Things you don't read in newspapers:

Teenager Marcus Revell was stabbed to death yesterday in broad daylight, leaving the people he was standing at the bus stop with horrified. Revell, 17, was assaulted by a group of seven hooded assailants, who "attacked him like animals with knives".

Friends of Marcus were quick to post their personal recollections of him to social networking sites.

• "You were an ignorant arsehole who always were threatening my children", wrote AngryDad1971. 
  
• "Another dealer off the streets! Yes!", recalled OffMyStreet2.
• "Where will I gets my crack from now, geez? LOL", wrote TheAddamsFamily
• "How will your three angels survive without you?", typed a tearful eMmA924EvA, referring to Marcus' three daughters from three separate relationships.

Local Police Media Relations Officer Clive Raymond read from a statement at the crime scene. "For two long, Revell's reign of terror on these community streets remained unchecked by the people of this town, the Police, and Social Services. Many sleepless nights went past with the sound of Revell's gang cynically smashing up cars, property and shop fronts. The sheer weight of drugs he brazenly sold in front of my Police Station, knowing his rights as a nine year old, that he could not be searched, was astonishing. Only when he tried to rip off some Somali gangsters did he ironically, finally realize the true meaning of the word 'terror', as they cut open his chest and started to sever his internal organs with delight".

A Police investigation continues.

Letters to The Sun

Today, I saw possibly the most astounding correspondence that has been published in a national newspaper, which I will re-type here verbatim (hence the quotation section).

I am diagnosed by the NHS as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia as a result of believing extra-terrestrials are in telepathic contact with me. Yet I read that an NHS hospital is using an exorcist in order to get rid of a ghost. Where is the consistency?

Robert Greatorex, Newcastle upon Tyne

It was the "Where is the consistency" line that made me nearly fall off my chair.

Things that might begat other things:

Why does the plastic lid on a take-away Mocha from Starbucks always split?

Why did ITV play an ad-break at the wrong time in Everton v. Liverpool?

Why did ITV Weather suggest that the North Sea will freeze?

When Radio 3 played "Stockhausen: Hymnen" on January 31st 2009, why did I think that it was some crazy local pirate radio?

Esther Rantzen - Update

As if by magic itself, the current edition of Viz (see links) has a 'news article' about "Esther Rantzen To Have Sex With A Gorilla". Amazing.

Now, to bed.

Mixtape Madness

It's far too late now...

Coming to a pair of eyes near you, Mixtape Madness. Musical suggestions that your ears may like.

With! A Logo.

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!

Hello from America...

Rambling Update

Hello folks.

My back hurts like crap. This is possibly due either 1) sleeping in a poor position, or 2) standing up for about nine hours straight playing FIFA 09 on the Wii. I was going to go to key some more gubbins into the database at the Radio Station, however I got up at an unfeasibly late time (1.30pm) to do anything other than have a bath. So tonight, surely, will see the en

BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH ON THE LAPTOP

As I was typing the above, the laptop flashed and did the blue screen. BAD_POOL_ERROR. Arses. All seems ok now, but, crap.

Yes, as I was saying, tonight (barring further blue screens of death) should see the end of the 12 month mission to convert all the tapes from Audio 90/60/12 minutes to MP3. I will celebrate, then tomorrow convert the TASCAM mixing desk things. Shouldn't take long, as they are maximum 20 minutes each. Well, not 12 months, anyway.

iTunes says I am down to the last 8.9 days of unheard music. This will rise when the fully archived stuff goes in. There's about 5 G's of it to go in.

Recently read books:
Googlies, Nutmegs & Bogeys - The Origins of Peculiar Sporting Lingo; Bob Wilson

Fighting Talk - Flimsy Facts, Sweeping Statements and Inspired Sporting Hunches; With Johnny Vaughan and Colin Murray

Emphasis on sport, there.

Breaking news from the laptop:
"Windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown...Problem Event Name: BlueScreen"

Wow! Insight!

Other news:
Folowing the departure to pastures new of my nameless newsreading crush, several replacements have appeared. Which itself is worrying - this suggests a permanent position that needs to be filled, so to speak. So, doyenne of the unbelievably late nights on BBC News Karin Giannone steps forward to fill that gap, whilst elfin Laura Tobin ably assists on the weather presentation duties. Why am I telling you this?

Sport:
Every team in England are adept at shooting themselves in the feet. Repeatedly. Special mention goes to Liverpool, a team I still hope win the league this year. Excellent play, had the chance to slap rivals Manchester United with verbal joust which needed to be followed by a good result. Good result failed to materialise, Liverpool now behind Manchester United on GD, but with a game fewer to play.

Notes:
America inaugurates 44th President, no obvious news angle there.

Righto, a few presentation issues to rectify, and this wayward update is complete. Eyes down for more Twitter updates and fuller blog updatery in 2009.

What a year it will be, all 11 months of it that are left.

Esther Rantzen / Daily Express

Esther Rantzen appeared on the front cover of Friday's Daily Express bemoaning the way that swearing has permeated through society, and how Britain has become a less courteous society.

Whilst I agree that Britain is less courteous than at any other point I can remember, I find it strange that I am being lectured by a woman who is mostly well known for bringing swearing dogs and suggestively shaped vegetables into living rooms across the nation.

Swearing has happened to a lesser or greater degree for as long as there have been expressions of despair and heavy things to drop on one's feet. Upon my tisket! There are some that overuse swearing - this is genuinely a lack of imagination and vocabulary. As David Baddiel's father said, "...If everybody says f*** all the time, it gets boring doesn't it?", Swearing, at the appropriate time, can either summarize an entire situation in one word, or finish a scene in a comedy to great effect.

So, it has got to the stage where a woman who has had a career furthered by mild vulgarity, is now railing against it.

Glorious!

Twitter

Hello world, and a hugely 'Selecta!' New Year to you too.

As I now live in the world of fast moving media and constantly changing deadlines (yeah, right), my blog has been a little pushed back over the last few...erm...months. So, in order to keep the world of such revelatory news items as "I'm eating soup!", "Newcastle shot themselves in both feet again", "I have a new favourite song!", Nothing Too Pretentious is delighted to announce the birth of its daughter site...

twitter.com/andy_day

Twitter allows uber brief updates that are transmitted from handy facilities like a mobile phone, limited to 140 characters.

Ah, the joys of a contract mobile phone.

Anyhow, in a lovely cross-promotional burst, I do have a new favourite song - "50 Souls and A Discobowl" by 'The Lionheart Brothers'. I heard this this afternoon, on the Hospital request programme. Yes, Norwegian bezerker psychedelic rock. On a Hospital Radio request programme. I requested to hear it again! And they played it. You don't get that on Radio Two.

Crikey!

I must have been busy, as it says here I haven't posted for a month.

In the last month, I have got ever closer to completing my tape transfer project, taken a huge interest in East Germany, correctly predicted that Newcastle would draw from being a strong 2-0 HT leader against Stoke City, been silently carpeted for being late (can't help it!) and discovered I can mimic both parts in "It's Cold Outside" as performed by Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews.

Stand by for this to be broadcast to an unsuspecting public before Christmas Day.

It's Post Number 100!

Happy centenary to me!

To celebrate this, here - have some embedded action of a translated freestyle rap event. 

See more asshat funny videos and hilarious funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

With included obligatory link back.

Jon Gaunt - Update

Some of you may have remembered one of my early posts about Jon Gaunt and how he is "anti". Anyhow, you may be interested to learn he has been suspended from TalkSport pending an investigation into a broadcast where he apparently called a councillor "a Nazi".

It seems that the News International press are less keen to hype this story than the Radio 2 'scandal' of a few weeks ago.

Strange, no?

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:

Hello

Some points, connected in no discernable order:

• All the great TV comedy situations have been created or exploited
  
• Radio is a lot harder than is seems to listen to
  
• Genius on iTunes keeps crashing when it delivers my results
  
• Mini Discs rock!
  
• Safari for Windows doesn't understand English English
  
• Neil from The Young One's character surname is Pye
  
• I can now speak visual basic...
  
• I am tired yet addicted to writing
  
• I think I may have overstretched myself a bit with charity work and real life, meant to go to the gym today but overslept by two hours, so won't get another chance to go until Friday (if I'm lucky)
  
• The second series of The Mighty Boosh was either too dark or the funny bits had been edited out
  
• Ironing is theraputic
  
• Why to people who do shoes also do keys?
  
• Why do people who do keys also do shoes?
  
• Newcastle United have made Manchester City look stable and calm in comparison
  
• Clearing your work desk out "just because people at other banks have had to put all of their stuff in boxes at short notice, and I think that would be a good idea here" as a reason doesn't go down well
  
• FC Porto have a Brazilian player called Hulk
  
• Fiesta has increased in price significantly over the last sixteen years or so
  
• I have just over a week of being a TwentySomething to go, meaning I move up an age bracket in surveys...
  

All this and more, in my head and now in yours!

Progress

My internet empire has just expanded by 100%. Click here to step into the future!

Bumper Update

Evening,

I've been a little busy of late! I have been thinking about you lot, so here is a bumper update letting you know what I've been up to. Probably more tomorrow!

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.

Podcast?

Through the wonders of eBay, someone sold me a very cheap Mini Disc recorder. These things are fantastic for voice recording in the field (and not in fields, for that matter). I want to be able to develop my READING OUT LOUD FOR BROADCAST skills, and have been quietly muttering rubbish into it without doing anything vaguely constructive. So, I'm considering visiting exotic places and reading these witterings out and putting them up as a podcast for you to listen to at your leisure, anywhere in the world.

What do you think?