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...

Yes. Perfect.

Sp3ccylad -- [noun]: A person of questionable sanity who starts their own cult 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Who is this?

A man could get lost
Originally uploaded by sp3ccylad

I took this photo in Vox two weeks ago, and I have no idea who she is.

Ideas anyone?

It only took a year...

...but Fnurgled is finally available on emusic. Joy of joys.

Perfect!

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

I rather like this

Laptop
Originally uploaded by sp3ccylad.

So I thought I'd show it off. And why not?

What lovely colours.

Pre-order a t-shirt with them on here.

Ded Peepulz

Ded Peepulz
Originally uploaded by sp3ccylad.

Muffin: late on the bandwagon as ever.

Venison is now seafood, apparently

Cornish lobster fishermen land a deer:

"It was a perfect sunny morning. Cornish fishermen Chris Earl and Tony Allsopp were chugging out to sea on their boat, Spilgarn, to check on their lobster pots.

And then the deer, all antlers and big worried eyes, swam past. 'It's not the sort of creature you expect to see half a mile out,' said Mr Earl yesterday."

No, I don't suppose it is.
Seadeer photomontage by raan19

But first a message from our sponsor...

Peter Gabriel shakes the tree, ad-supported MP3s fall out

"Peter Gabriel is one of the founding investors of a new music download service that offers tracks for free to users who are willing to listen to ads. The service, called We7 for some reason, offers MP3 versions of tracks with advertising attached to the beginning of songs. Four weeks after downloading the track, the user can then download a version without the ad. Artists get paid by the advertisers, music lovers get free tunes, and advertisers get to reach music lovers."

An interesting concept. Not entirely sure how I feel about it, but... What do you think?

They'll enjoy Somalia: but should they?

Some of you living in foreign parts will be aware of Chris Morris's fantastic series Brass Eye, but unable to watch because the powers that be think that not enough foreign people will find Brass Eye funny. This is nonsense, of course, but when did DVD distribution ever make sense?

So all hail the person who put Brass Eye on Google Video. All the links are here.

Knitted Masks

I was sent this link with the anguished question "Is this... right?" in the subject line.

I don't know. I don't... know.

Begorrah.

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

Alan Ball 1945-2007

Nothing more to say really. OK, his time at City wasn't his greatest spell ever, but that's in the past.

I want to say something and mean it:

Alan Ball's a football genius.

The Great Escape

Wired Magazine: How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran

"November 4, 1979, began like any other day at the US embassy in Tehran. The staff filtered in under gray skies, the marines manned their posts, and the daily crush of anti-American protestors massed outside the gate chanting, "Allahu akbar! Marg bar Amrika!"

Mark and Cora Lijek, a young couple serving in their first foreign service post, knew the slogans — "God is great! Death to America!" — and had learned to ignore the din as they went about their duties. But today, the protest sounded louder than usual."

Yeep. A gripping story from start to finish.

Bronx Bronx Hair Machine

Make Mom Mad

Bronx Bronx Hair Machine.
Bronx Bronx Hair Machine!
BRONX BRONX HAIR MACHINE!

A Motivational Poster

A Motivational Poster
Originally uploaded by sp3ccylad.

I'm saying nothing else.

'Death to US': Anti-Americanism examined

A superb article from Justin Webb of the BBC about anti-Americanism and its origins:

"The US is perceived by many as an international bully, a modern day imperial power. At this critical moment in history, Washington correspondent Justin Webb challenges that idea.

He argues anti-Americanism is often a cover for hatreds with little justification in fact. His three part series takes him to Cairo, Caracas and Washington but it begins where anti-Americanism began - in Paris."

Anti-Americanism examined

Happy (belated) Easterberg

A word of advice before I start this one. Remember - your entire taste in music is made up of what you've heard. What you hear is controlled by the music industry almost 100% - or, as cke put it in the blog Chunks, Eggs en Prix:

"Think of it--there's only so much music that one person can listen to in a day. Most people seem to prefer to have music playing dimly in the background through virtually every waking minute of their lives (except when they're watching television). Of all those hours of daily music, virtually all of it comes from the commercial music industry. This means that, not only was all that music produced according to some pretty specific and slick-sounding standards, but that it's all owned by those companies as well. In essence, the music industry is meeting virtually 100% of the daily demand for music that people have, and they're doing it with material that they own, and that sounds at least halfway decent. They also have control over virtually all the primary promotional avenues. In other words, the entire musical landscape, from the musicians all the way to the brains of listeners, is almost wholly controlled by the recording industry."

So. Let me broaden your mind. OK? Just don't get on my back if it sounds a little unfamiliar at first. Uncomfortable is good.

It's no great secret that I'm an admirer of the work of Maggie Osterberg. Her work has a lo-fi precious quality about it that sets it apart from so much of the mass-produced crap that passes for music these days. She sounds real. And that's what I love about her. So let me take you through a bit of a sampler - some stuff that you can get for free, and if you like that, well: there's stuff for sale too.

Right. First things first. It's an unusual singing voice. In a world of American Idols and Cowell-made monsters, this voice wouldn't get past audition 1. That's no criticism. I'd love to see what they'd have made of Neil Young, too. But the critics like her. Milo Miles described her music as

"Garage-prog with a passion for melody sprinkled over everyday scenes of despair and contentment."

So you begin to get the idea. A little rough around the edges, but knowingly so. She knows what she's doing.

I can't think of a better way of describing the first track of hers I'd like to introduce - "The Last Two Drops". Actually, I can - because when I first heard it I went a little bonkers. Click the link, and while you listen, read the review I dashed off at the time.

"Jeeze: somebody stop the room swaying.

It's Fear And Loathing On The Stamen Island Ferry.

Cuts right to the intuitive, does mosterberg's latest. Back in the recesses of my mind, it actually has a sense of menace that I've only experienced once in my life when I entered a benighted store just off Interstate 10 in Kent, TX (sorry, make the benighted store the whole of Kent, as it really was that deserted) and got the chilling phrase "You ain't from round here; are you boy?" as I perused the dust-covered Wrigley's in a somewhat disoriented travel-addled state of mind.

I told him no, I'd come from Eugene, OR and left in a colossal hurry. Scary shit.

Like when you get too drunk, and it stops making sense.

Like this fractured little gem. Wow."

Yeah, you see? Do me a favour: listen to it twice. The first time is acclimatisation. The second time is appreciation. I love the way the Marc Ribot-influenced guitars spider around each other, and her spacious use of reverb - which isn't very trendy right now. People are taught to like their music bright and dry by the music industry these days: Maggie Osterberg likes space and swamp. It's different, that's all - and different is good. Those voices too. It's quite an intoxicating, spooky little package. All in all, I'm a fan of Maggie's judgement, to be honest - and this song shows off her judgement in shovelfuls.

So - on to song #2 in this little article. This one was written as a birthday gift for little old me. "An Appointment". And what a birthday gift it was. Again: my thoughts from when I first heard it. Click the link and read.

"The town that I originally come from is a fairly sleepy, but fair and moderately liberal-minded town called Grantham in Lincolnshire. Although surrounded by tracts of arable land, it had a fair concentration of heavy engineering for a town of its size.

Ingenuity in war production had always been one of Grantham's strengths. Eight years prior to the Great War, a local company had demonstrated to the War Office a novel form of vehicle propulsion where the wheels were encased in a metal band, allowing the vehicle to traverse obstacles in the field that would stop conventional vehicles. The War Office had written the invention off as having "no significant military application". A decade later, the battle of Cambrai would see the tank make its terrible entry into modern warfare.

Lessons had been learned - as soon as war became probable in the late 1930's, all Grantham's factories were converted to war production and RAF Bomber Command No. 5 Group was set up there - where Barnes Wallace was later to perfect the "bouncing bomb". Of course the lessons had been learnt on the other side too, as Nazi tactics made liberal use of the caterpillar track to shock countries into submission in 1940.

Grantham has always had a degree of importance in the greater scheme of things, having been a stop on the stagecoach route from London to York and Edinburgh (the A1 used to run right through the town centre), and at that stage it was a major marshalling yard for the London and North-Eastern Railway.

All this meant that, on German maps, there was a great big cross-hair over Grantham.

Grantham suffered over 270 alerts, but the night that sticks out in many people's memories was the night of 30th September 1940.

More about that later, but a bit of background first.

My grandma on my mother's side was a singular character. Fiercely loyal and oddly independent, she took virtually no domestic skills to her marriage. She'd not so much wooed as cornered her husband - but that's a different story. Anyway, she was chatty, lively, the worst cook ever, had an outrageously cheeky sense of humour and had a predilection for dying her hair on a whim. My grandad (a shy, reserved type of bloke) was a postman, and he did the nightshift working out of the railway station. My mother has plenty of stories of my grandad waking up ready to go to work, to be faced with near inedible food and a wife with a new, almost offensively vibrant hair colour. After a while, he'd just sigh.

Grandma had an active mind, and no skills to occupy it with. She had three kids - a boy in the army, a girl quite able to look after herself, and a quiet, reserved daddy's girl who was just starting piano lessons. That was my mum, and she'd just turned seven. Grandma was bored most of the time, so used to take every opportunity to see a film. She viewed babysitting expenses as a frippery, so dragged my mother out to the pictures most nights. My mother remembers her schooldays mainly as a battle to stay awake.

On the 30th September, as usual, they went to the pictures. On this instance it was the pictures at the other, south side of the town that they chose to go to. If an air raid took place during a film, the sirens couldn't be heard at all clearly inside; so the custom was to show a slide informing patrons of the situation, and assuring them that if they wanted to stay, the film would continue.

The same tired old phrase would be trotted out. "We may as well stay. If you're going to bloody die, you may as well die watchin' a film," was my Grandma's reasoning.

At about 8:30, the slide appeared - and although a few people left, most people stayed and the film played to an almost-packed house.

At 8:45 the cinema shook and my mother remembers hearing a most tremendous sound. For a few seconds, it was dark. People began to panic. There were a few servicemen in there who had seen active service in France earlier that year and their calming influence was instrumental in stopping what could have been a lethal rush for the doors. The noises carried on for a while and then died down.

The target had been the very factory where those caterpillar tracks had been made before. Some of the largest bombs deployable at the time, 1,000kg and 1,800kg monsters (appropriately codenamed "Satan" by the Luftwaffe), had ripped through the factory, destroying the area assembling depth charges - and no doubt exploding a few in the process. The blasts had taken out the electricity, gas and water simultaneously, and the factory was less than 200 yards from the cinema.

Once the terrible noise had died down, Grandma realised that there was probably not much chance of catching the rest of the film (duh!) and decided to make her way home.

My mother's description of what she saw as she left the cinema still chills me.

"It was like day - everything was lit up - and there was fire everywhere. The picture house was the only building on London Road not on fire. I've never been so scared. There was stuff falling all around us." There were fire crews strung down the street, battling hopelessly as fires raged out of control, destroying buildings.

The only thing to do was dodge the falling debris and run home across town.

They ran up High Street until they were met by an ARP Warden, who sternly rebuked Grandma for being out with a young child and sent them into the shelter at Lipton's. They cowered there, petrified - my mum told me she wasn't sure she'd see daylight again: as far as she was concerned, this was it.

My granddad had heard the news, and, knowing his wife and daughter were out in the middle of the conflagration, was excused his duties for the night. He went looking for his family.

My mother had almost given up when she heard a Cockney accent at the doors of the shelter.

"I'm looking for a woman with a little girl..."

"It was when I heard Dad's voice," she said, "that I knew we were going to be OK." He joined them in the shelter, and they sat the rest of the raid out, waiting for the all-clear. The toll was terrible - my mother remembers stories of the local open-air swimming pool being used as an emergency casualty centre and mortuary.

Many years later, my mother was diagnosed with a carcinoma of the kidney. By all rights, she shouldn't have survived that, but 18 years later she's still here. I was talking about that with her only yesterday, and I reminded her of what a friend had said.

Eleanor (an ex-girlfriend's mother) is a doctor and a devout Catholic. I'd described the cancer and my mother's almost inexplicable survival. She concurred with the medical opinion I reported and she'd said "obviously your mother has things to do... She hasn't finished yet."

"Damn right!" Mum said when I passed this on. "The doctor told me my chances and I got so... so... God, angry! I remember thinking, sod that! I'm not qualified as a piano teacher yet! You're not beating me!"

It wasn't the first time she'd cheated death to see the future, was it?

Listening to that incident retold in song, with the image of a seven-year-old girl running for her life to make it to her son's birthday party in the future, was really very special. Maggie had no idea my mother's such a fighter, and her interpretation was prescient to say the least.

It's probably the best birthday present I've ever had."

The layered voices, the angry guitar chops and that bass make for a very special song indeed. Listen to the combination of space and muscular presence, and the way a seemingly disorganised song coalesceses around the "baby's birthday party" hook before slowly unravelling again. This woman really knows what she's doing. And the lead voice - heartfelt, unselfconscious, full-blooded: singing with conviction and passion.

I have goosebumps.

Now a "compare and contrast" moment. One of the marks of a good songwriter is whether a song survives the transition from one artist to another. Writing for your own voice is one thing, but once someone else gets hold of a song...

Not much comment here:

"Stupid Rain" by Maggie Osterberg

"Stupid Rain" by Matt Duane Griffin (who deserves a blog post to himself, to be honest)

One song, two very different treatments. Very interesting.

Now for the final song in this set."Goodnight". I consider this to be her masterpiece. If "The Last Two Drops" was fractured, then this is shattered, in every sense of the word. Written one late night after a hospital visit, Maggie's sigh at the beginning sets the tone for a toned-down howl of anguish that expresses in music everything it struggles to say in words. Again, my thoughts at the time.

"I know that sigh. I have a similar one.

There's something that about dark times that brings out the best in an artist. It really sucks that we have to go through it, but the payoff for us listeners is potentially fantastic.

This is one of those "tick all the boxes" numbers. Unselfconscious, raw and melancholy: Maggie's back and she's flying in on one engine emotionally. She's got a habit of producing late-night nuggets of lo-fi precious, but there's a sense of humour behind most of them. Granted, it's concealed behind a scary facade, but it's there.

Not this time. She's tired, ground down and someone should give her a hug.

But he can't move. What can we do?

This is broken. This is sparse. This is heartbreakingly triumphant.

Oddly, iTunes gave me Johnny Cash's cover of We'll Meet Again straight after and - I am aware this may sound heretical - it came across as callow and lightweight by comparison. The comparison shocked me.

No: you want Americana at its most raw? This is the real deal.

We are lucky, lucky people."

We are, you know. We're lucky to have an artist like Maggie Osterberg daring to show us what her world is like in such candid detail.

Should you want to own more of her work, her album Bent, Not Broken, is widely available online at the iTunes store, eMusic, and many other places. I utterly recommend you check it out.

Utterly.

I have no explanation for this.

March's webstats for "Don't Look Back In Anger". Yeah. Just March. Go on, make it worse. Click here and have a listen. Oh, I despair sometimes.

In the meantime, I was faffing around on Google (what, you mean you don't type Sp3ccylad in?) and I found this:



Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Dick Dale, telling it like it is

Legendary guitarist Dick Dale, asked for advice for the struggling musician. He's startlingly frank.

I heartily agree with every word.

Citizen! Stop that! NOW!

Just when you think things are about as Orwellian as they can get, we edge just a little bit closer to the precipice with the latest wacky scheme. This time, the powers-that-be aren't content with watching us constantly with CCTV.

Britain is already the most watched nation in the world: there's 1 camera for every 14 people in the UK. Probably more, as that figure was quoted last year.

So, we get watched all the time. It's just another infringement of what little privacy we have left. Even more so, with the latest trend, which is for cameras that talk back. Yes, citizen, you read that correctly. Cameras are being fitted with loudspeakers so you can be told off by a CCTV operator. Seeing as putting people in the stocks has been rendered illegal by that pesky human rights legislation they keep on importing, they're going to tick us off, right there, in the street instead.

But who decides what deserves public embarrassment and what is passable behaviour? Who gets cut a bit of slack and who gets pulled up? You see, this is what worries me about the whole venture. No doubt the same arguments will be trotted out as for ID cards - you know, the old saws along the lines of "if you've got nothing to hide..." and the whole idea will appeal to the type of Daily Mail reader nostagic for the village bobby giving miscreants a quick clip around the ear, but I have extreme doubts about the whole thing.

You see, everybody has prejudices. Everybody. I'm not so arrogant as to claim I'm prejudice free, and neither should anybody else. It's just that some people are less able to keep their prejudices in check than others, that's all. I don't wish to run the risk of being the target of some CCTV operator's petty likes or dislikes - but sooner or later I fear I won't have a choice.

And there's one other thing - we're the most watched society in the world, yeah? Well, consider this. I was witness to a rather nasty assault in Leeds about 18 months ago. I remember picking the victim up afterwards (sans half a front tooth) and telling her not to worry; CCTV's all over this bloody city - so apprehending the culprit shouldn't be a problem.

The result? Not one picture of the culprits was recorded on camera. Not one. Not one of any of the five blokes fleeing together. Not one of the victim lying prone on the floor. Nothing - in spite of the fact that it took place on Briggate: Leeds' busiest shopping area. It might as well have never happened.

So is it really all just a sham constructed to make up for a lack of police officers on the ground? Considering most of the people with police connections I know bemoan the paperwork, bang on about "too much political correctness" and secretly wish they could act like Gene Hunt from Life On Mars, you know; the talking camera might just be the safer option.

Even then, they don't always work, as this rather odd story proves...

Wanted: condom testers

No, I wish I was making it up, but truth, yet again, is way stranger than fiction. Durex want condom testers.

"It isn't some crazy kind of '60s love-in," said a spokesperson.

(Regardless of their denials, feel free to apply here.)

Thanks a bundle, Captain Astiz.

I never was a fan of Thatcherism. I can't draw any pride from coming from the same town as Baroness Thatch. The only thing her roots are useful is a form of idiot test: "comes from Grantham, must be a conservative" is a surefire fast-track to losing my respect.

I've been thinking a lot this week about the Falklands War 25 years ago, and how everything seemed to change from that moment on. It was the beginning, really, of my politicisation - up until that point I was fairly apolitical: a few woolly liberal views instilled by my mother that contributed towards a kind of middle-of-the-road sensibility. Sure, never right wing, but kind of nice. I remember being appalled by the human cost of mass unemployment in the UK - we'd finally crossed the barrier of 3 million unemployed - and I was pretty sure that it would mean the end of Margaret Thatcher as PM. Certainly the heat was on her on this issue - surely it was only a matter of time before she would have to go to the country to seek re-election. Then the game would be up.

Then everything changed, thanks to Naval Captain Alfredo Astiz (see picture, right) - known in some quarters as the "Blond Angel of Death." He invaded the island of South Georgia on 19th March 1982, and triggered the whole bloody mess.

As an aside, I remember a turning point in my world-view happening around this time. The BBC had sent a three-man crew down with the Falklands Task Force. Most people remember it for the stellar reporting of Brian "I counted them all out..." Hanrahan, but there was a slightly more personal side for me. The sound recordist for the team was a Lincolnshire man: John Jockel, who recently died at the age of 68. His son attended the same school as me.

John had taken the opportunity to snap some film down in the Falklands, and one of his photographs sticks with me to this day. I wish I could find a copy, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere on the web - as far as I know, its only publication was in the Grantham Journal. It was of a crate of 35mm anti-aircraft ammunition abandoned at Goose Green by the surrendering Argentine forces; clearly marked as manufactured in Grantham. We'd been making ammunition, so it could be fired at our own airmen.

The rest is history - Thatcher rode the Falklands to victory in the 1983 elections and... well, Simon Jenkins tells the story better than me.

The cost of becoming American

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
And your cash. Especially your cash."

Immigration is a subject close to my heart for all sorts of reasons - not least because I've been an immigrant. It's a costly business, and in the USA that applies more than most. I remember being fleeced for two Employment Authorization Documents (12-month temporary work permits sold as an interim measure prior to a Green Card at around $150 a shot) simply because the Portland INS office (as was) took 450 days minimum to process a Green Card application. That hurt.

The ultimate aim of many immigrants to the US is naturalization. Why? Well, I can't speak for everybody, but for me it was partly because I think - and several years of Bush-based disillusionment have not dimmed this - that the American social experiment is a bold adventure, and I wanted to be part of it. I don't have any great romance about my notion of America. Look, bub: small-town Oregon will cure anybody of that, and I don't mean that unkindly. Quite the opposite, in fact. You see life as it really is, not as some notion gleaned from a flickering screen. And I loved it.

I loved the grass-roots bottom-up nature of the political structure - the first country in the world where power flows up, you know: like the rain in Dr. Who the other night. I loved the fact that even my pest control guy had a political opinion and thought nothing of debating it whilst ridding me of ants. It was intoxicating to see the soul of a country being fought for in hearts and minds in a way that is lost on poor, jaded spoon-fed Brits.

The message was loud and clear: "this country is whatever we make it."

And now, the fees for naturalisation are to be substantially increased. I realise that it is enshrined in law that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have to be self-funding, but have their costs really gone up by the best part of 50%? The signal is clear - the ladder is getting harder to climb, the doors are shutting - and the last thing the US needs right now is thousands of (perfectly legal) permanent residents who remain uncommitted Americans because the wrong signals were sent out from Washington.

Bit by bit, Club America becomes harder to join. And that's a genuine shame.

Paying too much to be American - Los Angeles Times

Glory Hallelujah! The end of DRM is nigh.

I'm not entirely sure I can believe today's announcement made by Steve Jobs and Eric Nicoli, the CEO of EMI, stating that EMI's catalogue (with one notable exception, of course) will go on sale DRM-free.

Only a few days ago, I was all but asking people wanting to buy my stuff to go elsewhere than shop at iTunes, such was the degree to which DRM pisses me off. Now, I wouldn't exactly say I have the clout as an artist to make any difference (yeah, right), but I know I'm not alone in this regard. As much as it's nice to make money and recoup some of the considerable expense that comes with realising the music I record, it's way, way more important that people hear it. I mean - I hope nobody thinks that record deals are designed with the artist in mind.

I've been purchasing DRM-free music for donkey's years now. It's called vinyl and CDs. The ability to encode music, which should have been liberating, was taken as an opportunity to gouge loyal customers and put people off experimenting with music.

Just as the mix tape woke me up to so much music over so many years, so the ability to share music builds taste and broadens minds. It acts as a catalyst to sales, not as an alternative.

To that end, I offer a little taster from my forthcoming album ...Amongst Tax Collectors and Thieves. This song is dedicated to all those people who make cash without regard to artists or consumers.

Ladles and jellyspoons, I give you...

Joe Dice

Ye Gods

I... Er...

The Raincoats. Leeds. That is all.

The Raincoats! Argh! *swoons*

Call that humiliation?

Trust a Python to get it right. Terry Jones writes in The Guardian about the Iranian diplomatic hoo-hah and calls on the West to get the plank out of its own eye.

"For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? "

Genius.

Who is this man?

He's Brian Johnson - a student at Duke University. He's been responsible for hacking into sp3ccylad.com, producing, amongst other things, that really time-consuming thing that wound Abroad At Home back to August all the time, which, frankly, nearly had me quitting blogging out of sheer frustration.

I'll be in touch with Duke in the morning. With a whole raft of evidence.

But what evidence?

You see, the key lies in scads of URLs embedded into the rogue August page (and the index page as well, amongst others), of the rough format http://linux.duke.edu/~mbjohn/centos-3/i386/tingtones.php?id=454

Here's the URL again, taken from a screenshot. The internet's so helpful like that:



Click here for the code in full.

BTW, the tingtones.php stuff magically disappeared at 11:34 am EDT, once I told Mr Johnson that he'd been rumbled. On a mailing list he runs. Oh, I'm rude.

Of course, I'm sure Duke don't back anything up.

So, Brian. You've got until 9 am your time to get your story straight. That's when I use my nice cheap international calling plan to wait on hold until someone answers who can do something about this.

Now keep the fuck away from me, geek.

A new career beckons

I had a phone call left on my voice mail today. Apparently a local pub requires a Leo Sayer impersonator. A very odd call to come home to, especially with the remnants of last night still rattling around my system in a particularly vicious manner. I so hope it's a wrong number, because I'm not tempted. Not even for a second. No.

This is the guy you want. I think.

Looking Back, part 3

25th May 2006. I escape from work, and look forward to a few days off. I don't like to work on my birthday: in fact I never do, but I thought it politic to take some annual leave, rather than doing what I usually do.

I remember thinking that it was an extraordinarily beautiful day: Greenhead Park was full of people playing. Not just children, but people of all ages were out, just goofing off. This was a Thursday, for crying out loud. Something was up, and I liked it.

Then something odd happened. As I stood there, things seemed to morph into my old University campus: days spent blissed out watching the world... change.

They warned me about this kind of thing, but it always happens to other people, doesn't it? I don't scare easily though. So I rushed home and recorded the guitar riff that was now sounding like bells in my head. Soon after I hit this tornado of concentration and had to be hauled out of the studio to eat. By midnight, I'd gone from flashback and one riff to a full song.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: I Fall Through Clouds.

Looking Back, part 2

I can only recall crying with happiness once in my life. That was just after midnight on the night of 22nd July 2006.

The reason?

I was privileged enough to hear an advance mix of a song that crept me out and yet smothered me with a contradictory beauty and delicacy completely at odds with the lyrical content of the song.

Yeah. I blubbed like a baby.
Download You Belong To Me here.

New frontiers in science

What do you get if you administer the largest dose of LSD in history to an elephant?

No, it isn't a joke: and the answer isn't all that surprising, but I won't waste your click by telling you what happened.

Let The Guardian tell you instead.

Picture credit: the quite fantastic oCo

Looking Back, part 1

Funny year, this one. So I'm trying to take stock, TO MAKE SURE IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN. I don't think it will, but hey, you can't be sure. As part of this taking stock I've been looking back on "moments" of the year and... well. Suffer, bitches.

Right. Sunday 12th February was freezing, as I remember. Really bitter. So I was quite relieved when, after a false start, I arrived at the Cockpit in Leeds to watch David Ford play to a packed house. The packed house was the bit that shocked me. I remember mentioning that to Dave and Frances afterwards - I mean, specifically, as in "where the hell did all those people come from?" Made me glad and a little sad at the same time. He deserved it, but I felt a little... I dunno.

Anyway, here's an all-too-brief excerpt from that night. And yes, he is playing a manual typewriter.

Goodbye.

Merry Christmas.

iPod Surgery

Yes, my iPod died again the other day. This time I realised it was far enough out of guarantee to make a trip to Sheffield a bit of a gamble, and anyway: Meadowhall should be called Meadowhell this time of year.

And yes, I've tried the "smack it hard" trick. It gave me about 2 months more usage, but dead is dead.

So, I reasoned it's time to stop being such a victim and take matters into my own hands. Knowing full well that 40GB clickwheel iPods were made with duff hard drives (and Apple really should have recalled), I did a bit of research on the internet and managed to order a replacement off eBay. Only I took the plunge and decided to put a different hard drive in.

Here's some notes.

1 The original hard drive was the Toshiba MK4004GAH. This has been discontinued. Damn right. The corresponding replacement is the MK4006GAH. Ambitious types may wish to go up to 60GB. If you like the sound of this, the drive you require is the MK6006GAH.

2 Getting in: DO NOT USE A SCREWDRIVER. You will scratch your iPod to buggery. Buy a specialist tool. You can get them from music shops for about 30p. It's called a 1mm guitar pick. Don't use the flippy nylon ones. They're about as much use as a one-legged man at an arse-kicking party. Rigidity is a good thing here, and you want a balance between rigidity and width. Ooer.

This is where guitarists have a colossal advantage. People who live in Eugene, OR have even more of an advantage, as they can go to McKenzie River Music on West 11th. They keep a goldfish bowl of picks on the counter. They are nice people. I bought my Ovation from them. Perhaps you could buy a Fender Musicmaster from them. It's pricey, but you'll get a handful of free picks, and an excuse to learn the guitar. It's all good.

3 Once you're in, the rest is easy. Take the rubber bumpers off the old drive and fit them to the new one. Use your guitar pick to scrape the foam from the old drive and glue it to the new one. It's a Zero Insertion Force socket, so just put the cable in the right place, seat the drive inside and snap the case back on.

4 It'll probably not work quite yet. If you're using a PC, I can't help you and I don't want to. You're in the majority. Plenty of help out there. On the other hand, if you're using a Mac, you'll get a dialog box telling you that the disk cannot be read. Click "initialize" and Disk Utility will be opened for you.

(Digression: Why do they call them dialog boxes? There's no dialogue going on, just a statement of how it is, with a limited number of options: one of them being effectively, "well, fuck you, then". It's more like a dysfunctional marriage box, if you ask me.)

The iPod will appear in Disk Utility. Click erase, and it will be initialised. The moment this finishes, iTunes leaps into action, just as it did when you first connected the iPod.

Et voilà! It works. One clicking iPod becomes a Frankenstein's monster with 60GB capacity.

My creation lives!!!

Northern Monkey Phones 999 For Santa

A 999 call from a person who asked to speak to Santa was among the most outrageous reasons for ringing Yorkshire's ambulance service.

Right. That's it. I'm considering moving.

When Dry Ice Attacks

There are two types of adult. Those who think they've grown up, and those who know they won't. The former, in my experience, tend to be nasty types, playing a role, prone to think of themselves as "normal" and unable to see the effects of their own, often toxic, behaviour. The latter type tend to be a more self-aware bunch, sometimes prone to feeling lost in the sea of so-called "adults", but much more delightful for it.

In this experiment, we take two people who plainly have come to terms with the fact that they probably never will grow up, and give them a sink of hot water and a box of dry ice. Hilarity and much scientific inaccuracy ensues.



Kids. Try this at home.

Goodbye, Joe Barbera

Animator Joseph Barbera has died, age 95.

There goes my childhood.

A lucky escape...

I was off out on Friday - a daft little outing involving heavy balls and ten pins with Indian nosh for afters. Harmless fun. I nearly had a shave before. Been growing a beard, y'see. So, rather than succumb to the whim, I took a shower while I decided.

Anyway, once I'd scrubbed up I realised I didn't look bad and went out. Saw a few people who hadn't really clapped eyes on me since the release of Fnurgled.

"Jeeze" came the response. "You look like a '70s rock god." Slight hyperbole (ok, major), but appreciation nonetheless.

Then the paper arrived this morning (I still buy newsprint! How quaint!) and the cover story in G2 told how beards have become the New Black for Men.

You can imagine my confidence is getting dangerously close to hubris right now.

Oh, c'mon. I deserve a moment, don't I?

The picture? Oh, just an East Midlander who looked good in a beard...

Whales: A Lesson From History

According to the BBC, a dead sperm whale has been washed up on the beach at Roseisle in Scotland, aka pretty much the middle of nowhere. I notice from the report that "Council officials have ruled out using explosives to destroy the body."

This is a Good Thing.

A similar thing happened at one of my favourite beaches back in 1970. November 1970 to be exact, when a rather large whale carcass washed up on the beach just south of the Siuslaw River at Florence, Oregon - near where I used to fly my Flexifoil. On this occasion, because there were no rendering plants that wanted a whale carcass, they decided to blow it up. That's quite the decision making process, I'm sure you'll agree.

(Apologies to anybody to whom this is old news: I've known about this for about 10 years, but there are plenty that haven't. Be nice. Bear in mind that I work in a place where, out of 91 people, I am the only person who can actually name a Velvet Underground song. There were two people, but the other one got promoted to Head of Service. There's hope in that - or a terrible portent for the future. You decide.)

Here's the KATU channel 2 (Portland, OR) coverage of the event. It's pretty classic, particularly reporter Paul Linnman's alliteration fest. All TV reporters dream of a moment like that, I'm sure. Few achieve alliteration Zen quite like Linnman, though.



For more information on the great Oregon Exploding Whale fiasco of 12 November 1970, in fact for all your Exploding Whale needs, visit TheExplodingWhale.com where, amongst its resources, it has eight columns by Bob Welch. Mr Welch, although a bit schmaltzy at times, is a fantastic columnist who really gets to the heart of the community he serves. I probably learned more about Eugene's heritage from Mr Welch than from all of my friends put together.

(Do you like the way I went all The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage then?)

Wikihow reaches new heights

Quick! Pass me my laptop!

Is this the future? I hope so.

Welcome to the world of Nerdcore - hip-hop for geeks.

I'm liking this, I really am.

Pigeons Produce Comment Frenzy

It seems that the pigeon problem in Kingston-Upon-Thames has got so bad that they are employing a marksman to pick the buggers off

So what?

It's the comments at the bottom that go from good, to better through to damn-near excellent.

Read all about it...

Go on. Be envious.

Our Friends Electric

"Welcome to Milk Float Corner, to the best of my knowledge the only site on the web dedicated to "our friends electric" - the humble milk float. Designed for reliability, durability, and quietness of operation, milk floats are also pollution-free as they glide around during the early hours, and for most people who keep normal hours, the only evidence that they exist at all is the appearance of a pint of milk on the doorstep each morning. But although they may be inconspicuous, they are appealing little vehicles and this page aims to give them a bit more recognition."

Crazy.

Sharon: Please Get In Touch

Well, when I say "get in touch", I don't know how. The silly bugger hasn't left an email.

Still, it makes for diverting, if slightly disturbing reading...

And, for extra value, I give you a picture of a cat being spooky.

EDIT: A WHOIS search on the domain gave the following information:
Domain name:
meltham-missing-person.co.uk

Registrant:
Paul X

Registrant type:
UK Individual

Registrant's address:
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
address omitted from the WHOIS service.

Very odd.

The Fartown Massive

Found this piece of paper fluttering around the drive this morning. Seems we have gangstas in the 'hood.

I thought at first that it might just be a transcript from one of those new-fangled hop-hip records that the yoof listen to where people talk over a beat; but I googled the lyrics and found nothing.

So I can only assume the work is original.

One day they will aspire to the heights of this bunch.


I love Little Fuckin' Kev. Looks like he's going to start crying when he starts rapping. Tell 'em Joe!

EDIT: The Kersal Massive now have their own Wikipedia entry. I, along with my other felllow nobodies (© David Pogue 2006) can only dream of such fame.