OK, this is the coolest thing I’ve seen on the net for a while, lifted from thebearsarecoming –
a real-life version of the intro to the Simpsons
:o)
Radio so bad it's worse…
This is how it goes – things can be a bit naff, but bearable enough for inertia to override the desire to switch off. Then they get bad, and you turn off, after that comes ‘so bad it’s good’ in a reality TV kind of way, and then ‘even worse and you want to shoot the presenters’.
The breakfast show on Radio London is about three previously unimagined steps below this last one – Jono Coleman and JoAnne Good are almost without doubt the stupidest, most inane, inarticulate, educationally challenged, culturally bankrupt pair of losers I’ve ever come across, engaging in the kind of conversation that would cause you to withhold the tip from a taxi driver. So unimaginably poor that you can’t even being to fathom the level of dirt they must have on the programming schedulers to be able to get a gig.
It’s like listening to two particularly poorly educated 12 year olds try and sound bright. JoAnne in particular makes Kelly Brooke look like a phd student.
Their absence from the Radio London Listen Again list is not surprising at all.
So it’s time for us to find something else. Anything, the white noise between stations would be better than hearing yet another guest pause mid sentence, incredulous at how these two lobotomised rodents ever ended up conducting interviews. Like Alan Partridge, without the punch line.
So, Londoners, any suggestions? We’ve had a look at LBC, and apart from Jenny Eclair on a Saturday morning, that looks like slim pickings. Is Wogan any good on R2?
Maybe we should get a DAB and give Phil Jupitus a blast on 6Music…
It’s a shame cos I really like radio London – I love the BBC and I love living in London, so the coming together of the two really ought to be a first class thing. And for most of the schedule it is, particularly the radio masters Robert Elms and Danny Baker. Vanessa’s not bad from 9-12 either. But Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Severe Special Needs really need getting rid of. Broadcasting unworthy of a late night slot on a pirate station, let alone the misuse of licence-fee money.
OneDotZero at the V&A
Last night was a special video installation night at the V & A Museum, curated by OneDotZero Those in the know tell me that they are the bigwigs in the world of video stuffs, though I’d not heard of them before I read about the event on Jonny’s blog.
Anyway, I went along to check it out, and there were some mildly diverting and fun things going on, but it was all a little hollow, if y’all ask me. There were screens set up all over the museum, in different galleries, and people were wandering from one to the next, chatting and watching a few seconds of each one before moving on. Nothing demanded your attention, or if it did, the physical situation didn’t allow you to engage with it for long. Each piece would have made for a nice installation on its own, or as a feature in an event happening in one place, but the overall effect was of peering through the shop window at Dixons at a dozen TVs showing cool screen-savers.
A few of the installations took a stab at interactivity, but even they ended up being very expensive hi-tech versions of either a lava lamp or an oil-wheel lamp. Perhaps I’m just not post-modern enough. ;o)
Anyway, it was enjoyable wandering around with Jonny and Joel, and meeting up with lots of other lovely friends, from Grace and Moot, and going for a drink afterwards. Much fun with good peoples.
Lovely houseguests
We’ve got visitors for the weekend – Lovely Gareth and the equally lovely Jane are here for a break, a rest and many laughs, no doubt. It’s so lovely getting to see them again after the time we spent at their house during the edinburgh festival last year, and they get to see their old car which TSP and I adopted last autumn. A fun few days ahead…
Five words
Pip BHP asked for five words to describe your life just now –
Expectant
progressing
happy
experimental
transitional.
there’s my five? what are yours?
Soundtrack – Sam Philips, ‘Fan Dance’.
Weekend away…
Just back from a weekend away teaching a bass and drum course at Lee Abbey in North Devon. Lee Abbey is a Christian retreat centre, and runs all manner of courses throughout the year, and I was approached over a year ago, I think, to be involved in this one. The idea was to have a Rhythm Section weekend – they do a lot of creative stuff there, but most of it is fairly mainstream church-music related stuff, nothing to out-there.
The drum half of the weekend was being handled by Terl Bryant, an amazing musician, who I’ve been a fan of for many years, and even played on albums with while never having actually played together. So that was an incentive.
After getting lost on the way there… well, not actually lost, just missing my turning off the M5, got there Friday night to find out that Terl was massively snarled up in traffic and ended up not making it there til Saturday morning. Which meant that our introductory improv sesh became a stevie-solo-gig. No problem there then. :o)
Overall, it was a really enjoyable weekend. ‘Twas slightly odd being back in an environment that I’ve not really inhabited for a while – St Luke’s isn’t really a part of the mainstream church culture in the UK – not that it’s consciously excluded, just that the people there haven’t really bought into the language and sub-culture that Lee Abbey is a part of. But as well as being odd, it was rather fun being back in that space again – it’s not somewhere I’d want to live – horses for courses ‘n’ all that, but the people were lovely, and teaching the bassists (many of whom I knew anyway) was a joy, as was playing two gigs and a bit in the Sunday morning service. I’m looking forward to going back there – apart from anything else, I didn’t get out of the building, and it’s set in some of most beautiful countryside in the UK…
this week is a week of teaching and tidying – we’ve got house-guests next weekend, so I’ve got a lot of work to do to get the house ship-shape. TSP did a load over the weekend, so I need to pull my weight… and with that, I’m off to clean up the hallway…
Soundtrack – Iona, ‘Beyond These Shores’; Imogen Heap, ‘Speak For Yourself’.
Saving the vicar from a burning cassock.
Having not made it to a service at St Luke’s for quite a few weeks (three sundays in California, followed by nightshelter last night and a long lie-in today), I decided to go to the Soul Space service tonight – I often play at these services, and this was, bizarrely, the first one I’d ever been to where I wasn’t playing.
It was a beautiful service for Candlemass – the end of Christmas, and naturally, there were loads of candles in evidence. When it came time for the Eucharistic bit of the service, Dave-The-Vicar managed to position himself so the back of his cassock was right in the flames of a tea-light.
‘you’re going to catch fire!’, I stage whispered,
‘dave, you’re about to catch fire!!’ stage whisper, slightly louder.
A quick swing round followed by a healthy step forward averted our vicar from morphing into St Luke’s very own twisted firestarter.
My good deed done for the day.
And The Rev. G will be most disappointed to know that Messiah Marcolin’s band, Candlemass weren’t present… have you ever actually used Candlemass music for a candlemass service, G??? If anyone can…
new modem/router update…
OK, this is weird – while the wireless connection is working just great, I can’t seem to hook up to the internet via the Ethernet port at all! The networking thingie on my mac tells me that I’m connected up and it’s all cool, but I can’t even access the web-editor in the modem itself via ethernet, let alone the web!
Any ideas on what it might be will be gratefully received – I can’t do the update to my looperlative until I get it working!
Hang on… That's my Car!!!
So I’m sat on the tube, heading up towards Arnos Grove – the bit where it comes out from underground and goes overground for about half a mile. Looking out the window, I see in a car park the familiar shape and colour of a Ford Fiesta, the same as the one I SCRAPPED last September… the number plate looks familiar too… and the KPIG sticker on the back. THAT’S MY OLD CAR!!!! How the hell did it end up in a car park in Arnos Grove? I sold it as scrap!
Anyway, after the initial weirdness of seeing it there, I’m glad that the bloke I sold it to was able to salvage it enough to resell it – I’m sure repairing and reusing it is a far more environmentally sound way of dealing with old cars that melting them down for scrap given that a) that’s going to give off a lot of pollutants and a whole load of bits in the car are just going to get chucked and b) whoever bought the car would’ve bought another car anyway, so it’s not like it’s actually a part of the process of reducing the number of cars on the road.
What an odd experience!
Home very sweet home
Home at last.
Glad to be home, but with two great weeks of having a fantastic time in California behind me. From the recording session with Jeff Kaiser the day after I arrived to my last morning with Anderson and Laura, the whole trip was a pleasure, and a success. Many good things to build on in the future.
The journey home was painless – the time sat round at the airport was spent online, and then the flight itself was spent largely asleep. Thankfully the plane was less than half full, so I had the middle four seats on a 747 all to myself to stretch out fully on – anyone who paid thousands for a fold out bed on that flight, the joke was on you! I got a good six hours of sleeps on the flight, so am feeling much more alive now that usual when I get back from the states…
The only thing looming is that I have to clear all the stuff out of my office before tomorrow morning, as we’ve got a guy coming to fit window-locks, and my desk is right across the window… not looking forward to that at all.
And then it’s gig week. and sleep week.
Oh, and before I forget, if any of you bloglings are in London and are planning a trip to the States in the next couple of months, lemme know, cos we can do some currency exchange at a rate that’ll benefit both of us…