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Saturday 30 April 2005

unbelievably crass headline in the Daily Express today ["BRITAIN HAS TOO MANY MIGRANTS SAY ASIANS"]

Friday 29 April 2005

please don't misread the following as the parochial ravings of an aggrieved (anti-American) reactionary, because it isn't:

i might not be the greatest supporter of George Galloway but it's hard not to take issue with suspiciously well-dressed for a hard-line leftie from this slate piece [note the incorrect photo caption about Bethnal being a borough; link via Lenin].

absurd really.

suspiciously well-dressed leftwinger?
shocking.
shouldn't be allowed really.
yes i'm naturally suspicious of well-dressed radicals myself.

still, as Craner points out, Slate are pretty unsatisfactory on the British election.
i'm not asking for the moon on a stick but the particular correspondent flagged up above; well, you almost get the impression, it's as if, almost, they've not moved on from the caricatures they ironically spout at the start of that first piece, received wisdom from their grandad.
not good enough, really.

+

Demon spitting, 8 bar, 16 bars.

at its raspy toughest, his voice seems a bit like those upturned pyramids of glass you get on the top of brick walls as a security device.

but, again, he has the suppleness and luminosity of a great poet {i wonder - if i were famous - the above sentence would get me in pseuds corner in the Eye?}.

-

i'd loved to have seen SR's ppunk chat the other day.
i'd ask Paul Morley how he gets his voice like that.

like he sells ice cream inside a cinema in a small town.

it's a voice of cigarettes and hair salons and fruit and veg stalls and provincial newspapers and the bloke who prints the leaflets for your local Chinese takeaway.

+

you should watch your mouth son
you don't know where i'm from

Thursday 28 April 2005

i normally either ignore Paul Morley, pretty much, or think he’s just way off-beam. though where he comes from has a very good brewer indeed, Robinson’s, and if you like beer, you should seek some of their stuff out.
the Double Hop ale is really firing at the moment and cannier publicans have stockpiled winter warmer Old Tom [this is me, writing about Old Tom on the internet for only the 95th time, and additionally writing on the internet for only the 95th time that Old Tom is 8.5%. hurrah!].
but a recent piece in the Sunday Telegraph about hot flavour du jour Antony (and his band, the Johnsons) was interestingly provocative.
some of the money shot is below:

A duet in the middle of the short show with one of Antony’s idols, Marc Almond, making his first live appearance since an almost fatal motorcycle crash, has the audience enthralled as if some kind of shocking truth about the very nature of existence has been revealed through flamboyant performance. The suspicious feel suffocated by stark raving narcissism.
Supporters say that Antony, as a gifted artist, has intuitively arrived at this formula of cryptic, veiled confession, tortured presence and wounded white soul: the suspicious detect traces of steely calculation, the hint of a tightly formatted script, the attention seeking of a one-time provocative avant-gardist bored with tiny audiences. Some consider his voice to be the latest in a line of compelling romantic eroticists that includes Jimmy Scott, Nina Simone, Tim Buckley, Bryan Ferry and Cat Power. The suspicious, and at this point I must own up to my own suspicions, might not be able to recover from the feeling that he is the latest in a line that includes Wayne Newton, Tiny Tim, Mick Hucknall, Heather Small and Shirley Bassey, and that the enterprise trembles on the edge not just of the obviously extraordinary but also the painfully mannered.

leaving aside the unfair {? yikes!} dismissals of Shirley and Heather {and Tim, at a pinch}!
i really like his “and at this point…”

‘you mean to tell me you’re not voting for Inkatha Eugene? And after all this time!’

on the subject of Tim Buckley, can we note how weird it is all the fashionable indie lads at work (the odd one still using gay as a synonym: sort your head out please) – every one a big Razorlight fan, no less – are all about the Jeff Buckley but haven’t heard of his dad? or Joan Armatrading, whilst we’re at it.
just a bit odd, is all.

on the subject of Razorlight – now somedisco isn’t one of these foolish places that casually disdains an artist because they are building on elements of the past or give pleasure by reversing down the road or by borrowing and adding a new(ish) twist, celebrating etc, and aren’t the latest in the most up to date sonics {if we did that, every single outfit - and that is literally every single one, certainly all the bands – that the NME has approvingly mentioned in the last year would have to be sent to the gulags} - OK yahbut c a n i j u s t n o t e t h a t l a s t n i g h t roll deep did salt beef and it did kick the entire career of Razorlight [and the Kaiser Chiefs for that matter, and the Killers, and and and etc etc etc] to the sidelines, i’m afraid.


Ruff Sqwad, what are you doing to my ears?

thank you.

Mick Hucknall helped to start up Blood & Fire.
that alone ensures my fellow ginga minga a place in the most bounteous paradise.

earlier i saw a blackbird that fair took my breath away with its swoop - a low swoop - a perilous low swoop - over tarmac.
it then alighted in the front garden, pecking at the cherry blossom.

a dried dog turd nestling in the crook of the gutter.
baked hard in the sun.
eww.

some little scallies cycled past me.
one said 'alright mate how ya doin'.

i said 'good ta pal', thru my coughing fit.
BE STILL MY BEATING HEART

{x-posted to my LJ
sorry always wanted to write that}
[the nearest i've ever been to Germany is Belgium but i still treasured a] Tresor t-shirt, spunky, gave it away though stupidly.

Geeta's reportage from Berlin cut me up

Wednesday 27 April 2005

brilliant brilliant

- and via normblog, who's in fierce mood of late.

normblog often criticises the likes of Jonathan Steele in the guardian, but this article from the other day was pretty decent {it also generated a sensible letter}.

Johann Hari on climate change is also good.
away from the pressing business of that sparkling anti-London bid thread i have just been informed that David Hasselhoff once had his stomach pumped after eating too many M&M's.

i know it's a cliche - and i have discounted a few phrases - but there's nothing more to add to that.
i think there's something charming about the fact that SR is having his ppunk panel in the same bar that the estranged frontmen of rock'n'rollers the Libertines were recently reunited in.

Tuesday 26 April 2005

we might be looking at an inability to organise a party in a brewery
Amnesty International on Israeli settler violence

Friday 22 April 2005

it really is a pilgrimage now, to glimpse that Piscator again
Q: How is this closure? You’re committed to come back and play two Test matches. Wasn’t this a case where you were let down by the Government and the ICC, at which point somebody – and it had to be you – should have simply said, ‘We will not go, and we will face the consequences?’

David Morgan, English cricket boss: I can see your point of view, but I don’t acknowledge its logic. The Government had no legal power to prevent the ECB touring Zimbabwe. The nine full members of the ICC other than the ECB were of the view that there was no place for moral judgment when deciding whether to meet commitments.

And do you agree with that view?

[Long pause]

Yes, I think I do.

Why?

Because I believe that otherwise, world cricket would grind to a halt.

Is there anything Robert Mugabe might do that could make you pull out on moral grounds?

I can’t envisage that.

Something like the infamous massacre in Mkhonyeni, where women and children were herded into huts and burned alive while their relatives were forced to watch?

Let’s be clear. The next time we are scheduled to come to Zimbabwe is in October 2009.

By which time you expect Mugabe will be dead or gone?

I couldn’t comment on that.
inimical to academic freedom

Thursday 21 April 2005

utterly glorious 48 hours of association football~

Oh Fergie shouting the odds with Moyes, how i laffed. but clearly the fact the rags r an indisciplined rabble is entirely the referees fault

Wednesday 20 April 2005

speaking of authenticity (well, not really).
but something said about MIA in a blogging debate some time ago now was interesting, about being the daughter of a refugee {although someone in the NME did call her the daughter of a freedom fighter the other week - hmm; their review was more even-handed on the issues around it}.

for some reason it kinda reminded me of Martha Gellhorn's contempt for Palestinian self-determination (having witness what she witnessed in the death camps of WWII she couldn't bring herself to square a circle on this subject), i mean, the random remark made about how long is a refugee a refugee.
something like that.
apologies for amnesia.

and to be fair to George Galloway, this Dissensus thread contains this classic
Heard on BBC news the other day

Heckler: Why are you a friend of Saddam Hussein?
GG: I'm not a friend of Saddam Hussein
Heckler: But you shook hands with him.
GG: I'm shaking hands with you now, but you're not my friend.

Can't beat logic like that.

{i'm so gutted i don't have the time or facilities to go on Dissensus these days}

and on the subject of, er, terror and whatnot, this guardian article here is interesting [had been thinking of catching the play anyway]

my pal Miguel (Adolfo) Dominguez, his good lady, they're having a nipper. infant due October.
i told him we'd wet the babbies head in Adnams and grappa.

Tuesday 19 April 2005

DON'T BE THAT GUY

Tony Wilson has been doing well recently, signing Raw-T and the like {i wonder if they took him for an "Ultimate Burger" in the Gorse pub?}.
Pearsall writes that MarkOne's outfit might be the best Manc grime crew, but it's not London here, to be fair.

Wilson has said the only conventional rock band coming out of Mcr these days he's interested in are the Longcut, thus eschewing by implication other equally popular (with local trendy alt. kids, and the myopic press) outfits like Mylo, Nine Black Alps [average almost-grungey revivalists, and every single press piece i've read on them says that, so you can forgive me], or Oceansize.
he thinks the Longcut are worth applauding because their cues come from Beefheart and Can, maybe also jazz, less of the usual wellspring of influences.

oh, he's also into Young Offenders Institute, a good bunch of north Mcr lads (i think, and from Collyhurst at that, which is where Nobby Stiles is from if you like violent old Man United players), but since they've been described {iirc} as Mike Skinner fronting Oasis {iirc} their appeal might be easy to see. yob-anthems do go down well with the punters don't they.

alas Wilson recently undid all the good work of his soothing noises about grime, his mentioning his son was a junglist, and all that.

he's only gone and said - discussing Britrap - that it contrasts favourably with "inauthentic poppy shite" from across the pond.

i appreciate (and love) the fact Wilson's own DJ sets contain Glen Campbell and presumably he was a fan of Alan McGee's sets dropping Leadbelly (who everybody should adore), but if Tony could just do one with the other intellectuals to debate authenticity [he has a perhaps unlikely ally in Bob Geldof's daughter Peaches - yes, Peaches, whose father is remembered for his humanitarianism and West Brom fans nicking a hit of his to adapt to their terrance chant Fab don't like Mondays - who told the Sunday Telegraph the other day she disapproves of "commercial hip-hop"], perhaps the rest of us can then sit on the floor in peace, and hear our poppy shite properly, without interruption.

i mean, Peaches Geldof and her backpacking (presumably?)!!

i'm sorry but it's not like i'm sure if i'd enjoy the taste of bacon and egg ice cream, but i'd still like to eat at the Fat Duck.

man.

Monday 18 April 2005

Never, ever use pineapple or sweetcorn. I would rather resign than use those awful ingredients on a pizza.

Giuseppe Silvestri

Friday 15 April 2005

George Galloway: 'my pal the war criminal' {i know i'm being most unkind as he has those valid points about the legal limbo and detentions the Americans maintain, but it's George yunno...}

P.S.
not entirely sure what i think of Kofi's shout, but you could [indeed, should have, at the time] be entirely against the Anglo-American sanctions and not descend into farce (alright Gorgeous!), as CASI always consistently&eloquently argued.
P.P.S.
hello Oliver

Thursday 14 April 2005

Bouba's banane du cameroun, a true design classic

Wednesday 13 April 2005

remarkable work: o to be in Amsterdam to see this

Monday 11 April 2005

two Amnesty International reports on policing, one regarding Malaysia, the other a French shame

Friday 8 April 2005

excellent Pearsall post
could murder a curry.

Sarah deserves much props for her pie ideas

Thursday 7 April 2005

so, then, Saul Bellow.

i read of your death in a pub yesterday afternoon (Lees bitter).

you did write some novels.

merci beaucoup, for everything.

RIP.

Tuesday 5 April 2005

Monday 4 April 2005

babies in the ground

moss smashed out


perhaps April is not the cruellest month

it is likely that the sun will rise tomorrow

Saturday 2 April 2005

Chorley meister is now knocking up acrylic abstract paintings of an
'organic' nature and is trying to flog em for 20 sovs, no luck yet though.
god loves a tryer!
well not all his views just the dubious ones, everyone knows the score.

it's like that proverb says, don't throw a lance unless you're sure of your aim but at the moment no one that is throwing is bothered, in fact they're actively and arguably deliberately reckless.

a plague on 92nd minute equalisers for teams from SE7.
oh

Monday 4 April
Over The Top
78 Kingfield Road, Nether Edge, Sheffield
8.00 pm
£4 / £2

Charlie Collins - vibraphone
Mick Beck - bassoon, tenor sax

Also

John Jasnoch - guitar, mandolin, ud
Martin Archer - software instruments
k-punk on, well, it's all there, as usual.

what i like best is that very agreeable point about Eurabian cafes.

i can see it now!

Mr Steyn and i will have two regular mochas please.

Mr Steyn would like the head of a Palestinian youth too please.

on a plate.

and a whippet for me.

by the by, how random have the contortions of the Tory press been over Howard Flight (well, i refer here to not entirely convincing pieces in the Express and the Sunday Telegraph)?
most amusing.

yes yes yes that's right fuck him off

BRITAIN ISN'T WORKING.

etc.

discipline.

i mean, i'm not partisan but you couldn't vote for David Davis could you now.

the man has the ideas of, frankly, a cunt.

Friday 1 April 2005

early Stevie Wonder, the man's an alchemist

everything swelling

outwards&upward

Neil Kulkarni once wrote the review [in Uncut] for the re-issued (few years back now) quartet of albums from music of my mind to fulfillingness'...

i found them very influential at the time.

'maybe your baby' as a sprawling Can-like workout...