The best of all

Questions over statin prescribing

2011-01-19T10:19:00.002Z

This drug is always in and out of the news, questions have been raised over their effectiveness in healthy people. I blogged about this 5 years ago when they became available over the counter. In fact I'd argue that for people without famialial hypercholesteroleamia they will result in an increase in cholesterol upon ceasing to use the drug.
So if you want to really know and understand the benefits of statins I'd suggest reading my earlier post

BBC Book List

2010-11-24T12:03:00.003Z

Hmmm much fun, though I should be doing more productive things

"The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt."

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

read 25 and partially read or read abridged versions of another 8

Learn to speak chinese online

2010-09-13T19:35:00.001Z

Just come across a great new podcast to help me learn how to pronounce words in mandarin chinese. Check it out for an introduction to pinyin. I'm looking forward to being able to learn mandarin chinese online following this course.

weilaienterprises.blogspot.com
i think the teacher is cute :) and danni agrees

btw the rest of my greenbelt review will follow soon....

Greenbelt 2010 review

2010-09-01T17:02:00.005Z

I love greenbelt, there is always so much to inspire and this year was no exception. The drive down was great and was punctuated with the now traditional stop at strensham services for a bite to eat before joining the queues at GB. The wristband was adorned and we moved from one holding queue to another, which included a perplexing and frustrating journey as car after car in front of me seemed to be stopping for an in depth conversation with the steward. Surely it was obvious you just went in the direction they were pointing without the need for winding down the window and checking that they had understood the direction of pointing was towards the next illuminous jacket adorned steward. But that seemed to be exactly what was being discussed, with that or it was some confused punters looking for the Reading festival. Eventually we were onto the campsite and began pitching the tent to be followed by festival guide procrastination and a stir fry. The stir fry has become the staple first meal of greenbelt and is usually delicious as the ingredients are still fresh. And then it's time for the festival to begin. I started with a talk by Richard Rohr on the art of looking sideways at the bible. It was fairly informative re-asserting the need to re-read the bible with different coloured glasses (symbolic, cultural, eschatological and historical to name a few) and to recognise that our reading is steeped in our own culture and experience. A reminder that arguing over the meaning of greek words to fully understand what Christ was saying is, in a way, futile, as Christ didn't even speak greek. What was fascinating was the idea around contemplative thinking as opposed to dualistic thinking. Dualistic thinking being the kind of way of assessing if something does not fit x then it is y. Language has developed in a dualistic way - tall and short for example. But then when you think about it, tall and short are relative and it's not that straight forward. Apparently dualistic thinking cannot be applied to love, death, god, suffering or the infinite. Which kinda of makes sense, but what contemplative thinking actually is I am none the wiser, but i think i need to go and try it out. I didn't get to any of Richard's other talks as i guessed they would be much of a muchness. Followed this talk with a decision to investigate zic zazou at the centaur, purely based on the fact that the picture in the GB guide looked interesting. Whilst queuing it began to drizzle and the setting sun cast a wonderful rainbow over the festival towards the camping area. People clambered for their cameras and pretty much everyone at GB will have taken a picture of this beautiful image. The only disappointment was a lack of pot of gold in my tent when i returned. Zic Zazou were a kind of stomp style theatre making music from borrowed items and 'apparent junk'. Quite good fun, and every time i was just beginning to tire then they would re-awaken my interest with sounds from the most unlikely of places.
My first night's sleep was punctuated with snaps of wakefulness as my body revealed it was actually freezing and i began to re-assess my choice of a one season sleeping bag with added blanket. Despite the depths of cold the sleeping bag claimed to remain comfortable i conclude that the one season for which it is fit is summer, inside a house. Not inside a tent. Despite my erratic sleep i was up bright and early to see the start of a beautiful day. Had a good wander around the festival village before setting out my camping blanket at the grandstand to listen to Mark Yaconelli, he had a great story telling ability and i was engrossed in his story about meeting his wife and then the warm sun took hold and i drifted in and out of sleep. But that didn't matter, i was enjoying the atmosphere. Then at 1pm there were literally one million things i wanted to do, beer and hymns, martyn atkins, keith skene. In the end i opted for engage worship to see if i could pick up any ideas for cvm. It was ok, but nothing new was greatly learned, apart from the fact that there seemed to be a great interest in 'doing church' differently. Particularly with regard to making the experience more open to participation and dialogue. Something we have been doing successfuly at cvm for some time. A quick dash to the underground for 10 minutes of 100 philistine foreskins who are truly awesome. Probably one of my musical highlights of the festival. A raucous racket which had people charging for the exits and pleading to be let out whilst sweaty teenage boys crashed into each other with shoes flying overhead. I would've loved to have stayed longer but another clash was coming up, but i was there long enough to hear the lead singer say how amazed he was that anyone had turned up at all to listen to them. The bass player added it was like people buying broken things on ebay. We left after a passionate anti-bnp poem. the raw energy of this band and the amusing between track banter would have me put these on the mainstage. It would be a riot!
Late afternoon we went to see Lou Rhodes, i was a big fan of lamb and was relishing the opportunity to hear her solo stuff. The venue was running late and she was on later than billed, however it was worth the wait. Pleasant folk musings, though i really missed the erratic beats and trip hop feel of lamb.
The music line up this year hadn't really grabbed me, and although the festival is so much more than the music, over the years i have always enjoyed going to see something on the mainstage. This year the biggest name seemed to be shed seven who were appearing on saturday night. I have fond memories of dancing to their tunes at indie discos in the past and so was quite looking forward to it. However they never really seemed to ignite the crowd, perhaps as the majority of the eager teenagers at the front had never heard of them. Without a particularly strong stage presence there wasn't really anything to get excited about, and as the tunes played i began to realise why i had only ever danced to them at discos and never gone out my way to purchase any of their material. more later i guess, more images are on flickr

Chinese cultural awareness and mandarin

2010-08-12T11:56:00.002Z

We have also just started a blog to update news regarding wei lai enterprises. This blog can be found at http://weilaienterprises.blogspot.com. So any requirements for chinese cultural awareness courses or mandarin interpretation, translation or tutor services in the yorkshire area, especially sheffield, this is the place to look.

wei lai enterprises

2010-07-28T17:27:00.003Z

I've recently been helping danni set up a company as a vehicle to utilise her talents. We have just finished our the web site for the company which is http://www.weilaienterprises.co.uk. I think it looks pretty smart. Working for yourself must have some advantages, like using your own skills for your own benefit rather than for someone else. Let's see what the future holds, for wei lai is mandarin for future :)

Election stats

2010-05-12T19:15:00.004Z

Well that was an eventful election. Stayed up to about 1230 watching the initial results come in, which was as pointless as ever. Sunderland results are never going to tell you anything leaving paxman and dimbleby to discuss pretty much nothing for hours attempting to make it sound valid. Jeremy Vine engulfed in his virtual house of commons trying desperately to extrapolate results from one constituency into a government. I got up again around 3am expecting results from sheffield but it seemed they weren't forthcoming, instead i endured the excitement of party leaders getting into a car, driving in a car and getting out of a car again. Gave up about 4:30 and got up again at 6:30 just in time to see nick clegg win his seat.
The best result of the night definately goes to Caroline Lucas winning a seat for the green party in brighton pavilion. I've heard her speak on numerous occasions and she is adept and focussed on raising the green agenda and will be an excellent addition to parliament. Disappointing to see UKIP and BNP in 4th and 5th position in terms of proportion of votes throughout the uk, though thankfully they didn't win a seat, it does show that there is a strong lean towards exclusive right wing policies from the electorate and this is something that still needs to be addressed.

But what happened to Rod Rodgers in sheffield central? well unsurprisingly he didn't really make any impact, claiming only 40 votes. I think if i was a counter i would have been quite excited to have come across a ballot paper with a vote for him, it would feel like a golden ticket. Paul Scriven narrowly missed out to Paul Bloomfield, probably due to tactical voting from the anti-tory majority in sheffield. In the end a vote for LD would have been better to increase the left of centre proportion of a coalition government.

Anyway, poor rod got me thinking, did he poll the lowest number of votes out of all the candidates nationally? Well thankfully the guardian have provided the entire results for all constituencies in downloadable format here. There were 16 people who returned fewer votes and outlined below is a series of interesting numerical data from the election

Who polled the least votes at the 2010 election

This accolade goes to Godfrey Spickernell who stood for the Blue Environment Party in the Chelsea and Fulham constituency who polled just 17 votes. I feel a bit sorry for Godfrey, for unlike rod rodgers he has a website and appears to be able to spell and have policies that aren't completely off the wall

who polled the most votes at the 2010 election

This goes to Stephen Timms standing for labour in east ham, polling over 70% of the constituency vote, 35,471 people voted for him. He is followed in second place by our new leader mr cameron who collected 33,973 votes, but only 59% of the vote. The top 50 candidates in terms of votes received are broken down as 32 seats for conservative, 5 seats for labour and 3 seats for the Lib Dems. Due to differences in constituency sizes and turnout this is not an entirely accurate measure of success so....

who polled the most votes in terms of percentage of voters at the 2010 election

When we analyse the results like this we get Labour candidate Steve Rotherham standing for liverpool walton as the most popular candidate with 71.96% of the vote, followed by Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein standing for Belfast West with 71.08%. Reviewing the top 50 most popular candidates in terms of votes we have 24 seats for labour, 22 seats for conservative, 2 seats for lib dem, one for Sinn fein and one for independent (Sylvia Hermon, Down north - previously UUP but recently standing as an independent due to UUP alliance with the conservatives)

which candidate got the most votes but didn't win a seat

Somerton and Frome: Annunziata Rees-Mogg received 26,976 votes and 44.51% of the vote for the conservatives but still lost the seat to David Heath of the lib dems who polled 28,793 votes 47.50%
Rodney Conner standing for independent in Fermanagh and South Tyrone polled 45.51% of the vote (21,300) but still missed out on a seat to Michelle Gildernew of Sinn Fein who polled 45.51% (21,304) a difference of just 4 votes which must've been the closest fought seat.

which candidate polled the fewest votes to win their seat

Angus MacNeil representing Scottish National Party polled just 6,723 votes to win the Na h-Eileanan an Iar seat, however this was 45.68% of the vote

which candidate polled the smallest percentage of the vote to win their seat

Simon Wright of the lib dems won Norwich South with 13,960 votes which represented 29.36% of the vote

interesting numbers

100 votes

Haji Choudhury, independent - Bethnal Green and Bow
Margaret McMahon-Morris, Lawfulness Trustworthiness and Transparency - Great Yarmouth
Paul Swansborough, independent - Redditch
all polled exactly 100 votes

1000 votes

Jo Willcott, green - Norfolk South
Bill Manwaring, UCUNF - Belfast West
all polled exactly 1000 votes

Prime numbers

There were 533 candidates who polled a prime number of votes, the largest prime number being Conservative candidate David Gauke of Hertfordshire South West who polled 30,773 votes

other numbers that are interesting

David McBride for Lib Dem Orpington polled 12,000 votes
Thomas Simpson for DUP Upper Bann polled 14,000 votes
Andrew Robathan for conservatives Leicestershire South polled 27,000 votes

candidate with the longest name

Zahra-Melan Ebrahimi-Fardouee of the Green party standing in Kensington has 28 characters in her name, she polled 753 votes

candidate with the shortest name

was ANON standing for the 'no description' party in Bath polled 69 votes

the constituency with the longest name

is Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East with 38 characters

the constituency with the shortest name

there are two with 4 characters:
Bath
Hove

lets try truth truth

2010-05-06T16:52:00.004Z

I've found the build up to this general election really quite interesting. Last time there was a general election i was out of work doing various temporary bit jobs and so i applied to be a poll station clerk, a job i enjoyed fulfilling an integral role in the democratic process. The tv debates have been great at raising the profile of parties but you wonder how much people are fully grasping about policies. A number of websites are providing quizzes that you can complete to see which party best fits your responses and filling them in i find, unsurprisingly, that i don't agree with any right leaning parties. In fact i think in elections it is easier to say who i don't agree with then who i do. There are plenty of policies from lib dems, green and labour that i think are great and others that are not so. Leaving a conundrum about which way to cast my vote. Boundary changes to the Sheffield (Central) constituency has given me the opportunity to vote in a seat that could quite well be marginal. A demographic that now includes more students and (as jarvis cocker describes them) pre-raphaelites down in broomhall, leading to a potentially huge swing from labour to lib dems. And with lib dems holding the local council they are in a good position. I've never seen so many pamphlets coming through my door, each day there seems to be forests to wade through, 'personalised' letters from vince cable, nick clegg, paul scriven (the candidate) and responses from the labour candidate. Though it was interesting to note that the last labour pamphlet had changed tact quite severely moving from highlighting differences between labour and lib dem to the apocalyptic vote for lib dems will give you a tory government, exclaiming that there can only be a labour or tory government. The rise of lib dems election on election means that things are becoming more and more 3 party politics.
Anyway, not only the 3 main parties want my vote but also the greens, bnp, ukip and an independent. An independent candidate sounds interesting and i wonder under what grounds is he standing and why would he want my vote. So i turn to the great world wide web and search out Rod Rodgers and come back with little return. It seems he doesn't even have his own website, political websites can only provide his name and address and so it seemed my search had been in vain. Then i spotted a link to this photo, evidently a poster on his car door, and it appears he is standing, not for change and not for truth, but for truth truth. You know, not normal truth, proper truth truth. Quality, such an error strung poster just oozes class, all we here is change? and what on earth does 'change is not always progress truth' actually mean? It sounds like some chinese proverb that has been spat out of the babel fish application.
As philosophers around the world debate what is truth, rod rodgers has acknowledged this and created a whole new genre by creating truth truth - some may mock and laugh, but perhaps we have just uncovered a philosophical genius.

enjoy voting

thanks to
http://twitpic.com/1fjkjx

Hallelujah!

2009-12-07T22:23:00.005Z

Went to see a performance of Handel's Messiah at Sheffield Cathedral this evening. This was the first time that i have seen this piece performed. Me and Danni walked into town straight from work and, befitting an occasion of high culture, we had a McDonald's. I noticed that some workmen were, at the same time, removing all the fixed signage from the Bradford and Bingley building opposite. Sadly this bank fell during the crash and were bought out by Santander. After finishing our meal we walked past the building and i asked if i could take the little bowler hat, a symbol synonymous with the Bradford and Bingley brand. So now i'm the proud owner of this little hat :)
The music in the concert was beautiful, the acoustics of the cathedral are lovely. Must admit there were the odd bits where you just wished the singers could finish a word without so much repeating and warbling. During the interval we went to get a drink and had to join the world's longest queue. As I was closing in on the drink point i could see an old dear looking my way and she seemed to recognise me. I wasn't too sure that i knew her but gave a nod and a smile back, just in case. This obviously caused a stir amongst her friends and one of them turned and said to me, "you are one of the soloists aren't you!" which made me laugh in side as i have perhaps the worst tone deaf voice you can imagine. I had to confess that unfortunately i was not and made a mental note not to wear a white shirt and black trousers to such a gig.

blogging, so 2006

2009-11-11T20:13:00.003Z

not blogged for ages, why is that? Am i too busy or can't i be bothered, or maybe it's so 2006. Blogging's for nerds who aren't busy enough. But i like blogging and maybe i miss it a bit. Or perhaps it's cos i'm reading jPod and i'm feeling all nostalgic for 2007. Loads of interesting stuff must've happened and will i miss those memories and thoughts not captured here? Were hours spent on facebook worth it. Seemed fun at the time, but it seems these days i can't be bothered to keep up to date with a myriad of people. Any way stuff has happened, good and bad and days, weeks and years have been ticked off. So anything to show? weddings, friends, kisses, life, death, job, worries. Anything new? dreams. is there time to dream. yes. no. but dreams stay dreams, time moves. can you strive for something tangible, or are all tangibles fleeting? Yes i'm getting all douglas coupland, and that's why i love his books. do i Like them because i elements of myself in his characters or is he astute at capturing the zeitgeist. Do i wish i was the Zeitgeist. Or am i just a nerd that gets excited when someone writes about a character that is excited about pi and prime numbers. I love coupland's quick and crisp narrative that floats between story and random interventions. Pages of chinese characters, computer code, lists and ingredients. There's something that excites me and compels me to read. mediocre. life. nonsense. there is so much to see and do yet time just seems to slip through and if i sift through all the mundaneness is there anything of value left. and who measures that value? what about the kingdom of god? Is that mundane too? maybe i should blog just to remind myself how mundane life is, and maybe i will see things that count. what counts? and who says it counts# who says i need a question mark^

just downloaded a new version of iTunes, probably sold my soul by agreeing to the new terms and conditions, waited ages for the installation, rebooted and not a lot has changed. i can still play my tunes.

Michael

2009-06-26T06:08:00.002Z

Turned on the radio last night just before heading to sleep, listening to 6Music when between songs they head over to the news room. An unusual thing to happen on a predominantly music station, and there I hear the news that Michael Jackson has been rushed to hospital and there are reports that he wasn't breathing. Immediately it sounds very grave and I feel a sense of shock, this is not a man whose time it is to die. Then there are the rumours that he has died and I just can't get to sleep, so wander downstairs and watch some 24 hour news, where this is the top story. At that time there are various reports that he has died or in a coma, until eventually the sad news is reported that he has died. Unbelievable. How can someone I have never met, nor indeed, desired to meet's death cause me an emotional shockwave? There are few celebrity deaths that have stirred me, and I can still remember the events now. Waking up in November 1991 to hear that Freddy Mercury had died, even though his illness was well known, probably the first person to die that I would recognise as a pop star. Then getting into grunge music during my teen years, being particularly influenced by the music of Nirvana, there was the shock of Kurt Cobain's suicide in April 1994. This news I remember hearing during a power cut at home, listening to the radio on my walkman. The news of Princess Diana's death in 1997 shocked the world, and finally the death of John Peel in 2004. Michael joins this list, and it's interesting that the majority of this list are in someway connected to the music industry. I love music, and growing up in the 80s, Michael Jackson was just part of the scene. Everyone new who Michael Jackson was, even when i wasn't really into music, I was aware of Thriller, that video, and his pepsi advert where he caught fire. Autumn 1987 I can vividly remember a newsround dedicated to the release of Bad, people rushing into the stores and buying handfuls of LPs. Everyone at school could sing "I'm bad, I'm bad, you know I'm really bad." A few years later I remember sitting glued to the bbc who were going to exclusively show Michael's video to "Black and White". The suspense surrounding it was justified, it was a ridiculous bombastic and expensive video featuring Slash on guitars. To be honest I recall being fairly ambivalous to the music, but was completely blown away with the special effects used to morph people's faces from one to another. The first time I'd seen such technology, something which will cause no stir these days, but back then it was the talk of my peer group. How could a computer morph people's features - amazing! Though the succeeding periods saw the demise in the quality of his music, he continued to be headline news and sell records by the bucketload. Hi unusual and eccentric behaviour, his fascination with children began to lead to him being vilified by the press - culminating in the Martin Bashir documentary which painted Michael as the weirdo we all thought he was. Though I'm sure this documentary was deliberately made to portray him so, and I expect if they wished they could've compiled footage to portray a completely different person. However, even during all these allegations, Michael continued to showboat, turning up to court in pyjamas. So I guess throughout my life, Michael has continually been in the headlines - for exceptional music and for his eccentricities. And his music, particularly from the 70s and 80s always makes you want to get up and dance. I was hoping that his forthcoming live performances would be great and remind people that it was the music and performances that were what made him Michael Jackson, not his eccentricities. His death will sadden many, and I'm sure there will be swathes of over-emotional fans, cos he had such a crazy fan base, and I remain saddened. The death of an ever present showman who has always been there throughout my life has gone. A stark reminder to the fragility and shortness of life, we are just dust in the wind.

painting

2008-01-13T16:53:00.000Z

just before new year i was shopping in wilkos when i chanced upon canvases for sale at £2. Now at that price i thought i might try and do some painting, a few small tubes of acrylic paint were equally cheap. Listening to MIA at the time i had visions of colours and images flashing vibrantly through my head. Painting would be the way to capture them. I made the purchase, got home and found my little polyfiller trowel. Not having an artists pallette, i made one blue peter style from a piece of card wrapped in tin foil, put on bamboo banga by MIA really loud and set to work, whirring the trowel over the canvas. I really enjoyed the creative burst and was quite pleased with how the painting turned out. Buoyed on with the success i purchased further canvases and tried a couple more paintings using different music tracks for influence. Click the images to see full size.

and a clip of me painting

Nat Johnson live review

2008-01-13T16:34:00.000Z

Early december i used my last annual leave to have a long weekend in london. I always enjoy spending time in london, there's always plenty to see and do. This time i was keen to check out the new exhibition in the turbine hall. Shibboelth is a huge crack that has been created in the actual fabric of the hall floor. It's an incredible and novel idea, the name of the piece taken from a passage in Judges where the gileadites use the word to distinguish their enemy, fellow israelites, but from the tribe of Ephraim. The inability of the Ephramites to pronounce the word correctly resulted in their execution. A brutal biblical story that leaves 45k dead. A term that since has been come to use a means of differentiating between types of people, here the crack represents the cracks and divisions that arise in society. Cracks that are set up as stumbling blocks to make life harder for those who are different. It's a powerful message, and a popular piece of work. Plenty of other interesting things to see in and around the tate modern. Sunday afternoon I had to run to catch my coach home, just arriving at the platform on time. The journey was delayed and i arrived back in sheffield later than anticipated, but just in time to get to the red house in sheffield to see nat johnson's debut gig. The lead singer of monkey swallows the universe is currently pursuing some solo work during the indefinate hiatus. Despite the songs being very new, it is clear that with a bit of nurture they will grow into songs of beauty. She has a rare talent in making music that contains that je ne sais quois which sets it way above the rest. Teletext deemed my review worthy of publishing, a rarity for a debut gig review to be published i'm sure.

my photos of london dec 07
photos of Nat's gig

MIA live review

2008-01-13T16:18:00.000Z

Just before christmas i got my M.I.A. review published on teletext. It's pleasing to see this on the screen as it was my favourite gig of the year. M.I.A. has a sound that is so fresh and original, the music is almost alive. Click the image to see full size to read the full review.

Music review 2007

2007-12-23T14:32:00.000Z

Time for me to compile a list of my favourite music from the last year, and it has been a very good one on the music front. And I'll probably miss something

Top 10 Albums of 2007

1 Feist - The Reminder
This album is superb, from lilting pop to understated folk. Feist's voice is wonderful and beautifully backed by intricate melodies as she sings of love won and lost. Favourite track: The Park.

2 MIA - Kala
Bought on the back of glowing comments on teletext, this album proved to be huge. Inventive and fresh, these electronic noises rage with life. Challenging intelligent lyrics bolster this heady mix of beats, bringing issues of war and poverty to the dance floor. Fave song: $20

3 Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Once again they have managed to expertly bring together a myriad of instrumentation to make a sound that is vivid and not pompous. Hurdy Gurdy's and Cathedral Organs nestle with electric guitars and horns. Songs question the insignificance of the church and it's apparent failure to engage with modern life. Fave song: Intervention

4 Monkey Swallows the Universe - Casket Letters
I have been privilaged to have become friends with this bunch of musicians over the last year and as such it makes it harder to review their music. Their second album certainly produced the goods, lilting folk pop, songs full of charm and accessibility. Music this good should really be playing on iPods around the country. Fave song: Gravestones

5 Radiohead - In Rainbows
Radiohead return to form with this album. Mixing interesting electronic noises with their brand of guitar rock. Thom varies his vocal performances with falsettos providing frshness to tracks. They continue to show that rock music can evolve. Fave song: Reckoner

6 Stars - In our bedroom after the wall
Third entry by a canadian band in the top ten. Girl/boy vocals play together against sunny guitar pop. Songs of love and broken relationships interplay, as the music careers between 70s funk to piano ballads. Fave song: Personel

7 Strange Death of Liberal England - Forward March!
Passionate vocals are hollered against a backdrop of angry guitars. But it's not all noise as gentle glockenspiel and banjo are cleverly included. Vibrant and punchy. Fave track: A day another day

8 Justice - cross album
An album named by a symbol - how crazy (!) This album starts with the dirtiest rummbling bass that entrances your legs into a dancing frenzy. The beats continue to pound as funk laden melodies are carried along. Album begins to tire after the first half for me. Fave track: D.A.N.C.E.

9 Bjork - Volta
As always Bjork brings an album to the table that continues to bring music from the future. Working with some of the world's most inventive producers she brings alien noises to back her unique voice. The album suffers from patchy mediocre tunes, but the good ones are very very good. Fave track: Earth Intruders

10 Malcolm Middleton - A Brighter Beat
Malcolm sings about the downs and hurts of life with wit and uplifting tunes. Often overlooked for being depressing, his lyrics are actually filled with hope in the gritty reality that often you feel let down by life. Anti folk at its best. Fave track: Brighter Beat

Of course I haven't managed to listen to loads of albums that have been released this year and am sure that some of them may well have made my top ten and the alustrious acolades that that brings ;)

Top singles:

1 Justice - D.A.N.C.E.
2 Going to a town - Rufu Wainwright
3 Fire Escape - Fanfarlo

three singles will do cos I don't really pay attention to singles anymore

Top gigs of the year:

1 MIA - Manchester Academy 2
Only a few days ago, this stormed straight to the top of the gig list. I was so impressed with the live mixing of electronic loops and the ferocity of MIAs vocal delivery. A performance full of passion whipping the crowd into a frenzy of dancing. Astounding

2 Arcade Fire - Latitude
Awesome finish to a really great festival, with Final Fantasy joining them onstage the bombastic orchestral sound was electric.

3 Feist - Manchester
Small venue, big voice. Session musicians squeezed onto the stage gave a wonderful rounded sound to supplement her gossamer vocals. Wonderful

4 Monkey Swallows the Universe - Merlin
Launching their new album, this theatre proved the perfect venue for their wonderful indie folk pop.

5 Hush the Many - leadmill
Supporting The Fields - this support act blew me away with their wondrous soundscapes. Supplemented with cello and understated boy/girl vocals this sound was awe inspiring. Hope to hear more in the future.

more of my live reviews can be read in the teletext flickr set

Music I discovered this year that was out ages ago

Sufjan Stevens - this man is so good. His Illinois Album has been catapulted into my all time top albums ever. Wonderful instrumentation backs intelligent and heartfelt lyrics. You must own some of his music. Thanks to Last.fm and cait for the recommendation.

Bat for Lashes - spotted on glastonbury this eccentric musician is not only beautiful, but creates wonderful folk pop.

Antony and the Johnsons - what a voice! Album picked up on the cheap, knew it was a mercury winner - and how.

Thom Yorke - solo album of chilled electronica fused with his varied vocals. great for focusing concentration when at work.

Bands to look out for this year:
Operator Please, I was a cub scout (for pink squares, a top pop tune), nat johnson, fanfarlo, hush the many

Last Sunday Roast

2007-11-27T20:19:00.000Z

Sunday I went to the parent's house. The place I used to refer to as home. It still is home in some sense, there'll be the odd time I'll say I'm going home, when what I mean is I'm going to see the parents. This was the last time I would go as they are due to move house shortly to downsize. It's been a great home and full of plenty of memories. Christmases, spectrum computers, lego, washing up liquid bottle water fights, snow, hurricanes, pets, friends. But really none of those memories are tied to the bricks of the place, rather the items and people that were in them. I loved living there and the rolling views, the ability to walk off the end of the garden and pick up a footpath and head up to Ashover, but it's not a place I've called home for a long time now. It was nice to gather as a family, eat and reminisce. I helped with a few chores before taking away the last few items that belong to me. It'll be a bit strange not to be going back there again, though my mark has been made. I scrawled on a number of the walls at various ages as the wall paper had been stripped :)

Nostalgic weekend

2007-11-27T19:52:00.000Z

It's been ages since I've blogged, I seem to spend most of my net time on scrabulous these days. Anyway, thought I'd blog about some stuff, so I'll start with a few weeks ago, though I'll set the post date to match the time it occured.

Saturday afternoon I headed to Bolton to see the wonderful monkey swallows the universe and I gave a lift to ag to help with transportation. JT and his girlf came down too, so it was a good opportunity to meet up with them and introduce them to the live sound of mstu. The venue was actually quite nice, a little pub with small band stage and a huge video backdrop, that for the most part of the evening was playing anime. It was pretty strange to watch mstu with some futuristic japanese backdrop. As always I enjoyed the gig, despite a few technical problems with the mikes and mixing desk. Oh yes, the other really exciting part about the set was that I had been asked to put the songs on their set list into a running order. So the song order was in the main part how I'd picked them. A few changes had been made due to instruments required in the songs. The weather had turned for the worse so on the way back i decided to go via the m62, ag played dj on the iPod and we were making good progress despite the driving rain. As we came down the M1 the variable message signs were informing 'pedestrians in road' 50mph. We dismissed this as foolish, suggesting that surely they meant workers in road. A couple of miles later and out of apparently nowhere some guy was thumbing for a lift right in the hard shoulder. It was crazy, what on earth was he doing there!
Sunday afternoon I spent going through the numerous boxes of stuff I'd picked up from my parents a few days previously. I'm rubbish at throwing things away and I was faced with the quandry of what to do with a pile of smash hits from the late 80s, piles of school books, and boxes of old birthday and christmas cards. In the end most got sealed in boxes ready to go into my loft. I did come across a few interesting things. A class project on how to keep warm in winter was full of lots of useful advice, though I seemed to get sidetracked and talked about playing He-Man. I was Battle-Cat. Also a bit strange to read John's entry, even back then he got a mention for his beloved Liverpool FC in the scarf he wore. Reading through my creative writing journal was also tinged with sadness as I read many 'famous five' inspired adventures where me and my friend John would solve some mystery or other. I'm sure if John was still here he would've taken great delight in reading them now. There was another piece that described the things I liked and was amused that the things i liked when i was ten pretty much still stand: Reading, maths, walking.

More tips on how to keep warm in winter can be found here

Music reviews

2007-11-04T16:58:00.000Z

I've been to a couple of gigs this week and had one review published on teletext - hooray. This was from a gig at the leadmill on monday, though I actually preferred the support act - sound grade, but I quite liked it, so to rescue the words from obscurity I shall paste them here:
I was a cub scout - live leadmill 29/10

I don't know what Todd Marriott's fire making or knot tying skills are like, but on tonight's performance he will be gaining his synth twiddling badge with distinction. Bedroom synth pop is given life and vibrancy from driving live percussion, this is no geeky art noise but a colossus of pulsing pop. Todd's distinct vocals work well with the clattering guitar and his passionate performance is infective. Pinks squares epitomises the best of their catchy sound. Akela would be pleased.

8/10

Forward Russia were the headline act, and although they produced a riotous noise, the lack of vocal variety began to bore me a bit.i was a cub scout. The penned review didn't make the planet I'm always a little embarrassed when a slightly critical review is published, I really respect anyone who forms and plays in a band - creativity should be encouraged and i hope my criticism can help encourage them to greater things. They probably will never see it anyway ;)

The second gig was the remarkable arcade fire who i saw at nottingham arena. The third time i've seen them live this year. Being seated i felt that somehow the passion on the stage was sucked out by the cavernous venue and so i didn't really get into the live experience as much as previous times. The music was still unbelievably good, musical prowess at it's height, they have a knack of arranging a myriad of musical sounds to form a cacophony of pulsing rock. I'm pleased that they are reaching super group status, but sorry that the energy of more intimate gigs can not be felt as strongly. There were a couple of new songs played and also a Smiths cover, but disappointingly some idiots thought it would be good to throw bottles at the band. Win Butler was understandably annoyed and promptly left the stage after finishing the song where the incident occurred. The band did reappear but another bottle was thrown enraging Butler further who exclaimed the band would never play Nottingham again if anything else came their way. Thankfully nothing did and the band did return for an encore, but I can't help thinking that the encore was somewhat reduced in length because of the incident. Bah - arena gigs are a let down (apart from the white stripes who were awesome a few years ago)

Milling

2007-10-28T17:25:00.000Z

Had a nice day milling around yesterday. After a busy week of late nights and meetings it was nice to have some time relaxing. Didn't really achieve a great deal on my visit into the city centre. Popped to the library to see if they had Science of Sleep on dvd, which they do, but someone has failed to return it and it is now 2 weeks overdue. Still want to see this film, it looks interesting and i missed it when it was on at the showroom. Did have a look to see if i could buy it, but the cheapest i found was £9 which i wasn't prepared to shell out. Whilst in the library i went up to the graves gallery to take a few photos of the kiss, which is a piece i admire, and it is currently set in a nicely laid out gallery.
Also popped into the cathedral which is somewhere I've never been to in all my years in the city. Nice to wander around and there were a few people in there admiring the space and lighting a candle, saying a prayer. It's good that there is such a space in the city to do that, though it has never struck me to go in before. Whilst inside I decided to see if i could find john wesley who i'd heard was present in one of the stained glass windows. I found him with the help of the verger, nestling in the corner of the piece in the holy spirit chapel room. I don't think i'd've found it without help. It's actually quite large inside and there are loads of windows.
Click the images to see larger sizes.

runaway boy at runaway girl

2007-10-17T19:44:00.000Z

I popped into the library on saturday whilst i was wandering around town, mainly to go and view the exhibition in the graves gallery. They have some nice photography and some abstract pieces in at the moment. One of the galleries looked especially good, a great use of space and colour and perhaps the best setting i've seen of the sculpture 'the kiss'. Whilst i was leaving i picked up an information booklet about the annual festival of reading and writing in sheffield, off the shelf. I'd noticed that tonight there was opportunity to go and read something aloud for up to 3 minutes at the runaway girl. It sounded interesting and I wondered if i could perhaps try reading a bit of the book I'm writing aloud. Bit apprehensive about mooting a work in progress, but there was a scene i'd read on saturday which i was quite happy with, and would also work as a stand alone piece. So off i toddled this evening, late cos getting into town for 7:30 isn't going to happen when you get home at 6:30 and have nothing in the fridge to eat. No matter, i envisaged a bar of bohemian writers and creative types, musing over beer and wine. Perhaps I may even find a creative writing class that could provide some assistance. I could slip in and listen to the readings and if brave, venture forwards and breath life into my sterile words. Take them off the page and see how they form when i articulate them audibly. Maybe receive some feedback. I got there and snuck a look through the window, all the tables were set out and they were filled with groups of people enjoying a meal over a glass of wine. Not looking particularly bohemian, more 'richard and judy book club' middle class women. A split decision, i'm not going to be able to sneek in here and sit and be comfortable. no way. I'll stick out like a fool with no friends.

run away....

Stars live at Leeds Brudenell

2007-10-12T18:25:00.000Z

Last tuesday i went to leeds to see Stars and they were fantastic. I'd gone straight from work in the leeds office, but the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry and so it did that day too. My change of clothes so that i could change into indie kid for the evening gig was left in my house and i was seconded onto a two day future strategy meeting whilst at the office meaning that the next morning i would have to be up at 0530 to go to stratford and miss emma pollock.
Like eddie izzard i wonder what plans that mice make?

Anyway, the brudenell at leeds is fast becoming one of my favourite venues and after the passable support we were treated to a wonderful set by the stars. Canadian bands are ruling the roost at the moment and stars are right up there. Songs from their 3rd, breakthrough, album proved popular with the audience and the new material was sounding promising. As the set finished i rushed to purchase their new release and then wondered if there would be an encore, the guy at the mixing desk certainly looked like he was expecting more, but it had been some time since the band left the stage. Some people began making their way to the exit, but I hung back for a while and eventually the guy vocalist appeared back on stage and explained he'd taken off his shirt cos it was so sweaty and he didn't have anything else to wear and so he was late re-appearing whilst they searched for something for him!

Anyway, i've had time to listen to the new album a few times and it carries on where the last album left off and is very good indeed. I want to see them again now and appreciate the new songs live. As always I dropped a review to teletext, but this week i was disappointed to see that the editor had been to see them in london and published his review so I thought that mine would be lost. But today my review was there - hooray, it's been ages since my last teletext review.

a new location for cvm

2007-10-09T20:26:00.000Z

A new start on Sunday for crookes valley. It's been a long journey to get to this place, and it was quite exciting to start the next stage. Can't remember how long ago it is since we sold the old church building, four years or so, and we spent a good few years looking at potential properties, and in one case going a long way down the road of preparing to purchase it. Then we realised that we just don't have the personel base to run a building and keep it well maintained. So we continued with meeting at the community centre and had chance to meet together and try and work out where, as a methodist society, we were heading. Through various discussions and prayer it seemed that our way forward was to focus on our informal way of conducting worship, and not get tied to a specific geographical location. A difficult conclusion to reach, especially for those whom have been part of a particular geography for many years. So this year we have spent time visiting other churches in the area, looking for a suitable home, somewhere where we could offer an alternative type of service. It was interesting going to other churches and having a break from the routine, and after meeting with various leadership teams to talk about practicalities, we came to a decision to move to Broomhill. So is this the promised land, have we crossed over the Jordan? The metaphors of the fledging Israelite nation are apparent, and there's still a way to go. We've realised that we do have something to offer, but how to articulate what our 'worship style' is about has proved difficult. Saying it is 'cafe church' seems trite and loaded, but we do sit around tables and drink tea and coffee through the service. We're at home singing ancient hymns as we are with new worship songs. Open to discussion and yet able to listen too. It's definately a space i would like to invite friends to if they wanted to explore faith. And so it was our first sunday meeting at the same time as the broomhill service, but in another room. I'd been looking forward to it for some time, the last few services at the community centre have seemed a drag, expectant to be elsewhere, but knowing that the time is not yet come. It was good, a nice service, the venue suited our style, and we even had passing trade. People new to the area looking for a suitable church at which to worship. Something our previous location did not offer. So our journey continues, and unlike the Israelites i don't think it will involve the destruction and piliging of the current occupants, but hopefully some kind of partnership will evolve. We offering church for those who are dissatisfied with current models, and the current society offering church for those who enjoy the format of tradition. I wonder where we'll be in a years time

Countdown

2007-10-02T16:20:00.000Z

I'd just finished eating my tea and having reached a suitable stopping point in the film i was watching I turned off the dvd. The tv flicked back onto channel four and i just caught the announcer informing that the very first episode of Countdown is to be aired on more4. Quickly turning over I was greeted with the old multi-coloured channel 4 logo before launching into Countdown. It began with these awful 80s graphics, reminiscent of school programmes of the same period. A slim richard whitely introduced the scope of the game, introducing the contestents: A solicitor from london who appeared to have stopped buying clothes in the 1950s, sporting a bryll creamed slicked back hair style and gestapo glasses. And some 28 year old guy with a tash, that could easily have passed for being 45. The game got underway and it was clear that the solicitor had a greater vocabularly than anyone else, having to spell out his words. Coupes, 'and what is that?' asks richard. 'I believe it is a kind of dish, or it could be the plural of a kind of car'. Dictionary corner confirmed it is a word, 'is it a dish?' the dictionary had obviously been closed 'er, yes, it is' is the unconvincing reply. Strangely, although carol vorderman is present for the numbers, there is another girl who takes out the letters and places them on the board. Trying to stifle a giggle as the letters sex come out consequetively. The contestants are pretty rubbish at the numbers, but a very young looking carol with very bad hair, makes easy work of it. Easing into the lead the solicitor dude has no problems with the final anagram, which has yet to be christened the countdown conundrum. However the loser reveals that he had worked out the anagram straight away, but had forgotten to press his buzzer, assuming a need to wait for the 30s to complete

Feist

2007-10-02T16:18:00.000Z

After the excellent Feist performance in manchester back in July, I had immediately purchased tickets for her show in Nottingham, which was just over a week ago. AD drove and we found a side street to park in before wandering down to the venue. Nottingham has really changed since i lived here, barely recognising the main streets. The Social was very small, and too small for an act of Feist's calibre. I don't know who her booking agent is, but she could have filled the venue a couple of times over I'm sure. Again she was excellent, a voice to silence crowds, achingly sensuous, yet also passionate enough to carry her more rocky tunes. Her excellent backing band added to the mix, with guitar harmonies and delicatley placed horns. The rendition of 'The Park' was nothing short of sublime, she really is one of the best acts around at the moment.

a year

2007-09-25T21:14:00.000Z

This time last year I was grieving the loss of a good friend. It's been a year when he has often been in my thoughts. At football matches and watching it on tv, knowing that john would have an opinion on the performance. Knowing that he'd've been at the champion's league final. Then there are the small times like seeing post cards in jordan and remembering all the places which i have sent a post card from to him. Or the odd predicament i get in that i know would make him laugh if he were to hear my re-telling or see it on the blog. He'd've chuckled at my failed attempt on the 3 peaks and made some comment about my infirmities, and i think he'd enjoy seeing my reviews on teletext too. I guess these times will never go and it still pains knowing that i can't share them with him now.

Jordan

2007-09-25T20:26:00.000Z

So after Greenbelt I had about a day turnaround before heading off to Jordan with highway projects. I've been back for quite some time now, but just not sat down to blog. I have a journal of my time that runs to pages, and really it is hard to put all these experiences into a few words here. Not only had I gone to explore this country, but to get to know people who lived there, share my faith and experience and learn from the faith of the people I meet. The time in Jordan began with a few days orientation in Wadi Rum, the desert to the south of Jordan, made famous by the exploits of te lawrence. This was an awesome experience, living out in the desert, getting to know the rest of the guys on the mission teams. There is something rather special about a desert, the sun beating down, the awesome colours of sand and sandstone jabel changing with the angle of the sun. And life. It is remarkable to see how life thrives in such a hostile environment, greenery clinging to trickles of water. The sandstone monoliths acting as sponges during the infrequent rains, the water slowly working it's way through and impeded by inpenetrable granite returning to the rock's edge as a spring. It makes the biblical analogies based in deserts really come to life. There is one thing knowing that water is essential for life, seeing it in person greatly adds to the meaning.

Taking these thoughts with me, I travelled, with the other guys on the same team as me, to Amman. Here, I was one of many to be struck down by some rather bad gut troubles, that rendered me unavailable for the first day working in school. Thanks to some antibiotics and other drugs I was soon on the way to recovery. We were teaching in two schools, a boys and a girls, taking the christian religious instruction lessons for 10-18yr olds. It proved quite tricky to adapt the lessons for the different age profiles, and interest. Using Jonah, we tried to look at reasons we run away from god, prayer and the underlying truth of the book of jonah, that god loves and has compassion for all people, even our enemies. A hard lesson for Jonah to see compassion shown to his enemy, compassion he did not wish to see exerted, though he knew it would come if forgiveness was sought.
It's difficult to know the worth of such work, taking lessons, that would take place whether we are there or not. In the evenings we had chance to get to know the local church young people and it was great to hear the leadership responsibilities these young people had taken on, leading sunday school and camps etc. It was fun visiting the local sights and making friends, and i hope our friendship and solidaritory was beneficial to a group of similarly aged people expressing a faith that is a minority in their country. I was encouraged at how passionate these people were about their faith and using their gifts to share their passions with children. It was also a pleasure to join them on their retreat as they sought teaching and reflection from the minister and encouragement in their leadership roles. Though I would dearly have loved some conversations around their experiential interpretation of the bible and how it might differ from someone who reads the bible remote from the geographical settings, and how indeed, expressing a faith in the minority effetcs them too. We learnt that they did not feel persecuted and in fact along with the population were quick to praise the king and the skill he uses in keeping the diverse peoples together. Jordan's population consits mainly of waves of refugees, the most recent being iraqi. The king ensure that the voices of the minorities remain in power, something that would never happen if all ruling powers were democratically elected.
On reflection I'm pleased to have again experienced life in the middle east and made new friends. I've learnt a lot and felt encouraged by the people i met. I just hope that it has been recipricated and my presence has helped the faith journey of at least someone i encountered. There are plenty of pictures on flickr which can be found in my highway project set
Bizarrly, we also nearly met tony blair who was also in amman. He was due to attend church on the sunday, but had been invited to see the king instead.

Greenbelt 2007

2007-08-28T19:55:00.000Z

Had another excellent Greenblet Weekend. This festival is great, and despite the music line up being the poorest for some time, I still managed to enjoy it greatly. Arriving Friday in blazing sunshine it appeared that the weather had once again looked favourably on a festival i was attending. There was quite a wait in a queue before getting on to the campsite, but this gave me plenty of time to scour the programme for things of interst. Each morning I would then browse through my checklist to discover numerous clashes and decisions had to be made as to which seminar sounded the best. A few brief highlights below, I've kept it a bit short this year cos I'm packing to go to Jordan with highway projects tomorrow.

Friday
Met up with mr clark who joined me and ad in the world cup tent. Good to see him and congratulate him on his first steps in gainful employment. Watched Sarah Mason on the mainstage, who has a nice voice, but seemed to get distracted re-tuning her instrument all the time - doesn't she have a tuner! A pleasant enough start. Wander around the extensive village and called in at the organic beer tent to continue conversation with cc and ad. I'd also read that there would be opportunity to dj at this venue on the Friday. I thought there would be loads of people wanting a go, and was too afraid of losing my iPod, so had just brought along 4 tracks. Despite the PA being wrong and too poor for the venue, I still enjoyed my time as a dj and mixed a bit of an indie disco party: Can't explain - the who, hotel yorba - white stripes, alala - css and DANCE - justice. Too early for any dancing action, but a guy behind the bar exclaimed his enthusiasm for DANCE by running up to the 'dj booth' proclaiming it to be 'a tune'. I christened him my number one fan. Finished off the night with Billy Bragg, who for a guy with just a guitar does a great job of headlining with his brand of protest songs, with an ironic cover of the carpenters thrown in to keep us amused.

Saturday
Went to a couple of literature workshops which were quite good, i was amazed at some of the talent shown, people were writing some great prose in just a few minutes, it made my work look like that of a primary school kid. Some useful excerises nonetheless. Maggi Dawn did an interesting talk around the subject of her book questioning how we hear god in light of the fact that god doesn't often use angels to proclaim his will, in particular looking at the stories of mary and zechariah. Of course there were no straight answers to how to hear god, but pointers of how to disern his voice in the everyday and ordinary, and how there is an element of choice in finding god's will, we make creative choices and these are woven into the will of god. Some nice ideas. There followed a talk by bishop graham on the latest arcade fire album. A fairly dull but well researched look at the writing style and thoughts of win butler. Not only is it a great album, but bishop graham suggests that it is a call for the church to re-awaken and challenge issues of justice and to be counter-cultural, rather than a critique on the church itself. He didn't play any clips though.
Took part in the communion by numbers service by Grace in the afternoon. It was lovely in the sun and i bumped into ben askew a sheffield blogger who i finally got to meet in the flesh and share communion with. The service worked quite well, but i could imagine it working better in the 'dinner party' setting in which it originated. It was interactive, and i enjoyed the liturgy produced for the sharing of the elements. I might have to use those again. In the evening I opted to try speed dating through the lack of any decent music. It was better than i thought it would be, and a chance to meet a lot of people i wouldn't otherwise have done. No chance of meeting everyone and instead just met a small percentage of the eligable people in the tent. There were quite a few people who i wouldn't've minded continuing a conversation with, but by the time I'd decided i'd make some indication of this, the cards used to exchange details had run out as had most of the girls who had partaken in conversation with me. I expect they had dashed due to the poor quality of the other candidates that followed me (!) Anyway despite that, as i was meandering my way out of the tent got chatting with a few others who weren't part of my speed dating trial and we went to the beer tent to continue chatting. Maybe make a few more friends - or at least boost my facebook profile - lol.

Sunday
The diversity of greenbelt is what, to me, makes it a special festival. People from all walks of the christian faith and those searching and those of no particular faith, all catered for, and not in a segrageted way either. You're just as likely to bump into a happy clappy charismatic as you are a caped goth. And this is exemplified in the communion service where thousands gather. This year we went to the arena venue for the live feed and a supposed 'alternative' style. Bit disappointing that the only alternative about it from the regular service being fed to us on the screen was some lame vjing during collection. However it was great to feel part of a hug assembly all sharing in the eucharistic feast. Helped remind of the diversity of the body of christ. Prayers of intercession were supplemented with a release of balloons which made a nic symbol of our prayers being raised heavenwards. Got a seat to see andy yorke perform, being brother of thom, i think i expected too much and his set of sub snow patrol rock was fairly uninspiring. No guest appearance from his more famous bro either. A few more talks and seminars in the afternoon and a fine performance from one nation in the early evening. Not as good on the mainstage as they are in an intamite venue, but still able to get the crowd dancing along to the funk. Met up with the highway projects people at the festival for beers in the evening.

Monday

Started the morning with some meditative chanting with taize. There's something really moving about the music and tuning in to god. A wonderful way to start the week. Also found this meditative artwork in a room that was playing 'prayer of the heart' a piece written by john tavener with bjork. It was an awesome piece of music, with bjork singing 'jesus son of god have mercy on me' in a number of ancient tongues. Her voice is magnificant and has an aching quality to it that inspires you to pray also for mercy in god's presence. Then a listen to John Bell which is a must at greenbelt. A fantastic orator and often opens my eyes to new ways of reading texts. Today teaching on the truth stories, not the true stories of the opening chapters of genesis, highlighting how the literal interpretation of some of these texts have been used for the acceptance of some atrocious behaviour, particularly in the south african apartheid system. Speaking of the truth contained in these allorgories refreshed the understanding of these tales. Though i wondered how do you teach these stories to kids. You can hardly tell a story and then go through some protracted deconstruction on what the texts say about god. Though teaching them as literal historical fact can lead to a dissolution of faith as they do not hold up to the rigors of intellectual questioning. I mean, what did noah really do with all that poo for a start. When faith fails because that which we were taught as truth unravels as not truth leads to the unsettling of actual truth and revelation of god in christ. Hearing great minds expose the truth of god contained in these tales comforts a cynic like me. The faith in christ i experience is not based on mere fables which do not stand up to scrutiny, but that these tales still contain within them revelations of the character of God that should help continue shape my faith and understanding. The next talk i went to was the best of the entire weekend. I'll probably blog on this later when I've read this book, but Rhidian Brook gave an account of his travels through the pandemic regions of HIV. During a slideshow i was struggling to battle tears as he showed fields full of orphans as a result of HIV and war.
After packing up the tent me and cc headed down to see chas and dave, i waited 20 minutes for run rabbit run or an appearance of steve davis for snooker loopy. I got none, and twenty minutes of cockney knees up piano twonking was more than enough! The evening brought the finest musical performance of the weekend from Duke Special. The set seemed to get better as it went on, his quality vocals supported by a cast of theatrical backing musicains led to a spectacular performance, and a great curtain riser for us leaving as we did before delirious.

Greenbelt photos on flickr

Heathrow

2007-08-18T20:29:00.000Z

My parents asked me to go and pick my sister up from heathrow today as she is flying back from the states, she doesn't enjoy flying and is usually ill, so I agreed to help out and pick her up. Flight due in at 1030, so I set off around 0645, and made good time getting to the terminal by about 1000. The flight was early, so I read for about 20minutes and then stood by the entrance from the arrival lounge. People went by, and I kept looking out. An hour went past, maybe she's not too well and had to have a lie down. Ninety minutes elapsed and I've now seen thousands of people wandering through. Do I go to the info desk - chances are she'll come just as I'm away and then not be able to find me. Another ten minutes, she really is late, best go and ask at the info point: That flight came in nearly two hours ago, does she have a british passport. yes. well she should be out. But she sometimes gets ill, has she perhaps been taken somewhere to recouperate, was she on that flight? I can't tell you that, because of data protection, are you sure she's on this flight? That's what I'm told. It's just that it's an overnight flight, there's another tomorrow with the same flight number, it leaves on the 18th and arrives here on the 19th.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Unbelievable, rang parents, are you sure she's on this flight. That's what we've got down, I'll give the place she's staying a ring and call you back.

Yes - she's still in america.

How annoyed am I to waste my last free saturday before going off to Jordan!

After five min calm down, I thought about going to see a friend in oxford, having driven all the way down here. Thankfully s was in and I was able to spend a pleasant afternoon with him and his family. So not all bad!

You'd have thought that being an avid fan of 80 days around the world with Willy Fog an error like this wouldn't happen.

New season

2007-08-14T22:16:00.000Z

The football season is upon us again and tonight I went to see Chesterfield play Sheff Utd at Bramall Lane. It was nice to be able to walk to the match, and see Chesterfield play the sheffield team for who I have the most affinity. Met up with s and we both had a great evening and enjoyed the football. Unfortunately, after an impressive first half, Chesterfield began to struggle against the pace and precision passing of United and lost 3-1. The worst point was losing pacy forward, jamie Ward, who pulled up with what looked like a hamstring injury. He was causing United problems and led to our equalising goal, without his presence we looked mediocre up front. New signing Jack lester impressed, and worked tirelessly up front, but to little avail due to lack of support and decent crosses.

Merlin Theatre

2007-08-14T22:02:00.000Z

Saturday saw monkey swallows the universe launch their new album, the casket letters, at the merlin theatre. I'd volunteered to help as an usher at the event, and along with the other ushers, we decided to dress up in suits to look the part. It was interesting to see the bands setting up, and it made a change to be apart from all the stress that sound checking can bring. The number of times we've set up sound stuff for an awe event and then spent hours trying to source an annoying hiss. Gremlins were found, and I thought that the sound in the theatre was really good. Didn't get to see the support acts as we were either staffing the doors or helping at the cafe. However, when mstu came on everyone was in their seats and we were able to sneek in at the back and enjoy the gig too. Having had the privilege to have heard the new tracks live and also had a pre-release copy of the album, I could really appreciate the songs. Talking to others later, less familiar with the new material, they were equally enthralled with hearing the brand new songs. After the gig everyone was invited to an aftershow party, showing the appreciation mstu have for their local fanbase. I enjoyed meeting new people and finding out how they had discovered mstu, and of course they had impecible musical taste, so no shortage of conversation. A great night, and maybe i'll get around to reviewing the album sometime! For a taster here are a couple of clips of songs from the new album: Gravestones and the Ballad of the Breakneck Bride. The latter of which has guest vocals from Rhys of Smokers Die Younger.

Friend Wheel

2007-08-14T21:53:00.000Z

So I haven't blogged for a while, time to break the fast. To start a quick geeky post, following up on my earlier post about how much I liked the friend wheel application on facebook. It's now got even better, as you can open the wheel in flash and zoom into all the nodes, move them around and see in more detail how all your friends link up. Check it out.

Writing

2007-07-30T14:47:00.000Z

I quite like writing and I often wonder what it would be like to be a writer. For a few years I've been mulling an idea for a novel in my head. The plot is all there, but the scenes and characters need developing. It's not a straight forward as just sitting down and letting the words just stream forth. Whilst at latitude festival i went to a Q&A with some authors (i don't recall their names). They were talking about the process of writing that they use, the fact that a lot of the time it looks like they are doing nothing, but in actual fact they are constantly thinking of the book. I knew exactly what they meant. I have little time to write and the odd few hours on a saturday morning I can glean, I wander to a local coffee shop to write. I can spend nearly an hour re-reading what I have written to try and get back into the situation, then there are the questions that pose themselves. How would this character react? what would this situation actually look like? Sometimes very little gets written at all. And this is how it was today. With a day off work, for which I was anticipating travelling back from snowdon left me with an opportunity. It's been ages since i last wrote anything and I was spending ages re-reading, then I was questioning my prose, what is the best narrative style. I think I want to use a couple of different styles, which makes it more complicated to write, and I wonder if it would actually work for the reader. So I decamped to Waterstones with the aim of finding some more books written in a particular perspective. The staff there were really helpful and one was able to think of such a book at once, though she couldn't think of anymore at that moment. A couple of books in hand, I thought how i'd relish to be able to do this for a living. Walking, meandering around town with ideas maturing. Reading, to draw inspiration for writing, studying to ensure what i write is credible and makes sense under scrutiny. Instead tomorrow it will be back to the world of data management, minute taking and copious ammounts of tapping on the computer.

Annoyed

2007-07-30T14:06:00.000Z

This weekend me and jt were due to attempt the three peaks challenge, but we had to cut it short due to me picking up a knee injury on the decent of ben nevis. The jarring of the uneven decent had somehow damaged the knee of my leading leg to the point that it was terribly painful to walk downhill. I feel like a failure, i hate not accomplishing what i set out to do. Not being one of these athletic types, walking is one of the only sporting activities that i'm any good at, and this would be a great test of endurance, of which I've failed to prove I can achieve. What is worse is the fact that people had agreed to sponsor my efforts in the bid to raise some money for christie's hospital where my friend died of cancer last year. I think I can now understand the frustrations of professional footballers who get injured and are unable to prove to the supporters that they are worthy of the transfer fee paid for them. It is terribly disappointing. However I'll blog about are attempt:

Not only had we set ourselves a challenge in climbing the three highest peaks we had no driver and so would also be driving between the locations, making the challenge much harder. We had decided that if we could hit all three peaks within a 24 hour period we'd have done really well. The challenge started early on sat morning as we began the drive up to ben nevis. We were 15 minutes into the journey when I suddenly had a vision of my walking boots still in the kitchen. Great start! After doubling back our journey was fairly uneventful until we got caught in traffic in callander. There was some highland games event happening and it held us up by about an hour, we eventually arrived at ben nevis around 1630. No chance for the planned rest, we donned our walking gear and began the first ascent around 1700. It was really busy with a redcross challenge also taking place. The first hour was tough going ascent leaving us stripped to our t-shirts and sweating profusely. A five minute stop for water and a break left me feeling reinvigorated and able to march upwards, soon arriving at a flatter plateau where the pace could be quickened. The incline soon steepened and the higher we went the colder it became and coats were put back on. In the clouds the uphill trek seemed never ending and the minutes seemed to drag. My glasses became obscured by rain and my fingers were frozen. We took a short break and ate some chocolate and I could feel the energy returning, the chocolate pumping through my blood and the walk continued. It seemed we would never make the top, and then suddenly the high plateau appeared and our goal was reached. Any sense of lack of energy seemed to evaporate as euphoria at reaching the summit reinvigorated. The descent saw our bodies gradually warm and clothes once again stripped off. The setting sun bathing the surrounding landscape in awesome colour, it looked superb. Being tall and gangly I always find descents difficult, like I'm always stopping myself from falling forwards. This causes me to plant my leading leg rather stiffly and down steep uneven surfaces the toll of this caused a pain in my right knee. Battling through, though losing a bit of pace, we were back at the car before the light had faded. Swift change of shoes and the long night time drive began. Jt driving for the first hour and half before switching to allow him to grab a bit of sleep whilst I drove. We continued this swapping of driving and napping every 90 min or so and it seemed to work fine. Alert enough to drive and we reached wasdale head at the base of scafell at 0400. I'd noticed that my knee was still hurting every time we'd swapped driving duties and had bought some painkillers from a petrol station in a determined effort to continue. Starting the ascent of scafell pike at 0430 as the sun began to rise the uphill trek was going fine, but any mild descent on the path was really hurting and i had to make the difficult decision to return to the car. To carry on could lead to me becoming stuck at the top, unable to walk down and that would be crazy. I might also damage the knee further, so I slowly made my way back down, taking nearly an hour to cover ground we'd made in about 20 minutes! Jt carried on to the summit and returned at 0830. This time would've had us well on schedule to complete all the three peaks in 24 hours and we'd have achieved our goal. JT didn't fancy doing another climb alone so we headed back home with a determination to complete the challenge next year. I'll have to invest in some walking poles and see if using them I can take the weight of my knee better on the descents. Grrrr I know i can do this, but I'm as yet unable to say I have.

Photo set of the attempt on flickr

Feist teletext review

2007-07-27T07:36:00.000Z

Yeah - it's another teletext review. I still manage to get excited by seeing them published.

Feist

2007-07-23T19:40:00.000Z

As if a weekend's worth of music wasn't enough on thursday i went to see Feist in manchester. She was awesome, a truely amazing gig. Her vocals are like liquid chocolate, and ease between her sensuous lounge jazz and punky pop. She was backed by a superb band that played a myriad of instruments that added intricate harmonies that aid in giving the sound a real fullness. So much better than the generic guitar bands that are around that lack imagination in song writing. Feist sings so well and she even used a loop to create her own backing vocals, adding them at the start of a song and then singing over them. Then addressing the audience she was able to sing out intructions to split the audience in three to humm various notes to start a song. Superb talent. I made a coupld of videos, one of a quiet song and another of a punkier number. Unfortunately the sound was too loud on the latter for my camera and it is terribly distorted. Here is the quieter tune, one of my favourites, but blighted by a bit of pesky feedback.

Feist pics on flickr

Just found this link on youtube of Feist performing showing her backing vocal looping thing. It's a bit distorted, but gives you an idea

Latitude

2007-07-20T16:51:00.000Z

Last weekend I went to the latitude festival in suffolk and it was tremendous. Haven't had chance to blog since as I've been busy every night, which also means I haven't full caught up on my sleep. We were really lucky with the weather too, i'd been praying for some sun, cos rain reduces the fun of camping. And the sun certainly shone. Left work a bit early on the thurs to drive down, giving a lift to ad, sb and ms. The traffic wasn't bad and we made good time, getting there before nightfall. However it was quite a queue to get our wrist bands so by the time we started on the tents it was getting dark. This resulted in one tent taking over an hour to erect, what with poles getting jumbled and the canves getting twisted!

There were a myriad of excellent acts playing at the festival and sometimes it was impossible to choose who to see. I was very lucky to be invited to stay as a guest of monkey swallows the universe as I had been helping them with a marketing scam. I'd written their stage time on one side of a peg and on the other a web address for an exclusive download. We then spent the weekend surrepticiously pegging people, on hats, jumpers, coats and bags in the hope they'd be intrigued enough to check out the band and even download the free tune. It was fun watching people wander around unsuspectingly with pegs dangling from their person.

I saw numerous acts and won't review them all, just a special mention for a few. The strange death of liberal england were even better than when i saw them at the leadmill. They were really drawing adrenelin from playing to a large crowd and I shall have to track down their cd. I was a cub scout also showed promise, bedroom rock backed by sequencers. A vibrant sound that can only mature. MSTU were on fine form and their music really suited the early evening sunshine. Bat for Lashes were plagued with technical difficulties but still managed to perform an entertaining set with natasha dressed in a skeleton costume. Finally Arcade Fire were awesome. Joined onstage by Final Fantasy they played probably one of the best performances i've ever seen. There is little more i can say to embellish this performance. Phenomenal.

Then there was the long drive back, the last hour of which I found a real struggle, battling with sleep and fog.

Strange Death of Liberal England Review

2007-07-12T07:36:00.000Z

Last minute decision to go to the Leadmill on Monday, mainly to meet up with ag of mstu to discuss upcoming festival marketing ploy ‘operation peggy’. After a couple of local bands, the oddly titled ‘strange death of liberal england’ took to the stage. They did remarkably well to grab the attention of an audience mainly there to support friends in the local bands. Having a unique sound and strange presence certainly helps. Here’s my review that appeared on teletext today which added to the excitement of going to Latitude. More later on my return from the festival. Click the image to see full size.

Interconnected

2007-07-04T17:39:00.000Z

I came across this facebook application, friend wheel, thanks to ben askew. It links all your friends together by who they know. Ben's wheel was very well interconnected suggesting a lot of people he knows all know each other. My wheel is quite different and suggests a number of disparate 'communities' which i belong to. I'm quite interested in what communities mean these days and which communities we belong to. This wheel shows church friends, people from the youth group i used to help lead, uni friends, highway projects, music friends etc. There are also quite a few people i know that none of my friends know, does that mean i am on the periphery of their communities (or just cos other people from that group of friends just aren't on facebook yet). It's interesting, a geographical one would be interesting too. Geographical communites eh? That's so twentieth centuary.

End of an era

2007-06-30T15:11:00.000Z

This week has seen the end of two eras. The first came on Wednesday at the community centre. Earlier this year one of the major tenants, sheffield college, who held their ESOL classes at the centre, informed that they would be leaving in September. That added to the fact that a number of trustees planned to step down, and seemingly no more volunteers on the horizan things were looking quite bleak. A survey conducted by Sheffield City Council, who own the building, highlighted major repairs that were required and as their community building fund is very small it seemed like winding up the charity that has run the building as a commmunity centre for nearly 25 years was the sensible choice. Not a decision taken lightly, but a recognition that there was not the time or energy required to raise significant income and funding for refurbishment. And even if we did, for how much longer would the centre continue to be sustainable? So on Wednesday we held a number of meetings, agm and extraordinary meetings to agree to wind up the charity over the coming months. It's sad in a way that another local resource will close and the building most likely sold byt he council, but it has served it's cause well over the years and things always come to an end. Better to end positively than to fizzle out under financial strains. At least we hope to have considerable funds when the charity closes which we hope will benefit other local centres and groups in the area.

Then on Friday I heard that Fopp were in financial difficulty and within hours a press release said that the chain had closed. I was a great fan of Fopp, and I've probably spent many hundreds of pounds over the years on music, film and books in there. It was great, a wide range of excellent music, and support for local unsigned artists. Many a time I'd pop in to buy an album and come out with at least four! Maybe it is a sign of the times and it's only people like me in their 30s that still enjoy buying music in a tangiable format that you can hold. I love the art work and reading the words and placing the disc in my cd player. Though I guess these days I listen to most of my music on my iPod. There was always a great selection of contemporary novels too, and there's been a number i've just bought cos they looked interesting, and you knew that cos they were on sale in Fopp it wouldn't be rubbish. I don't know where I'll shop for my music now.

My flood pics have also been popular, I've had more views for them then for any other set of photos and I was even asked if one could be used for a website. You can see it here geography.org.uk

Sheffield Flood

2007-06-26T08:10:00.000Z

What a day yesterday was. It was just raining and raining constantly. It got to the point at work where the site was closed and we were told to leave cos Grimethorpe was almost cut off by floods. Left about 3pm and thought I'd be home by 4pm. How wrong I was. The river Don had burst it's banks in sheffield causing traffic gridlock. I spent over four hours on the A61 not knowing if it was passable. Every now and again it would go for ages before any vehicles passed from the opposite directions. Numerous emergency vehicles overtuck and came past. I was quite concerned when one police land rover came past towing a boat! Just outside Grenoside a huge flood was just about passable, police were allowing a number of cars to pass in turn from wither direction. I had to mount the kerb and skirt the edge of the flood water. Then it was fairly good going down into Hillsborough, though I noticed all the traffic lights were out. At the roundabout I suddenly realised I was unable to continue my journey as Penistone road outside Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough ground was now a deep river. All routes home were cut off by the Don, so I abandoned the car in a side street near Leppings Lane. I then had to take my shoes and socks off, roll up my trousers and wade knee deep through the Don that was now flowing over the road. The water wasn't too cold, and it was quite strange feeling my way across with my feet, knowing that there should be a kerb somewhere around. There were numerous people making the journey through the water and at each side a bank of people holding aloft mobile phones and cameras to capture the event. At this point I decided to call in at m&e as they lived nearby. They too had had eventful journeys home and had walked from town. No power, so we had some sandwiches. Refreshed I walked back home and then went for a walk down towards the don, which is only 2min walk away. All Shalesmoor and Kelham Island had been badly affected. Luxury riverside appartments looked marooned and underground car parking areas were submerged. I took a few photos to record the events.

More pictures on my sheffield flood flickr set

Reviews that never appeared

2007-06-24T13:49:00.000Z

Here's my reviews I sent to teletext for the gigs at the Spitz. They never appeared on screen, i blame the amount of pages devoted to the current spate of festivals. Best not let the words go to waste:

Shady Bard at Spitz London 9th June

Shady Bard make music about the environment that is a far cry from the
fey folky guff Swampy and his friends may conduct whilst living in
holes. Using orchestration to enhance piano and guitar melodies, Shady
Bard conjure visions of fruiting woods and rolling seas, ignited with
sonic soundscapes. Frontman, Lawrence, sings passionately about issues
that are clearly close to the heart, challenging the listener as he
rasps 'It's all our fault'. This is Eco-rock for people who wash.

8/10

monkey swallows the universe live at the spitz 9th june

Once again Monkey Swallows The Universe manage to woo the crowd.
Already a wealth of material allows for a varied set of acoustic folk,
downbeat melancholy and upbeat twindie-pop. Guitars gently create
melodies that are embellished with strings and melodicas. Songs of
love triumphing over adversity are sung passionately with a subtle
tone that is reminiscent of Emma Pollock at her best. How bands can
conjure a feeling of warmth and freshness is a mystery, but one that
MSTU seem to have solved.

9/10

Bjork

2007-06-23T19:50:00.000Z

How good is Bjork!

I've just finished watching her performance at Glastonbury that I recorded and she was astonishingly good. Her music is incredible, diverse and ground breaking. I started re-listening to Debut earlier this year when i was thrown back into the realm of singleness. And I found it uplifting, one of the first albums I ever bought on CD and it still sounded fresh. Incredible.
There's no-one else that makes music as passionate as she does, her lyrics are often calmly erotic brought to life with her unique voice. Just watching her bounding around the stage like some alien pixie backed with an incredible ensemble of horns, keyboards and electronic jiggery pokery. The way she could hold the crowd with her, almost, unaccompanied version of Venus As a Boy highlights the power of her vocals. When she turned to sing 'I love him, i love him' at the end of Pagan Poetry my spine was tingling. I'll have to see if it's possible to see her live sometime.

photo is from bbc glastonbury flickr stream

updating blogger

2007-06-19T20:31:00.001Z

I'm slowly bringing my blog into beta mode, and i've found this lovely code to make a label cloud in the side bar. If you want the code it is from phydeux3. I'm struggling to get a last.fm widget to work. It keeps throwing up and error that has me clueless. I'm slowly back blogging a few items too. Sorry I've not been around on the blogosphere much, I've been carried away milling on facebook.

central st martin's

2007-06-18T13:00:00.000Z

London again, this time just for the day on the train. I went down to see the final year degree show at central st martins. HC was exhibiting her final year piece which was the main reason i went along. However, i really enjoyed browsing all the displays. Spent over 2.5 hours there was so much to see and investigate. A number of the pieces seemed to be influenced by construction. Either by items discarded, or by structures themselves.
One such piece had a small space you could climb and squeeze through which was fun. The process of construction in shaping our surroundings. It was amazing to see so many inovative ideas, so forward thinking and vital. Such a change to the mundaneness of everyday life, it's great to see that there are people who are experimenting and trying new things, whilst i spend days bored at work tapping on a computer. Unfortunately cos hc was part of her installation, cos it included performance art I wasn't able to chat about some of the pieces with her. After browsing i found myself a coffee shop to sit and write some of my book, i seemed to hit a bit of a roll, which is good. I have all these scenes in my heaed, it's all about interpreting them onto the page, it's not straight forward.
In the evening i met up with cem and we enjoyed yo sushi, I was particulalry amused by a young girl sat opposite who was attempting to stick a noodle up her nose, until her mum intervened.

More photos in my st martin's flickr set

But still the rain comes

2007-06-15T19:40:00.000Z

It seems like it has been raining none stop for an age. Today was like Sheffield Shanty by mstu the journey to work was crazy. First I had to skirt around the edge of a pool that had developed on penistone road. Further ahead on Halifax road I had to negotiate a flood that stretched about 30cm deep right across the road. the traffic moved slowly through it and continued it's slow progress. Then the worst flood, just following the car in front it was impossible to guage the extent of this pool of water. Once in the water i was just hoping the car in front would not stop, again it was at least 30cm deep and it seemed unending. When was it going to end, to make it worse a car in front seemed to be emitting white smoke from it's bonnet. It seemed an age before I was out onto drier land again. Water seemed to be pouring in from neighbouring fields and ran like torrents down the roads. Still it wasn't over, the next acumulation was on the by-pass through the Dearne Valley. At the bottom another huge flood spread across the road under a bridge. This was shallower if skirted on the furtherst point to the right of the road, but it continued right onto the roundabout, which had to be negotiated through the water. Still not over, as arriving in Grimethorpe my route to the site was blocked by a flood that was too deep to even begin to try. An escort van went ahead and the water was brimming over the bonnet - no way I'm doing that, so i took a wide diversion to approach the village from the north. Best start collating those animals two by two.

london weekend and mstu

2007-06-11T18:40:00.000Z

Leading up to June I'd been feeling a bit down, probably cos in another world I'd've been travelling to canada to spend time with v. Instead I'd decided to try and keep myself busy, which i think i've done pretty successfully. This weekend I took the opportunity to visit hc in london and see monkey swallows the universe live at the Spitz. Arriving around mid-day, i'd got a fair amount of time to kill and wandered into green park to read in the sun. Nice and relaxing, i'd arrange to meet hc around trafalgar late afternoon, so wandered over to see if i could find a nice coffee bar nearby. Arrived at trafalgar and noticed that there was due to be a free palestine march. It sounded interesting so took a seat on the steps outside the national gallery and awaited the arrival of the march. I'd happeded to be sat next to a group of knitters, who apparently meet up in random locations around the city to knit. There were a couple of guys too - how metrosexual. One of them was knitting with a pair of huge needles, about a metre tall. It seemed to be attracting considerable attention.

Eventually the march arrived and a number of seakers addressed the crowd. Some were much better than others, I must admit some of the speakers that were addressing us as comrades and encouraging us to support the freedom fighters were not using the most tactful of language. It's such a shame a week after the event to see the political turmoil that has enveloped the state of palestine. A coalition of democratically elected governers is overturned because other countries refuse to deal with Hamas. It makes a mockery of democracy. And the embargos enforced on the palestinian authorities is one of the main issues to lead to the conflict and in-fighting that only serves to ridicule the ability of the palestinian people to govern themselves. What a situation.

As the afternoon wore on I looked down to see that I was beginning to turn a bright shade of red, so i swiftly made for the shade and awaited hc.

We headed out to liverpool st station and got something to eat before making our way to the spitz. It was absolutely roasting hot in the venue, and we were in time to see the first act. They were pretty poor, playing chaotic rock that followed obvious progressions from loud to quiet. Yawn. Then it was mstu who again put on an absolutley fabulous gig. Nat's vocals were particularly passionate and the new songs hint that the new album will be just as good as the debut. Finally, shady bard, the headline take the stage and wow the crowd with their orchestral indie rock. Songs about the environment, reminiscent of 'we love life' by pulp. Good stuff.

Sunday i appreciated the warm weather, browsed the tate modern before arranging to meet a myspace friend. Passing st paul's i decided to pop in and say a prayer. The sung eucharist had just started, so i took a seat near the back and listened to the pomp of the ceremony. Not my usual thing high anglican worship, but nothing else would have done in this magnificant venue. The architecture and paintings are incredible and with the bombastic sounds of the organ vibrating through the church you can't help but get a sense of the awesomeness of god. Something that is easy to forget when sat around tables with coffee chatting, which is my normal worship preference. I also liked the fact that there were people coming and going at the back of the church, some to get a free look at the architecture, others to perhaps pray or sit in on the service for a while before leaving. It gave fluid nature to the worship, strange in a venue that follows such a rigid formal worship. Of course those who wished to take an active participation in the service could be lead to the front of the church by one of the nuerous ushers.

Finally met up with ys in shepherds bush and enjoyed mint tea and some food at a little arabic cafe before going for a walk through st james park. It was a lovely day and interesting to meet someone who is also a big fan of music.

A few more pics in the flickr set

Fanfarlo on teletext

2007-06-11T12:51:00.000Z

My review did finally turn up on teletext. Hooray, click on image below to read it in old school teletext style.

Microwave meal for one

2007-06-06T16:06:00.000Z

Couldn't be bothered to cook on monday so opted for the lazy microwave meal for one option. Cooked some rice and followed the microwave instructions. After the last blast in the microwave I took the korma out to stand and removed the film lid. Hmmm think I'll give it a stir to ensure that the heat is distributed in an homogenous manner. Stuck my fork in and whirled it around BANG! the korma exploded firing splashes of orange korma right up my t-shirt, on my glassses, on the walls, on the ceiling, on my housemates recently washed washing. Everywhere. No quick and convenient meal here, no had to spend ages going around mopping it up. Changed my t-shirt, but thought I'd do the trousers later. Then just as i started eating the neighbour came round for a chat, I felt such a scruff trying to hide behind the door with korma splashes all down my trousers and I hadn't even looked in the mirror and was fearing my hair was also streaked.

Guitar tuning

2007-06-06T16:02:00.001Z

So I decided it was time to re-string the guitar and start playing again, well by playing I really mean strumming a few chords. I'm not to adept at the whole stringing process and it took me ages to get all the strings on. Later I discovered that my tuner had broken but I set out to get it vaguely in tune by ear. It takes a bit of practice but I'm not too bad at it. Apart from when I came to tune the high E string, for some reason I tuned it to the 7th fret of the B string instead of the 5th. Sounds a bit flat, tighten the string, play a note, still flat, tighten the string, play note, that's almost it, still a bit flat, another turn....ping the string broke and nearly took my eye out. Going to have to get some more strings now - grrr

What's this?

2007-06-06T15:58:00.000Z

Went shopping in tesco the other day, wandering around listening to my iPod. I seleected the least busy checkout where a young lad was making swift work of scanning the items and sending them down the converyor. As I was packing I noticed there was a hold up and thought he was asking me something. I looked up and took my earphones out. "Can you tell me what this is please?" He asked waving the object and pointing to is cashier button machine indicating he needed to know what it was to weigh the item. I looked bemused and he asked me again. "It's a courgette" I replied. Unbelievable! It's hardly an exotic item, wish I'd said it was a carrot now, they're cheaper to the kilo.

Fanfarlo

2007-06-06T15:55:00.000Z

Another gig review that hasn't made it on to teletext - grrr, I must be losing my touch and I quite liked this one:

Fanfarlo - Runaway Girl Sheffield 28/05/07

Fanfarlo play the musical equivalent of T-shirt weather. Squeezed on
to a small stage, this six-piece produce a wondrously full sound.
Strings and brass accompany this indie guitar pop, breathing life into
the tunes in a manner worthy of Arcade Fire. Songs are sung with
delicate cracked vocals reminiscent of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Imminent single, Fire Escape, feels like summer is officially here and
deserves to be heard from every open window. The only downside is the
short 30min set leaves you wanting more.

8/10

You should check these guys out tho, they're superb. It was a good evening too meeting up with a couple of mstu members. I have some pictures which I guess I'll get round to uploading some time

Emma Pollock live

2007-05-30T20:50:00.000Z

It's a while since i've been blogging, and it's not through a lack of things to say. Maybe it's a lack of time, or i just can't be bothered anymore. Perhaps it has run it's course. Maybe I'll offer the odd review, but perhpas my time can be better spent. If i get loads of people saying - chris we love reading your blog, i may change my mind. I doubt that is a likely outcome.

So it was a little over a week ago i went to see emma pollock performing live at leeds Brudenell Social Club. I'd been looking forward to this gig for ages. Emma used to be a member of the delgados, one of my all time favourite bands, and i was also a little apprehensive that i'd just will it to be good, even if it wasn't. Thankfully there was no need for any rose tinted glasses, the performance was fine and some of the songs were extremely good too. Her husband, paul savage, played the drums, though on future tours another drummer will be employed. I sent a review off to planet sound, but the editor went to see her live in London, so his review was aired and thus far mine has not been screened.

I'd gone straight from work as I'd planned to work from our leeds office. Not familiar with this venue, or indeed with leeds, i set off in the car, spying a maccy D i decided to pull in and get something to eat. Thinking ahead i'd remembered to bring a book with me and i 'enjoyed' a delicious meal whilst reading. It must've been my lucky day as i won a mcfluffy or whatever it is they call an ice cream there. Headed on down towards the venue, i was still a bit early so read some more before trying to seek it out. Found the place, some kind of working mens club, and the doors didn't open till 8pm, i'd guessed a 7:30 opening. The club bar was open, so i ventured inside, drinking a j20 cos i was driving. Got a funny look when i asked if i could have a glass for my drink when presented with a bottle. Scanned the room and amongst the smoking men there was an indie looking kid. Got to be going to the gig I thought, so siddled over and started chatting with him. No gig goer, but a nice guy, in fact he was writing a book and we talked quite a bit about writing and things. That was great and inspired me to get on with my prose. Went into the next door room about 8:20, the doors finally open. Saw Emma by the bar and had a chat with her, she's really very pleasant and seemed guenuinely pleased that an old delgado fan had come along. I'll maybe post my teletext review here, but i'll give it a couple more days to see if it gets a screening.
Below are a couple of youtube links of the performance and John Earl's review.

The adelphi

2007-05-20T20:04:00.000Z

I knew there was something else....
On wednesday I went to visit kb in hull, it was good to catch up and see her. Some friends of hers were playing a gig that evening and they were playing at the adelphi. Fantastic, i thought, not only a gig, but one at the fabled adelphi. Hull's premier seedy music venue. I can't imagine there is another venue like this in england, if not the world. Situated down a normal street of housing an end terrace house has been converted into a small, dark gig venue. The lower floors knocked through to create a performance area, with small bar and sound desk at the back. Even better, real ale pub on hand pull. Once inside i sent a txt to my friend who had previously described the venue to me. He replied asking if the beer was still rancid. It was! First up was some uni prof playing acoustic covers on his guitar. Then some scream majors, screaming nonsense over beats supplied by music geek with his iBook, whilst hairy beast played heavy guitar riffs. All kids seem to be using i-This or that these days. Sounds good, but looks a bit naff live. Then kb's friends, KIERANONONONONO, take the stage in comedy hawaii outfits. More screeching guitars and apple macs with keyboards and decks. They made quite a racquet, not too disimilar to Wyld Stallyions of Bill and Ted fame, before they had travelled in time to get music lessons! Quality, such energy and enthusiasm. Pity it sounded dreadful. Apart from the shouty rendition of happy birthday, that was actually quite good.

Funny ha ha

2007-05-20T15:41:00.000Z

I'm sure i had a few things i wanted to blog about, but i just can't seem to recall them at the moment. Wasn't the fa cup boring, though predictably so. Without an early goal it was always going to be a case of not giving the opposition the edge. I'm pleased it didn't end up going to penalties. ad came round for some food after and we headed out to the winter garden to listen to this aural artwork that was being aired, supposedly as an experiment to see if music affected the plants. It was a kind of etheral ambient noise, rumbling bass and slow beeps, not unlike the free cd that came with 'everything is wrong' by moby, back in the day. Not the kind of music you'd listen on your stereo, but a sound that created an 'other-worldly' atmosphere in the winter garden alongside the weird and wonderful plants from around the globe. It reminded me of the forbidden planet. Quite a few of the plants were in bloom so i took some photos (in my sheffield set), some of which look quite nice, haven't a clue what plants they are though.
Went to the showroom to see an american indie flick called funny ha ha. It's filmed in 16mm with mono sound and follows the life of well educated twentysomething searching for love, a decent job and purpose in life. There's no plot as such, it's quite postmodern in that sense that you jump straight into a glimpse of the characters life and abruptly leave it again as the fim ends. The conversations were mainly improvised and the 'you knows' and 'i means' and 'it's likes' really add to the reality. Not like those flowing profound sentances that are the staple of programmes like dawson's creek. I thought it really explored a sense of purposelessness of life faced by recent graduates searching for jobs that utilise their skill base adequately, as well as the search for a relationship. The film was clearly not enjoyed by the philistine sat behind me with his girlf, almost constantly making unwitty remarks to her throughout the show. I was just about ready to smack him in the face. If i wanted people to talk through the film I'd've gone to the odeon.

Look at the audience and go blah..

2007-05-20T15:06:00.000Z

From reading jonny baker's blog i was aware of some kind of discussion forum called Blah... It seemed to be the place trendy christians go to discuss spirituality in contemporary society. They just started one in sheffield and ad reminded me it was on this week. We decided to go and see if we could blend in with the 'trendyness' despite not having any daft sculptured facial hair or howie t shirts, or even an i-book. Thankfully we did. The event was held at the showroom and discussions were around god in contemporary film and tv. In particular films surrounding the paranormal, stories that traditionally draw on christian imagery in the good/evil fight eg crucifixes etc. We watched clips from constantine (which looks diabolically bad) and buffy the vampire slayer (yay). To be honest the clips were overlong, but the discussions were interesting. The clips seemed to portray a sense of evil that had to be overcome by the strength and action of the 'hero' usually human. A physical action, rather than a spiritual one. There was not any explicit reference to god, rather an implicit being, creator, force of good that is older than all religions. This 'god' was portrayed as present, but in the background, inactive and passive. Whereas the christian faith is about an active and caring god, present and acting through the holy spirit now. There was quite a lot of theology babble around though - metanarrative and nietzsche. Some guy raised a point about the metanarative of buffy, which i thought was nonsense. He was clearly using the term to encompass the whole of the buffy story, failing to take into account the metanarrative that it was written by educated westerners brought up in an, although nominal, christian tradition, steeped in spiritual folklore also risen from a christendom perspective. I'd be interested to hear equivalent stories from india and compare. There was plenty of time to chat with people afterwards, and i had a somewhat awkward conversation with some girl who i clearly had little in common with. It was quite a struggle, then her husband arrived and she introduced us. He asked what kind of construction work i did, and i explained the LIFT schemes which led to an interesting conversation on the privatisation of buildings for public services. During which I noticed his wife's eyes glazing over, then he started asking about my phd, which was clearly more than she could take, leaving, as I began discussing the regulation of cholesterol - lol

Eurovision clips

2007-05-16T12:12:00.000Z

I hardly ever get any traffic to my blog, but there was a small spike of activity these last few days. One of the most searched for items to reach this blog, bar my name, is eurovision clips. I posted some clips of the wonderful lordi last year and people still drop by - have they not heard of youtube!
This post has nothing to do with eurovision, cos I didn't see it, instead here is my review of the 65 days of static gig i went to the other day. It's been edited to read more scathing than my original text.
Click the image to see it enlarged if you want to read it.

bank holiday iv - 65 days of static

2007-05-13T14:20:00.000Z

Just to finish my star wars-esque bank holiday double trilogy. Went to the plug, one of my least favourite venues, to see 65dos. Always a breath of fresh air to see these guys in action, competely different to the usual lilting indie pop i prefer. As usual, Mirimar disaster are in support, screaming primaeval grunts over heavy rock. It always amuses me that the singer has such good diction and incredibly clear when addressing the crowd, and completely incoherant when singing! 65 dos produced another tight set of new and old music, roaring guitar melodies and manic bleeps makes for a good combination. Visuals mixed in a bit of vjaying to add to the mix. Hopefully there will be a review on teletext this week - so watch out on p344 channel 4 (or 824 if you use digital).
Some pics flickr

bank holiday v - number9dream

2007-05-13T14:11:00.000Z

I picked this book up at fopp merely because it was only £3 and i'd really enjoyed cloud atlas by the same author. I'm pleased i did as it's the best read i've had in ages. Written in a really dynamic first person present tense, the story flows rapidly, interspersed with fantasy, memories and dreams. As illustrated in cloud atlas, david mitchell seems to enjoy using a variaty of techniques and genres within one book, and again there are stories nested within this book. Set in Tokyo the story follows a country boy on his search to find his father who abandoned his mother before he was born. Now 20, his search brings him to the big city and an unfortunate encounter with the underworld, that may just reveal the secrets to his father's location. Can't recommend this book highly enough. The author spent a number of years out in japan teaching engliish, and he obviously draws richly from his experience out there. Though, i recently read a review of the book stating that it borrowed heavily on ideas from 'norwegian wood' by Haruki Murakami, so i shall have to read that and see.

bank holiday iv - a new hope

2007-05-09T19:43:00.000Z

There's a walk called the sheffield round walk. I had heard of it. Where does it start? and where does it go? Interested cos i like sheffield and i wanted a chance to explore some more of the city. Searched the internet and discovered that it wasn't a very round walk when it was first conceived 80 odd years ago, but it has subsequently been 'joined up'. Found the route guide at the millenium galleries on saturday and had it in my mind to try the walk on monday. Weather forecast was pretty poor - rain all day.

woke up on monday - sunlight and wind shaking my window causing me to stir - too early. Tried to sleep again - too light. Read some. Fell asleep. Awoke with my alarm and read some more. And just to the end of the chapter for good measure. Hey - it's not raining, i'll do that walk.

The walk

Drove to hunter's bar (arctic monkeys - fake tales of sanfransisco) and began the walk in endcliffe park. It was quite busy, joggers, dog walkers, kids on bicycles. Fairly straightforward walk alongside the river porter. The river was followed up and up, past forge dam (pulp - the wicker man) and into a wooded area. Fewer people now, and although i'm still in the city limits the only sound is that of birdsong. Followed the river up through porter clough and out at ringinglow by the alpaca farm. Crossed over by the round house and took a path down limb valley, negotiated some cows that seemed as nervous of me as I of them. Remembered my walk by lake niavasha in kenya when i stumpled upon a herd of buffalo. Followed the path into yet another wooded area, used to supply fuel to kilns involved in lead smelting years ago. Never been here before and it was really nice, there were bluebells everywhere. Eventually came out at eccleshall road, amazed to hit civilisation again. Crossed over the road across a playing field and up into eccleshall woods. Another place I've never been, one of englands largest areas of ancient woodland in an urban area. It's a hive of footpaths criss-crossing and again loads of bluebells. Arriving at abbeydale road, pass dore station, crossing the river sheath, and up into ladies spring wood, steep uphill climb. Another ancient woodland, previously a coppice supplying wood for burning. On and on, past beauchief golf course and over to meadowhead. Into Graves park, another area of greenery bestowed upon the town by one of it's famous philantropists. There was some kind of may day event on that appeared to be very busy. Onto the last stretch of the walk, and probably the least walked, heading back towards the city centre. Down through gleadless valley, past bishops house and into meersbrook park. There are some stunning views across the city centre from here. Through the park and into the edge of sharrow/nether edge. Interesting urban demographics here, through highly asian populations, walking up the hill to the more affluent area of the city, skirting brincliffe edge and coming out in the centre of nether edge, with it's mansions - even passing a house with a tennis court! From mansions, down into student digs and back to hunters bar. I don't quite know the distance but i'm sure that's far - i'm sure that's pretty far. Well about 14 mile if the guide is to be believed. Took me about 5 hours with 30min for lunch, though i was sure i was walking faster. The latter part of the journey was fairly difficult to navigate. It's well worth doing - it's amazing the tranquil places nestled in this city.

More pics in my sheffield flickr set

bank holiday III - mac

2007-05-08T20:25:00.000Z

Sunday
church was a bit of a chore, a couple of people were away and all of a sudden the whole set up and collection becomes a real bind. The service was quite nice, nothing exceptional, a trainee local preacher having a trial service. I thought she did alright, though nothing revelationary or challenging. Went to see my friend cem over macclesfield way after church. We had a good afternoon strolling by the canal and getting something to eat before returning to chat whilst watching the best indie anthems ever, or some such countdown chart on mtv2. It's strange to see snapshots of indie hits that i really liked as a teenager. A time when the song artists appeared to me to be relatively ancient. Looking back now, seeing damon albarn singing boys and girls, for example, thinking - doesn't he look really young there! Another sign of the ageing process and no, i no longer enjoy listening to radio 1 in the daytime.

Bank holiday II - "wax on, wax off"

2007-05-08T20:19:00.000Z

Saturday
Did my usual wander into town in the morning to think about my book, i'm having a bit of difficulty over some grammar technicalities, it's all to do with the changes of naration i'm using. Milled around town and got some shopping done, as chesterfield had been relegated there was no cause for a trip to oldham in a last gasp chance to stay up. Instead i spent most of the afternoon in the garden painting my fence. A fence that appears to be on it's last legs, yet another looming expense, however, i hope the lick of paint will see it good for some months to come. The hours of fence painting, if mr myagi is to be believed, should help turn me into an expert in karate - so beware, I can probably kick you in the head, even if one of my legs is broken now.
Finished the day watching some snooker and reading this excellent book. Took me ages to get to sleep, my shoulder really ached, like i'd got a dead arm or something. I just couldn't get comfortable. So much for mr myagi!

bank holiday I

2007-05-08T20:09:00.000Z

I've been pretty busy lately, too busy to blog as i've been out enjoying the nice weather we've been having. i don't particularly like super long blogs, they are just little morsals of thoughts and things i've been doing. if you've got time to be reading long in depth debates and shenanigans you really ought to be getting out more. so i'll blog some small episodes over the coming days:

Thursday
so it was election time, i'd declined to be a poll clerk this year as i wasn't in need of the extra cash and i didn't fancy the really long day. Ther was little coverage over the elections and they seemed to come and go with little fuss. The predicted labour failure didn't really materialise. my ward was very tight, just a few votes in it. To be honest i'd have been happy with the candidates from labour, lib dems or greens. Members of the labour party were going around knocking on doors to remind people to vote and to get an idea which way people were voting. I'd never seen them do that before - they were obviously keen to win the seat. They lost out to the lib dems by about 30 votes! Thankfully there seemed fewer interest from the british national party around sheffield, though they still collected reasonable numbers of votes in the wards they stood which is a worrying trend.
At bible study we're using an mrdf study guide looking at poverty and slavery. It's been interesting and this week we were looking at some of the laws given to the newly flourishing israel nation after leaving slavery. Rules that ensure profiteering is not a major driver, but the growth and stability of all members, rich and poor, of the israel nation. Laws that give rights to the alien and ensure stumbling blocks are not placed in the way of those less able. Alright if we were to read on in the passage there are numerous odd laws that must really be taken within the cultural setting, but the basics to which the israel nation was raised are a great set of starting ideas. We mused how we would run a new settlement. The key seems to be the 'buy in' from all members of the group. It only works if everyone does their bit, however menial. In practice though, humans seem to be inately selfish which i guess is why capitalism creates greed at the exploitive expense of others, communism breeds apathy and a superior ruling class that has to enforce the pricipals in order for them to work, the welfare state breeds people who exploit the benefits entering a cycle of dependency and an unwillingness to work. It makes you wonder if there is ever a way that the kingdom of god can work here on earth as prayed for in the lords prayer - may your kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven. Will there be a time when everyone wants to serve god in that way, or will selfish tendancies or disputes about irrelevencies continue.

new tv

2007-05-02T19:53:00.000Z

Yay! I've just bought a second hand tv off a guy at work. It's got digital tv, widescreen, will plug into our computer recorder thingamijig with s-video to SCART connection. But the best thing is I can get chunky old analogue teletext so i can read my reviews in all their glory. Plus i can catch up with all the rest of the planet sound reviews - they really are good. Hooray for teletext.

Just been shopping and nearly created a toilet roll landslide. A huge pile of multi packs stacked enticingly at the end of the row screaming look at me - 33% extra free. I wandered over, began to lift one of the top packs and noticed that a pack behind had been inexpertly stacked. It began to slip, causing the pile atop it to begin to gently slide towards me. Luckily i managed to stem the flow and rectify the situation without having to endure the embarassement of being engulfed in an avalanche of bog roll.

Blossom falling

2007-04-29T21:01:00.000Z

A few weeks ago i was about to leave for work but returned inside to get my camera cos the blossom on the tree outside looked beautiful against the deep blue morning sky. Most of the blossom is now on the pavement and blowing onto my entrance. Or it was, mostly yesterday, the tree being almost bare i decided it time to get to sweeping it up. Some of it had got wet and begun to degrade and stick to the tarmac and it took quite some effor to sweep it up and bag it up. Two bin bags full, and it weighed quite a bit too. Felt like i'd accomplished something and i went to read in the back garden. After about 15min ct called, she was in the area and wondered if i was free to meet up for a drink. I was and as i left i noticed that it hardly looked like i'd spent ages sweeping the pathways! thank you wind. Oh well, most of it is swept, i'll just wait the final petals to slip their grasp and float to the floor and begin the task again.

in the country of men

2007-04-29T20:53:00.000Z

Picked this up on the cheap at tescos. Liked the front cover, shortlisted for the man booker, and the synopsis sounded good. Hooray, it was a good on the spot purchase as i enjoyed this story. It's set in post revolution libya, late 70s and is a story told from the perspective of a nine year old boy who's father is involved in anti-gadaffi propoganda. The story is thus interpreted from the snippets of conversation and scenes viewed by the nine year old. Which i like as it keeps you guessing as to what is actually happening, it's not an unreliable narrator, but some things take a while to make sense. In addition it is well written, though i wonder if some of the descriptions and metaphors are those of a nine year old, am i showing my writing prowess, or am i writing as a nine year old, that seems to be the dilemma of the author (hisham matar). The imagery is good and you feel like you are in arabic north africa. Being fairly short it didn't take long to read.

not making the grade

2007-04-25T15:58:00.000Z

My mstu teletext review has not made the grade - boo, especially as i find it difficult to review a band i like so much that most people have never heard of. So just for you I'll recreate it here, just imagine it in those beautiful blocky graphics:

Monkey Swallows the Universe - live Sheffield Lantern 21/4

Tonight a small Victorian playhouse nestled in suburbia is awakened by
the magic of mstu. Utilising the tools of twee: acoustic guitars,
strings, recorders, the product is more substantial. Hovering around
the territory of the delgados and camera obscura producing songs of
instant impact and longevity. Nat's achingly beautiful vocals
compliment the delicate folky-pop, a sound that is ambrosia for the
ears. Whilst the world's attention is tuned into Sheffield's more
famous monkeys, they're missing the jewel – don't fall into the same
trap.

9/10

the fields

2007-04-22T17:30:00.000Z

My review of the fields gig, and i feel i should add the tag 'as read by nat of monkey swallows the universe'. Cos it is, after the gig on sat she mentioned that she had seen it. To be honest this review pretty much sums the gig up. If you click on the image you can see it larger, if you want to read it at all! I think i may get their album if it's cheap in fopp. Thanks to ad for scouting teletext this week for my review.

Monkey Swallows the Universe - lantern

2007-04-22T14:49:00.000Z

There is nothing better than an evening listening to some of the finest music currently being penned. I'd had a fairly good day, book writing, milling in town, more work in the garden. And then chesterfield lost (not quite so good), so relegation is now inevitable, though not least predictable from this years performance. Just finished eating tea when ad came round to give me a lift. Never been to the Lantern theatre before, and had found the address from the internet, somewhere in the hinterland of netheredge. Map in hand we attempted to find the venue, but if you're familiar with that area you will know that a map is pretty useless. Roads run into each other, they change names, keep names though bear off on a tangent, and even as many as five roads can converge in a chaotic junction. A spiralling journey eventually took us past a road name that was recognised and the venue was located. An old victorian building, built by some rich cutler in order to have private viewings. I guess the equivelent to having your own cinema these days. It fell into disrepair and was renovated in the 1920s, and it made for a nice quaint venue. Holding no more than a hundred. The culmination of an easter tour that has seen mstu claim record of the week in the sun and bagged appearances on 6music and loose ends. The evening commenced with a fairly awful, if i can be conservative with my critique, stand up act. Obviously a friend of someone, who may well be funny in a pub after a few beers, but tonight told rambling stories that lacked humour or punchline. The musical support was from rory mcvicar, a singer songwriter of significant guitar playing talent. I'm afraid his music doesn't grab my attention and the pleasent tunes float gently by. He is joined by members of mstu for some tracks which is nice, and you get the sense that they've all enjoyed touring together. MSTU are superb, and already have a considerable set of tunes from which to draw. A number of new tunes are given their debut airing, and the quality remains high. All suggesting that the new album is going to be well worth the wait. The intimate venue and appreciative crowd really suited. Without dissecting each song, there is not much else to write without covering old ground. Suffice to say this band are great and i hope they get the recognition they deserve. Here's a little clip of a song likely to be on the new album to whet your appetite.

there's also a small clip of rory mcvicar and nat here

Hush the Many

2007-04-18T18:16:00.000Z

I've a few gigs to report on, but I'll start with this one, cos it was on teletext (thanks to ad for the photo). On wednesday I heard a track by the fields on 6music that I enjoyed. Discovering that they were playing at the leadmill I bought an impulse ticket and persuaded ad to come along too. That same eve I went for a meal with my family to celebrate my sister's b'day before heading down to the leadmill where a band were just setting up on the steel stage. We were stood near the stage and the bass player came over and we had a chat, discovering that they were the support act called hush the many. Once on stage it was apparent from their opening track that they were excellent. I really enjoyed the mix of guitar and cello, with intricate guitar noodling noises from the guy on lead. Add in a mix of driving bass and drums and it formed a beautiful soundscape. Moving effortlessly from quiet through to loud in a mogwai-esque style. We enjoyed it a lot, so i was pleased to get my review on teletext. My first for an unsigned band (though they do have a single deal with fierce panda). check them out at their myspace page too.
Click my review to see it full size.

Update: I've put a little clip on youtube. This is them perfoming the end of a track called Revolve. If you like, you can hear the rest of the track on their myspace page

Books I've been reading

2007-04-18T17:45:00.000Z

The sailor who fell from grace with the sea by yukio mishima
Picked up this book at fopp for a bargain £1. Money well spent. I really enjoyed this translation of a japanese novel, it is written with such poetic language, and is nice and short. The story revolves around a widow and her young adolescent son. A son who, with friends, have formed a view on the futility of life as expressed by their parents (whether pre-teens actually sit around discussing Nietzche is another matter, but it is fiction). Along comes a sailor who seems to embody the carefree approach to life with no ties so longed after by this group of boys. However their illusion is dashed as he falls in love with the widow, leaving his nomadic lifestyle to 'settle down'. Angered by this action the boys have a macabre scheme to keep the image of the heroic sailor they wish to have.

Children of Men - PD James
I got this after v told me about the film. I wanted to read it and check that it didn't cover ground that the book i'm writing covers. It doesn't. I was a little disappointed by this book, it's an interesting idea, the human race can no longer reproduce. In the novel it seems to be down to barren men and women, but the focus seems to be on defective sperm. To be honest the technology is around that obviates the need for sperm anyway, the most important thing is the ova. You can use some kind of cloning technique. Anyway, that is a flaw that is by the by. The novel is written part as the diary of the lead character and part as third person narrative. The diary entries I sometimes found too full of background setting information, the kind of things you really wouldn't put in a diary. The story continues and is punctuated with twists that are obvious a mile off, which added to my frustration of the read. It's an interesting story, but could've been told better, and I look forward to seeing the movie, which may well be better.

There'll be more later

easter

2007-04-15T20:12:00.000Z

there's been a bit of a back blog of things i've been meaning to report, but just not been in the write frame of mind (sic). Briefly, I was involved in setting up a meditative space for good friday, late into the eve of maundy thurs. Although it was not well attended, the actual act of preparing the room on the thursday felt like an act of worship. Creating and interactive art space, that did have the odd few drop in off the street. There's some pics and words of explanation on my good friday flickr set. Also enjoyed a walk around the river don, steeped in industrial history and a longer more challenging walk around lose hill and mam tor. There was some work undertaken in the garden as I fought the dicotyledens in my lawn in a battle I seemed to be loosing, leaving sparse clumps of monocotyleden grass clinging to the soil like wisps of hair on a balding mans head. Which annoyed me until my housemate reminded me that it wasn't as if I spent hours outside admiring my lawn. True. There's been some gigging too, and I'll write about that in due course, after submitting some reviews to teletext. So keep a look out this week, I may get something published. i hope so.

what's that

2007-04-13T10:47:00.000Z

Started my drive to work this morning and oddly I could only see about 20m ahead. Well, I tried washing the windscreen, but it made no difference. Even the usual land marks were obscured, only becoming visible as I got closer, like they hiding, and then jumping out to reveal themsleves at the last minute. When I got to the motorway it all made sense. Those great big signs that tell you not to drink and drive etc today proclaimed 'FOG'.

Of course

That's why I couldn't see very well, it was foggy.

In other news, I recently bought a new razor. In fact this story starts years ago, when I used to use a Gillette razor that contained two blades. I bought it cos the advert said it was the best a man can get. It worked fine. Then they invented a razor with an extra blade that they claimed enabled you to travel three times the speed of sound, or somesuch. That also worked, but was slightly more expensive. Now they have five blades, where will it stop. I thought three was excessive. What next, I'll soon be using a razor as big as my face with a hundred blades in it. No more. I recalled my dad saying he also had had enough with the expensive razors and was now using disposable ones from tesco that were equally as good and cheaper. Excellent I thought, and purchased some to try this week. Three blades as well. Yesterday I tried gliding the blade across my face and I kid you not a wood planer would have been better. Had to check in the mirror that my face was still there! It was uncomfortable and worse than using a bic razor. There's a lesson here, don't accept frugal advice from your dad, you'll end up eating no frills food, scraping your face off and wearing abbibas trainers with wrongler jeans. They're just as good as the originals.

yeah - right (!)

The Alchemist

2007-04-05T15:03:00.000Z

Went to the lyceum last night to watch a performance of the alchemist. You may recall I read the novel last year. It's a delightful little story about chasing your dreams, and the fortunes and struggles that ensue. Being a highly narrative story I had wondered how well it would transfer to the stage, but the adaptation worked wonderfully, performed by 5 actors, interchanging between narration and characters. Using movable blocks as stage props worked wonderfully too.

It was a whole different experience to when I went to see the cherry orchard. This time the audience was mainly under 35, which was refreshing. I'd booked an aisle seat for added comfort, cos I find the leg room quite small in that theatre. As I took my seat before the performance, some of the actors were roaming around in character selling programmes. I don't usually bother wasting my money on such things, but I really enjoyed the 'hard sell'. The programme came in a bag with sand from the dessert, a stone and a chocolate. I had to bargain hard with the girl, who was really quite attractive, who played fatima. I'd argued that she should be selling them cheap as they only had a few dates of the tour left. It was fun.

Seeing the story all in one go reminded me of its simplicity, it really does have an uplifting theme. Being led to chase ones dreams, but not a quest of pre-ordination where everything falls into place, but one that demands decisions and endurance. A path that includes loss and suffering, but one in which all things conspire to ultimately help achieve your aim. Along the way we meet others who have become comfortable in their routine and have forgotten their dreams. It's inspiring. Whilst there I bumped into an older lady who i know from churchy stuff. We were at conference together a few years ago. It was nice to see someone I knew and have a good chat. She had actually come thinking it was another play called the alchemist! However, despite that she had enjoyed it.

Little things

2007-04-04T13:34:00.000Z

CC came over on sunday and we went for a wander around the bole hills after lunch, meeting up with ss. Good to see them both and to hear their stories of uni life. As we were meandering along the footpaths we passed a guy carrying a hoe, he'd obviously been out in the allotments. Following him was an attractive girl, probably his girlfriend. I turne to cc and said, 'check out that guy, out with his ho'. It amused me for ages, did that. Talking of amusing tales, I remembered one from work that I was retelling to cc and ss. I was down on site in Mansfield working in the site cabin, showing some of the guys how to work this computer package. We were all huddled around my computer at a desk in the cabin when in walked the cleaner. She had in her hand an upturned broom, it was a huge stage broom, almost a metre in width. 'Sorry to bother you', she said, 'but I can't seem to find my broom, I can only find this one and it is too big. My broom is much smaller, if you see it can you let me know'.
No one had seen her broom,
'I don't know where it could be, but we'll buy you another one', said the project manager and as she left and shut the door he turned to us all and said 'it'll be the guys out on site, they'll have had it at lunch time to play quidditch.'

Yorkshire walking

2007-03-31T20:59:00.000Z

Jonah had invited me over for the weekend as I'd been feeling a bit down, I decided to take him up on the offer and drove over to his house after work on friday. We spent an enjoyable evening drinking decent beer in some local pubs and then watching some phoenix nights. We were able to share our stories of failed relationships and wonder what next. It was also good to share a few humourous tales too. Had a bit of a lie in and read for a while this morning before getting some breakfast and setting off for a walk around the village of askrigg. At the start of the walk we had to traverse a river via means of rocks placed as stepping stones. I followed Jonah and was nonchelently crossing the river when Jonah slipped off the next stone ending up with a very wet leg. It was then that I noticed the rocks were covered in a glaze of algae slime that was impossible to get a foothold on and suddenly the 30cm gap to the next rock seemed a gulf that was impossible to negotiate. All of a sudden I thought my next step would result in a broken ankle. It was strange the psychological fear that Jonah's slip had conjured and I finished crossing in an ungainly manner of leaps and squat using my arms to steady myself. It really was very slippy. The scenery in the area is stunning and the walk was great, jonah identifying birds and wildlife whereas I admired discarded farm machinery and pondered the construction of roman roads and dry stone walls. A nice 8 or so mile stroll. Just need to find some time to work on my book, which would've been my alternate option for today.

Another Review

2007-03-31T20:52:00.000Z

I was a bit late, but I finally got round to submitting a review of the malcolm middleton gig to teletext this wednesday and it was published on friday. I really enjoy seeing these published, though I'm not sure how many people actually read them.

You can click on the image to see it larger

Ice Cream

2007-03-31T20:45:00.000Z

Had a fairly rubbish week, I feel like I'm caught in a cycle of despondancy that I'm finding it hard to break. My dislike for my job and commuting are not helping. On thurs i went round to m&e for a house group social. M had prepared a number of desserts for us to sample, including three different home made ice creams. They were delicious. It was nice to get out and enjoy some company. On the down side, I was tod that someone would be bringing uno to play. I'm not a fan of this game, it's the card equivalent of beetle drive and should be banned due to the lack of skill involved. I think it stems from my competetive nature when it comes to using my mind, that I somehow feel cheated if the odds of my winning are slashed due to the cards I am dealt. It actually made the game a little more enjoyable as everyone mocked my hatred for the game and upon winning the winner would claim their position was acheived through skill.

Malcolm Middleton

2007-03-24T17:52:00.000Z

Thursday night i went to manchester with ad to go and see malcolm middleton. The one time guitarist with arab strap was promoting his third album, and i enjoy his music. Combining a rare gift in lyrical astuteness with a superb guitar playing ability. Most of his lyrics tend to be down beat and self loathing, covering failed relationships and sadness. He sings how he wishes he could have a run of happiness and then he could put away his guitar, as he would have lost his depression induced inspiration, and just go and get a job like 'normal people'. Despite the sombre nature of the lyrics, they are delivered with wit and sly self mocking accompanied with upbeat melodies. In fact, I think Malcolm is one of the best guitarists I have seen, effortlessly moving from complex plucking melodies, to riff driven noise. He makes guitar playing look simple. For the most of the gig he was backed by an able posse of musicians, including Jenny Reeve, who also supported. I'd seen Jenny a few times as part of the live band touring with arab strap where she would play violin. This evening she performed as 'strike the colours' and showed that she was also an accomplished guitarist and decent singer, and then later as part of malcolm's band she added keyboards to her reportoir.

I was also able to tick off another blogger in my 'i spy' book of bloggers on my blogroll. I came across being felicity whilst searching reviews for an arab strap gig at the leadmill i went to ages ago. It was a good review and i left a comment, she returned the comment and thought that she could discern the back of her head in one of my photos of the gig. Read a few more of her entries and enjoyed them and so she was added to my reading list. When i arrived at the gig with ad we found a couple of spare seats and sat at a table whilst i looked around the audience to see if i could spot her. Well it occured to me that i didn't really know exactly what she looked like having only seen glimpses in photos. Looking around the venue i spotted a good candidate sitting near the front. But how to find out for sure without it being embarrasing for both parties if the answer is a negative:
'excuse me, do you write a blog?'
'a what?'
'a blog, i thought you were someone whose blog i read'
'weirdo'

thankfully it was and we had some good conversations using the gift of speech, as opposed to using these new fangled electronic medias.

Photos of the gig, on my flickr page, and a clip of Malcolm performing 'Monday Night Nothing' on youtube below:

Paintings

2007-03-18T21:19:00.000Z

Popped over to see my m+d this afternoon for mothering sunday. They've been busy 'down sizing' and my mum had come across a bunch of paintings that me and my sister had painted whilst at nursery school. It was quite amusing looking through them, but I was quite impressed with my abstract work, with the vivid colours and expressive brush strokes. I don't think they would look out of place in the tate! My sister's paintings tended to be mainly pictures of the family and cat. It was possible to distinguish what the characters were, and they were generally anatomically correct. Which may be all impressive for a three year old, but they weren't worthy of the tate modern, they looked like kids paintings. Mine on the other hand.....

you can check them out on flickr here

the cherry orchard

2007-03-17T21:34:00.000Z

Went to the crucible last night to watch the cherry orchard. It's first time i've been to the crucible in ages, i'd forgotten what an excelent intimate venue it is. The stage is encircled by the audience, with the performance taking place within the centre. Interesting to see the types of ppl who go to the theatre, there were many from the older generations and i thought this is just like going to church. There were a couple of students in the mix, plus a few, that i can only describe as guardian readers who eat only organic food. Those people hovering on the border of eccentricity. and me. I was really impressed with the stage, and the lighting was also superb, they had employed a 'hazy fog' effect through which the lighting diffused. A couple of women in the row in front of me wre quite amusing as they were busy cleaning their glasses 'ooh, it's all hazy, I think i've got something on my glasses'.

I'm no theatre critic, but i thought the performance were very good, and there was an almost audible gasp of excitement in the room as joanna lumley appeared. However it was the story line of the cherry orchard that i found most fascinating. Set against the backdrop of social reform in russia at the turn of the 20th centuary. After the emancipation of the serfs, the lowest social class were able to amass their own fortunes, if lucky and astute business characters. Whilst the aristocrats frivoled their wealth away. In this play a rich landowner has amounted huge debts and her estate and cherry orchard need to be auctioned off. The newly rich 'serf' of the play tries to advise new ways to use the land of the cherry orchard for profit, the building of holiday homes. But the aristocrat will have none of it, the cherry orchard symbolises her youth and status and it will not change. Inevitably the orchard is sold and she loses everything. Reminded me a bit of the way church buildings are often revered to the detrament of doing the work of the gospel. All effort and money ploughed into maintaining a crumbling relic. The play is full of other interesting and amusing characters, including the left wing 'perpetual student' who offers great idealistic advice to one and all on the purposes and goals of life. This student reminded me a lot of Raskolnikov in crime and punishment. Probably reflective of the growing bolshevik movement of the day. I think I may have to read some more of anton chekov's work, as this was very enjoyable.

Arcade fire live review

2007-03-17T20:47:00.000Z

My review of the arcade fire gig made it onto teletext. Thanks to my dad for the photo, as i don't seem to be able to tune my tv into the analogue channels.

How I bought the Neon Bible and other stories..

2007-03-13T20:16:00.000Z

Went into town on saturday, and I really enjoyed my morning wandering around. Sheffield is an excellent place. Went to the urban deli for a bit to write and drink, and I got a text from phil asking if i was going to the chesterfield match. I didn't realise we were playing at home, and i had my mind set on a relaxing day, so decided not to go. After the abysmal performance i'd witnessed on wednesday it was not a difficult decision to make. Next it was time for a trip to fopp, always a dangerous shop for me as i always buy more than i bargained for. They didn't have the limited edition arcade fire album, but i did come away with 2 cds (anthony and the johnsons and low) and 'children of men' novel. Had to go to a bigger store for the arcade fire album, more on that later. Wandered down to the crucible to pick up a ticket for 'the cherry orchid' and noticed that the lyceum is showing 'the alchemist' which i read recently, so i got a ticket for that too. Feeling rather cultured with my theatre tickets, i decided to wander up to the millenium gallery where they had a free abstract exhibition on. There were some striking pieces, but one particularly caught my attention. Maya Roos had created a giant 'portrait' of coloured lines and boxes influenced by an image captured from norton disc clen up application. I was amazed that this huge piece seemed to be painted directly on to the wall and asking a curator I discovered that it had taken three weeks to paint by a team of three and at the end of the exhibition it would be sanded off and the wall repainted. The transient nature of this work made me admire it more. Got home and saw the football results come in, lamenting a further chesterfield defeat. A managerial change can be the only answer to this dreadful slide towards relegation, the last few games have been void of any ideas and passion. Phil was in agreement, and yesterday Roy graciously stepped down from his managerial role. I'd've preffered to see whole sale changes to the backroom staff instead of promotion of assistant manager, but we'll see if the performances turn.

Ok, so the Neon Bible, the second album from arcade fire. Sorry if you had to read so far if you were only interested in my review, and if you're not interested then you can stop reading now! Their first album, funeral, was my favourite album of 2005, barely a flaw on it, quite superb, so it's always a slight worry whether a new release would match the standard already set. After a few listens i think it is close to reaching those high standards. The neon bible is distinctly arcade fire, yet different from funeral. Produced like some overwhelming symphony the songs form a score of melancholy of the futility of life, or more accurately those bodies that seek to bring meaning, politics, religion. Yet there is some sense of upbeat within the tunes that make you want to dance too. The layers of instrumentation are really quite superb, without becoming some pompous over produced nonsense, they manage to balance grandiose church organs, harmonic choirs, flowing strings, bombastic brass, with guitars and drums. Some of the church organ sounds are immense, apparently recorded at some church, you can imagine some giant gothic cathedral with a bank of a thousand pipes springing forth from some huge organ. Certainly a top candidate for album of the year. And it's making my dreadful commutes all the more bearable as I blast it out from my iPod.

arcade fire

2007-03-09T21:00:00.000Z

It was an early morning start as I had a work related course to attend in manchester at 0830, so I left the house at dawn, the sky just turning blue, but the moon still prominant. In fact on my way up the hill, the moon appeared above the horizon looking huige and bulbous, but as I got higher, the angles changed lifting the moon from it's horizon hugging position and the satellite rapidly shrunk. It's a bizarre optical illusion. The course wasn't too tortuous, and at lunch I picked up the last minute ticket for the gig I had purchased, that had been mailed to the course venue. It's presence helped get me through the afternoon session, a slight excitement building. Once the course ended around 4 ther was a swift and mass exodus of the participants as they headed out to beat the rush hour traffic. I meandered down to a pub for a drink and to finish reading a book. After some food the traffic had died down and I managed to navigate myself to the apollo, spend some time in a pub awaiting the door opening. There was quite a queue, but it quickly dwindled as the doors opened, a very efficient scanning system was used for swift entry. I've not been to the apollo before, and it is a very nice medium sized venue. A theatre with the seat removed in the stalls, leaving a slightly sloping floor aiding good vantage points, even from the back. Being early I hovered neaer the front and watched the roadies set up the equipment. They seemed to be having problems with a theramin, and it was amusing watching them frantically waving their arms around in the air in an effort to get it to work. Patrick Wolf was the support act, a camp and flambouyant character whose music is worthy of further investigationn I think. Quite heavily string laden, but with hauntingly god melodies. Finally just after 9 arcade fire took to the stage. A vast array of instruments, organs, keyboards, hurdy-gurdys, strings, guitars and horns were used to create their eclectic art rock symphonies. It really was a fantastic spectacle. The only down side being the sound is obviously mixed for the centre of the auditorium, whereas near the front, the bass speakers take precedence so the mix of higher frequencies was too low at this position, due to the fact that the speakers producing the higher mix were hanging about 10m above my head! The other annoying thing were some idiot students near me, who seemed excited to see the band but then continued to chat through most of the songs. During 'power out' win butler invited some of the audience on to the stage, which included said students who cavorted around in an awful display of egotism, especially the boys. Arms aloft and chests out, they really detracted from a fantastic song. They seemed to think that the crowd were cheering them and were feeding from this in some kind of frenzy, it was a sad spectacal. No doubt they know think they are great, thing is, I didin't know who they were, don't know and don't care. Which is true for 99% of the audience. The arcade fire on the other hand.... There were some other audience members onstage watching the perfomance for it's entirity and they acted with much more dignity. The gig mainly consited of tunes from their new record, the neon bible, interspersed with tunes from funeral. From first impressions neon bible is going to be another great record. The musician ship of arcade fire is remarkable as they inter-change instruments and vocals. It's great to see, though sometimes breaks the flow of the concert as you are left waiting between songs as the band members swap instruments. Well worth paying slightly over the odds for the ticket.

most of my photos didn't come out, but a few are available on flickr arcade fire set

Yay!

2007-03-07T22:14:00.000Z

Hopefully I have secured a ticket to go and see arcade fire tomorrow. I'm on a course all day in manchester and the ebay ticket is on it's way to me there. If everything goes to plan I'll be able to see this fantastic band live. I hope it all comes good.

Crystal Maze

2007-03-04T14:50:00.000Z

A great little parody of the crystal maze taken from the mary whitehouse experience. It captures the programme perfectly.

I said what about breakfast at tiffany's

2007-03-04T14:06:00.000Z

She said, I think I remember the film. And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it. And I said, well that's the one thing we've got

Bought the collection of short stories by truman capote at fopp recently and enjoyed reading the original story and then re-watching the movie on dvd. Audrey hepburn's portrayal of Holly golightly is iconic, and being brought up on the a-team as a kid it's so strange to see george peppard as something other than Hannibal muttering, i love it when a plan comes together. Capote's book of short stories is interesting, BAT is by far the superior story, the others are much shorter, and though pleasant, aren't really striking. It's intersting to compare the differences with the film, the cliched happy ending of the film is not true to the novel, and although the character of Holly remains faithful to the book, I'm not so sure about Paul Varjak. The movie has him portrayed as some kind of gigalo, very heterosexual, and his relationship with holly has some kind of sexual chemistry. In the novel I'm not sure that that comes over quite so well, whether that is on purpose, or just a result of capote's writings being influenced by his own homosexuality, the relationship between holly and paul seems much more platonic. They are definately worth watching/reading.

La Lune

2007-03-04T13:46:00.000Z

Saw the weather forcast on sat morning and they mentioned that there would be clear skies and a good view of the evenings lunar eclipse. The internet came back online in the evening and I was able to look up the times of the spectacle. It was interesting to see, a shadow slowly encrouching upon the moon, to the point when just a faint white gleam shone from the top most edge of the moon. the rest of the satellite was a striking copper red colour, with the outline shimmering a deep red. I think it's the best lunar eclipse I've ever seen. I tried to take some photos using long exposures, but without a tripod it was difficult to keep the camera steady. Ended up with this fairly rubbish hint of a globe that I cropped from a large image. However, there are some really good photos on flickr, like this example by truus.

my rubbish lunar eclipse photo set

Meeting Richard Branson

2007-03-04T13:29:00.000Z

It's been a bad week for virgin media, not only have they had a fall out with BskyB, resulting in me loosing sky one and sky sports news, but their broadband internet has been playing up. I've not been able to get online, and I had a number of things to blog about on friday, and I can't recall what they are, I'm sure they couldn't have been that enlightening. It's annoying loosing these channels as they are the ones you can flick onto whilst eating your tea/breakfast. Plenty of football scores, futurama and simpsons and of course 24 on a sunday eve. However, Richard Branson cut his holiday short to come to my house and tell me how sorry he was with the inconvenience the loss of these channels and internet was. I said, "it's nice of you to pop by Richard, I can call you Richard can't I?" "Why yes, I think Sir Branson is far too formal for my flowing blonde locks image." "Ok Richard, but the thing is I wanted to check what was on at the cinema this weekend and without the internet I couldn't."

feeding from the bile

2007-02-25T21:10:00.000Z

Decided to engross myself in my book this afternoon, use my current feelings as inspiration for one of the scenes in my book, and it proved quite useful. Took me a while to find somewhere to have a coffee and write as the deli I found the other weekend was shut. No opening times posted, though I do recall reading ona flyer - come and sit and read the sunday papers, or words to that effect, obviously not on a sunday though. It's quiet in the city centre on a sunday afternoon, found a quiet corner in a coffee house and got down to some writing. Wonder if I'll ever finish iit, but at least it is giving my mind something useful to d, rather than wallow in pity and 'what ifs'. Met up with ad later to go and see Hot Fuzz. Entertaining, bit of light hearted humour always helps. Talking of which, last sunday we were singing a john bell song, kind of contempory liturgy put to a familiar tune, which has the verse:

Jesus Christ is raging, raging in the streets,
Where injustice spirals, and real hope retreats,
Listen, Lord Jesus, I am angry too.
In the kingdom's causes let me rage with you

ad had typed it out on the song sheet, but had made a typo: Jesus Chris is raging, raging in the streets. I had a job not to refrain from laughing - that's me on my commute to work, raging in the streets.

It's a winner

2007-02-24T18:30:00.000Z

I've sent in a couple of reviews to teletext recently, I missed my Jarvis review, but my Regina Spektor review was a winner! Though I don't think this edited version flowed as well as my text, butthey have to adapt it to fit the screen restraints.

Regina bookends

2007-02-24T08:24:00.000Z

It seems that as a regina spektor gig saw the beginning of a relationship with v, another one marks it's end. We both had our reservations about full commital, not least the difficulties of living on separate continents. How do you ever know, there's no all encompassing formula, and all the what if's and unknown variables. For someone with a mathematical mind it's too hard to calculate, and yet we shared so many beautiful times together and i always enjoyed engaging in conversation, as we had so many things in common, especially our eclectic taste in movies and music. Last night when the end became apparent, there's that numbness that engulfs, as if all you blood is failing to be pumped to it's correct location. The mouth goes dry, saliva stops and you try swallowing cos it feels like there is some great obstacle in your throat. There's nothing to do but wallow in self pity, trying to see what could've been done in the past to have a different result. How someone of such beauty would have an interst in the first place, a wilderness set before devoid of any replacements that could meet such a standard. A few seasons ago leeds were playing at the san siro and now they are in danger of playing chesterfield at saltergate next season, and you just wonder what you could've done to win one more corner.

Regina Spektor live

2007-02-20T23:44:00.000Z

The last time I saw Regina Spektor live she was playing in the small room at the leadmill and it was an amazing performance. On the way home I bumped into a set of international students who wanted to find west street. I obliged by showing them as it was easier than giving directions. They were all pleasant to chat with and I met up with one of them later to talk 'english culture'. It was v.

Nothing quite so exciting this night, though as it was sold out I tried to blag my way in as a teletext reviewer, which I thought was fair cop, seeing as I had a hand full of my teletext planet sound reviews with me. They were convinced but cos my name wasn't down they couldn't let me in - boo. I didn't want to force the issue, but the door dude said that there was a few tickets that could be purchased on the door. Better than nothing I thought and took up the offer. Pleased I did, met ad inside who had already got his ticket. Surprisingly full venue, playing the main stage and there was quite a bit of chatter. This was disappointing me, cos there is nothing worse than chattering people at a gig. However, as Regina entered the stage a deathly silence fell as her powerful vocals captivated the audience. Her live vocals are really something else, so vivid and full, a sound that her recorded material does little justice to. She performed a number of solo pieces on piano and guitar, her vibrant anti-folk tunes with witty lyrics transfixing the audience. Then a session band joined her for some tunes from the new album and I thought it detratced from the rawness and simplicity of her vocals, something of the vitality of the songs was lost. Certainly a good gig, and worth giving up yet another evening for!

Took a few clips for you tube:

NME new rave tour

2007-02-18T23:28:00.000Z

Tonight I felt old.

I've never been to an NME tour before where they peddle the new 'cool' bands, but I'd purchased tickets ages ago cos I wanted to see the glorious css again. It was full of giddy students. I arrived early to catch all the bands and see if any of the hype was worth it, and I sequestered myself near the back by the mixing desk. New Young Pony Club, just seemed to be trying too hard. An opening act willing the audience to go crazy for them, and getting a half arsed response. Sunshine underground band seemed to have a fair following and were better than average. Css followed, and it seemed a rather rushed set, though they still are a fantastic live spectacle. Lovefoxxx wowed the crowd with her eccentricities, stripping down to a purple catsuit which had the male hormones flying. Then, with the crowd whipped up into a delirous frenzy the headline act, The Klaxons, took the stage. New rave eh? Well it was loud and vibrant, but shallow. Scratch at the surface and you are left with nothing, no musical inventiveness. The new heroes of music or flash in the pan, I think time will show the latter to be true.

Here's a rubbish clip of CSS performing css suxx for you courtesy of me

and a small flickr photo set

Jarvis is back

2007-02-17T20:05:00.000Z

In sheffield at least. Thursday evening jt came down to visit and we went to watch jarvis cocker perform at the plug with A. It's the first time I have ever seen him perform live, lamentably I missed him during his days with Pulp. However, he did not disappoint, what a performer. He interspersed his songs with jovial chats about sheffield and his life spent in the city. Challenging the audience to name four rivers, before rattling off four and claiming "still got it!" Though his arsenal still contains some really good tunes, some really don't live up to his pulp days standard. Despite this, his spider like writhings and stage energy more than make up. His songs still contain observational wit and he manages to hide cutting lyrics beneath cheerful and upbeat melodies.
Had the next day off work so took the opportunity to go for a walk around stanedge with jt. Not the best walking weather as it was quite drizzly, but not awful. A steady wet and muddy walk made a really nice day, certainly better than going to work.
Today I've managed to get a number of jobs done around the house, that have been piling up in recent weeks, good to have made some headway, though there's still plenty to be done. Found a nice new coffee bar/deli in town as well, where I gave a bit more thought to my book. I'm going to have to set some regular slots aside to make some more progress on it.

Jarvis photoset on flickr

Die Grosse Stille

2007-02-17T19:36:00.000Z

I've had a really busy week with commitments most evenings, which meant I have been rushed off my feet. One of the things I wanted to do was to go and see into great silence so I met up with a couple of friends at the showroom, including curig, a and M&E, though E admitted that she fell asleep during the film.
It's a film that I heard about around a year ago and sounded like an interesting experiment in docu-film making. German film maker Philip Groning had requested to film a group of Carthusian Monks, and sixteen years later was granted permission, provided he added no additional sound or commentry and used just natural lighting. What is produced is an almost three hour insight into the regulated and silent life of these monks. Dedicated to regular prayer, study and silent meditation, you are drawn into their routine. These scenes of their ritualistic life are interspersed with stunning images of the surrounding Alpine scenery which slowly transforms as the seasons change. The day to day chores of the monks are conducted with integrity and also a warmth. It is during these scenes that the personalities of the monks comes across, despite the lack of talking. There are shots of the monks, alone facing the camera, where they seem to radiate an air of confidence and contentment with compassion. The slow pace of life with plenty of time for silence and reflection is in stark contrast to my rushing around at the moment, and there is something about their use of time, space and silence that I think we can all learn from. Why these men choose to live such a life remains a mystery, and what purpose it might serve is not made clear, and is left to the viewer to form. Certainly an interesting piece of art work, with definate underlying spirituality. Sunday afternoons the only time reserved for a recreational walk and conversation, opitimised by the wonderful scenes of the monks sliding down a snow laden hill side in their shoes. Marred only by a conversation with a blind monk who proports that because God is infinately good then there can be good to come out of all situations, and hence he gains strength from his disability. An argument which does not stand up in the face of many atrocities that the world has seen, and perhaps an easier statement to make when living an aesthetic lifestyle as this.

Snow at last

2007-02-10T18:24:00.000Z

I was disappointed on Thursday that there was no snow, after the media frenzy. I thought I may be snowed in and unable to make the early morning meeting in Leeds, but no. Instead I awoke to no snow and the news media going crazy over two flakes of snow that they had. There was even a guy on the news in some wood broadcasting live "Look there is almost two inches of snow on these branches" he exclaimed. However, last night it began to snow in Sheffield, and it even settled quite thickly where I live. Today I woke up and it was drizzling, the snow had all but turned to slush and I was a little sad. Not to worry, I had planned on going for a walk up to stanedge and the snow would've fallen much deeper there. The bus journey up to Lodge Moor was interesting, the further from the city centre the deeper the snow became. One of the great things about living in Sheffield is travelling a couple of miles and being out into some awesome countryside. I walked from the bus terminus following the road, which went from brown slush to compact white snow as the traffic became lighter. Unfortunately it was also quite foggy, so much in fact that I didn't realise that I had arrived at the reservoir because I could hardly see it! Carried on up to Stanedge Pole and snow became less disturbed, as only a few people had been this way. Including some joggers (or fell runners) who were still making good pace despite the conditions. The snow was becoming really deep, and it was quite tough going, so much of the energy in the footsteps seems to be absorbed by the snow and the forward momentum is low. There were drifts of snow where I disappeared up to my knees, and it was a bit of a shame that I couldn't see the view blanketed in snow. The walk was great, and my legs feel like they have had a good work out. Hopefully there will be more opportunities to do some winter walking later in the year.
There are some more photos added to my stanedge flickr set

Ghosts review

2007-02-06T21:17:00.000Z

Decided on another trip to the showroom last night to go and see ghosts. I enjoyed the brisk walk to the cinema, as there was a real crisp coldness in the air. Probably the first time I've really enjoyed proper cold air this winter. There's nothing like wrapping up and walking in the cold, icy fingers pricking your cheeks, and the glow on entering a warm building.
It's exactly 2 years since at least 23 illegal chinese immigrants died whilst out cockling in morecambe. This film based on a true story is told by documentry maker Nick Broomfield. It holds on to some form of documentary in it's telling, not quite having the feel of a movie. For the most part I felt an observer, rather than feeling drawn and involved with the characters. Ai Qin believes she can earn a better life in the uk and provide for her family, she quickly learns that this is not the case as she is forced to live in squalid conditions in a rented house with many others. The film documents the work that services the food industry, meat factories, fruit/vegatable picking. The monotonous and hard work that goes to serve our supermarkets, carried out daily by people on the poverty line. Here the immigrants use false documents to garner work through an agency, where they earn about £100 disposable income from 40 hour weeks. It casts a bleak picture, and whilst you cannot condone entering a country illegaly, once caught up in the web it must be impossible to leave. Forever indebted to the loan sharks and gangs who paved your illegal entry, you are subjected to a life of hard work in some of the countries most demeaning jobs. Eventually forced to cockle, the immigrants are discouraged violently by the locals from carrying out their work whilst they are working. So it is whilst working at night that they are caught off guard by the quick changing tide. It poses difficult social questions, how to deal with illegal immigrants who could not possibly repay their debts if deported, and yet carry out important work in the food, health and care sectors. Would this work continue to be delivered if the illegal (or for that matter even the legal) immigrants did not do it. On the anniversary year of the abolition of the slave trade, issues like this show that it is very much still thriving. Challenging.

The families of the cocklers who died are still trying to pay back owed debts, the morecambe victim fund are trying to raise funds in support.

video

2007-02-04T21:00:00.000Z

i've attempted my first video upload to youtube, it's a small excert of monkey swallows the universe from the gig the other day.

that's novel

2007-02-04T19:14:00.000Z

i was sitting in a park in the shade in sydney, basking in the december heat when i had an idea for a book. i scribbled a couple of the ideas down in my notebook and decided i would start writing a book on my return to england. and that is what i did, whilst job hunting i began writing, but then time seemed to ebb away and i never had chance to add to the words, instead dropping a few words here instead. Recently i've been getting fed up with work, and with the hassle i had sans car i was considering galavanting off somewhere to write my book. i'd been chatting about it with v when we were enjoying chilling out in tea rooms in prague, thinking they would be ideal places to chill and write. So with the prospect of spending lots on a car, i was thinking i'd rather spend it on some time out. however, i'm not that bohemian, and worried about the bills and subsequent lack of cashflow. anyway, i decided that i would restart the writing and purchased a notebook in which to collect my thoughts on plotlines and characters. wasted most of saturday watching the abismal cfc, so spent a couple of hours today re-reading my manuscript and adding my thoughts to the notebook. quite excited about it actually, wish i could spend some more time on it, but i get caught up in all kinds of things, i never have the quality time to dedicate to it. but at least the ball is moving again, hopefully someone will read it....

journeys

2007-02-04T19:02:00.000Z

last saturday i took part in an event at broomhill methodist. three people from around the circuit were sharing stories of various journeys they had been on, part of which was a retelling of my time in israel/palestine with highway projects. the evening started with the sharing of food and conversation, followed by two talks. a break for drinks and more conversation followed by the final talk and questions. the format worked really well, but with just over 20 minutes to share some of my experiences it was quite a challenge. It really is impossible to summise how experiencing another culture affects you, how sharing my love of christ in work and deed works itself out practically. I often feel i get so much out of giving to others. and of course my trip was punctuated with the commencement of a war. reflecting on my time there reminded me of feeling of some use, a purposeful vocation. not that the mundane is without purpose, on mission everything is more heightened, added to the context of another culture, really impacts my faith journey. which was the purpose of the event, we are all on a journey, which sounds trite, but at the same time ideas, events and circumstances can have a great impact on our journey of faith and our understanding of the divine. i found great encouragement from m experience on an experience exchange project in zambia. a chance to utilise all his skills to their full in assisting projects throughout the country. challenging and humbling, really made me consider doing something similar in the future.