A quick round up of some election related goings on…

Firstly there’s whoshouldyouvotefor.com – a series of online questions (rather obvious ones relating to specific pledges in the different party manifestos) that tells you who you should be voting for. obviously, I came out fairly staunchly lib dem on this one…

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Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -30
Conservative -75
	Liberal Democrat 108
UK Independence Party -24
	Green 58

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

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Interestingly, the leader article in today’s New Statesman is all about how the Lib Dems are no longer a wasted vote, and if they do well they could hold the balance of power in a hung parliment, which is great news! So, go and vote for them on May 5th! 🙂

Er, what else? Ah yes, there’s some scumbag Tory lying turd MP who doctored a picture of him supporting the case of a local asylum seeker to look like he was campaigning against immigration – now Michael Howard is refusing to sack him. Rotten to the core.

And on that note, check out the torybusting going on on this blog – some really doctored posters, and some photoshop. The tories’ campaign this time is horribly targeted. I think this one says it all –

They can’t get in… can they??

What else? Ah yes, The UN human rights commission have concluded that kids in Iraq were better of under Saddam. Yes, that’s right, that murdering, torturing amoral scumbag did less to ruin the lives of the children of iraq than the illegal invasion and occupation have. Despite the fact that then they were living under UN Sanctions, so very little of anything was getting into the country. Now, I guess it’s getting in, but they are having to pay ‘western prices’ for stuff that previously was being subsidised. Ah, don’t you just love free market economics, especially when kids die as a result. Just watch those shareprices skyrocket. Get out that one, Blair.

And on that note, tonight is the Make Poverty History/Trade Justice Movement all night candle-lit vigil in Whitehall, calling on the government to apply pressure to the World Bank and IMF to modify trade laws in favour of the world’s poorest nations, to cancel debts and increase aid. The opening ceremony thingie in Westminster Abbey is going to be marvellous. then there are fun things going on all over the Whitehall area all night. Be there. see the Trade Justice Movement website for the details.

Soundtrack – The Works, ‘Beware Of The Dog’ (I’ll write more about this later, it’s fantastic!); Antonio Carlos Jobim, ‘The Wonderful World Of Antonio Carlos Jobim’; Phil Keaggy, a a live gig from a church in California – skip to about 37 minutes through, unless you really want to watch 37 minutes of Californian mega-church stuff going on. The gig is fab, and features some of the most nifty looping I’ve seen in a long while, using a JamMan and one maybe two DL4s.

April 12, 2005

Andrea Dworkin has died

Apparently she died on Friday, but it only reached the press yesterday.

Dworkin was one of the most controversial writers of the 20th century, but also one of the most influential. Rabidly loved, hated and misquoted in almost equal measure, her opposition to pornography as a violation of all women’s rights made her the target of much vitriol from liberals in the US, but her books were read in their thousands, and and she even managed to temporarily get the US law changed (it was overturned at appeal.)

The net is filling up with comments – how sad that it takes the woman’s death for us (including me) to reappraise her contribution. Makes me want to go and read some of her books, having only read articles by and about her before now.

here are a few links to obits and comments –

Guardian Obit.
Hugo’s blog post
Jyoti’s blog
some crappy myths clarified.

There don’t seem to be that many revolutionary thinkers around these days – maybe I’ve stopped looking for them, but it just feels like the substance has dropped out the arse-end of cultural critique. Please, if you can suggest any books I should read, post them in the forum.

Soundtrack – Cathy Burton, ‘Burn Out’; Jaco Pastorius, ‘Jaco Pastorius’; Eric Roche, ‘With These Hands’; John Lester, ‘Big Dreams And The Bottom Line; John Scofield, ‘Up All Night’.

April 10, 2005

Two gigs coming up this week, and I really ought to be practicing…

Yup, gigs this week in Brighton (Tuesday, Joogleberry Theatre) and Cambridge (Thursday, CB2). Both are with John Lester and Theo Travis – triple bill gigs with me solo, me and theo duo, and john solo, with theo and I guesting on a tune or two…

So I really ought to have a play through some tunes, remind myself how all the duo stuff with theo goes. But I’ve been tidying, cooking, and faffing most of the day, and not doing any playing.

this morning was fun – turned up for church slightly late, but coincided with Paul (my godson’s dad) arriving, and we both decided to bunk off and go for a chat and a fry-up instead. A wise decision. Chats with Paul are always fun events, a most edifying alternative to the regular sunday morning God-bothering.

Soundtrack – Michael Manring, ‘Thonk’; Sarah Slean, ‘Day One’; Sarah McLachlan, ‘Surfacing’; John Martyn, ‘Solid Air’.

April 10, 2005

Make Poverty History campaign goes global.

So finally, the Make Poverty History campaign is spreading out across the planet – in the US, it’s the One campaign, with its own white wrist bands and choice celebs. Click here to check out the One video – it’s good (though it did make me balk seeing Pat Robertson on it… guess it just goes to show how far this campaign is stretching across political divides!)

And that’s not all – there are now nationally focussed campaigns in Germany, France, Canada – Click here to see a list of all the partner campaigns

No excuses not to get involved, people…

Soundtrack – Kings X, ‘Live’; Talk Talk, ‘Spirit Of Eden’; Stevie Wonder; ‘Songs In the Key Of Life’; Renaud Garcia Fons, ‘Entremundo’; Tom Waits, ‘Asylum Years’; Bobby McFerrin, ‘The Voice’.

April 4, 2005

Can't get started.

Just got back (well, ‘just’ meaning late Saturday night) from a lovely week in the south of france. Enjoyable holiday, and a chance to brush up on my v. rusty french. Really ought to go there more.

The problem with holidays is getting started again when you get back. It’s especially tricky this time as on Saturday afternoon, just before we got the plane back, I tripped over on Nice beach, grazed my shin and have strained the muscles in my arms and shoulders. So I’m aching lots, and tired from the journey, and out of sync with what I was doing before I went away.

Sunday was a Soul Space service at St Luke’s, which was lots of fun – more ambient noodling, which is always a creative pursuit. Ambient church services are a great place for trying stuff out like that as it gives that elusive musical element – context. Playing ambient music in my stupidly untidy office is pretty tough, so I need to tap into other things to inspire whatever I’m working on. In a space like the chancel at St Luke’s, with cool projections, low lighting, candles and a theme (this week was the road to Emmaus), there’s something to play for, something to soundtrack, something to be inspired by. I had planned to record it, but the lead that connects my mixing desk to the minidisc player was needed to plug a laptop into my set up in order to play a couple of tracks off CD.

So now I’m trying to get working. I’ve got normal stuff to do, like buying birthday cards (seems almost everyone I know was born in April), and some food shopping, as well as things to do with next week’s gigs and other stuff.

WAKE UP STEVE!!

Soundtrack – Steve Lucas, ‘Gamma Jazz’; Muriel Anderson, ‘Heart Strings’; Andrew Cronshaw, ‘Ochre’.

March 27, 2005

Third interview finished…

I’ve just finished my third interview of the last couple of weeks… that’s me being interviewed for magazines, rather than me doing the interviewing or applying for jobs.

The interesting thing has been that each one has been via a different medium – the first one was a phone interview for Bass Inside magazine, which was so much fun we had to do it on two days to get all the stuff in.

The second was a prospective interview for Unknown Public – a magical and unique magazine/compilation CD, that works to a theme each issue. That interview was conducted by a friend of mine, Julian, and was done face to face, after a lovely dinner, and was chock full of fascinating questions (and hopefully interesting answers!) – what could be better than sitting down with intellegent interesting people talking about music?? Thanks Jules!

Tonight’s was with Bassics magazine in the US, and was conducted via MSN Messenger! I’ve done this before, for a promotional article for a tour, but not for a mag, and it seemed to work really well. Again, a very interesting set of questions, different from the other two mags, and a lot of fun.

I do like this job!

Soundtrack – Muriel Anderson, ‘Heartstrings’; Tony Scherr, ‘Come Around’.

March 27, 2005

Did someone switch a light on?

One of the upshots of my photo shoot with Steve Brown two weeks ago was that I noticed just how dark my computer monitor was. So I rummaged around in the display settings and had a go at getting closer to what I was seeing on Steve’s computer monitor, and reset the colour (for some reason I’m having to redo it each time I switch my computer on, but I’m sure I’ll find the reset default command at some point).

So from that I noticed that some of the pictures on my site were way too light, and that the blue colour on there looked a lot nicer on my dark screen than on most other screens. So a little picture editing and a colour change later, the site has been tweaked. I rather like it!

Soundtrack – Various Artists, ‘Bossa Nova and Samba – The Gold Collection’; Redbird, ‘Redbird’; Gin Blossoms, ‘New Miserable Experience’.

March 26, 2005

One seriously overloaded server!

If you’ve ever clicked on the ‘Soundtrack’ link at the bottom of any of the blog entries, you’ll have been taken to my page over at Audioscrobbler – a site/plug-in thing that keeps track of everything you listen to on your computer and compiles charts – recent listening, weekly charts and top 50s for however long you’ve been on there.

They’ve been having some trouble, and now have over 10 million submissions cued on their server – that’s a serious amount of data! It remains to be seen if loads of playlists will be lost when they get this back together, but there’ll be some big changes in all my playlists when they get the thing up to date – I’ve listened to loads of stuff since my Top 50 artists was last updated…

Soundtrack – BBC Radio 3 – Jazz on 3 (listen again).

March 24, 2005

Racist's hall of shame

Just got an interesting email through from Unite Against Fascism, listing the BNP’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ – pretty much shows up what they’re about for the coming elections:

Tony Lecomber: top BNP official. Three years jail for nailbomb
plot and three years for stabbing a Jewish teacher.
12 convictions in all.
Kevin Scott: north east BNP organiser. Convictions for
assault and threatening behaviour.
Paul Harris: Barnsley BNP council candidate. Convicted of
using threatening behaviour towards a pensioner.
Jason Douglas: leading Greater London BNP candidate.
Convicted football hooligan.
Warren Bennett: BNP chief steward.
Convicted football hooligan.
Stephen Belshaw: Amber Valley BNP
candidate. Convicted of attacking a
Jewish solicitor.
Colin Smith: south east London BNP
organiser. 17 convictions including burglary,
car theft, possession of drugs and
assaulting a police officer.
Darren Dobson: Oldham BNP council candidate.Convicted
of racially aggravated assault.
Frank Forte: Waltham Forest BNP member. Convicted of
actual bodily harm.
Paul Thompson: former Durham and Darlington BNP
organiser.Convicted of criminal damage and for violence.
Neil Keilty: BNP member. Convictions for possessing an
offensive weapon and threatening behaviour.
Gary Mitchell: former Sunderland BNP secretary.Convicted
of racist attacks and possession of offensive weaponry.

So, that’s just about all that needs to be said. Mark Thomas last year posted a list of some of the remarkable acheivements of the BNP local councillors up north – most had never even attended any council meetings.

I can’t imagine that any of the erudite creative delicious people who read this Blog would be voting BNP, but the thing to remember is that they benefit greatly from low voter turn out, so make sure that you and everyone you know goes out to vote in the forthcoming elections!

Soundtrack – Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds, ‘Live At Luther College’; Tom Waits, ‘Blue Valentines’; Terry Callier, ‘Speak Your Peace’; Cocteau Twins, ‘VictoriaLand’.

March 23, 2005

Jonatha gig #4

Last night was Jonatha gig number four this month – back at the 12 Bar, this time a headline set of just over an hour. She’s almost too good – a really great set-list, including, I’m glad to say, a song I’d never heard (there’s not much Jonatha-related material I haven’t heard) – a song called ‘I’ll Try’ from some Disney movie… Beautiful, tried to find it on iTunes today, but it’s not there (lots of her other stuff is though – go and get it!)

Her last gig in the UK for now is at The Bedford in Balham on Monday – JUST GO!! If you haven’t seen her on this tour, you need to, she’s a genius.

In other news, still no news on my wallet, so I’m guessing it’s gone permanently. Bollocks.

Random link of the day – www.wordcount.org – the 86,000 most commonly used words in the English language in order. A fantastic site.

Soundtrack – Paul Simon, ‘You’re The One’; Incognito, ‘Positivity’; Jonatha Brooke, ‘Live’; Stevie Wonder; ‘Hotter Than July’.