Goodbye to all that.

All good things come to an end - and, indeed, so does this blog. It's been a bit of a journey, but it has to stop. After all, there's not Abroad At Home any more, and there hasn't been for over a year. I don't feel like changing the title, so I'm mothballing it instead.

Don't for a second think I'm stopping this thing though: for at 13:11 GMT tomorrow, a new blog launches, coinciding with the beginning of a new chapter in my life. Dancing In The Streets Of Raith is the name of the new venture - and the reason for the name will, bit by bit, become apparent.

Join me on a journey. Join me there.

"'Ello, Bongo!"

Whilst I'm on with my little Morecambe and Wise thing - surely the parents of Vic and Bob - I thought it the decent thing to combine that with another of my obsessions.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you: John, Paul, George, Eric, Ernie... and Bongo.

Morecambe and Wise: The Stripper

COMEDY GOLD.

That is all.

Rowan Atkinson as Marc Almond

Funny, but so unfair to one of the genuine mavericks of the British recording industry.

But yes, it is funny.

Did I say it was funny?

It must be September...

David Ford, Union Chapel 2, originally uploaded by sp3ccylad.

If it's September, it must be Fordtime. Indeed, more to the point, if it's 26th September: for last Friday marked not only David Ford's only headline UK show for the remainder of the year, but also the anniversary of Ford's quite incredible secret gig at Sleepers in Huddersfield.

It was massively significant for me too, because I made a decision that day after a conversation I had at that gig. It had all slipped into paradox, as the conversation was clearly designed to achieve the opposite, but he wasn't to know what effect his words were having on me. You see, I'd been given plenty of time to think in what must be the biggest single miscalculation anybody's ever applied to me: so I decided; no more being mucked about, no more tolerance of any old behaviour, no more unpleasant surprises. It took a shockingly short amount of time for that decision, and my commitment to that decision, to be tested.

In fact, I was reminded of that in the funniest way on Friday, when a friend I made that night - she tried to give me money; which is always a winning opening gambit with me - said that she was in Wetherspoons on John William Street trying to work out Huddersfield's geography when "this hat flashed past at some speed. That was when I knew which direction the gig was..."

I laughed and said "I shan't tell you why, but I was in the foulest of foul moods at that point, which explained the speed. But it's gone now. I'm OK."

And it has. Friday was a day I doubted I'd see in this buoyant a mood. One year on, and I feel back to an old self I don't think I've seen in 20 years, a quieter, less forceful me. One who feels in control, and not forever desperately grabbing at unsustainability. Somebody happy enough with himself to do what he thinks is right - not cool, daring, or even exciting. Just right.

I know what makes me happy. It's me. Nobody else. You're welcome along for the ride, but just enjoy me for what I am. 

And if you ever wish I was somebody else, then go find that person instead. Deal?

It's just like watching Brazil!

"Whatever Robinho's got, it's catching! They're all at it!"
The Guardian's report of what was, by any standards, an exceptional City performance.

The genius goes bonkers

You know, unlike a lot of bloggers, I like iTunes' new genius feature (see post below). But tonight: well, everything's gone a bit Pete Tong.

I chose a bit of an oddity for a seed - "Barriers", the B-side of Soft Cell's "Numbers". 

Yeah. I'm sure you're all whistling it now.

Anyway, this is the (frankly deranged) playlist it gave me: 

I mean: WTF? How do you get Arctic Monkeys, Soul II Soul, Haircut 100 and Laurie Anderson in the same playlist? It's like a party for surrealists. And when we get to "My Sweet Lord", well: words fail me.

I quite like the idea of iTunes taking the piss - now I'm playing them, it seems like the sort of mad playlist I'd put together for a compilation. It just beggars belief how a computer would come up with it. I might even save the playlist for posterity...

Big Train: Small Train

One of my more bizarre set-piece rambles when I'm bored revolves around musing aloud about what our world would be like if there was no such thing as scale drawing. What would maps be like? I guess the answer would be "Big. Very, very big."

Globes would be downright irresponsible, I suppose.

This vapid nonsense constitutes the flimsy excuse I require to post one of my favourite Big Train sketches: the one about the minister who can't grasp scale. A work of pure genius.

Enjoy.

Stevie Wonder - Play Loud

Oooh, Stevie Wonder. The godlike Stevie Wonder. Absolutely imperious on Jonathan Ross's show the other night - but this must be the lad in his pomp.

What a guy - thanks to Sparkin for hunting this out.

John McCain Gets BarackRoll'd

Can't beat a bit of Rick Astley. Ta to GBS

iTunes does a Last.fm. Sort of.

I've been a fan of last.fm for years now - not least because I do like the idea of parading my somewhat individual music taste. Now, finally, Apple bring their own offering as part of iTunes 8 - the modestly named Genius. For an overview of how it works and how the other players in the market are taking it, take a look at this piece from Wired.com.

All in all, I like it. The playlists are sensitive with the odd surprise, and I've re-discovered a few gems I'd completely lost in the morass of music I have.

However - is it really as clever as it makes out? Well, I tried it out on me. The next step up from vanity googling, I suppose. 

Nope. Nothing. Nada. Last.fm wins there. Still, in the great scheme of things, I am possibly the ultimate in minority tastes on iTunes. I've seen the sales figures. Let's just say the Lear Jet will have to wait until next week. So; not surprised there, to be honest.

However, there is a fly in the ointment. PC World tried the same stunt with a somewhat less-unknown band. I'll not spoil the surprise. 

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the earth yet?

Click here to find out.

Goodbye, Tinsley Towers.

When I was a kid, my geographic frame of reference was resolutely set to the west and the south. As a family, we looked towards Nottingham, London, and later Birmingham. It was only when we got a newcomer to my junior school in 1973-4 that I looked north for the first time in my life.

Pierre, the said newcomer, formed a very close friendship with me - probably based on us being two of the geekiest children you could ever hope to meet and he tolerated my extremely accident-prone nature (two self-inflicted black eyes in a year, anybody?) and general wussiness very well. 

One day during a school holiday, he invited Michael Lappage and myself up to his old stamping ground (he'd moved from Rotherham), and so we went to Sheffield station for a leisurely few hours logging the locomotives of the Midland Region ("Ooh, look! Another class 45 "Peak"!") while his mum visited relatives in the area. Sure, it was sad, but hey: Pierre now likes Girls Aloud and I've taken up the ukulele.

Nothing changes, then. 

Anyway: getting to Sheffield Midland station necessitated traversing the Tinsley Viaduct, and the area it spanned was like nothing I had seen in my life. To one side, fire-belching, hell-hole steel mills, and, to the other, two of the most enormous cooling towers topping off the power station supplying the electricity for this Dantean nightmare. I don't mind admitting the sight scared me and impressed me all at once, and I suppose that marked the beginning of my ambivalent relationship with industrial Yorkshire that has lasted to this day, with me moving up here, moving away twice and coming back each time.

The steel mills have now mostly gone, and those few that remain have cleaned up their act.  A mammoth shopping centre covers the site now, and I don't know what scares me more: but the towers remained.

Until yesterday that is, when they were felled in a controlled explosion, and so my first link with South Yorkshire, dating back to when I was 9, has now gone.

Everything changes, then.

Watch the giants being felled here.

Swearing removed from kids' book

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Swearing removed from kids' book: "In future editions, the offending word will be altered by one letter and replaced with 'twit'."

The mojo is slowly returning

I've been recording. At long last...

Wait For Me (acoustic)

Not a new song, but what the hey. It's a song that I always liked, and have performed at open mic nights on numerous occasions. It got more and more strung out each time I performed it, especially after one night in mid-January when I suddenly, on stage guessed correctly that my worst nightmare was happening while I was singing it.

But that's a story I keep to myself.

In the meantime, download, enjoy, and I'll try and get my arse in gear over the next few weeks and come up with something new: yes?

On the other hand...

I hope other people find this as hilarious as I do.

It doesn't do to take oneself too seriously.

Is age mellowing him?

"Of all the albums we've ever made, this album is the most... recent."
Noel Gallagher on BBC Radio 1 this morning. Quite the claim, Noelie.

"Funny old world" dept.

My, but there's some upfront people out there. Say it like it is, girl.

Make love, not dog toys

Here's an odd one. Russ Fielden, the tourism boss on Grenada, has asked dog owners to stop using starfish as dog toys.

Really.

Apparently, dog owners are using starfish as frisbees and chucking them for their dogs to catch. Then they leave the poor hapless quintapeds to die a painful death, and (apparently) the corpses smell something rotten. Not good.

Read the full story here.

Perdita

In autumn I see you

Stumbling at sight's edge;

Tiny one, mud-pie dirty.

Scuffed shoes.

Gritblack nails.

Faceless.

I turn and you vanish - 

A leafy shadow, 

A grainy dapple

That reminds me that, 

Although you died within,

You comfort me with your presence.

Haritini

., originally uploaded by corvidophile.

As self portraits go, not bad at all, girl.

It's more than a bit Man Ray.

Tethered

Tethered, originally uploaded by sp3ccylad.

Some people might view this rather odd image, snapped on the roof of Britannia Buildings in Huddersfield, as a metaphor. Not me.

Oooh, no.

The New Boris

Here's a turnup for the books. Boris can say what he bloody well likes for years, and the moment one of his advisers says the sort of thing he used to do, he's out.

This is just a bit weird for me. Guess he won't be saying "piccaninnies" any time soon.

Tile

Tile
Originally uploaded by sp3ccylad

This is why I take cameras into pub toilets.

Honest, your honour.

Lousy story, great soundbite.

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Australia ire over chef's f-words: 

"Senator Bernardi claimed that one episode had contained 'the f-word' 80 times in 40 minutes.

'And I'm not referring to fondue,' he said"

Genius.

My wasted life?

If you'd told me back in June 2005 that by now I'd have spent five whole days listening to David Ford...

Have a play yourself - here.

My life, already?

Ah, but what a song. And what a video, too. That wallpaper. That shirt.

Genius.

Quote of the Week

R. on Facebook chat, and why it is not a good idea:

"its like cheating on msn"

Grantham Journal Facebook User Of The Week

Can anybody explain what I did to deserve that?

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I've lost count on just how many counts this is wrong.

ABSOLUTELY STUNNING ERECT FOX WITH LAMP WALKING STICK

Don't laugh.

This is not funny.

I Have Become My Father

I Have Become My Father
Originally uploaded by sp3ccylad

Round at Česka's the other night, I was playing with my new phone, faffing with mirrors and generally looking for ways to surprise myself. 

Imagine my surprise when I saw my father's face looking down at me, disapproving.

It scares the living shit out of me.

Age-appropriateness

I've just found out that, according to last.fm, I'm the oldest person going to see Jens Lekman over at the Woodhouse Liberal Club in May.

Should this worry me? Could someone older than me buy a ticket? 

Please?

A Blonde Moment

This morning, I'm having a swift listen to Someone to Drive you Home, The Long Blondes' first album: as tomorrow sees the official release date for "Couples", the new album by the band I am rapidly coming to regard as one of the most exciting bands Yorkshire has produced in years, because, unlike Kid Acne, I'm of the belief that there's more to South Yorks than drizzle and dogging: and I really couldn't give an arse these days for Arctic Monkeys. Well, c'mon…

Anyway, back to the task in hand. I'm listening to an album that I've held in high regard for a long time. Hell, I had tickets for The Blondes' March gig at Fibbers back in mid-December. I nearly, nearly gave them up (long story, a lot of emotional upset), but the pull of witnessing Dorian Cox's ventriloquism act proved too great in the end. What, of course, colours the mix is the fact that "Couples" has been part of my playlist for the last two weeks or so.

So what do I think? Suddenly, it's underwhelming. Odd that: two weeks of the new album has rendered Someone... one-dimensional and shown it up as the relatively minor work it is compared with "Couples". Of course, the second album has many of the tics that plague not just The Long Blondes' music, but British indie music in general (guitar hooks in unison with vocals, melodic lines overly wedded to the root of the power chord like sub-Buzzcocks thrash, etc), but whereas the new album has some interesting breaks with style, Someone... now has all the feel of Elvis Costello's production job for The Specials' eponymous first album: charming, but simplistic and underdone, whilst still managing to be ground-breaking at the time.

What's changed? What's going on? Well, I suppose the change of producer helps. The hiring of Steve Mackey, the former bassist in Pulp, shaped the sound more than many people gave credit: listen to Dorian Cox's backing vocals, and then argue that point with me.

Actually, don't. I'll just sit there with my arms folded looking smug, like I do. You know that look.

No: what The Blondes needed, desperately needed was something that would divest them of that "Sound of Swinging Sheffield" tag that subconsciously followed them around due to Mackey's competent-but-flawed production job. Something that would make Someone... feel like Please Please Me sounds once you listen to any other Beatles album.

Erol Alkan's yer man, people. Seriously in demand right now, having just produced Twenty One for erstwhile prog-rock fetishists Mystery Jets and, having invigorated their sound with fizzy, dirty 80's synths, he grabs The Long Blondes by the scruff of the neck and invigorates their sound with fizzy, dirty 80's synths.

You spotting a pattern here?

Here's the thing though: it works. Furthermore, it's not just the synths that belie a greater maturity. "Century", the opening track on both their recent live sets and the new album, has been garnering a lot of attention for its glassy 80's sound (shades of late Banshees and Propaganda for me), but it's the sinuous, snaky feel of the instrumentation, what the music is doing harmonically that is the key. It's a million miles away from those awful tics I mentioned up the page: melody plays with countermelody, angular arpeggiators break up the more melodically unified moments. And that's just the first track.

I'm not going to go through it track-by-track, blow-by-blow. If you didn't like "Century" (and I'm sure there are plenty that don't), the new album manages to draw on more familiar aural territory for The Blondes whilst developing both lyrically and musically. In particular, "The Couples" stands out as beautiful, bitter, heart-breaking, heart-broken pop at its very best. It spoke to me.

The short recommendation is: BUY IT. Available on iTunes today with bonus tracks, and available in the shops tomorrow. Come round to my place and give me a kicking should you feel let down.

I slipped (out).

125,920 PeopleSorry.

I love my new phone.

This is why.

Mad Magazine's finest moments...

As a teenager, Mad was a guilty pleasure for me. Like masturbation, I suppose. 

C'mon, it was the late '70s. 

Anyway - I don't reckon to posting stuff that appeared in the B3ta newsletter, but I make one helluvan exception for this. It's a gallery of a selection of Mad magazine's excellent fold-ins, as designed by the god-like Al Jaffee and lovingly animated by The New York Times

Quotes of the Week

It's been a funny old week this week over at Sp3ccylad Towers. All sorts of the shiznit has been going on in my life (none of it I could have remotely have guessed at at the beginning of the week), and it's picked up a fair amount of the quoteage. Here's the highlights.

Me, on the phone to my mother:

"Quick question, mum. Is your phone O2?"

"My mobile? No, it starts 07 like everybody else's."

My mate Andy, texting about Dr Who, and he's not at all displeased:

"Hated the whole episode. Fucking fat people giving birth to Flumps. What is RT Davies' fucking problem? C Tate was about the best of a bad lot. Total crap."

That's you told, Russell T Davies.

The world decoded for stats geeks

Now. This is information I understand. I'm a bit of a stats geek - give me a few hours with Excel and I'm a happy man. So, imagine my JOY (and I mean that most sincerely, folks) when I found  GraphJam, which has all sorts of genuinely useful information all graphically presented for easy consumption.

Now I understand life.

(Graph switched to celebrate the least trendiest part of a certain person's taste) 

Going cuckoo in Cheshire this summer time

I hate the switch to British Summer Time. 

That sounds a bit ungrateful, I suppose - I like the long hours of daylight, leaving work in the daylight, hell, I like the way the day sits within the clock way better. I just don't like the switch - that nasty 23-hour day and putting the clocks forward is a combination I'd rather forget.

So, right now, my thoughts are with Roman Piekarski, who co-owns Cuckooland over at Tabley in Cheshire. It's a museum of cuckoo clocks: and each one has to be advanced an hour. All 600 of them, all £2 million-worth of them. Roman and Max (his brother) will really have their weekend cut out, poor buggers.

Given that my late, much-loved mother-in-law was Bavarian, I'm of the opinion that one cuckoo clock is quite enough.  600 is going too far - but without people going too far, what would I do for this blog?

Oh, and on the subject of going too far: how does the digital cuckoo clock (pictured left) float your boat?

Well it solves the problem I was grumbling about, I suppose.

We're all going to die!

Well: we are according to a couple of blokes in Hawaii...

Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More - New York Times: 

"Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth."

Damn Health and Safety types.

How We Entertained Ourselves, Part I

Excuse me if I get all expositional, but my gut feeling tells me that the average age for the readership has dropped to the point where 2001 seems like an age ago. So let me explain a thing or two for the sake of the young 'uns.

As hinted at previously, the internet is more than three years old - and one of the earliest uses of the internet was to get people to do silly things they hadn't considered before, like...

Erotic Origami: 

"Welcome to The Origami Underground! It is the place to find erotic origami on the web. It's all free, and it's all for you! If you also invent your own erotic models and want to share them, send them in for publication. Your anonymity will be protected if you so desire."

AIEEE!

Here's an odd one:

"A Texas man is facing charges for selling liquor without a license after he was found peddling bottles of vodka containing dead baby rattlesnakes."

That is really quite ho---

BACK UP A BIT!

Just hold it there. He was charged for selling liquor without a license. ***sighs***

Extra bite - Texan faces charges over snake vodka

The War On Gophers is not going our way

We can't relax for a second, people. Gophers are not only threatening our way of life, but they are fighting back in ways we cannot comprehend.

Vigilance is a must; as is keeping an eye on lame-brained pest controllers.

Where's Tommy Saxondale when you need him?

*sighs*

Disappearing...

I'm wasting away. I MEAN it. And I don't get it, I really don't.

I realise I didn't eat as much as I should have done in the last few months: but when every day seems like an intolerable pressure for one reason or another, I suppose one has an excuse...

For the last three years or so, I've seen a crash coming: that the lifestyle was, in some way or another completely unsustainable - that pretending to be happy whilst having to keep an eye on the situation just to see what was going wrong next was going to break me.

Anybody who's known me intimately will know one oft-repeated phrase of mine: "energy is a finite resource" - and fighting to stop that energy being drained at an unsustainable rate is a kind of catch-22 situation. If you don't fight, then the energy gets drained. If you do fight, you drain the energy still quicker for the possible payoff that the rate of decline will slow.

And then finally, it all drains away and something snaps. In my case, it finally went (if I'm being truthful with myself) sometime in mid-September. And that was when the trouble really started, because I only resisted snapping in the past because I could see the storm clouds quite clearly. I knew what was coming. Only this time, I couldn't avert it any more.

Acceptance is a fine thing, but people that practice it are rare, and well, I think you can see what's coming here. Everybody hates rejection, but some people hate it more than others.

Any more would be telling tales out of school.

I don't eat much when I'm worried - it comes, I think to wanting to make sure I have enough money: a subconscious fear that I don't know the root of. So it comes as no surprise that I lost 15% of my body mass from September-February. This was noticeable when I was getting dressed the last time I stayed at R's. It wasn't a good day and she was very snappy.

"Those jeans are too big," she said.

"I know," I said in a straightforward way, trying to hide the embarrassment I felt, because I knew what was going on. "I've lost a lot of weight just lately." I didn't elucidate, because, to be honest, I was a bit sick of repetition.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not anorexic: I don't like being this thin in the slightest, and the fact that I have a genetic syndrome that makes putting weight on very, very difficult doesn't help. I don't want to be like this. I actually sit down and make sure I do three meals a day (which on re-reading sounds slightly pathetic), and I can't work out how to put weight on again. I don't want my weight to stabilise at this level, either.

The worries are lifting. I'm stripping my life of dysfunction one level at a time, especially when it's my tolerance of others that facilitates the dysfunction, and I'm concentrating on my life for the first time in nearly 20 years - not acceding to anybody else's desire for me to be part of their life is an odd feeling. I was never afraid of being alone, but when I've been in relationships almost constantly for 20 years, and still retain a deep capacity to love others, that's a kind of hard thing to prove. But alone I am, and happy I am. It's liberating. There's no dogma there. If the right relationship presents itself, I won't say no on principle, but nor am I looking.

"But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest."

- Buddha

So if I'm not worried, and I'm eating OK, why is my BMI stuck at 17.1? I don't like it and any suggestions would be fine, except "go see your healthcare provider," because I'm going anyway.

Back to the silly links soon.

If at first you don't succeed...

Consider, if you will, the case of one Glenn Irvin Sparling, a 65 year old man from Ravenden Springs in Arkansas.

He gets into his car. Drives to the post office. Crashes into it. Goes home. Gets another car. Does it again, in a "rinse and repeat" kind of way.

"Sparling had damaged a post office previously, and the sheriff said Sparling had a history of damaging postal buildings. No one was in the post office when it was hit."

This is as close to genius as I've seen in a very, very long time.

Man accused of driving into post office - Yahoo! News

UPDATE: Good lord, they're all at it!

I was surfing the web for more news on this curious little incident when I found that an 88 year-old woman had done pretty much the same thing in Burbank, CA. 

OK, she'd managed to only use one car, and she didn't have any previous: but there's a pattern emerging and Sp3ccy don't like it one bit.

You'll excuse me if I conduct all my business by email for the next few days; just until this whole "old people ramming post offices" thing blows over.

You have been told.

The perfect juxtaposition

I certainly used to seek out The Family Circus, although I did find it a bit overly cute at times. It could get to hurting my teeth a bit, y'know? 

Then along comes... The Nietzsche Family Circus, with its random juxtaposition of Family Circus comics and captions by... well, Nietzsche. 

It fair puts the shits up me; and (I say this with love and respect) I hope it does the same for you.

UPDATE: this one is particularly beautiful...

Neil Aspinall 1942-2008

Beatles' ally Neil Aspinall dies

The Times: Neil Aspinall: The obituary

Hunter Davies in The Guardian: Beatles fixer and friend takes secrets to the grave

Allan Kozinn in The New York Times: Neil Aspinall. Beatles' Aide, dies at 66

Allan Kozinn in The New York Times: Magical Mystery Tour Ends for Apple Corps Executive

Parmy Olson in Forbes: Aspinall No Longer With The Beatles

The Independent: Neil Aspinall: Beatle's friend and road manager who became the boss of Apple

"Paul is dead" shock!

No - hang on: that was 1969: but the fans are still at it. The looney wing of Beatledom over at Team McCartney reckon Macca's still leaving them secret messages in the ol' glass onion.  

Hasn't he got better things to do? Like, I dunno: weigh his money?

Super-dooper t-shirt designs from those scurrilous people at shotdeadinthehead.com.

Maid in Japan

Scary Japanese product alert! 

I know: these things are like shooting fish in a barrel, but this is a cracker. A PC case in the shape of a French maid's bum region - both bottoms, front and back.

I wish I'd been at the meeting that pitched that product.

The internet: a terrible place

A great Newsweek article from 1995 about how rubbish the internet is. And it isn't all that, to be honest, is it? I mean: it's brought me nothing but trouble...

"Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure."

The Internet? Bah!

Man shot by killer robot

It's not as exciting as the headline implies, or even the picture for that matter; but read on, regardless.

Actually, it's pretty sad.

Crucifixion - bad for your health, apparently

Keeping up here with the Easter theme, I found a story about the Philippine Government putting out a health warning about crucifixion.

No shit.

Too far! Too far!

Speccylad's real-life incarnation, the quiet, mild-mannered guy that abhors all this immature blogging nonsense, quite likes Facebook.

Why? It manages to be both silly and useful at the same time (much like him), it's an easy way to keep tabs on friends, and it helps when trying to remember people's names. For both Sp3cs and his real-life version have a terrible memory for faces and names. 

There's another side to Facebook that both of us like - the sheer tastelessness of it all; which hit a new height today with this.

Yes. Become a fan of Jesus - "Other Public Figure". Just to even things up, I'm going to see if I can also become a fan of the Prophet Mohammed, too. I wonder what the picture will be for him....

Best. Picture. Ever.

What can I say? Really?

Happy Birthday, Cap'n

Why yes. Tis Shaturday, a day that comes but once in six or seven years. So Sp3ccylad, once described in an MSN message as "the bastard son of Jarvis Cocker and Prince"* is proud to present William Shatner and Joe Jackson performing Pulp's "Common People" (as included on his rather spiffy album Has Been).

It's a truly great performance, and hey: it stops me banging on about David "David Bloody Ford" Ford for a few minutes.

*OK, it was me that wrote it, and it was only this afternoon, but hey: you should have seen what I was up to. Go me.

Tears in their coffee

Let's not cry too hard, mind.

Apparently Starbucks' supervisors in California have been swiping tips that should have gone to the baristas' pockets, and they've been caught out in a class action suit.

We're not talking small change either. The robbing scum have been taking the poor bloody footsoldiers for $86 million: which they have been forced to pay back... with interest. Poor babies.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Starbucks must pay $100m in tips

First Irwin, now they're coming for the rest of us

The wrong picture. Sorry.

Now this is a scary one. OK, that Steve Irwin guy was messing with shit and it was only a matter of time before something got him. However, stingrays leaping out of the water and killing random tourists is a step too far. 

Sp3ccylad says: "Back off, Mother Nature"

Just Go...

If I'm really lucky, both of my readers will remember a blog post from way back in June 2005 when I reported on a gig I went to at The Cornerhouse (aka The Parish). The support act was one David Ford, and I don't mind admitting that night changed my life.

I was going places alone, anything to avoid being at home in what was increasingly at that point a cold, loveless, calculating marriage. It was going to get worse before it got better, but suffice to say it was pretty awful.

Although I didn't say much about it at the time, I later described it as a gig "that had me spellbound and (does this sound odd?) optimistically heartbroken from start to finish." I do remember stuffing my fist in my mouth to stop me sobbing. Yes. It was that intense.

The reason I bring Fordie up is because of justgotohell.net - a kind of David Ford-based mini postsecret, where he invites people to post their confessions. They are, of course, good for the soul. And while you're at it, go there, download the free MP3 and watch the videos.

Welcome to my world.

A piece of paper from York or: I'm back

Hello there. It's been a while, has it not? A lot has happened - I've been up to all sorts of stuff, but the main thing is that the long-running embarrassment that was my marriage is now no more. Weep no tears - at least these days when she pulls an unpredictable stunt no-one points the finger at me...

Still enough of that. I'm back and I'm blogging again. I promise not to be away for so long in the future. 

Went to see The Long Blondes on Tuesday night. The support was a quite engagingly clever old-skool hip-hop act called Kid Acne. I shall say no more than this: I utterly approve of the fact that Kid Acne can make me laugh at the same time as making indie kids look like Old Man Steptoe with gall bladder problems. They don't like it up 'em, those types.

As for the Blondes - time to grow up and move on, people: they're pulling some excellent music out of the hat with their new direction. The old stuff, as engaging as it sounds, is mono-dimensional compared with the new direction they seem to be heading in. "Century" off the new album was a triumph of an opener, and it pissed off the indie kids no end. That gave me an immense amount of pleasure. Heh.

So what is this new direction? There's still the sense that we are working with the bastard offspring of Eno-era Roxy: and live, they seem to understand the demands of that particular influence very well. However, there's other influences in the mix. A bit of Gert Wilden, a bit of Siouxsie and the Banshees... It's engaging, and it made the material off the first album seem lightweight by comparison.

Kate was a revelation. R. is of the opinion that Kate "can't sing", and that the new material showed her limitations off.  Sorry, Red: have to differ on that one. She's in charge of her role in the Blondes - she handled the new songs with aplomb, and she seemed to be really enjoying the interaction with the Fibbers audience. Not that you can be aloof in Fibbers. After all, it's not the biggest of places.

So all in all, a decent night. Entertaining early on as The Ex Who Won't Let Go decided to text R., which caused hilarity all round, and it got more pleasant as the night went on. Spent the following afternoon back in the Hudd watching "Once" on DVD with R., which is a movie that has got me all weepy both times I've watched it. I enjoy her company. Hell, I miss her and I thought I didn't.

So. The Piece Of Paper. I was going through the pockets of my blue velvet jacket, and I found a folded piece of paper. At first I thought somebody liked me - had I scored a phone number? No. It was a rather perplexing shopping list, evidently compiled by a borderline alcoholic. 

I'd watch Ready Steady Cook if it had ingredients like that in it, mind...