack, and a good melt of performance and electronics by Schimpfluch. Those of you who missed the "chairs" piece really missed something! The latter group played to 150 people in Leeds, and to 15 in Sheffield......
Next up:
Wednesday 10th December 2003
PAUL HUBWEBER - trombone
JOHN JASNOCH - guitars, mandolin, ud
First chance to see this fine German player in Sheffield
together with our own JJ, following on from their German tour.
Also
SWUNG-DASH
Phil Morton - accidents and treatments
Adam Webster - bass guitar, cello
Phil Lucking - trumpets
Budgie - drumset
Periods of serene psycho-ambience to moments of crashing
intensity whilst calling at many places in between
The Grapes,Trippet Lane, Sheffield
8.30 pm. £5 full / £3 concession, all tickets on door
_Martin Archer, Discus Recs.

OK, bit late.

i saw a poor FA Trophy match between Stafford Rangers and Spennymoor; Stafford are away to Scarboro the next round; this was last week. the first half mainly consisted in an inexplicable lead being protected by the (piss-poor and dull) visitors into the break. the second half mostly consisted of different factions of Stafford fans lamping the heavenly shite out of each other (there was a lot of blood, and a lot of clueless stewarding). my beloved Altrincham beat their bitter rivals Southport one nil in the same competition (the wonders of txt msg!) so one was chuffed with that. drank an awful lot of booze that night, smoked a lot of weed, lot of that glorious drunken banter that is best not repeated on the whole. and the next day (and Friday night had a few, come to think of it) totally the same, except with added Millwall fan/rawwk gig glamour. perhaps it was a shame various Guardian columnists or the like weren’t here, as they could be getting off on that middle-class (i’m middle-class, but you know what i mean, i mean the 28K salary Waitrose middle-class) supposed obsession with foolish and mindless football violence. of course that’s a harsh caricature but you know, what’s a body to do.

it makes me laugh when clueless top flight pundits like Mark Lawrenson were predicting the likes of Wednesday would go up from the 2nd easier than Strummer’s boys at the start of the season. it’s not like Lawro is a particularly useful summariser for the Prem either, but you would have thought a cursory bit of homework would have helped. apparently not. at least with Big Ron you can say he has those poor man’s Stuart Hall flights of lyrical fancy to describe the cavalier upfield stroll; i suppose the consolation with Lawro is you normally know Peter Schmeichel and his glorious Manc/Danish-hybrid of an accent will not be far away.
still, the difference between a footy pundit who knows what they’re on about – e.g., the telegraph’s patrick barclay, and mark lawrenson is rather similar to the differences between GZA and Vanilla Ice.

personally i thought the rags were okay at chelski (but only saw the opening 25 and last 5 minutes due to extenuating circumstances) and obviously it was a penalty. sure makelele and terry are quality (tho’ ronaldo had the measure of the former it seemed) but people like gallas are a bit of a liability - indeed, there was a bloke the spit of gallas in a litten tree pub in Stafford where we saw the first 30 or so; (you can tell the new breed of clueless Chelsea glory hunter by their blanket {wrong, natch} assertions that their defence overall is supreme [though they’re clearly not quite as clueless as the Liverpool fan i know who persists in calling Biscan a better player than Gary Neville?!?; incidentally how much of a diving chump is Pongolle?]). he was a chelsea fan, which left me, him, and two of my mates supporting the blues. it was quite galling to see all the locals (their ‘second team’ is presumably either Wolves or Stoke?) with their united shirts but we cheered nice and fucken loud when Lampard scored. obviously i hope Chelsea or the Gooners stuff United to the title cause i’m an embittered Man City fan. the sooner Wes Brown comes back and Ferdinand stops making forced schoolboy errors (somedisco passim) the better for the red devils.

somedisco goes D LIST CELEB spotting {unintentionally}
Carroll and Richardson (my mate said he saw Richardson score an exquisite goal in a friendly at Chesterfield once) and Kleberson were all good for United at Albion in midweek. the pub i was in watching the last minutes contained Coronation Street ‘star’ Kevin LeVell (is that his name) and former Granada (the northwest version of whatever regional ITV any English readers have in their region) weatherman, Fred Talbot. my mate Sinagola, his uncle knows Fred, amateur astronomers together. i’m pretty sure it was Fred’s boyfriend he was with, Fred was the first ‘famous’ gay man that us 9 year old boys were exposed to (as it were, so to write) in a provincial, suburban culture of borderline homophobia simmering at all times, so i have a special place for him always in my heart (pass the sickbag, Ernest, but no seriously, you should have seen him leaping around Liverpool’s Albert Dock on his weathermap-cum-boat ting, simply MARV).
as for Albion themselves, well, a good mate of mine is a Baggie fanatic and a more informed, nuanced bloke to discuss the beautiful game with (and rugby, too) you couldn’t hope to meet. i must however agree with my best mate (United fan) that the Prem portents for any team that has a midfield that plays like that, are – of course – not good.

Just seen a great farce, it's called Titus Bramble and is a satire on Barclaycard Premiership centre-halves. He and Jonny Woodgatey have just managed to crash into each other and given the Murph an easy goal. And i was thinking that Liverpool's only hope of a goal was to get Pongo inside the penalty area so he can do his traditional dying swan act.
R.I.P. Ruben Gonzalez.

Monday 8 December 2003

Friday 5 December 2003

Marcello sounds good on Pluramon and - indeed - Joss Stone (prompted from Stelfox, might even have to get the Pluramon on the strength of recommendation from messrs. Young and Carlin, and that would be something.
and that, as they say, was that.
i like it when Blair chats out of his arse about asylum me.
they did write 'when i'm up i can't get down' to be fair.
god he's so right isn't he

all this worthy patchouli stuff.

i can't be doing with the Oyster Band.
love a bit of Jill Scott me.
in the paper the other day some woman was banging on about that Josh Stone bird is it, and also Amy Winehouse and Terri Walker (all very nice i'm sure, and not a case of the emperor's new clothes in the case of the former surely) but they had the gumption to question the authority of the even the first ones from the likes of Erykah Badu and Angie Stone.

this is just not on.

alright, so Badu hasn't done owt since the debut but the debut! what worth!
and Jill Scott's debut! talk about good.

as you may know, i can't get with bilal in the field of all this neo-soul bluster.
i should have followed the idea i had at five to ten this morning, which went like this : -

bugger this for a lark, i'm off to the pub (wetherspoons outside United's ground is five minutes walk away).

needless to say, i didn't.
you have to wonder about the superficiality of a man who will complain about the toilet paper at his workplace lavatories immediately after posting an article about a terrorist outrage.
jesus wept that bog roll's rough.
more like bloody sandpaper.
oh fuck

Thursday 4 December 2003

this is really unoriginal to note, but whenever one sees billboards for S.W.A.T. i keep thinking it says T.W.A.T.
i wuv my mate Q, discussing him and his bezzie man like Rod Marques going to one of the posher restaurants in Manchester he observed that Man I was so drunk I ordered white bleedin' wine with steak!

he also sez I ate at The Italian in town a couple of weeks ago which is where we were gonna go and it's my fav italian restaurant in town, it pisses on the Stock
which is more like a fancy seafood and steakhouse.
I read a bit on your blog about Fatman Scoop, I think
that guys a legend! That record is so on top nothing
cheers me up more then to hear him shouting 'If you've
got a hundred dollar bill put your hand up!'


good, and indeed, eggs.



'ave it
When will Brits realize that this is 2003 and give up on 'Royal British Empire' once and for all? Wake up, it's gone. Let Mugabe lead his country for better or worse. So long as he does not attack British citizens or attack the UK, don't get involved with Zimbabwe's internal affairs.
Simon, New Jersey, U.S.

hmm.
what the fuck Canada?
seen on a sticker in the stairway coming off the el, randolph and wabash:
"immigrants are not the problem"


_the lovely companion
Qasim reports that this chap was in his Islam class.

the mind boggles.
i suppose my earlier point about coldplay and no doubt (because i do like them, well, i mean i certainly adore the odd no doubt single, esp. ones with a foolish amount of basswankery) was that, yunno, if 'a rush of blood to the head' was going to be put in wherever it was (472 or so) they could at least have put sarah vaughan with clifford brown in at number 473 (or so).

but apparently not to be.
feel like a belch.
below are links to stunningly lovely bits of blogging i've noticed recently that are giving me much joy, or making me laugh out loud, or made me think, or something like that.

Nirav on nicedisk

andro turtle discusses turtles (and the like)

isn't she lovely [aka Ian Fractionals on Bjork]

distorting the medium on internet books

ronan on, ooh, quite a lot

Stelfox chanting for desi beats

i'm now wasting time more efficiently at work (it's called the internet) as they've foolishly put me on a better computer.

this one even has a stereo attached.

i did nearly get fired yesterday afternoon when i went to some house site and it started playing its wares.
the beats were submerging everyone's convo from here to Risk Management.
well i can't read and i can't write
but that don't really matter
cause i'm a swindon town fan
and i can drive a tractor


a colleague of mine reckons swindon is the armpit of the country. clearly a nonsense, melinda messenger is from swindon and she promotes decent family values without the kissoff of little englander daily express nonsense type tropes.

little englander used to have the opposite meaning i
think, it used to mean some internationalist sophisticate.
the loaf has not jacked it in.

thank god for that.

Wednesday 3 December 2003

purely on the subject of england

you remember that banter that some bloggers had about london versus the provinces a bit ago? it might actually have been london versus the rest of britain and/or the uk, but that would blow my theory out of the water (sure there are always exceptions to the rule, such as the folk in Glasgow), let's stick with england eh.
basically all the best music/nerd/wirey circle {clearly i don't know about politics circles, or crochet circles, or postmodern literature circles; i mean folk who know and are familiar with Simon Reynolds' ouevre, or at least know SR}
bloggers are in London, well most of them anyway.
if you don't believe me, i think or know for sure or at least believe with some, that all the above below i mean, live within the orbital. click on the link for Smoke funnfrolics.

It would probably be worth getting lung cancer just to wander around one for an afternoon

Hey! I've just thought of the title for my book: Pretending I'm Not a Cunt

well good fires aren't they? looking at them, feeding them, playing with them

I love jays the're like funky crows

quality.
as one of life's whistlers (mostly 60s rock'n'roll, 70s pop, 80s chart, and rocksteady melodies at the moment) i'd be in the frontline too, to be reasonable.
in my view.
people that blow their nose excessively whilst sat on the lavatory should be considered fit for public execution, or at least a knee-capping.
the liquid soap in the bathroom dispensers here chiefly resembles the ectoplasm from the ghostbusters franchise.
half expecting a wisecracking Bill Murray to emerge from the final stall on the way out, a pizza pie and bottle of Coors in hand.
not even sure if the word meaning greedy was misspelt in the below sentence, but my brain has melted.
must admit, in terms of the consumption of food, i've been a right gluttonous bastard the last 48 hours.
Not that money is necessarily equated with style, mind you - on our visit, all the men appeared to be wearing rugby shirts, while all the ladies looked like Hollyoaks stars on their way out to the opening of an envelope.

_Andrew Fraser wades in at the opening of a new Italian in leafy Wilmslow, Cheshire.
big up
good guardian leader from time of blakelock murder
it's quite good that rolling stone 500 albums list, in the sense there's no surprises at all and lots of albums i love (and lots you don't, clearly) which is eminently fair enough like.
apart from no doubt at #441 and coldplay at #473.
my mam often says don't bother saying it if you've got to be rude, so i shall take her advice for once in this instance.
well, alright, i was harsh on Beckham and Jagger, that's mean but still.
item
it beats me why they give out knighthoods and honours and such to the likes of David Beckham or Mick Jagger.

do these people deserve knighthoods?
of course they fucking don't.

via the pumpkin publog, i found two blokes who do though : - they are Edmund Featherstone and his chum, a Colin Price (though like Tim H, i find it very hard to believe there are only two pubs in all of SE28?!)
over at the freaky trigger pumpkin publog (fast becoming my number one fave archive site anywhere on the nerdosphere) John McGhee wondered if there was a Manchester Tavern in Manchester.
i can confirm there was a boozer called the Mancunian in Hulme but this was closed down some time ago due to trouble (drugs, IIRC).
anyway, below are some interesting news links {one or two are a day or two old} : -

Shelved EU study of anti-Semitism goes on net
REPORT ON ANTI-SEMITISM :
COMMISSIONED BUT NOT PUBLISHED
[the report itself, PDF]
BBC views on anti-Semitism
27 years for Srebrenica massacre
Trial of senior Bosnian Muslims
whew!
leaving behind yesterday's faux-liberal hand-wringing, i must first note i txted Ingram yesterday but since it was the first txt i'd sent him for about 6 months, to request some Lil Wayne or Cheikh Lo was probably a bit cheeky, cracking set as it happens, note the move from Cornell Campbell to Scientist, very swish.

Tuesday 2 December 2003

there now follows
A sincere and humble apology to any somedisco readers with half a brain

last thursday i posted a very half-arsed rant about the tv show queer eye for the straight guy that could easily have been read along the lines of a venomously shite 'ooh, gay people! let's act straight eh....some of my best friends are gay BUT_' type-trope.
firstly i would like to big up both
Angus for his public response, (and a very good comment in his comments box by some Lysana gal; her website is excellent btw), and Jon who privately mailed me at length.

basically i was clearly chatting out of my backside if you go back and read what i said and i can see that. it's a bit worrying that even at the time as i was writing what i did though, that i thought this is casually lazy and borderline dodgy, but still carried on. i have absolutely no explanation as to that anomaly which is of course distressing.

as Jon reminded me, stereotypes of queers on telly etc. - why are they there?
and all that jazz. so i'm having a bit of an internal conversation about that at the mo.

he asked me would i prefer no gay characters on the tv and pointed out - quite reasonably i think - what i wrote could easily be interpreted as Liberal (in the sense of John Howard's party of government) masquerading as liberal.

essentially i have no idea why i posted the utterly wrong-headed bobbins that i did, which is quite worrying, as you might say all this flaggelating i'm doing now is just the rantings of a falsely modest 'liberal' who's been caught with his trews down and is trying for a little hand-wringing PR.
perhaps i was thinking of some subconscious thesis of mine that thought most queer characters i see on the tv are acting in the supposedly stereotypical fashion i so totalitarianally (and dourly) upbraided, but then i recalled some of the few gay characters on shows i've enjoyed in the past (e.g. the secret life of us or this life) not being so. etc.
Jon even mentioned he's heard some negative comment in the past to the effect that (this is a rough paraphrase) he knows people who watched 'this life' who slag off the queer character (Warren) bcos he 'doesn't act gay'. or somesuch.

anyway, to any reader who was disappointed with my boneheaded wading in, i'm afraid you'll just have to trust me that i'm not a bigoted tosser and am trying to work out why i delved into the file marked FUCKWIT so easily.
if you've got this far and are still reading, cheers for swimming through this onanistic gloop/

Thursday 27 November 2003

the (national) Chinese Arts Centre is located in Mcr. it's recently moved premises and the refurbed new home opens its doors tomorrow~
'mysterious Ingram' - 1 can confirm that: - white male, floppy dark hair, a nice accent, and says "guv".
they certainly don't make 'em like that anymore.
NI assembly results coming in
superb review of Matt Elliott's new 'un
Tim F. reviews a Greensleeves comp.
only just seen this Geeta post.
thoughtful and hear-hear.
nice blog
i do like the bloke who played miles me, in 'this life', but i always liked welsh wonder warren in that show.

obviously i had a crush on amita dhiri.
here's about the nicest Kamen obit.
RIP/
well, dunno about you, but my christmas wishlist is now sorted.
how about just learning (together) to be the best possible lover for your partner, instead?
tell you what, i could fucking eat nans for England me, i really could.
some more from noladotcom
another one bites the dust - R.I.P. Soulja Slim
oh god
fuck
is it just me, or is this just the best website in Britain today?

~

not forgetting it's all about the uk, of course.
Butcher 105 no, Flintoff hitting a few boundaries, lean like the tower of Pisa.
my mate Mo is from Zanzibar
we met when we worked at the same place together years back, he has a boom for a laugh, sort of the east African Brian Blessed if you will.
he maintains the weed they have back in Tanzania is really strong stuff, cheap as well.
i've only smoked the once with him, and that was a couple of years ago (never again!) we were well caned, so you gotta believe him.

some of the slang he comes out with tho', i should transcribe it, three-way collision between Zanzibar, what you might call black British i guess, and i suppose what you might call generic traditional Mancunian colloquialisms, quality, the Tanzanian words are well mad (to my mind).
you live n learn eh.
sports

a reasonable point, but - to be fair (let's get to the point eh) - everyone knows that there's only two teams from the scottish top flight that would do anything other than get relegated if they played in the english Prem (indeed, the likes of the Dons - with apologies to my mate Stuey the Aberdonian - and Partick would probably get relegated from the English 1st).
The SPL is a joke.

elsewhere, pleased for Celtic, the Arsenal scoreline was a surprise i'll admit whilst the Leeds administration threat [link] is of course the main talking point.

~

elsewhere, i don't normally big up Rupe Murdoch as a rule but i remember linking to a story for y'all reading pleasure about this young man about a week ago, on SKYSPORTS.COM. sort it out, Beeb!

~

refreshing this should give you the England score current.

~

and there's obviously this.

P.S., White Feather! - don't be that guy, just dont...
and Jon Dale's middle name starts with a W!
what is it?

i think we should be told.

William, maybe.

Wednesday 26 November 2003

philanthropy is almost the only virtue that is sufficiently appreciated by mankind - h. d. thoreau
bloody hell, you'd pay good money to read crumbling loaf wouldn't you, you really would.
email views

Ello :-
just a brief comment on the frankly appalling news that Michael Caine is "reportedly" being cast as Alfred the Butler in the new Batman film. I have problem with Christian Bale in the lead role, but Alfred is supposed to be distinguished, not some cockerney urchin like Caine.. "'ello there guvna', the joka' seems to 'ave broken into the bat-cayve!" no, no, NO! bring back Michael Gough!!!

Qasim : -

PS Stop talking about taking dumps I belong to a high
caste and we don't talk of such things. If you mention
them again may Brahman reborn you into a chamar!


you know what's quite weird?













i can smell gammon, but not see any gammon.
how did Bob Marley like his donuts?

wi' jam'in.
i know the lovely companion ain't going here tonight (she's driving to her mom's in the next state after work for the holiday celebrations) but what a nicely concise punk-rock writeup from Matos.
wonderfully eloquent attack from British Law Lord on American detention of suspected combatants here.

some people might not realise it but the standard of debate in the House of Lords [site] is excellent; it's certainly a lot better than the Commons (although you might say that's not saying much).
fatman scoop - 'be faithful'

i must say i love this tune; what's not to love?

i saw it on TOTP and the performance; well, it had it all - a fat black bloke getting his shirt off, hollering.

*marvellous*.

quite a few of my indie mates profess to "hate" this choon, but these people listen to stellastarr or the au pairs (sorry Simon!), so what do they know eh.
i hate films set in West London - superb! Pete Baran really has been very good indeed of late.
for sheer reading pleasure, i must say, there's little to touch the freayk trigger publog in my daily routine (well, weekday daily).
Rachel Playforth, Tim H, Dave B's wonderful dissection of a Stoke Newington alehouse, and of course Pete Baran all deserve massive props.
hear hear
in (partial) defence of eminem
having noted conciliatory views on the prosaical goodness of pfork on postrock, no one and no one can compete with Baal's 'metal for soft lads' and "adolescent" anaylses.
~
also, if you're gonna put any Slint or Mogwai up, surely the Bark Psychosis' first one is deserving?

still, shutting up now.
essential reading
sure we like the global stuff and jazz round here, but one can do the up-its-own-arse IDM with the best of the frail electronica boys, believe.
quality
i think the revised pfork 90s list is fair enough.

before any dance/rap types (that's me then, i have to be honest with yew) get on their ass, you have to remember the indietronica/alt.rockers hold the key to the pfork home and they can frequently write with both winning warmth and disarming humour about their un/faves. also it's mean to moan that they're all over the face of, ooh, punk-funk cut-up bands because, what do you expect, if indie kids are shown how to dance (as Ryan Schreiber noted in his charmingly honest review of the Rapture) by outfits like !!! we should be applauding that.

having noted that, here's a few personal views on the rejigged list : -

more hip-hop is good, big up ya chest (even if all the albums in said field are better than the two highest ranked ones in said field, the PE, and 'endtroducing...')

not quite feeling the continued love for the Betas 3 EPs, still, live and for a time they were all okay

nice decision to swop SAW 85-92 for SAW II i must say, though i prefer the former

not entirely sure about Alex Linhardt's There was only one thing more dystopic and frightening this decade; I believe it was called the Zaire dictatorship mind.

i'll be frank, 'music is rotted' is my fave Jenkinson elpee (in fact it's the only i still have any time for, really), so fair dos,
basically Pfork is WYSIWYG innit, all nice rock, Elephant 6 types, Wilco, MBV and OK COMPUTER, Will Oldham, godspeed, it's all nice innit.
not too sure about Yet this pioneering collection of pastoral folktronica is one of the most engaging and emotionally captivating electronic records of the decade from Scott Plagenhoef tho' on BoC's you know what - clearly me and Jon Dale are the only people who actually regard this as unenviable infantilism instead (and not a pleasant womb-like state either), all this rusted Japanese machine-music and sndtrk from a C64's dream trope, preferring the plangent possibilities of a Talk Talk pick.
still, nevermind eh.

whilst one's certainly not a radiohead fan and very far from thinking ok computer the 90s best album, that superb final review certainly convinces.

chest y'!
here's the bad news.
elsewhere, don't you think Busta Rhymes increasingly resembles the Lion from the Wizard of Oz?
my mate says he would see him play in a Wizard of Oz show.

this would raise the prospect of Lil' Kim as Dorothy admittedly, which i for one am certainly all for...

...whether anyone would want to be the Scarecrow is another matter, maybe one of the Arsonists.
just overjoyed to read Maff's water collection.
The Sheila Chandra and Pecheurs de Perles et Musiciens Du Golfe Persique a special treat.
it's almost a shame sometimes as he sticks to vinyl only, as one of the only ways his anthology of h2o goodness could here have been improved would be with the flourish of THIS little BY--UUTY.
lovely to see him stick up for his Scratch fave too.

it beats the hell out of me why IPC or some other house doesn't give him his own magazine, i would if i were Rupert Murdoch, in fact i would include him as a glossy pull-out in the Saturday Times.
an angel of death
that sounds encouraging.

aged 19, taking a class taught by her, i was reminded that colonialists in India could be regarded - at least - as progressive because they may very well have been trying to do their bit within the structural injustice they found themselves surrounded with.

foraging around there, one came across a short essay from
this chap, written shortly after 9/11. Modood is a common name on sociology and social anthropology undergraduate reading lists and that stands up now.

speaking of political diversions, the yes/no interlude is here good, ranting about the ranters.

Tuesday 25 November 2003

Cathedral - now that's a band i've always enjoyed.
This wednesday at The Grapes, Trippet Lane, Sheffield.
Viv Corringham & Peter Cusack - songs/electronics
Shimpfluch Gruppe - radical Swiss ensemble, between music and performance
NB This gig will probably start at 8.30 to fit everything in.
£5 / £3
Eid indeed, let us hope boy racers stay away from Rusholme or at least don't rag their cars up and down Wilmslow Road in a dangerous fashion.

~

my brother told me he moved one of his lectures telling the prof he had a "prior commitment". what he didn't tell his lecturer was that this prior commitment involved city on the telly
whereas that from Hitchens is agreeable, especially at the bottom.
it's just as unusual to be eyeing up George Monbiot, but that's a realistically agreeable assessment for once, even if it seems laid on a little too strong.
three somewhat encouraging (especially the first) items from Kashmir, Hong Kong, and Burma.
meanwhile, the remains of Howard Dean's brother have reportedly been identified in Laos.
it's also unusual to find yrself bigging up Greg Dyke.
astonishing
judge having postponed ruling in the case of the Daily News (only non-state paper in Zimbabwe), paper's legal advisor notes grimly that If we had been successful, we would have been back on the streets by 1 December....Our efforts are being frustrated everywhere.
it's definitely a case of me too over preferring the breeders' debut elpee to pretty much anything else Deal was involved in (i also forgot 'planet of sound' too)
the guardian website is slow connecting where i am today and the refresh button is getting knackered. pah.
can't make up my mind about this whole pharrell business.
i was reading somewhere, can't remember where, it was recently though, was it oh i don't know Stelfox or Finney or Dale or Ronan anyway, and his polymorphous perversity and all that jazz (Reynolds had to tell me what this meant; suffice to say his Freud instructions fell on deaf ears as i thought it was something kinky) but really i've been losing patience with him for many months now, as i can't get with the programme with his appearances singing, all over videos, over the place. i think it'd be good for him to shut up, if he wants to branch out, he should take up Piedmontese cookery and appear on telly with Antonia Carlucci but i think his singing with the Hova is a little unfresh now, so i'd like him to stop, unless - of course - he can come up with something new, like a decent duet with Holly or Kylie or Xtina (but not Pink or Britney, as they've already produced that choon of hers 'Boys')