Different Class - The Musical

Hello,

To celebrate the re-decoration of this place, I have decided to pour forth on one of my better yet still remaining madcap ideas of the last five years ago.

One autumn morning in 2002, I found myself raking up leaves in the street, listening to Pulp's Different Class on my Walkman. As the familiar songs rolled by, I imagined them strung together  as a narrative. The story of a man in the mid-nineties struggling to come to terms with rejection, class, relationships, culture and change. So that's where the idea came from.

So, in 2009, I plan to structure the musical, keeping to the original songs (but not necessarily the same order) and writing the story.

Watch this space!

News

Hello,

It's been impossibly busy in the last month or so, dividing my time between being on air, doing research for the programme, keying in singles, recording my old tapes onto the computer, doing gym work and, oh yeah, actual paid work. So free time (meaning bloggery time) has sort of run dry. I needed to do an update today, simply to explain my position on a few things:

Radio 2 vs. The World

Although it wasn't exactly Radio 2 versus the World, however it felt like that for a while. I don't want to add an unnecessary layer onto something that should now be forgotten about - yet I need to write that the only person to come out of this well is Andrew Sachs, who has been dignified, blameless and gracious throughout.

U.S. Presidential Election Result

A few years back, I was pointed by someone I knew towards Barack Obama to be the next President of the USA. I nodded, and listened patiently to the excited tones explaining how the junior Senator for Illinois was making waves. I was largely indifferent to his spectacular rise until my interest was rekindled after reading an interview in the September 1st issue of NewsWeek (the line is originally from The Audacity of Hope):

"A man's either trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes."

That is wisdom, and applies to it all. Which one are you doing?

So that's why I was awake at 4am this morning, watching history occur right in front if my eyes.

Anyhow, must dash, soup to cook, sleep to do, that kind of thing.

I Am 30

What else to do but to share one of the finest bits of graffiti  in the city:

Radio News

After years of procrastination, I finally got off my arse and volunteered to help at the local Hospital Radio centre. I seem to have been accepted (I've been there about a week), and have been offered broadcast training!

Hurrah! All I can say is - in December - Get Ill.

Welcome To New York

It's two years since visiting New York. My visit coincided with the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. In the five years until visiting the site of the towers, every day those indelible images of the 'planes disappearing into history haunted me. If that did that to me who only heard the events live, I will never understand how it felt to be either in New York or in those fateful buildings on the day. 

By visiting, the terror aspect for me from that day was diminished. 

Here are some pictures, some sombre and some less so from a couple of great days in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

For this post, commentary is above the pictures.

We took the subway south to the pier, to visit the Staten Island Ferry on the 11th. After taking some nice views of Manhattan, we sailed back and walked north. When we seemingly ran into the entire world's news crews. I took the opportunity to stand by one of the remaining items that were beamed around the world from the lenses of Jules and Gedeon Naudet.

Here's a fat me looking away from Manhattan on Staten Island.

Atmospheric skyline shot. 

A view from the Staten Island Ferry of both Brooklyn (foreground) and George Washington bridges.

On Liberty Island, with helpful accidental picture of the hole in the skyline at the bottom right.

Times Square, at night.

The last remaining above ground bit of the WTC complex, known as the "Survivors Staircase". This was moved in March 2008.

Nice shot of a street.

Street signs for the easily confused...

And the view from the gallery...
Inside Grand Central Station
Looking South towards downtown, with Liberty Island and Ellis Island on the right.

And living a bit of a childish dream, outside the Ghostbusters firehouse!

Organised

Evening,

I am running the Fantasy League that will probably be worth three days of unpaid work, as well as being the most responsibility I have been given since starting work at a bank.

I have no fear; at the weekend I visited Muji on New Street, and was overcome with a Zen like calmness and desire for order. This exploded across my life over the past few days, and I have been de-cluttering and ordering everything within reach. Observe:

Nearby there is a sign announcing "Get Organised or Die Trying". I spent about £8 on a wonderous heavy plastic set of drawers that have sprinkled Japanese, efficient, elegant magic to my work desk at home. I also bought a spray bottle that not only sprays and does jets, it works, and works well and has a satisfying silence and grace. The Honda of spray bottles, if you will. My basil plant (Ocimum basilicum) will surely be watered to death over the coming days.

The crappy satellite dish is ready for return, my lunch for work tomorrow was prepared in stunning fashion at 7.21 this evening. How long will this last?

So I am largely organised. I didn't get an interview for the job I was after; never mind. The pile of post I was complaining about from my printer has gone; KABOOM! Actioned and filed. 

Two tasks down, several more to go.

Tidy Up

Hello,

In line with the current downsizing and clutter removal I am doing, please note that some well loved features of this page have been removed;

• The "Weekly List"
• The Daft Passport Picture
• Quite a few books off the "currently reading" list

Added however are:

• Subscribe to this blog with RSS or other newsreading software!
• Books scheduled to read as soon as I have finished the "Currently Reading" section!
• Updated and relevant links! (Includes links for Birmingham's immediate and longer term weather, the Baltimore Orioles site and Magazine Monitor amongst others)

Hopefully this will give you a more harmonious and possibly useful reading experience as you pass through this site.

Do come back soon.

Something Light, Please

Hello

It has been a week since the last time I was able to check the internet, as my lovely T-Mobile web system has decided to go kamikaze. I think that 'the big computer' has been infested with some nasty sodding virus, which is causing a denial of service attack every few minutes. Cock.

So I have relocated to the surprisingly pleasant early evening sunshine in the conservatory with the laptop. (Fully updated with a leading brand of anti-virus software.) In the distance I can hear children playing with a hose, a helicopter, and smell freshly cut grass. Re-reading that sentence, it seems that the children are playing with a helicopter and some grass. This is wrong, but I can't be bothered to retype it.

I have also spent humungous amounts of time reading Derren Brown's book, Tricks of the Mind. If you click on the title, you can go to Amazon and get a copy, should you wish. It has filled me with confidence and boosted my brain, as well as handily slapping psychics and alternative medicine. I also now how to 'do hypnosis' and some rudimentary card tricks. Well worth a read.

On the subject of books, there are quite a few I need to finish. I am desperate to finish Richard Hammond's story of his life threatening crash in 2006 - will he survive? I won't know until I finish the book. Nice read, however it seems to be written for children, by both of the Hammonds. Full review if needed on completion.

Nothing much has happened with the Radio stuff yet, but I have built some fake newspapers in the classic style, for work. And mentioning work, I applied for a new job today. Lets see what happens.

The sun has moved lower in the sky, and the children's yelps have been replaced with the relaxing sound of police cars and wheelspins.

Mentioning police cars, the first edition of this series of Top Gear was on NTP TV last night. My technique of minute detail watching spotted that not only did JC have "In prison, no-one can hear you scream", but the unremarked "It's the filth" in capital reverse letters on his bonnet. Class.

Right, think i might get some coffee. Back later.

Musings

Hello world. I have succumbed to a debilitating and cruel injury, which has seriously knackered my typing and general computer skills. This is a nightmare for personal and professional reasons, not only will this blog update take hours to type - The Rest of the World as led by Tiger Woods will have to wait until I have recovered for their savage beating. And work will suffer too, but that's not important,

So I have some arse of a skin disaster, which in essence, tears each time I stretch the fingers on my left hand. Not nice. And a course of antibiotics and (really) cream that is usually marketed to sufferers of thrush.

Anyhow, enough of the rubbish.

Have you ever met anyone who has the ability to make you feel like the most special person in the world? Like you are the only person that has ever existed for them? Where occasionally, that person would with the right word or smile melt away the biggest problem that has ever happened? You could spend hours just thinking of them, and their happy smiling face. Even the merest thought of them unhappy makes you angry.

Conversely, have you ever met a person who could, with one word or movement of the face, fill you with dread? Make you think 'Ooh, Jesus.’ Bring you out in a huge cold sweat, and make your heart race with a mild terror.

Now, how many of you out there had the pleasure of person a being the same subject as person b?

I'm sure it can't just be me, as I have had more than one instance of this.

Moving around the subject, I visited an ex today and saw her beautifully arranged house and happy lifestyle, with the whole varied social life and successfully indexed and handled correspondence. This all sat well with her toned body and sunned complexion.

I then compared myself right now, with the same standards. We have both had exactly the same amount of time to shake our lives down following our break up.

I live in a box room, in a friend’s house, where the only people I talk to regularly seem to be my colleagues at work. All my possessions are strewn around the city, most of them in unattractive storage containers. Currently, I have just taken possession of my DVDs, and the only way I could reasonably store them is in an old suitcase - which I can't even open up because of my hand.

The food I cook is often the very finest of the two pot variety (look out for my cook book shortly). All of my post is precariously balanced on my scanner. Six months of it.

This brought huge waves of introspection; was I jealous? I have worked hard over the last few years to overcome my insane jealousy, so I'm fairly sure that wasn't it. It then dawned on me that it was my own lack of motivation that made me feel down. If I had driven myself to look harder for a flat, I could have a nice-ish place of my own. The post would magically be handled if I responded to it swiftly, instead of leaving it to gather on the scanner. My food would be more interesting if I could be arsed to cook something that wouldn't easily fit in two pots. Then, I may have the 'go' to wash the chuffing stuff up.

So, it's not jealousy - it's my own problem.

I then handled some frankly bizarre questions about 'us', and as I put two and two together to make a figure surely in the high teens, my subconscious was poking me in the eye and screaming "She's seeing somebody new!”

Everything seemed to fall into place. Little clues around the place that my overactive imagination was forensically stitching into shape.

This made my heart sink. I actually felt sick. Even though it shouldn't have any bearing on me.

I have had girlfriends who have gone on to have a legion of kids by a selection of hand chosen unsuitable men. I know they have had sex with other men; damn, there is living proof. Here, the merest unproven suggestion was sending me into uncharted gloom.

I really don't have any opinion. What she does is no longer any concern of mine. But to have those feelings are a very deep concern. Is this natural?

Indeed, if I was to have struck up some improbable immediate relationship after leaving her, would my feelings be the same?

I am a man, screaming towards thirty like a runaway cliff-top house, with the insecurities of a five year old and the social skills of a cat.

Sorry if this all seems gloomy and down, but trust me, it feels better to be on the page than racing around in my head.

Fear not! There are some redeeming features. At the very bottom of the page, I asked "can I keep this up for longer than a week"? I have now been a user of Blogspot for months, so in the adopted words of George McFly - if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.

Random Irritations 0001

Afternoon,

I was sitting and contemplating witty and clever things when it struck me that there seems to be no word to sum up thunder and lightning. Thunder and lighting are very much the same thing, even though the thunder may occur seconds after the lightning strike.

Anyhow, this distraction led me to mistype in my document, and created what I will use as the umbrella phrase for my radio work - A Pint of Lightning.

Watch this space.

Welcome To ...Liverpool?

A couple of days ago, in a sun induced moment of madness, I visited the European Capital of Culture, 2008. Here are some atmospheric pictures.

So here we are, coming into view of the Three Graces, about to disembark from the world famous Mersey Ferry. On the boat, I realised the last time I travelled by water, it was on the Staten Island ferry, on September 11th. 2006. In view are some construction projects, where I really wanted to visit - the site of Cream 2000, where I spent the millennium.

Around the corner, Albert Dock, and a yellow water based transport device. Hands up if you thought Liverpool looked like this. Not many hands there...

Another place I wanted to visit was the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King. Well worth a visit, even more so on a sunny day as the glasswork viewable from the inside casts incredible colours on the wall. 

Venturing further onwards, hundreds of houses boarded up. Why? Note that these houses have Liverpool branded boards, and are colourful. I walked through many, many streets in Edge Hill that were awaiting either demolition or resurrection. 

A grand day out indeed.

Old Poetry

After looking through some of the utter dross that I wrote whilst at college, I decided to not publish anything. There are several, numbered reasons;

1. It simply isn't good enough
2. Some of the lyrics and titles would be defamatory
3. It is really, really poor
4. It's a little embarrassing for some historical exes
5. Some of it is teeth-gnashingly bad

Hopefully that clears it up.

I did find a two line stanza that stuck in my throat, from the poem "Waiting For History", which was:

As I sit and wait for History

I could be doing something better with my time

...which nicely sums up my last fifteen years or so.

Looking back I know I was referring to History with a large H, the subject, and not the passage of time; yet the lines nag at me about wasting time thinking about doing something better and never actually doing it. 

In essence, I'm telling the modern me off from a library desk in Halesowen, in 1996. Man, that's deep.

I Will Survive!

Hello nation,

It has been a long time since I did ANYTHING to this place - since January 15th, in fact - the time has come to drag my new(ish) laptop to the sheer joy of Wetherspoon's and the free wi-fi. What have I been up to? Well, I have had literally thousands of emails asking about...well, work stuff. I know that to say that you have a blog is about as cutting edge as saying "I have an email address", but this place is a little online sanctuary of calm.

I say calm, I took me literally two hours to log into the place. But at least in the meantime I found out that Kate Lawler finished the London Marathon.



My trawls through tape land have reached about half way; all of my tapes are going to be consigned to the great landfill in the west and be replaced with MP3s. I never knew I recorded myself doing so much crap.

Anyhow, I am back, and shall decree that MONDAY NIGHT IS BLOGGING NIGHT and at least one update will go in from now on each Monday.

Back shortly.

Top Gear

Anyone who knows me (and this includes you!) will know that I'm a fan of BBC2's Top Gear. I like that it democratizes celebrity by making its guests take the same test around the same track in the same car.


Whilst trawling the internet for, er, essential research material over Christmas, I discovered the true extent to which people love Top Gear.


Linked below are the friuts of an as-yet unnamed New Zealander, who has faithfully recreated the Suzuki Liana and the test track at the Top Gear airfield. If I was wearing my hat, it would be permanently removed in salute. Unnkown New Zealander, you are a hero.

http://www.muddleglum.orconhosting.net.nz/darktopgear.htm

Enjoy.

Tales From My Youth 3

Further old stuff, this time from my evangelical period as a Britpop era musicologist (originally written in coloured felt, entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS):

Oh my god, that's the funky sh*t

or the definitive guide to the new listener to jumpy shouty music

1. Find a decent couple of blokes to go to a student night-club with.
2. Come home.
3. Wake up the next afternoon with an aching head, sore neck muscles, bruised legs, splinter gut, a strange whistling noise in your head that just won't go away, and a feeling of complete euphoria at having the first great night of your life.
4. Rush out armed to the teeth with cash trying to obtain the tunes you heard last night. 
5. Return home with tears streaming from your eyes, realising your plan to buy Our Price with 48p, failed.
6. After a week of scratching around, you come across a blank cassette, and give it to a chum who has gone through the whole experience before.
7. Realise you are holding ninety minutes of pure, unadluterated fine music that will blow your nan's pants off even if she dared to think about saying "That's nice, dear".
8. Contemplate putting your new new TDK D90 in the machine.
9. Eat a steak and kidney pie instead.
10. Clear your bladder, this will be a pants wetting experience.
11. Go down to the shop to see if they've sold out of FHM's already. Failing that, buy a copy of GOAL magazine.

Do you know what? This all gets too autobiographical too soon. I don't think I know you well enough to let all of this out just yet.

Direction

Hello again,

Hopefully I'll give you some direction of where I want to go with this blog. Some features that are genuinely in development:

• Some real photography of Birmingham
• Better listing, including rolling lists like 'Films I bought and have yet to watch'
• Questions answered using essays with ridiculous titles - coming soon, "How I Worked Out The Exact Moment Britpop Died, And Why (it did, not why did I work it out)"
• Some writeups of my aincient school writing
• Hopefully, one new logo art-thingy a month (see passport on the right)
• More about music
• More on my heroes (and heriones), and more rants.

Phew. All of this and more, whilst doing nothing too pretentious.