Critical Mass

The destruction of small ideas

2011-03-08T16:29:00.002Z

The stage is set.

Yesterday I got paid.

I needed to buy a few things online and I had no cash in my flat and I needed petrol,

So I decided to do the following after work.

1. get cash out at sainsburies
2. get petrol at sainsburies
3. go to waitrose for supplies
4. go home and book train tickets to go to London
5. and I was also going to ring Julie

So I arrived at Sainsburies and put my card in the machine.

It sucked it in and continued to display adverts on the screen.

I waited and waited some more and after more than 5 minutes it asked me to enter my PIN.

I pressed some keys but it did not beep and it did not display anything on the screen to show it was getting what I was pressing.

Then a window popped up with what looked like a dos prompt and the cashpoint machine started rebooting.

I went inside to see customer services and they told me the bank must have had a reason to take my card and there was nothing they could do.

I explained it was a fault with the cash machine and even took her outside where she could see lots of errors on the screen, but she said she was not allowed to give me my card back.

So I had to drive to my dads, borrow some money, put petrol in and then go home with no supplies.

I was feeling very stressed and tired and did not ring Julie.

I had a card in my postbox showing me that T-mobile had tried to deliver my new dongle.

I had tried to cancel my old dongle last week but the nice man at T-mobile told me if I didn't cancel it they would send me a shiny new one that would be quicker than my old one and work better with macs and instead of charging me the £17.50 I was currently paying it would go down to £5 per month for unlimited usage.

So I said ok.

This morning I went to the doctors, where they took 8 pints of blood out of my arm, and collected my dongle from the sorting office on the way to work.

After lunch I plugged my dongle in and installed the software that came with it.

I tested it out and it was quicker and I was pleased.

The guy next to me had a mac and asked if he could try it on his.

I said yes and he did so.

He then said he was unable to run any other programs on his mac. I tried and I also could not run anything.

He suggested we both log out and back in.

So we both logged out, but it just hung there not logging out.

We both rebooted and our macs would not boot.

I looked on google and saw that t-mobile dongles kill your mac and there is a complicated procedure to get them working again involving using the cd that came with the computer, which is at home.

So now I have no switch card and no laptop and no blood and I still haven't rung Julie.

Day 2530: Six ways to Sunday.

2010-12-08T14:32:00.009Z

Yesterday evening I having a look at the new style profiles that facebook have recently introduced. I noted that 5 of the musicians I 'like' have their photo displayed in my profile 'info' section. It is possible to choose which 5 are selected so I spent a few minutes swapping them around and ended up with Tori Amos, Strange Devotion, De Brassers, Cocteau Twins and Joanna Newsom.

Devoid of much else to do I clicked on the Tori Amos picture and saw mention of some free live MP3's that could be downloaded by clicking on a link. I clicked away and found myself on a page offering a special limited edition Tori Amos box set

Tori Amos Limited Edition Box Set

This got me quite excited as it contained a CD signed by Tori herself, but as it was limited to only 2,000 copies I expected it to be sold out. But it had actually only just been made available and seemed not to have sold out yet, so I ordered one without really looking too much at what else was included. As far as I was concerned it had a live CD, was signed by Tori and also included a photo, which I could frame and put in my lounge. That was good enough for me. The fact that it also included a camera was neither here nor there - especially as it looked to be made of plastic.

That could have been then end of it, but the next day I kept thinking about this cheap plastic camera and wondering why it was included. I looked at the advert again and saw it was called a Diana camera. Could this be something to do with Lady Di?

I was curious now, so I looked it up and saw that a Diana was a very cheap camera produced in the 1960s that a number of professional photographers used to occasionally use as it had quite a few quirks that could produce some very good results. One such quirk was the fact that the cameras are often not completely light proof and the light leaking in can have some interesting effects. That reminded me of some of the photos I used to take with my old analogue SLR where I used to quickly open the back of my camera, after taking a photo, to let a bit of light leak onto the picture.

This is one of my examples from around 1980.

The light poured out of me.

I read a bit of the history of the Diana camera, which I now realised had nothing to do with Lady Di, and saw the one included in the Tori Amos package was actually a Diana F+ and on further inspection I found these cameras have all sorts of features that enable you to get very creative with them - such as interchangeable lenses (made of plastic!), double exposure and the ability to keep the shutter open as long as you like.

By now I was more than a little excited and further searching led me to a special group for these cameras on Flickr.

In fact I had now discovered there was a whole world of lo-fi photography out there and the name Lomography seemed to crop up quite a bit. As well as being a trademark it also seemed to refer to a form of casual snapshot photography characterised by such things as over-saturated colours, off-kilter exposure, blurring and "happy accidents".

I looked through some of the photos on the Flickr group and was immediately reminded of one of my favourite photos of all time: the cover form the Hagnesta Hill album by Swedish band, Kent.

One of my all time favourite photos of all time, by Jonas Linell
I tried to find out if this photo was taken with such a camera, but I could find no mention of it, and, on reflection, I imagine it is probably taken with a far more advanced camera. But the main thing is I am now inspired to get out there with my new lo-fi analogue camera and try and recreate the feel of this photo.

I am now just as excited about the arrival of my camera as I am of the signed Tori Amos Cd and photo (which was taken with one of these cameras).

Any female subjects wishing to get involved in my new project, let me know.

Day 1886: There's no patrol like snow patrol!

2009-03-05T12:08:00.013Z

They say a week in politics is a long time, but over the last few weeks I have found that a week has been an even longer time when it comes to whats going on, in and around my life!

It probably started a few days before I went to London/Brighton to see Magazine/stay with Adrian. I stumbled onto some sort of fast track conveyor belt and it is going so quickly I have been unable to get off. But then I don't actually want to get off, so that is fine!

So I had just got a nice new phone with some birthday money so I made use of the train journey to London getting used to it as well as listening to some music on it. I found the sound is definitely superior to my iPod so this means my iPod is no longer getting used much and my last.fm page is no longer keeping up to date with my listening habits. I managed to work out how to get onto the dreaded facebook using the phone, so the jourmey flew by.

I was met off the train by Adrian and after a quick look around the new St Pancreas station, we headed off to The Bull and Gate, near The Forum, to meet up with Ashley and Jonny.

The Light Pours Out Of Me

The gig opened with the stage hidden behind a black curtain while the strains of In The Thin Air made the hairs on the backs of our necks stand up. Then followed a short monologue, where Howard Devoto gave us a few of the reasons for them getting back together for these gigs. The main one seemed to be that there was this girl he wanted to impress.

Then they started playing and we were transported back in time. The playing was just as tight as it always was and the sound through the PA was superb. I hear they will now be recording a new album and playing some more dates over the summer. I will definitely be seeing them again.

Following the gig we had a nightmare train journey down to Brighton. crowded train, no free seats and over 2 hours for, what should have been, a 50 minute journey.

So - I slept well and we had a good walk around Brighton the next day with valentines day lunch out in a nice restaurant. I asked for a table for 4 instinctively, then when we sat down wondered why there was an empty seat. The fact that I was single had reared its ugly head again - and on valentine's day too of all days!

For Valentines evening Adrian and I met up with Julian for a quiet drink in a local pub. It was quiet until I decided the evening would not be complete without us getting heavily involved with some absinthe. So after drinking all they had left in the pub we wondered the streets of Brighton on a quest for more. Unfortunately we did find more and after staggering back to Adrian's at the end of the evening, barely able to stand up, I spent the next 4 days regretting I had even had the stuff and vowing never to touch another drop for the rest of my life.

So I got back to Leeds on Sunday and had to go straight into work - not much fun feeling how I was, but it passed the time.

Then it was back to work on Monday - and this is where I seemed to inadvertently step on that conveyor belt.

The days have flown by and I wasn't fully aware what was going on, but I do seem to have increased the rate at which I am turning back into the real me, so it can only be a good thing.

Before I knew it I had arrived at the day I was supposed to be going to see Snow Patrol. I had bought 2 tickets before christmas and felt sure I would have found someone to go with, but ended up going with my Dad (familiar story) but he really enjoyed it so that was great.

I break, you don't

The show opened with If There's A Rocket Tie Me To It, which is what I was thinking they might open with, and it was a fantastic start to a superb show. The sound was amazing. as where the visuals which should have made it enjoyable even for those at the very back.

All the songs were taken from the most recent 3 albums so I knew everyone and all the ones people would have expected where in there. The encore began with the 15 minute The lightening Strike, which was definitely a highlight, though the whole show was fantastic.

What if this storm ends, and I don't see you?

It is quite strange that I even ended up going to this as it is only recently that I have begun to open up a bit to new bands (ok I know they aren't that new) rather than being stuck in the late 70s/early 80s.

I felt inspired to, not only get more involved in the music scene, but also to learn to play Run on my acoustic guitar - watch this space!

And what is it that happened to change my life so much over the last few weeks?

Well, I kissed a girl, and I liked it!

Day 1805: Happy Christmas to all our reader

2008-12-22T22:33:00.022Z

So with the yule log season upon us once again it falls on my humble hands to provide the official 2008 Christmas message and final quarter summary.

I'll do my scientific best........to look like Alice Glass

This year in the lead up to Christmas I have been mostly playing:
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (Crystalcastlitious)
Kate Bush - Aerial (Warblitious)
Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi (Boardering on the Georgous)
Snow Patrol - Final Staw (Terminalitious)
Kent - Tillbaka Till Samtiden (Bra musik)
Joanna Newsom - Ys (My picture window produced a half-word)

Boosh Boosh, stronger than a moose

At the beginning of December I went to see The Mighty Boosh. I had bought 2 tickets when they went on sale a year earlier and as December drew close I was feeling confident that I would be able to find a like minded soul to go along with to it with.

Still, it was nice having an empty seat next to me to put my coat and computer bag on. And the show was even funnier than I thought it was going to be.

The wrong type of snow

Hope you have a nice Christmas and New Year!

Dag 1781: Make-up to Break-up

2008-11-28T14:40:00.018Z

So, quite a lot has happened over the last 94 days that has kept me from thinking about posting here.

The most significant being that I recently saw my first real life Banksy and further down the list is the fact that my marriage has collapsed in a big heap all around me. But, on the upside, I am pleased to report that it was in no way related to the strange incident of the Caterpillar in the garden that I so eloquently related last time. The post prior to that may hold a clue or two though.

So in amongst moving out, dealing with the bank, sorting out mail redirection and trying to see the children as much as possible, I was also trying to keep my job going and, most importantly for my head, trying to carry on some semblance of normal life. As well as my family I have also had amazing support from all my friends who have rung me up, texted me and invited me round for meals.

Recently a sometime contributor to the cloudhands organ decided that as it was his birthday, it would be nice to get some old friends together and hold a special birthday meal in an, as yet, undisclosed location.

Previously, I would have found it hard to have attended such a bash, but as I now found I had no one to answer to but myself I decided to go.

It was great to see my old friends again, who I had not seen for such a very long time, and with a combination of brute force and alcohol they seemed to manage to get me to turn a corner and since then, I have to say I have found that have a whole new air of confidence about myself.

Adrian tells everyone his new joke for the 12th time

Nicola and Katherine lend a sympathetic ear to the tragic news of Dominic's recent marital breakdown.

These are but two of the photos that escaped from this top secret society event, and selected others can be found on my page of one of the leading marriage wrecking websites Facebook.

In other news I hit a pheasant with my smart car last week and wrote it off. Fortunately, the pheasant only suffered a ruffled feather. OK, that's not quite what happened - I was going rather fast and it stepped out into the road at the last possible moment so I didn't actually see what happened to it, but my smart car now has half of its front missing. Very Smart!

Dag 1687: A day in the life of an explorer

2008-08-26T09:33:00.008+01:00

I decided to spend this Bank Holiday monday doing a bit of exploring. Specifically I decided it would be a good idea to try an find a new species of caterpiller.

So, after many hours of dedicated exploring in extremely difficult and dangerous terrain, I finally came upon that elusive new species I had been dedicating my whole life to finding.

I had brought my collection of scientific instruments with me so I was able to photograph and take full measurments of the specimin I had tracked down. As can be seen, this is, to date, the largest caterpiller ever found.

The specimum is over 6 and a half inches long

As I journeyed further into the wilderness I found an even larger one eating a small tree.

I had to move on quickly after taking this in case I was attacked!

Based on my calculations this caterpiller will most likely turn into a new giant species of butterfly with a wingspan of at least 3 feet. It will feed on medium sized mammals, such as dogs and cats, and it will also be poisonous. In fact the entire nation could well be wiped out before the end of the year.

So be afraid, be very afraid.

But don't have nightmares.

Dag 1640: I've seen things that you'll never see

2008-07-10T13:03:00.011+01:00

A quick music update:

I've spent a fair bit of the last year working towards a show called Carnival Of Legends that was put on at the, newly refurbished, Royal Hall in Harrogate on Saturday 5th July 2008. The show was performed by a local Youth Theatre Group called Theatre Box and it was written specially for them by Terry Deary (author of the Horrible Histories amongst others).

I was initially involved in preparing the music scores for some of the songs, but once I found out that Crazy Horses was in the show I thought it really needed a synth part in it, so I offered up my services as synth player and managed to worm my way into the heart if the crowd (I mean band).

By the time we had the dress and technical rehersal in the hall the night before, things seemed to be falling into place and the 2 performances on the Saturday went really well. The cast contained around 180 children and teenagers aged between 4 and 19 and all proceeds went to Martin House Hospice.

The show itself was fantastic and would, I feel, rival many professional shows.

The band consisted mainly of music teachers but the guitarist is also in a band called The Birdman Rallies so when I found they were playing at The Blues Bar in Harrogate the week after the show I decided I would try and go along and see them. I didn't manage to russell up any friends to go with so ended up going on my own, but the place was pretty busy so I didn't end up feeling like I stuck out like a sore thumb, despite the fact that I had a sore thumb.

Some Birdmen Rallying at The Blues Bar

The gig was great, with the singer/guitarist doing a short improvisational solo set first followed the band playing tracks from their self titled CD.

This year looks like it might end up being one of my busiest for gigs for a while. It started off pretty quietly with me ending up not being able to see The Cure at Wembley, but I shall be seeing a number of bands (including Golfrapp and Sigur Ros) at the Hydro Connect Festival in Scotland, Sigur Ros again in Blackpool and The Mighty Boosh in December. I will hopefully get chance to see Ashley Reaks at the Blues Bar in October aswell.

Then to cap it all off I have just heard that Magazine will be playing some gigs in February 2009. I have been hoping for some years that they might get together for a few gigs and it has finally happened. Of all the groups that have reformed recently this is, without doubt, the one I would see above all others. The last time I saw them was in 1979 at Leeds University and I can still remember how good it was.

I have also heard uncomfirmed rumours that Strange Devotion may also be cashing in on the reunion band wagon and playing a few gigs at some point in the future. No doubt they want to earn a few million before retiring.

Remember you read it here first folks.

Dag 1637: It's That Time Of Year Again

2008-07-07T10:35:00.005+01:00

Yes that's right, it is the season where most (if not all) of the British Minimal Synth Societies have their annual conferences and social get togethers.

So last Wedneasday members of the Harrogate Outlying Villages Minimal Synth Society descended on Blackpool for a short meeting followed by the rest of the afternoon free at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

Yet again, we had a 100% member turnout, which was fantastic to see and just goes to show how populer this musical genre is becoming in the UK.

Dag 1589: The Missing Boy

2008-05-20T10:20:00.010+01:00

Some time in the 1970s

As had happened on so many recent occasions he found his morning car journey to the train station was taking too long and he was in danger of missing the train. He had only missed it once in the last few weeks, resulting in an hour wait for the next one, but if it had been on time every day he would have missed it more often than he made it.

The journey was generally mostly free flowing but there were 2 potential bottlenecks that would determine whether his stress levels were going to rise or whether it would just be a forgetful journey where he could think of other things.

The first was a set of traffic lights near the start of the journey. Some days they would be on green when he arrived and he would sail through, other days the queue would be so long that it would take up to five sets of green lights before he got through and he would need to really put his foot down to get to the next one.

The second was a set of traffic lights near the station and, again, some days the queue of traffic here was as minimal as good synth music and on others it wasn't. The big stress inducer at this set of lights was the fact that if the driver looked back over his right shoulder he could see the railway track gently curving round on the magnificent viaduct. If the train should appear on this bridge he knew he had about 5 minutes to get through the lights, park the car and get onto the platform.

Viaduct obscured by taps - 1982

The journey on this particular morning started badly as the queue at the first set of traffic lights was longer than it had been for a long time. When he finally got through it was twenty past eight, which meant he had 18 minutes to get to the station. If there was no queue at the last set of lights he might just make it, but he didn't feel hopeful. The only hope was that the train would be late again.

He drove flat out and arrived at the back of the queue at the final lights with 5 minutes to spare. The queue was longer than it had been for a while, but there was no sign of the train so it looked like it was late and he had a chance.

Each time the lights changed about 4 or 5 cars got though and he inched closer to the front of the queue. By the time he got to the front the train still hadn't appeared on the viaduct and he could relax a bit as he knew he would make it. He switched from listening to Radio 4 to the cd player and listened to the track he was currently trying to write some lyrics for. He had recorded the basic backing tack and need to finish making up some lyrics for it. The song had originally been called On The Other Side, but once the chorus lyrics had been written it had to be renamed Half Life. All that was left to write was the second verse, but this was proving stubborn so this track was getting played alot during the daily car journeys.

As he drove into the car park his mind was still a blank and as he walked down the path to the platform he was relieved to see a fair number of people waiting so he knew the train had not managed to sneak across the viaduct when he had been looking the other way.

Most people on the platform seemed to congregate around the shelter in the middle of the platform so the extremities were usually empty. His habit had always been to walk to the far end of the platform and enter the train at the door nearest the front. He was usually the only person entering through this door and would usually find a free seat with ease, though lately the train had been more full and he more often found himself having to share a seat.

The day before he had entered through this door as usual and as he walked down the carriage he saw that there was not a single free seat. He had walked through the next, and only other, carriage and found it had many free seats so he had picked one and wondered if he would have been better getting in through the back door of the train in future.

So this morning when he noticed to his surprise that there was quite a crown of people at the far end of the platform he remembered what had happened the day before and decided to wait at the other end of the platform.

After a few minutes wait he entered through the back door of the train and was the only passenger to do so. He looked up the length of the carriage but didn't see any free double seats. He walked slowly up the carriage trying to scan for a free seat while also trying to think which of the partially occupied seats he would take. He stopped by a group of 4 seats facing a table on his right, noticing that the seat facing backwards nearest the window was taken but the other free were empty so he could take the one facing forwards nearest the central aisle without having to jockey for foot space with anybody else. He almost sat straight down, but instead spent some further moments standing by the seat while looking to see if there was a better seat further down the carriage.

He didn't see one and as his eyes worked their way back over the seats he suddenly realised he was looking at someone from his past sitting in the group of 4 seats on the left side of the carriage. She was sitting in the seat facing backwards by the window and was looking down into a book.

A ghost from 1982?

He realised that he wasn't sure what to do next. As he had been standing by that seat for so long a) she must have noticed him and b) it would look a bit strange if he suddenly walked off to find another seat. So he sat down in the seat he had been standing next to and took out his iPod, while deciding what, if anything, he should do next. It took him a lot longer than usual to decide what he was going to listen to. He knew he wanted to listen to something from that era, but he also wanted it to be something that reflected how he felt at this moment. He chose The Durutti Column live in Bruxelles and as the journey progressed and the music flowed into his ears it exactly complimented the way he felt at that time.

He then took out his PSP so he had something to focus on and played that while making sure that the only time he looked up was to look out of the window on his left side.

As the live version of The Missing Boy flowed into his mind the train began slowing down as it approached Leeds station and the sun suddenly broke through the clouds. A feelling came over him that at that moment all was right with the world.

As the train had filled up, as it stopped at each of the stations on its way to Leeds, he had needed to move to the window seat to make room for someone to sit next to him and when it finally stopped it was completely full of passengers.

He decided to wait until everyone else from his immediate area had left before he stood up and as he walked down the passageway towards the exit he got the impression someone was standing on the platform by the door as if waiting for somebody to the get off. He hurried a bit as he went, but then he came to a bottleneck of passengers. Someone was struggling to get an over sized suitcase down from the rack and it had become jammed. After a few agonisingly slow moments the suitcase became free and the passengers began moving again.

He was the last one to get off the train and as he turned his head and looked to the left and save for the people who had just got off the train in front of him, the platform was empty.

The end of the line

He wondered if she had any idea that a band she had once played with had released their debut single a few days earlier or that is was available for sale here.

Dag 1577: Mauerstadtmusik proudly presents STRANGE DEVOTION!!!

2008-05-08T16:39:00.007+01:00

Recorded April 1982

7" Strange Devotion - Again the new formation MM 05

Releasedate: 16th May 2008

It can be purchased from Anna Logue Records.

Dag 1508: No cure for me

2008-03-20T14:38:00.005Z

I am currently sitting at my desk with 2 tickets to see The Cure at Wembley tonight.

That may sound like an enviable position to be in, but there are two very slight downsides and they are:

1) I am unable to go
2) It is far too late to be able to sell them (or even give them) to anyone as the tickets are in Leeds and anyone going would need to have left for London already.

Could this have been the Three Ringed Surgery?

Perhaps we'll never know.

Dag 1467: Memory gongs

2008-02-08T11:10:00.003Z

I heard a couple of interesting things on radio 4 recently which follow on from my last post (in some respects) and are both related to memory. So it makes sense to make them the subject of my first post of 2008.

chair with cushion - early 1980s

The first of these was the revelation that everybody’s memory is not as good as we may think. An experiment was undertaken by a university professor following the terrorist attack on the twin towers in 2000. The day after the attack he asked his students to write down exactly what they were doing when they heard about it. Some time later (between 6 months and a year) he asked them the same question again. The vast majority of his students wrote down something completely different to what they had originally written. The professor then showed the students, who had put something different down, their original responses and asked them to think about it and then say which of the 2 versions was actually the correct one. Every single student said that his or her more recent account was the correct one.

So that means that there are some things that we will all fundamentally believe happened at a certain time in a certain way, but in reality that may not be the case at all and therefore we just don't know what we can trust in our own memories.

In my previous post there is a photograph of an unfinished painting I painted in the early 1980s. Although I ended up doing more to it after the photo was taken I never actually finished it. I kept it for many years and through many house moves, but I finally took it to the tip about 5 years ago (and yes you are right, I do regret it).

The Cabaret Voltaire fans amongst you will probably recognise the phrase in the speech bubble as coming from one of their songs. It was one that I particularly liked and, although I disposed of all my Cabaret Voltaire records and tapes around 20 years ago (along with most of my record collection - and yes that is another thing I regret) whenever I saw that painting it reminded me of that song. Over the years I forgot the title of the song and occasionally tried to think what it might be. I cam to the conclusion that although I couldn't remember the song title I at least remembered that it came from the Red Mecca album (that I was sure about). I remembered that Red Mecca was the last Cabaret Voltaire album I ever bought as I felt they went downhill after that (or to be precise during that album). I remember buying it from a record shop in Bath. I really liked some of he tracks and didn't like others at all, but I knew that the tracks with the spoken phrase "The third part of your brain, do you know where it is?" was without doubt the best track on the album.

A few years ago I went onto iTunes, out of curiosity, to see if I could identify which track from Red Mecca contained the phrase, but it wasn't in any of the available 30 second clips.

Since then I hadn't given Cabaret Voltaire much more thought until I discovered discogs (see previous post). Since then I have started buying many of the records I used to own (though in CD format this time). When I looked up Cabaret Voltaire I realised I had owned pretty much everything they released in the UK up to and including Red Mecca including their first 7" entitled Extended Play. (In fact it is a shame there isn't an "I used to own this" button in discogs.

But I digress, My first recent Cabs purchase was the box set Conform to Deform. This is from the period just after Red Mecca was made, but I thought I would give it a try and see if I liked it more now than I did at the time. If they had had the other box set Methodology '74 / '78 - The Attic Tapes in HMV Leeds I would have got that instead, but they didn't have much choice so Conform to Deform it had to be. I listened to it a few times and liked some of the tracks, but not others. So I decided I'd start to get some of the good old CV stuff I used to like.

I started off with Mix-Up and enjoyed it very much - I was amazed that I remembered all the songs on it when I first played it. I then wondered what to get next. I knew I had liked Voice of America when I had it on record but I also fancied getting to the bottom of the riddle of which track on Red Mecca contained the phrase I had used in my painting. I ended up getting Voice of America just before Christmas and put in onto my iPod ready for my commute into work the next day. As with Mix-Up it all came flooding back to me on first listening and I remembered just how much I used to like his album.

I was getting close to the end of my train journey when a song started with a loose jangley sort of guitar part that I remembered as being one of the highlights of the album and then to my astonishment I heard the phrase "The third part of your brain, do you know where it is?". I was dumbfounded, how could it be that I had got this so wrong? If someone had tried to have a bet with me over which album contained that phrase I would have staked everything on it being Red Mecca as my memory was 100% sure that it came from that album.

It was only when I listened to the piece on Radio 4 some weeks later that I realised how it had happened, but that made me wonder what other things I feel 100% sure about are also wrong. It is quite possible that I went somewhere with someone back in the early 1980s and my memory of it is completely different to the person who I went with. We might both feel that we were 100% right and therefore the other must be wrong. All sorts of arguments might ensue, but without some third party reference it would be impossible to come to the real truth.

So from now on I can no longer know for sure of anything that happened in the past.

A sponsored walk in the early 1980s - or was it?

The other interesting item I heard on Radio 4 was about split personalities. The thing being proposed was that most people have some form of split personality and there is a scale that runs from people who have only a single personality at one end to people who have a very pronounce split personality at the other. The people at this end are those who are likely to be receiving some sort of mental health treatment.

So most people are somewhere between these 2 extremes and will have two personalities that they switch between from time to time. you might think that for this to be the case everyone would have realised they had these two personalities, but the reason this is not the case is that each person is unaware that this is happening and while they are in one personality they can only access the memory banks associated with that personality so they will have no knowledge whatsoever about the other one. It is only possible for other people to spot this and they would need to be specifically looking for it over some time to have any chance of actually spotting it. However, it was discovered that when someone brain is monitored when the move from one personality to another different areas of the brain start functioning so it can be detected in that way. Most people would probably not have much of a difference between their personalities, which would also make it hard to spot without actually monitoring the brain.

I thought it was interesting anyway.

And to end on another musical topic:

Minimal Synth fans may be interested to hear that the debut single by Strange Devotion will be released shortly on the Berlin based label, Mauerstadtmusik.

It will be a very special limited edition 7" vinyl pressing containing the tracks "Again the new formation" b/w "Danger Line" which have never been released before.

Dag 1428: Mellan God Jul och Gott Nytt År

2007-12-31T10:48:00.001Z

I thought I had better drag myself out of my sick bed to do one final post to round off the year - I hope my bed feels better soon.

This year I seem to have been getting more and more into listing things. This may be something to do with my age, or maybe it's just something that has been built into the very core of my personality since I first had one, but is only now beginning to manifest itself in an outward kind of manner. A bit like when someone suddenly starts making lists of various stuff.

2007: The Year of the List

In fact, I think I have always wanted to make lists of things, but its only now that I have discovered the tools that can enable me to do so easily. I remember once getting a free application for my Amiga that would allow me to create a database of the videos I owned. I spent quite a bit of time adding details of my video collection and then I replaced the Amiga with my first Apple Macintosh computer (a colour classic with 80Mb hard drive) and so that was the last I saw of that program. There is probably a dusty and cobweb ridden floppy disk in some dank, dark corner of an attic, in a house I once lived in, that still contains my video catalogue in some obscure proprietary format.

So, I made a major listing breakthrough a few months ago when I discovered last.fm, which enabled me to list the gigs I have been to and allow other people who were there to mark their presence and also add any pictures they may have taken. I first started trying to catalogue the gigs I had been to about 2 or 3 years ago and since I discovered last.fm I have managed to add quite a few I hadn't been able to track down as well as correct a few errors. The other good thing about last.fm is that you can also add events you will be going to in the future.

Next I bought myself a new scanner so I could start scanning things, thus creating a sort of list of images. I started off with some of the oldest photos I have, which for some reason is nowhere near as big a collection as it ought to be. I used to have an old Pentax SLR camera which had a separate light meter and I used to take loads of photos back in the first 2 or 3 years of the 1980s. I managed to locate a small number of these but I have no idea how the rest came to leave my possession, for, just as Mr Lewis is never knowingly undersold, I would never knowingly have got rid of them. So, I started off scanning old photos and then decided to scan everything I could find that had been signed. I discovered a few things I had forgotten about, but I also found that I had mysteriously lost a few things also.

In my garage I have 2 boxes full of cassettes. I raided this box some years ago when I was rediscovering all the music I had previously recorded in my old home studio, and I raided them again when I was looking for autographs. Once I had finished scanning the things that had been autographed I started scanning some of the more obscure cassette covers I have. I now intend to scan all of the cassette covers I have, though this is going to take me some time to complete (and don't worry I won't be publishing them all here).

Looking up some of these cassettes on the internet led me to the main feature that this rambling passage has been winding its slow and deviating way towards, and that is that I have discovered yet another site that lets you list things and that is www.discogs.com. Google searches had brought me upon it a few times before, but I just thought it was a database of albums, but it is much more than just that. After creating an account you can look up albums (CD, cassette and vinyl etc) and mark off the ones you own. In fact, its a bit like those old I Spy books only better because it's about music. If you don't find something you own in the database you can add it and upload a scan of it (so scanning all those cassette cover is not going to be quite the fruitless task it may have first appeared to be - in fact I have already added my first submission, complete with scan.

The ones you have marked can then be viewed as a list in your home area and also downloaded to a spreadsheet, should you so desire. As well as all this you can also rate items and even add things to a wish list so you can keep track of albums you would like to buy at some point. It also has a marketplace where people can sell albums and each time you view an album it has links to any that are currently for sale in the marketplace. The whole site is perfect for music collectors and if you aren't already one it will definitely make you start having dark thoughts about becoming one. I have already been toying with the idea of buying up all the records I regret selling in the past and I don't even own a record player (yet!).

I currently have 104 items in my discogs collection, but that is probably less than a quarter of my actual collection so it may be a while before I get up to date with it, but while I'm doing so I'm going to be in some sort of list heaven or something.

Grecian 1983?

That only leaves me to add that just before Christmas I met up with Mr Cloudhand and partner along with the incorrigible Mr Tweedy for an evening of drinking, eating and reminiscing. I arrived thinking I was just getting over a cold, but little was I to know that rather than it being on its way out it was in fact still in the early stages of building itself up inside me ready to unleash its full force. We followed the same format as our previous night out and had a few drinks in the Hotel Du Vin. There was quite a large wedding reception going on so there was no chance to have a game of pool his time and no chance for photo oportunity as I had forgotten my camera. After a couple os absolute vodkas with lemonade I had forgotten all about my cold, and after a few more I forgot pretty much what we were talking about too, but we had a very enjoyable meal at the Drum and Monkey. The fact I had mentioned that I had lost many of my old photos had not gone unnoticed in the Cloudhands office and Adrian had kindly brought some of the photos from his collection up with him so I could scan them. I have included one here as it is the only photo I know about that features my favourite Inductrial Records t-shit.

My thought for the year is "Isn't it amazing how things can disappear from your life without your knowledge".

Dag 1405: Alive and kicking at the country club

2007-12-08T12:14:00.001Z

It's great when things happen by chance.

Last night was just such an occasion.

anticipation

Some months ago Mr Cloudhand and I decided it was about time we had another trip out to a concert together. We each had a list of groups we wanted to see and The Cure was pretty high up on each or our lists. So every now and again I had a look on ticketmaster to see if there are any good gigs on the horizon. At some point I noticed that The Human League were going to be touring. I used to really like them and hadn't seen them live since 1980 so I had a look to see if they were playing in Leeds on a weekday night, thinking I could have gone after work. They weren't so I forgot about it and carried on looking for a suitable gig for the Grand Critical Mass/Cloudhand Royal International Gig of the Year Show Award Big Night OUt.

One friday after this I noticed somewhere that The Cure were postponing some gigs in America. This made me think that they may be going to play some gigs in Europe at some point so I set up an alert for them on the ticketmaster website.

When I went to bed that evening I checked my email and there was an email from ticketmaster saying The Cure would be playing a single UK date in 2008 and tickets would be on sale at 09:00 the next morning. So I was on the website at 09:00 the next morning and by 09:10 I had secured a pair of 'standing room only' tickets. If I hadn't put that alert in the day before I would not have known about it and it would have been sold out before I was even aware of it.

Although that was something that happened by chance, it wasn't what I was intending to write about, so lets get back to the core subject without further beating about the bush and going off at tangents, which is something I do sometimes do, but not on this occasion.

anticipation 2

So, I had my Cure tickets safely stored away and was thinking that I may have only managed to get to 2 gigs in 2007, but I had a great one coming up in 2008 to look forward to when I got an email from Denmark (the land of the normally behaving sun). I briefly mentioned this email as a post scrip to this post.

The email was asking about for some info about some Human League tracks I had played live in 1982. I provided the info and we got chatting a bit and Niels asked if I was going the see The Human League on their up and coming tour as they were playing the whole of Dare and it was generally anticipated that it would be a really god show.

I replied saying I couldn't make it, but that got me thinking that I would actually really like to see it. I checked the dates again and the closest one was in Sheffield but I was meant to be going to a barn dance that evening that had been arranged months before. I tentatively mentioned that I would quite like to go, but was firmly told that I couldn't as I already had arrangements for that evening. The next day I mentioned again that I wanted to go and was told "Ok we won't go to the barn dance so you can go".

I went straight onto the ticketmaster website and saw that tickets were still available. I requested 2 and came back saying my request could not be fulfilled. I tried putting in 1 and it came back with ticket A27 on the balcony. So there was only 1 ticket left. I could have bought that, but I would rather have gone with someone than on my own so I had a look on eBay.

I could tell a story of about 3 or 4 paragraphs about how I ended up getting the tickets, but I don't want this to be 2 long so we'll just skip to the fact that I managed to win 2 tickets in row F of the front stalls and my Dad had said he would like to come along so I also had someone to go with. Looking at he plan it looked like row F was on an angle at the side of the stalls, so I guessed we would be near the front, but with a side on view so we may not be able to see the whole stage.

As mentioned before, a few times, I have been compiling a list of all the gigs I have been to and have been creating events for them on last.fm. I found that someone had already created an event for this gig, but I didn't add my attendance until I had the tickets in hand, so as not to tempt fate (apparently fate doesn't like being tempted or something). Anyway, while surfing around I discovered that the support group was to be a band called Onetwo featuring Paul Humphreys, from OMD, and Claudia Brücken, from Propaganda.

I have to admit that I was never a big OMD fan. The only thing I ever bought of theirs was the cassette of Dazzle Ships and I only liked some of the songs on it. I should still have this cassette, as my cassette collection seems to be one of the few things I have from my youth that has survived.

However, I was a very big fan of Propaganda. I bought their first 2 albums (also on cassette, so I still have these) and used to play them a huge amount in the 1980s. I even went as far as tracking down a live recording of them, though I never got chance to see them live (and always regretted it). So the prospect of seeing Claudia Brücken play live got me really excited - I was going to be seeing 2 great bands on the same night.

The last time I saw the Human League was the last night of the Travelogue Tour. Shortly after that Martin Ware and Ian Craig marsh left and they were replaced by a couple of girls Phil Oakey had spotted in a nightclub. I carried on buying their singles until I heard Don't You Want Me. It seemed to me thay had suddenly become a pop band and I was no longer interested. I didn't buy Dare or anything they released since (although I haveto admit I did like some of the songs I heard them do on Top of the Pops over the following years).

So last week I bought a copy of Dare and loaded it into my iPod. The 2 songs I was dreading hearing were at the end of the album so I listened to it all apart from those 2 songs and was amazed at how good I thought it was. It wasn't really poopy at all and most of the songs were definatley in the same vein as the original Human League. So now I was even more excited about going.

So at last we get to the concert itself.

Our seats ended up not being at the side, but bang in the middle of the ninth row in the front stalls, so they couldn't really have been much better. The view was great.

There weren't many people in as we sat down, but just as we had got comfortable some people walked onto the stage and Onetwo started their set. I felt it was a bit of a shame that so few people were in, but as they played more and more people started arriving at their seats so the applause was getting more as their set went on. I was expecting the highlight of their set to be the Propaganda song Duel, but fantastic though that was it was their version of the Associates song Club Country that got the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

Every breath you breathe belongs to someone there

It was simply amazing, just as good as if the Associates themselves were performing it. I had been lucky enough to see them in the 1980s and never thought I would hear any of their songs live again so it was really special to hear Onetwo perform such a great version of it. Duel was a close second though and was a great close to their set. I really hope I can see them live again. I bought their CD the gig and have been enjoying listening to it as I have been writing this.

After the interval the hall was bursting with people and suddenly some lights came on behind the Dare banner (shown above) and we could see the bands outlines as they went straight into The Things That Dreams Are Made Of. It was a fantastic opening to a gig and it never fell below that level for the whole evening. All the songs form Dare sounded better than the recorded versions and, dare I say it, even Don't You Want Me, sounded good last night. I took loads of photos, but most of them have come out blurred. The best of them can be seen here.

Being Boiled

I have to say that the stage set with its moving screens showing video images was one of the best I have seen to date and I even spotted a couple of Korg MS2000BR modules in the racks in the middle of the stage, which was good as I have one of those.

Some of the images on the screens were from the late 70s early 80s era and went really well with the songs. When Dare finished there was an instrumental song while Phil and the girls went off for a costume change and then they came back and performed loads more great songs. I really enjoyed them all but the one I was waiting for was Being Boiled and it was saved for one of the encores. When it came it was, for me, the highlight of the evening. The visuals were great and reminded me of the visuals they used to use when I saw them back in 1979 and 1980. The final song was Together in Electric Dreams and it was a great end to one of the best gigs I have ever been to.

If it hadn't been for that email from Denmark I would never have gone - so thanks Niels and I hope you enjoy the Copenhagen show as much as I enjoyed the Sheffield one.

Dag 1398: Sign the picture, and throw it away.

2007-12-01T11:03:00.001Z

Finding my old Siouxsie autograph recently motivated me to have a hunt round looking for all my other autographs.
This is what I found:

Peter Hammill - Leeds Irish Centre

I was driving accross Leeds from the Gelderd Road Offcie to the Seacroft office thinking of the Peter Hammill concert I would be going to that evening. I drove past the Irish Centre and noticed that the carpark had a van parked in it with the Peter Hammill logo/symbol on the side of it. Without further ado I turned off and drove into the carpark.

I noticed that a set of double doors were open and I could hear music coming out. I very gingery walked in through the doors into a darkened room with a stage to one side. Peter Hammill was just walking off the stage and he turned round and saw me walking in. I appologised for disturbing him and mumbled that I had just been passing and had seen his van and would it be possible to get an autograph? In a very welcoming voice he said of course but much more important is to shake hands. We did so and I produced the Enter K cd I had in my suit pocket and he kindly signed it.

I spotted a rack next to the mixing desk containing 3 ADAT recorders (pressumably to record the gig with) and felt like I wanted to start up a conversation about them, but I also felt like I had intruded and taken up enough of his time so I just thanked him and left.

It is the only time I have met him, but the main impression that he left was what a thoroughly nice and friendly person he is.
As I left the room Nic Potter began playing the bass line to Empress's Clothes - they didn't play the song during that evening as far as I recall.

Toyah - Grand Opera House, York

Around about the time following the release of Toyah's second album (The Blue Meaning) I remember going into a pub with my uncle. I cannot remember where the pub was, but I remember we sat in wicker chairs in some kind of conservatory.

There were two elderly ladies at the table next to us and one of them was telling the other all about her grand daughter who was called Toyah. She was telling her friend that although she looked very punky on the TV she was really a very nice quiet respectable girl and all the hair dye she used was just water based and she would wash it all out when she got home.

Toyah was my absolute fave rave in those days and my bedrom wall was covered in Toyah pictures and press cuttings.

Karen Matheson - Barbican Centre, York

Capercaillie - Barbican Centre, York

When I used to go to concerts in the early 80s I would always try and go backstage afterwards to get autographs. I managed to do this many times and usually had a chat with the bands. After this gig in 2000 I was walking towards the exit when I spotted one of the band waling past me. I asked him if he could sign the CD I had bought that night and he said yes and asked if I wanted to go backstage to get the autographs of the other members. This was the first time I had done this for ages. I suddenly felt that I was a bit too old to be going backstage asking for autographs.

As I walked towards the dressing room Karen was just coming out of an ajoing room so I asked her to sign my cd cover first. I mentioned I had seen her sing at the Celtic Connections Gaelic concert and just loved the song Mi Le M' Uilinn that she sang there. I made a complete balls up of pronouncing the name. Then I went into the dressing room and suddenly I felt very old and out of place. The rest of the band signed my cd and cracked quite a few jokes and tried to make me feel at home, but I singularly failed to think of anything to say to them other than thankyou and felt very self conscious.

I had gone to the gig with a friend from work, but he had declined to go backstage so I said my thankyous again and left.

A King of Convenience - Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

Call and Response - Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

We arrived pretty early for this so went to the bar for a drink or two. I noticed Eirik Glambek Bøe walk into the room and go up to the bar so I went and asked for his autograph. All I had for him to sign was one of our tickets so that is what he signed. I told him I could speak a bit of Swedish for some reason (he is Norwegian) and then was hit by a sudden wave of self conciousness similar to the Capercailie gig. I felt very old again so I mumbled "Tack" and went back to my seat. As one of my work colleugues failed to turn up this ticket didn't end up getting used.

After the gig I bought one of the King's of Convenience/Call and Responce T-shirt's that had been made by members of Call and Responce and also bought teh aboce CD. The band members that were on the stall were kind enough to sign it for me.

My Latest Novel - The Venue, Edinburgh

Paolo fancied a night out in Edinburgh so we had a good look online to see if there were any gigs worth going to see.
I spotted this one and looked them up in t'internet. When I saw they were on the Bella Union record label (set up by ex Cobteau Twins members) and heard the clip of Sister Sneaker Sister Soul on their website I knew this was going to be good.
I rang the box office number, but by this time I had forgotten their name so I asked if they had any tickets left for My New Book, they said "who?" but soon realised what I meant.

This was the first time I had been to see a band I didn't already now alot about for ages. The venue was really small, but alsi realy cool looking. There were 2 support groups and we managed to get right to the very front. Paolo particularly liked St Jude's Infirmary and bought a copy of their cd. I thought My Latest Novel were fantastic and bought a copy of their single, even though I didn't (and still don't) own a record player.

I noticed that the singer was wearing Nudie jeans, which is the only brand I have worn since 2000. I wondered if he had bought then in Sweden (where I have bought all mine).

As we were leaving I spotted a few scatered members of the band and asked them to sign my single. The violinist was with her parents when I asked her to sign and I could see she felt very embarrassed as she signed. I am sure she is fully used to doing that sort of thing by now.

It is a shame that most of my autograph collection has been sold, given away or lost.

It used to include:

Magazine from Leeds University - Secondhand Daylight tour.
Human League from Wakefield Unity Hall - the last date of their Travelogue Tour.
Donovon from a gig in Manchester - can't remember location or even the year.
Hawkwind - Tour programme for Choose your masques tour - I should have this somewhere. I had it when I worked in Scotland a few years ago, but I seem to have mislayed it since then.
Steve Hackett - from Sheffield City Hall and also Bradford St Georges hall.
John Martyn from Leeds University.
TG - I used to have loads of stuff signed by them - goodness knows were it all is now, apart from the autograph on my arm from the Rafters gig (I know where that one is).
Robin williamson from Square Chapel - Halifax. I should still have this somewhere so I will report back if I find it.
I was also lucky enough to get to spend a whole evening with the Buzzcocks and get an "access all areas" sticker for the gig at Sheffield City Hall, bit for some reason I didn't ask for any autographs.

Dag 1390: Party fears two

2007-11-23T10:14:00.001Z

A very Happy Birthday to all our readers
So, as this years party season draws to a close (ending with the Drunken Two Fat Ladies Birthday Bash sponsored by cloudhands - bringing you quality reviews of obscure films and singularly failing to report on the unifying theory of everything, whatever the weather), I have found myself revisiting the concert list I had been compiling and last reported on here.

I joined last.fm a bit ago but have only just discovered that you can add events to it along with reviews and photos. I had been wanting to set up a website to do exactly this for some time, so now I don't need to bother.

My results to date can be seen here.

So, I have been adding the gigs I have attended and uploading any photos I took onto flickr so they can be displayed on the page for that event. While I was doing this I was able to correct a few errors in my original listing and more importantly add details of quite a few gigs that I previously hadn't been able to pin down.

The most recent one was the Associates gig at the Hacienda in Manchester. I went to this one with Simon Walsh. We had both been huge Associates fans for ages and this was teh first chance we actually got to see them (and unfortunately also our last). I have been trying to find out when this gig was for years without luck until earlier this week I managed to find this site.

After clicking on most of the links on the site I finally found a very well hidden gigs page and that meant I now had found details of 63 of the gigs I have been to.

The ones I am still to find out details of are:
Gordon Giltrap, Sheffield City Hall - this was probably in 1976, it was my first ever gig (I think)
Magna Carta, Hampswaite Village Hall - this was when I was in Cloud 9 and I went with the other members
Everything But the Girl, Harrogate International Centre
10CC, Harrogate International Centre
Clannad, Harrogate International Centre
Donavan, Somewhere in Manchester - not much of hope tracking this one down
Penetration and John Cooper-Clarke, Leeds Polytechnic
Here and Now, Leeds Polytechnic
ABC, Leeds Warehouse
Buzzcocks, Sheffield City Hall
999, Leeds Fan Club
The Revillos (or Rezillos), Leeds Fan Club
God Squad, Harrogate Cairn Hotel - used to have a tape of this, but it was lost some time ago
God Squad, Harrogate Royal Baths
Neural Circus, Annabellas nightclub, Harrogate - I think it was called Anabellas, it was above the station, they borrowed my Korg MS-10 for this one
Neural Circus, Adelphi Hotel, Harrogate

So that is all the ones I can remember, but it is quite possible there are others that I don't even remember going to.

So that would make a grand total of 79 gigs, and The Cure next year will make it an even 80. This, of course, doesn't include all the gigs I have played and, so far, I only know the date of one of those.

STOP PRESS: Just after posting this I got an email from someone who runs a really comprehensive Human League website and this has led me to find the date I saw them at the Top Rank nightclub in Sheffield in 1980. I have updated the above numbers to take this into account.

Dag 1387: lost+found

2007-11-20T11:40:00.001Z

I have been getting more and more obsessed with that period of my life that encompasses a couple of years either side of 1980 (though I'm sure no one would have realised from anything I have written here recently).

I found myself thinking about some of the things I used to own. I knew that I had disposed and/or lost some of them over the last 25 years, but I decided to have a search and destroy mission (but without the destroy bit) on Sunday to see what I could recover of the things I thought I should still own from that period.

I used to buy a lot of records, mainly albums, but also bought quite a few singles around that time and some of those are pretty valuable now. Unfortunatley, I can remember taking them to a record fair some time ago and selling up my complete singles collection for the princly sum of £100, without me doing any haggling. That was a pretty large sum when I sold them, though now I suspect some of those singles may well be worth that amount on their own. I seem to recall I spent the money in Sheffield on a sony recordable walkman (£96) with clip on microphone, with the intention of using it to record concerts. Unfortunately I never actually used it for recording anything and just used it as a standard walkman. If only I had kept the records instead.

This bunch of singles included:
Siouxsie and the banshees - Hong Kong garden with gatefold sleeve
Soft Cell - Mutant moments ep
I'm so hollow, Clock DVA, Vice Versa - 1980 the first 15 minutes e.p. (this was always one of my favourite singles and I have no idea why I ever decided to part with it).
Destroy all monsters - destroy all monsters
Genesis - Twilight Alehouse
David Bowie - Ashes to ashes complete with stamp set
The prefects - Going through the motions
Television - Marquee moon 12"
Various TG singles
Plus plenty of others I can't remember

I also had the Neural Circus exit e.p. but I am pretty sure I would not have sold that as a) I bought it from Liam when they first brought it out and b) as it was a self financed e.p. I wouldn't have thought many people would have heard of it so I wouldn't have thought it was worth selling.

So I climbed up through the attic trapdoor and hacked my way through the cobwebs to see what I could find.
The answer was not a lot. I found my collection of LP records and had a look through those. They consisted mainly of Peter Hammill and VDGG records, but I also found a couple of bootlegs in there that I didn't remember owning, which was a nice surprise. I couldn't find any sign of my Neural Circus single or any other singles. I did find a forgotten collection of photo albums that dated back to my wedding, but there were none from before that. I used to have a photo album containing photos I took at some of my early concerts and it also contained a number of autographs. The most precious of these was an autograph of Siouxsie and the Banshees. I seemed to remember taking that one out and putting it in a photo frame, but I could find no sign of this photo album or the frame containing the Siouxsie autograph.

I eventually gave up and moved onto the garage. After much rummaging around I still couldn't find that photo album, but I did find an old green photo frame with 3 signatures on a bit of fading/yellowing creased paper. I can't remember when I had last seen this, but it left me with a great feeling of relief, as I had been beginning to think that I had lost all my old treasured possessions.

Siouxsie and some of the Banshees

The three signatures are Siouxsie, Steven Severin (who plays bass) and John. At first I assumed the John to be, the late, John McGeoch (who had previously been guitarist with Magazine). He was in Siouxsie and the Banshees from 1980 until 1982 so I guessed this must have been signed within that period.

half a flyer

However, once I looked at the front of the flyer I was able to get a bit closer to the truth.
The flyer gives dates of a few gigs and, unfortunately, no year, but it did tell me that October 29th was a thursday and a quick go with the old unix cal command showed me that October 29th fell on a thursday in 1972, 1978 and 1989. I knew it couldn't be 1972 or 1989 so it must have been 1978 and therefore the John must have been John McKay (who was guitarist until the 1979 tour).
A quick look here showed me that they played in Leeds on the following occassions around this time:
10th November 1977 - Leeds Polytechnic
6th December 1977 - Leeds Fan Club
12th April 1978 - Leeds Fan Club
21st October 1978 - Leeds University
So from the other gigs listed on the flyer I would guess this was probably signed at the Leeds University gig, though I guess I can't be 100% sure.

The other gigs shown on the flyer (in case you can't make them out) are as follows:
Thusday 16th October - Wayne County and the Electric chairs + Agony Column
9th November - The Skids + Sheeny and the Goys
16th November - Penetration + Xpelaires
Dec 2nd (at Hofbrauhause) - Wilco Johnson’s Solid Senders

Dag 1382: my room waiting for wonderland

2007-11-15T14:40:00.000Z

a room with a view, 1982

This is the view from the room in which I spent most of my formulative years (which included the rather crutial 1982).

This what I remember it containing:
- 1 bed in the corner with its legs removed
- 1 piano which I had stripped and painted yellow
- The walls and radiator were also painted yellow (and maybe the skirting board too?)
- 1 pedal harmonium which I found in a junk room at school and they said I could keep it
- 1 Korg ms-10 synthesizer
- 1 Carlsbro valve amp head
- 1 cabinet containing a 15inch speaker
- 1 upside down old television painted in various bright colours
- 1 bedside light that hung from the ceiling and was shaped like a giant light bulb
- 1 full length mirror with dark wood frame
- 3 parrots on the wall
- 2 candles on the window ledge
- 1 small desk with:
- 1 sinclair spectrum/later replaced with 1 atari st/later replaced with an amiga
- 1 hifi system (seperates) consisting of record deck, cassette deck, amp and warfdale speakers (I later added a cd player -much later)
- 1 shergold meteor guitar (was swapped out for the above sinclair spectrum)
- 1 Soundmaster cr-88 drum machine
- 1 old 35 mm pentax SLR camera with seperate light meter and 2 extra lenses which was used to take the above photo, which was not an intentional double exposure, if I remember correctly
- a couple of my photos framed on the wall above the harmonium
- 1 open brick fireplace with no fire in it
- 1 wooden box containing all my tapes (painted yellow)
- 1 yellow wooden slatted wooden blind in the window (rolled up and out of site in this photo)
- 1 cat called Dinah
- my blue book that I used to write down song lyrics and such stuff (that I still use to this day)

Things I remember doing in this room include:
- Taking quite a lot of photos in this room (which I still have)
- Recording the backing track for the Strange Devotion gig at the 1982 Folk and Blues
- Recording some tracks with Liam from Neural Circus and John Robson. The tape survived, but at some point I had taped over the first couple of tracks and so our version of Silver Machine (including lyrics sung by Liam which included the line "I've got a pink pussycat called Simon, you can take him home if you want to") was lost forever
- Learning to play Pictures at an Exhibition on my yellow piano (I should add I learned some of it not all of it)
- Playing Dungeon Master, and many other computer games whose names are long forgotten
- Having loads of friends back to listen to music and hang out

There are obviously other things that we don't need to go into here.
All in all this was a good room to live in and I would recommend it to all potential occupants.

Dag 1381: The post that's burnt the most

2007-11-14T17:32:00.000Z

Burnt Stake, 1982

I normally like mine pretty well done, but not even I would fancy eating this one.

Dag 1380: The husband's hairdresser

2007-11-13T15:10:00.000Z

was a bit rushed on this occassion

Dag 1379: ...a dot in the shark

2007-11-12T13:28:00.000Z

Close to me, Sweden 2001

Dag 1377: Tickets please!

2007-11-10T14:58:00.000Z

Steve Hackett - june 1979

Peter Hammill - april 1993

Capercaillie - september 1997

Björk - september 2001

Roxette - october 2001

Kings of Convenience - june 2004

Kent - maj 2005

Tori Amos - june 2005

Sigur Rós - november 2005

Goldfrapp - february 2006

My Latest Novel - march 2006

Gary Numan - april 2006

John Cale - january 2007

David Sylvian - september 2007

Dag 1374: Snowblind and Pepsiburst

2007-11-07T10:54:00.000Z

can o' coke, 1982

Once when I was in a bar in France I ordered a Coca Cola. What I actually received was a Cacolac, which is a milky chocolatey drink. I am not particularly fond of milky drinks, especially chocolate ones, but I didn't dare ask for another Coca Cola incase I got the same again.

pitcher o' pepsi, 1982

Mr Dent: "Is that a can of coke you have there, Butler?"
Mr Butler: "No it's Pepsi, Dent."

Dag 1373: The Blue Meanies

2007-11-06T10:23:00.000Z

Once upon a time on the evening of 2nd December 1979 I watched an episode of Shoestring. Hapless Eddie Shoestring was a DJ with Radio West and in this particular episode, entitled Find the Lady, he is asked, by the singer of a new wave band, to investigate the disappearence of an ex band member who was convinced the band's manager had murdered his girlfriend. The singer happened to be Toyah Willcox and during the show we saw her playing some songs live.

I thought these songs were fantastic and wanted to find out more. I fired up my Macbook Pro, but the internet hadn't been invented yet so it was some time before I was able to find out who she was and that it was actually her real band playing some of her real song in the episode. I remember buying her first album, Sheep farming in Barnet as soon as it cam out and it was my favourite record for ages. I even put newspaper clipping and picturtes of her up on my bedroom wall.

When her second LP came out (The Blue Meaning) I bought it on cassette and I still have that copy in my old cassette collection. Although I mostly liked it, I didn't think it was anywhere near as good as the first album and, unfotunatley, by the time the next studio album was released (Anthem) I felt she had sold out to the world of pop and my musical tastes had honed themselves in other directions, though I still liked her early stuff and always have done since.

This is the title track from her second album.

Later on I discovered she had recorded an album with members of King Crimson called Ophelia's Shadow. I bought it on the strength of the cover and musicians and thought it was great - not a myschtery in sight. I later found a cassette by Sunday all over the world and found that very similar and equally as good.

I have never seen Toyah live, which is a shame, but she has an album called "In the court of the Crimson Queen" due out next year, so there may still be a chance yet.

Let's heal ourselves.

Dag 1367: A rainy day in England

2007-10-31T11:53:00.000Z

rain 4am, 1982

As I have the near dubious honour of being chief music correspondant on the Critical Mass staff rosta, I find my morning postbag absolutely inundated with letters asking me if Joan as Policewoman wears a police uniform for her shows.

Although I always appreciate the letters, I am afraid that in this instance, I am just not at liberty to divulge the answer to that question.

Dag 1334: The Black hit of Space

2007-09-28T16:47:00.000+01:00

After posting my first video onto YouTube the other day I spent some time last night having a look at some of the music videos they have on there. I was amazed at how much of the stuff I like was there.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have recently discovered this site (which has loads of great info about minimal synth and similar music from the late 70s and early 80s) and from this I discovered that the owner of this site also runs a weekly radio show on East Village Radio called Minimal-Electronik Plus. This is available as a podcast so I have subscribed to it and its been great listening to it each week on the train and the gym. One of the tracks I recently heard in this show was Alone by Colin Newman of Wire. I first heard this song when it was covered by This Mortal Coil on their album Filigree and Shadow. The original version was also used in the film The Silence of the Lambs. This is a great song but the only version of it I could find on YouTube was a clip from Silence of the Lambs. I did find some other interesting Wire clips too though, and also this fantastic video.

Apart from Minimal-Electronik Plus I have also been playing pr0nography by The Cure to death in recent weeks and particularly the track Siamese Twins. I had a look to see if I could find this track on YouTube and came accross this version with some modern dance going on to it (I bet DJ will like this). I realised that I had seen this on TV when it it was originally done all those years ago. I am hoping for a joint Critcal Mass/Cloudhands outing to see The Cure at the first possible oportunity.

Anyway, I then started looking for some of the bands I used to like back in those days and tried searching for I'm so hollow, who used to be one of my fave raves (I even used to have an I'm so hollow badge which was black with I'm so hollow..... written inside a cloud - wish I still had it).

Then I had a look for the Human League and found some pretty interesting early stuff. I bought Reproduction from iTunes a couple of years back (I had originally had it on vinyll, but haven't had a record player for about 15 years - in fact my kids don't even know what records or record players are), but I no longer had a copy of Travalogue, which I really used to like) so I did a search for Black Hit of Space (one of my alltime favourite Human League tracks of all time) and instead of coming up with a Human League version of it, it came up with this - which I think is great and I'm glad I found it.

This got me wanting a copy of Travelogue again so, as is ones want when its late at night and one has had a few drinks, I logged straight onto iTunes and bought it. I then tried to find something else to go with it and nearly bought A-Z by Colin Newman and spent quite some time deliberating on one of Twilight Ritual's albums, but in the end I managed to get away with just the Human League album.

I listened to it for the first time (since I had the LP) on the train this morning and here are my thoughts:
1. Black Hit of Space.
This track is, in my opinion, one of the best Human League songs ever and was definately an inspiration for the Strange Devotion track Danger Line. I remember when travelogue came out one of its criticisms was that it had been over produced. I agreed to some exstend and always thought this one was of the tracks that suffered from this. I always thought the live version sounded better, but it is still a great song full stop.
2. Only After Dark.
I always thought this was one of the weakest tracks on the album - it's ok but not as good as the rest.
3. Life Kills.
This is another great track and very much in that early Human League style. The only thing that lets it down is those analogue brass sounds. I have never liked brass sounds from analogue synths. In fact I haven't liked them from digital synths either. If you listen to any of my stuff you will notice that I never use brass sounds on anhy tracks. Anyway, apart from the brass sounds this is a great track.
4. Dreams of Leaving.
This is an absolute classic and up there with the best Human League tracks ever. It is even quite a moving song in many ways. The opening verse makes one think of people trying to escape from an opressive regime (and or country). We then get a fantastic analogue instrumantal section and move into the last verse which is very similar to the first but the location has moved to a modern day office environment - very clever lyrics indeed.
5. Toyota City.
This is the first instrumental on the album and, as could be guessed from the title, it has a bit of a japanese feel to it. Maybe not an outstanding track, but good nonetheless.
6. Crow and a baby.
I hadn't heard this album for such a long time that I had forgotten most of the tracks. This was one of the few that I didn't forgot and I can even remember them playing it live. This is classic Human League - great stuff.
7. The touchables.
When I read through the track listing before playing this I felt I had no idea what this track was - I couldn't remember a thing about it, but when it statred playing and I heard the line "Speaking of which, what is your choice" and realised that I had been singing this line to myself regularly for years without even realising what it was. I have no idea why and as the song went on I realised I had no memory of the chorus at all - it just seemed to be that first line that I had kept on my mind for all those years. In fact, listening to it now I have to say all in all it is one of the weaker tracks on the album. I wonder why that first line had stuck in my mind for so long?
8. Gordon's Gin.
This is the second instrumental on the album and I remember this being one of my favourites back then, when I was about 16 years old. It still sounds great.
9. Being Boiled.
Being boiled was the first Human league single and tghis is a souped up re-recording of it. I remember being absolutely stunned when I first heard the original - I don't think I had ever heard anything like it before. This is one of the 2 Human league tracks that Strange Devotion played live. This version is still really good, but it does suffer a bit from over production and it has those brass sounds in it.
10. W.X.J.L Tonight.
This is the last song from the original album, though the iTunes version has 7 extra tracks. This is another really great Human League track. It is about the death of radio shows with DJs and is somewhat moving in some strange way - you really feel sorry for the guy who is singing it (I mean the radio DJ guy, not Phil Oakey).
11. Marianne.
This was originally a single and I remember buying it and I can remember them playing this track live. It still sounds good after all these years.
12. Dancevision (instrumantal)
I reckognised this track so I must have had it on some format first time around but I can't remember what it is from - maybe it was the b-side to Marianne? I know I could quite easily find out using the interconnected world wide internet and a computer but I'm just not going to do it.
Great instrumental with a great ending
13. Rock 'N' Roll/Night Clubbing
This is a couple of cover tracks that blend together. I love the way the drums/handclaps slow down as the first song becomes the second. I remember having this back then, but again can't remember if it was an A side, a B side or something else ebtirely. I also remember these tracks from seeing them live. The other cover they used to do live was Perfect Day. I can remember that after seeing them at Wakefiled Unity Hall on the last date of the travelogue tour (which would also be the last gig they played before Ian Marsh and Martin Ware left to be replaced by 2 girls Phil oakey met in a night club) I managed to get back stage and asked one of them what that track was and they gave me a look that said "how on earth could you possibly not know" as they told me it was a Lou Reed track.
14. Tom Baker
I can remember having this track and I think it was the B side to Boys and Girls. I'm pretty sure I liked it at the time, but now I'm not so keen on it. I think the proper Doctor Who theme is better.
15. Boys and Girls
As just mentioned I bought this single when it came out - I have a feeling it was the first release of the new Human league lineup. Again, I thought it was good at the time, but it doesn't sound quite so good now.
16. I don't depend on you.
I have never heard this track before and it sounds like a rather average sounding funky type of disco track and not like a Human League track at all.
17. Cruel.
This is another instrumental and, again, I had never heard of it before. It is just nowhere near up to the standard of the original Travelogue album tracks. These last 2 tracks might just as well have been left of as far as I'm concerned. They sound like a completely different genre of music.
18. The Weekly Woss Weport.
That's strange, I thought there were only meant to be 18 tracks on this release? Its like some sort of strange black hit of space style occurence where no matter what I press on my iPod it just comes up with Weekly Woss Weport and which ever way I turn I see that cheeky grin in font of me so without further ado her we go:
Before we get the first guest we have tghe obligatory joke and this one was about a water butt that is shaped like a bottom - I prssume you have to be American to appreciate this one properly. Personaly, I didn't think that this was a genuine product.

The first guest is Jamie Foxx (who I have never heard of before) and I must say his rendition of YMCA just doesn't fit in with the style of Travelogue at all. He then tries to make ammends by singing some other song but it still has no synths and simply does not fit on this album.

Next up is someone whose name sounds like Beth Ditto, but as I have an ear infection I may not have heard it correctly. I haven't heard of her either. A quick search on t'intenet reveals that I did hear the name correctly and she is a singer who has appeared on the cover of NME. It seems she is from Arkensaw (which is pronounced Arkansas).

Now it is Michael Ball's turn to talk to the hersuit Mr Woss. This is not the best line-up I have seen on this show so far (although I'm sure there are plenty of people who would disagree with me). So, we are now a bit into Mr Balls slot and I have to admit he has come accross much better than the previous guests did.

To round the show off we have yet another band from Sweden. Last week it was The Hives and this week it is Peter, Björn and John. They are not too bad at all.

So, all in all, despite Mt Ball being able to raise a few laughs, this episode of the Jonathan Woss Show made a very disappointing end to a fantastic Human League album which doesn't sound half as over produced now as was reported at the time.

Now I am going to watch an episode of Futurama before going to sleep.

Next week we hope to get James Burke on the case, or at least involved in some capacity or other.

Dag 1332: Is it always like this?

2007-09-26T13:20:00.000+01:00

Here we have a rather rare example from the Björkbjiggler school of ham acting.

Dag 1327: Going crazy on The New Sound

2007-09-21T23:12:00.000+01:00

So, it seems that there is this group in America called The Capricorns, which is made up of 2 girls and they have this song called The New Sound which is really catchy and literally hundreds of people are making videos of themselves dancing and/or generally going crazy to this song and posting them onto youtube.

Here are the links to all of these err um literally hundreds of videos on youtube:

number 1
number 2
number 3
number 4
number 5
number 6

I think the first 2 are the best.

But I must admit that I didn't find these on youtube by myself, I found them on this really good website that I just discovered last week.

I had never heard of The Capricorns before, but I think it would be really great if everyone who reads this makes there own video to go with The New Sound and then posts it onto youtube and then you can post the link into the comments area of this post. If enought people I know do this, then I will do one of me miming and going crazy on it and post that. Now thats an offer you can't refuse.

I might just add that, as I am typing this while watching the Jonathan Woss Show, this could almost be classed as a Weekly Woss Weport. In fact if I tell you what I have seen so far on the Jonathan Woss Show that would actually make it a Weekly Woss Weport (albeit in a cut down form) so:

First off Mr Woss comes through the doors with some sort of beard style thing attached to his face. The bit below his lip looks a bit like it is not quite in the middle. He tells some joke or other, but I can't remember what it is. Then he gets Richard Hammond on, who has written a book and forgotton some of the things that happened since his accident. Then he gets his digital wireless skipping rope out and hsows how you can lose weight while eating a donut. Then he gets an actor on and I don't pay much attention as I am watching people going crazy on The New Sound and then he gets Dame Helen Mirram on. Then the HIves come on. They are from Sweden.

So as the final Jonathan Woss credits draw to their inevitable close here is a video of the real Capricorns going crazy on The New Sound.

The Capricorns

See if you can spot the fan in the audience.

Dag 1321: Världen är allt

2007-09-15T12:32:00.000+01:00

My Dad collected me from work at 17:00 and we set off for the M62 for the journey to Manchester. The traffic wasn’t too bad although an accident on the opposite carriageway had caused many miles of tailbacks.

We soon found the G-Mex carpark where the Bridgewater Hall website had recommended we should park. It stated that we should take the tunnel out of the carpark where we would find a lift that would take us up to just outside the Hall. We did this and saw that just outside the lift door were some stairs leading down to an area of water with a fountain in the middle and a nice looking bar called the pitcher and Piano next to the water. SO we went down the stairs and saw that if we hadn’t taken the lift that is were we would have come out anyway.

After some very nice food and a couple of drinks we headed back up the stairs and into the foyer. The building looked very new and I had heard it had fantastic acoustics. I soon spotted the t-shirt stall and spent a bit of time deliberating whether to get a white or a green t-shirt. I ended up choosing the green one even though I knew I would be told it was horrible when I got home (which is exactly what happened). They also had black t-shirts, but I already knew I was banned from buying black ones. I also bought a tour programme (which has a hard cover and a cd on the back cover). And they were both given to me in a tour plastic bag – very nice.

So, £40 lighter, we saw we still had plenty of time before the show was due to start so we went up to the circle bar for a swift half and sat by the window looking out over Manchester. There was a Hilton hotel near the hall that looked amazing.

Just before 20:00 went to our seats. They were in the left hand side circle and I had bought them from someone on eBay as when I tried to book them from either ticketmaster or the Bridgewater hall website only gallery tickets were available. So I was a bit surprised to see that the whole of the row in front of me was empty along with half of the row in front of that. Some of the people around me moved forward once they saw that no one was about to turn up for these seats but we stayed put as we had a good enough view where we were.

The layout of the hall was very impressive and it looked like it had been designed primarily for the acoustics. Behind the stage I could see a collection of massive shiny new organ pipes.

After 5 minutes or so the lights came down, the band walked onto the stage and started playing Wonderful World from the Nine Horse album Snow Bourne Sorrow.

The set list was the same as at the Stockholm concert and was as follows:

Wonderful World
It'll Never Happen Again
World Citizen
The Day the Earth Stole Heaven
Ride
Playground Martyrs/Transit
Fire in the Forest/Ghosts
Snow Borne Sorrow
Mother & Child
Waterfront
Atom & Cell
Sugar Fuel
Brilliant Trees/Fight the Bullfight/Nostalgia/Fight the Bullfight
The Librarian
(1st encore)
Every Colour You Are/River Man
(2nd encore)
Wanderlust

The stage was very large, open and roomy and the lack of a speaker stack at either side gave it a very different appearance from most concerts I’ve been too. Behind the stage was a backdrop with graphics projected onto it that changed subtly as the show went on. It was a great effect and must have taken someone ages to put together.

The sound quality was absolutely excellent, as expected, and, for me, the highlights of the show were Ride, Mother and Child, Waterfront (which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end) and Fight the Bullfight. The only disappointment (and it was only a slight disappointment) was that the arrangement of Every Colour You Are had been changed and had a more minimal drum part. I always thought that the strong drum pattern made this song, but the drums on Fight The Bullfight, however, were fantastic and more than made up for this.

The band consisted of:
David Sylvian – vocals, acoustic and electric guitars
Steve Jansen – drums and occasional keyboards
Keith Lowe – Bass
Takuma Watanebe – grand piano and keyboards
There was a flute and (possibly) oboe player for about half of the songs, but I didn’t catch his name.

David Sylvian sat on a stool throughout and didn’t have a strap on either of his guitars. His voice was just as good as on his recordings and he had white shoes.
Steve Jansen has a rather strange looking drum kit with an electric bass pedal instead of an actual bass drum. Despite what I mentioned above, the drumming was excellent and varied from fairly loose swing styles through to very tight minimal drumming and the rock drumming style of Fight The Bullfight (if that is what style that was).
Keith Lowe sported a leather kilt and had 2 electric basses (one of which looked like a Danelectro Longhorn) and 1 electric double bass.
Takuma Watanebe played what must have been a concert grand piano (it looked huge) and had a short keyboard and an Apple MacBook Pro next to him and a larger keyboard on top of the piano (unfortunately I was too far away to spot what these keyboards were. His piano playing was excellent throughout and incredible of Mother and Child.

encore

The lighting was pretty dark throughout so I wasn’t able to get any decent pictures, even after I had managed to work out how to disable the flash.

Of the songs I didn’t already know; It'll Never Happen Again is a cover of a Tim Hardin song, Playground Martyrs is a track from Steve Jensen’s new album Slope and Transit is a song from Christian Fennesz. I think that Sugar Fuel is a track by a group called Ready Made, though I haven’t been able to find out much about this track at all.

There was a standing ovation at the end and after both encores.

after the show

So overall it was a great evening. There was no support and the concert lasted from 20:00 to 22:00 with no breaks. We thought we would be able to get home in good time, but unfortunately the queue for the carpark ticket machine was massive and it took half an hour to finally get to the front. As the queue was so big when we got there I felt sure there must not have been any more machines especially as more and more people tuned up and joined the queue behind us. As we drove round the carpark I saw another machine at the other end of the carpark with no one anywhere near it, so I guess they could do with better signposting to the locations of the pay stations.

Dag 1320: World Citizen

2007-09-14T14:18:00.001+01:00

Tonight I will be mostly watching David Sylvian in concert.

I'm sure this song will be included in the set list.

Dag 1287: An extract from the blue book

2007-08-12T23:11:00.000+01:00

My sun will shine
Like a sea of gold
over the mountain
pours the sun
with outstretched arms

Lead me
back onto the path again
for I am lost

Dag 1285: Big in Japan

2007-08-11T15:46:00.000+01:00

Since seeing John Cale in Sheffield last January, I have been looking for more decent concerts to go to, without having much luck. None of the groups I like seem to have any tours planned but at some point it occured to me that David Sylvian wasn't on my list of 'groups I would really rather quite like to see if at all possible, please' so I added him to it.

I had never been a fan of Japan and so had never bothered listening to David Sylvians solo work after they split up until I heard the album "Gone To Earth" at a Yogilates teaching friends house (he didn't teach Yogalatis at the time as I think we were still in the 6th form at school and Yogalatis hadn't been invented then). I immediately reckognised the guitar playing of Robert Fripp and so picked up the album sleeve to see what it was. I was surprised to see it was by David Sylvian, but I bought it soon after and it has remained one of the best albums in my collection.

I had never heard of David Sylvian playing any concerts until I spotted the live CD Damage (also featuring Robert Fripp) in a record shop. Of course, by then the tour was over, but I would certainly have gone to see him if I had known about it at the time (but then that is true of most of the bands I like).

I recently found his website and saw that I could register to recieve news, so I filled in my email address and thought "great, now all I need to do is sit back and wait for an email - I don't need to keep visiting the site in the off chance of finding out he is about to tour."

As his last tour was around 4 years ago I thought I may have a bit of a wait on, so I got a bit of a surprise when about a month later I got an email telling me about the up and coming David Sylvian 'The world is everything tour'.

when I was in Japan

7th Sept: Stockholm, China Theatre
8th Sept: Oslo, Sentrum Scene
9th Sept: Copenhagen, Royal Theatre
12th Sept: Dublin, Vicar Street
14th Sept: Manchester, Bridgewater Hall
15th Sept: Glasgow, Royal Concert Hall
17th Sept London, Royal Festival Hall
18th Sept: Birmingham, Symphony Hall
20th Sept: Brussels, AB
21st Sept: Paris, La Cigale
23rd Sept: Milan, Conservatorio Sala Verdi
24th Sept: Reggio, Emilia Teatro Valli
26th Sept: Conegliano Veneto, Teatro Accademia
27th Sept: Rome, Auditorium Della Conciliasione
29th Sept: Torino, Teatro Colosseo
1st Oct: Eindhoven, Music Centre Frits Phillips
2nd Oct: Amsterdam, Rai
4th Oct: Groningen, Oosterpoort
6th Oct: Berlin, Schiller Theatre
7th Oct: Offenbach, Capitol Theatre
8th Oct: Cologne, Theatre Am Tanzbrunnen
19th Oct: San Sebastian, Teatro Victoria Eugenia
21st Oct: Lisbon, Centro Cultural Belem
23rd Oct: Braga, Teatro Circo
24th Oct: Madrid, Teatro Albeniz
27th Oct: Hong Kong, HITEC Hall B
29th Oct: Osaka, Geijutsu Hall
30th Oct: Tokyo, Orchard Hall

I looked through the dates and, although I very much liked the look of the first date, I saw that the nearest one to me was Manchester. It could have been better, but it wasn't too far away so I logged straight onto ticketmaster expecting to be one of the first people in there as I had got that special email telling me all about it.

I then had to think whether I would be able to find somone to go with me or would I need to go on my own? Feeling optimistic I put in a request for 2 of the best available tickets and wondered if I would be able to get some in the first couple of rows. After a minute or so I was offered 2 tickets in the gallery. How could this be? I tried the search again this time asking for just 1 ticket and it came back with one of the 2 seats I had just been offered.

I then noticed that tickets had actually gone on sale on 25th May and my email had arrived on 15th June. So it looked like I did need to have kept visitting the web site in the off chance of finding out he was about to do a tour after all. That'll teach me.

I felt a bit peeved that Mr Sylvian hadn't emailed me a bit earlier and thought that I wasn't that bothered about going all the way to Manchester if I could only get a seat in the gallery.

So I left it at that for a few weeks until I listened to some David Sylvian on my iPod by chance on one of my trips to the gym and realised:
a) just how brilliant his music is (his trees aren't bad either) and
b) if I don't go and see him on this tour:
ba) I may not get chance to see him play live again and
bb) he may not actually do another tour

So I now realised that I really did want to go and as I had lunch with my Dad last weekend I thought I'd ask if he wanted to go to it with me. He said yes, so I had a look on eBay on Monday and found that someone was selling 2 tickets in the circle as he could no longer make the concert. The best bit was that they had a buy it now price of £60 including postage (the face value was £29.50 per ticket) so getting these would work out quite a bit cheaper than getting them from ticketmaster when you add on the £4.25 per ticket service charge and the £2.75 postal charge.

So I bought them now and got an email that evening saying they were in the post. They didn't arrive the next day, but I didn't really think they would. But when they still hadn't arrived the next day I started to get the first tinges of IboughtsomethingoneBayandnowIthinkImayhavebeenrippedoffitus. I seem to get this everytime I buy something off eBay yet I have never yet not receievd what I bought. I don't know if anyone else has ever suffered this but it started off as a slightly nervous feeling but by the end of the day I wished I had never heard of David Sylvian and was chastising myself for not getting the gallery tickets from ticketmaster.

Of course they arrived the next day which meant my IboughtsomethingoneBayandnowIthinkImayhavebeenrippedoffitus had now developed into ImustbuyeverythingthatdavidsylvianmightpossiblyplayattheconcerthatIdontalreadyhaveitus. The only cure for this is to buy music, and lots of it, so I bought and downloaded Blemish (which he played in its entirety on his previous tour) the Nine Horses Wonderful World EP and the World Citizen EP by David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
I also pre-ordered his latest solo album 'When loud weather buffeted Naoshima'. I must admit this is the first time I have pre-ordered somthing that has already passed its release date.

After realising that this hadn't quite cured the symptoms of this strickening debilitation, I went out at lunchtime and bought Snow Bourne Sorrow by Nine Horses.

Note: If you didn't already know, you have probably guessed by now that, the band Nine Horses does infact include David Sylvian and, according to his website, he will be playing some Nine Horses material on his up and coming tour.

At this point I could give a full review of my latest purchases, but I think I'd better leave that for another time.

All I will say for now is that Blemish is fairly hard going, though good nonetheless, and Nine Horses contains songs that are equal to the best of his work to date. I felt particularly that the first track 'Wonderful World' (with Stina Nordenstam providing an elegant Scandinavian touch to the chorus) would go down very well in the Cloudhands office, and the second track 'Darkest Birds' is one of the best songs I have ever heard.

Dag 1268: Global Swarming

2007-07-25T13:50:00.000+01:00

It is indeed ironic that the recent high levels of rainfall experience across the UK are being caused, not by global warming, but by the very people who believe it is caused by global warming.

Now this is a bit complicated so you might need to read it more than once.

The low pressure that is producing the current rainfall has a system of high pressure to the south of it producing some very nice warm weather. This weather system isnít new, it is always around at this time of year and it always has a high pressure system to the south of it. The difference is that this low pressure system is normally located to the north of the UK so the rain misses us and the high pressure weather system to the south of it will be right over the top of us giving us our usually nice warm(ish) summer. The thing that causes this low pressure system is something known to scientists and other intellectuals as the Jet Stream.

In the jungle where the foliage is very dense animals tend to use the same routes between places and this creates a path through the foliage.
Exactly the same thing happens in the sky when jet planes use the same route to fly between Europe and America and this path in the sky is called the jet stream.

An Aeroplane

Before global warming became the watchword on every bodies lips, the jet stream used to be created to the North of the UK and all was well with the UK weather. Now that pressure is being put on everybody to try and produce less CO2 the airlines have been changing the routes between Europe and America so that the planes fly further south, thus emitting less CO2, and cause the jet stream to go straight across the UK. So now we have low pressure causing us to get all this rain and to the south of the UK is all the good weather that we should be getting.

So I say "Lets get the airlines to stop all these namby pamby CO2 reducing initiatives and move the jet stream back to where it should be so we can get some nice warm summer weather again."

Dag 1255: A Forest

2007-07-12T15:33:00.000+01:00

The sun shone obliquely through the foliage leaving patterns on the damp musty ground. No one heard the snap of a twig under foot save the fatigued and stooping figure that caused it. He had been travelling for 3 days and he had no idea where he was. He didn't even know what country he was in, but he had an image engained in his mind of an upright girder, surrounded by water, reaching into the sky. The top of it was bent and a human figure was standing there with arms stretching up towards the sun. He had no recolection of ever seeing such in image other than in his dreams.

He had fallen asleep in one of the business lounges at Heathrow airport, or at least he thought that's what had happened. He hadn't noticed the intense looks he had been getting from a group of similarly dressed men at the next table and he hadn't noticed that when one of them had dropped a pen next to him they had poured a little white powder into his drink as they picked it up.
All he knew was that as he drank his drink he felt more and more sleepy.
When he woke up he was in a glade in the middle of a forest. There was a small wooden building in the glade. It was painted bright red, but the paint was peeling and the door was hanging from one hinge. When he first came to his senses he had headed straight for this red house but it was obvious from the layers of dust that no one had been inside for many years.
He pushed the door and there was a clatter and a cloud of dust as it fell backwards into the main room of this small red house. At one end of the room was a stove. Like everything else it was covered in dust, but it contained a bed of rolled up newspaper with a layer of sticks above that and a few cracked logs on top.
Next to the stove was an unused box matches. The box looked old and had a picture of a lion in the middle with the legend "The Lion Safety Matches" and "made in Sweden". He opened the door of the stove and looked at the corner of one of the pieces of newspaper. It had the date 1st February 1973 written in smudged ink. This fire had been waiting for a long time to be lit so he struck a match and held it against the corner of paper.
The fire soon took and he began to feel better as the warmth from it crept through his body. There wasn't much furniture in the room but his eye was drawn to an 18th century side board under the window. He opened the doors and looked inside. He was surprised to see a portable Bang and Olufsen cd player and next to it a small pile containing 3 CDs. On top of the side board was a moleskin notebook and a mont blanc pen.

He had nothing better to do for the time being so he picked up the first cd and inserted it into the slot.

Maps - We can create ****
He had heard that the Maps were a group to look out for as they were doing something very different. When compared to the glut of groups like The Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs and others currently doing the rounds he could partly agree with that, however as he listened he thought to himself that although he quite liked the music, it didn't sound radically new. He felt it was more of a follow on from such bands as Boards of Canada, Röyksopp and possibly even Portishead. There were also hints of shoegazing buried in there too, which he felt was definitely a good thing.
The opening track "So low, so high" is instantly likeable, but the albums stand out track is definitely "It will find you" with its ever repeating loop that soon become s engrained in your mind. The instrumentation is varied and although mainly electronic there are also glimpses of traditional instruments like the acoustic guitars intro to "To the sky". He felt that the vocals had a distinctly Scandinavian quality to them, but this could be because one of the band comes from Iceland.
On the whole it is a good rather than a great album, but worthwhile getting if you like any of the bands mentioned as being similar to this. The only duff track, in the opinion of this lost reviewer, is "Glory verse", which is probably best described as boring, but its easy to press the skip button.

After listening to the first CD and writing a short review in the notebook he had a look around to see if there was any food or drink. He expected that if there was any it would be old and inedible, but he was pleasantly surprised to see a large bottle of sparkling Ramlösa and a large bag of sour cream and dill potato chips. Both were well within their sell by date so he took them and put the next cd on.

Mahogany - Connectivity! ****
As the first track faded in the reviewer was instantly reminded of an old Cocteau Twins track. He tried to think which track it could be. Was it Hitherto? No, it was more like Orange Appled. It was interesting that this CD should sound so instantly like the Cocteau Twins as it featured Robin Guthrie and Robin and Liz Fraser's daughter Lucy Belle on a couple of the tracks (though not this one). The music was instantly likeable and definitely fitted firmly into the shoegazing category. Obviously whoever had left these CDs in this hut was a fan of that genre.
As the first track progressed the male vocals were joined by female vocals and the effect laden guitar brought more thoughts of the Cocteau Twins. The next track started off with a telephone ring type sound and sounded similar to some of the music on the Maps CD, but with female vocals. The third track "Supervitesse" had been mixed by Robin Guthrie and reminded me of Slowdrive rather than the Cocteau Twins. The forth track "One plus one equals three or more" reminded the reviewer of Wire, though still firmly within the realm of shoegazing. The reviewer ate his crisps and drank his ramlösa as he jotted notes down on the found notebook.
He wrote that the fifth track "Mantissa" opened with a very Cocteau Twinesque sounding drum machine loop. He couldn't quite think which song it was closest to, but the contenders included "I wear your ring" and "My Truth" among others. The next track "Neo-plastic Boogie-woogie" caught our hapless reviewer completely by surprise. It sounded like the Beach boys in all their Surfin' USA glory (I'm sure glory isn't the word I should be using here). In fact it you wanted to do a jokey take off of the Beach Boys this is what you might end up with.
This is definitely the low point of this CD and things pick up nicely with track 7, the instrumental "Windmill International". This reminded our hopelessly lost reviewer of some of Steve Reich's minimalist compositions. With track 9 came the obvious high point of this CD, the fantastic Domino Ladder Beta (which is repeated featuring Robin Guthrie later on on the CD for an even higher high point).
Looking through the notes left in the notebook I see that the track "My Bed Is My Castle" also gets a mention as one of the stronger tracks and this one also appears twice (the second time featuring Lucy Belle Guthrie). I also see a note saying that the track "Springtime, Save Our Country" could easily have been recorded by Slowdive.
The review ends with a note saying that if the reviewer ever manages to find his way back to civilisation he would like to go and see Mahogany live.

The CD finished and the man through some more logs onto the fire before he reached for the next one.

Magga Stina - An Album ***
The reviewer didn't write much about this, so here are his words in full: This CD opens with some nice analogue sounding synth drones and affected percussion. The first track "In" is very promising, but then it finishes and we are presented by some brass followed by Hawaiian sounding slide guitar and then follows the realisation that Magga Stina is very possible trying to be the Danish version of Björk. The album follows and it could almost be a Björk CD, but not quite as good as Björk. It's not bad, and worth a listen to on occasion, but unfortunately, it isn't brilliant.

By this time it was dark outside so the man thought he should try and find some more food before settling down for the night. He managed to find a tin of Beans and Sausages so he heated them up over the wood stove and ate them with some flat bread he had found in a bread tin in the small kitchen. As he slept that night he had a strange dream of being asleep on a boat and then slightly coming round as he was carried from the boat to the shore by some unknown people. Through his hazy vision he saw the upright girder that was to be on his mind for the rest of his life.

At this he awoke with a start. It was light outside and he thought he had better try and find his way out of this forest. He had one last look around the strange red house to see if he could find any clue to its owner, but all he could find was a poster of Glen Tilbrook on one of the walls and a faded photo under a book about art on the only shelf on the houses main room.

With that he put the notebook and pen onto the shelf next to the black and white photo, left the house and walked due east into the forest.

Dag 1235: Please shower before using the showers

2007-06-22T15:14:00.000+01:00

Towards the end of my contract in Scotland I started going to the gym less and less and eating more and more Chinese takeaways - it was great!

Since then, although I haven't been eating takeaways I have been slowly putting on weight and getting a but more podgy than I would like to be. Trying to eat less has completely failed to make any difference so last Monday I joined the gym. It is a small gym inside a hotel, but it is directly over the road from were I work and it is also pretty cheap.

I joined on Monday and after being shown around did 3000 metres on the rowing machine in 15 minutes. I then arranged for someone to give me a programme on Tuesday so I could actually get myself a set routine to do rather than just make something up each time I go (which is an easy way of slacking). So the program was set and I have been every day since and although I won't have lost any weight yet I certainly feel better for going.

My programme consists of:
- Stretching (which I haven't done since the first day as I've already forgotten how to do them).
- 5 minutes warm up on the bike
- 15 minutes on the treadmill (5 mins fast walking with incline set to 7, 5 minutes jogging on flat and 5 minutes fast walking on incline).
- 2000 meters on the rower (set to 7)
- 10 minutes on orbital machine (2.5 mins forward, 2.5 back, 2.5 forward, 2.6 back) on setting 7.
- The a couple more minutes on orbital to cool down.
- Stretching (still can't remember how to do it so haven't bothered).

The target time I set on the rower on Tuesday (which involved me going flat out for the last 300 metres) was 9 minutes 38 seconds.
Since then I have done 9:49, 9:36 and today I did 9:32.

Music to workout to was supplied courtesy of my new iPod and has included Shirley Clamp - Favoriter PÂ Svenska, This Mortal Coil - Blood, The Cure - A forest, Kent - Du och jag dˆden and The Killers - Hot fuss.

I don't have a picture of a gym so here is the next best thing.

ex members of Cloud 9 and Fragile

It was taken a few months ago when Critical Mass and Cloudhands senior editorial staff, and assorted hangers on, met up for a meal in Windsor. Needless to say a slap up nosh was had by all.

dag 1228: road river and rail

2007-06-15T16:31:00.000+01:00

Last night I got the train from work as normal and got into my car, which had been left in the rail station carpark. It was very wet and the windows misted up in next to no time so I had my front blower on aswell as my heated rear window.

I went home via sainsburys so I could buy some beer as I had none in at home and my latest order of Lapin Kulta was not due to arrive for a day or so.

I cannot remember the names of any of them but basicaly I bought 1 bottle of some speciality beer brewed in Denmark by Carlsberg, 1 bottle of Chinese beer and 2 small bottles of mexican beer in funny shaped bottles.

I couldn't park near the store entrance and the rain was really heavy so I got pretty well soaked by the time I got back in my car so aswell as the front blower and read heated window, I turned on my heated seat to help dry my trousers.

I parked the car just round the corner from my house, as normal, got all my stuff out and raced round to the house where I found the door locked and I didn't have a key on me. I could hear that bathtime was in progress so I knew I would be being let in just yet so I sheltered in the garage, which I had spent most of last weekend clearing out and tidying up.

About 45 minutes later I was in the lounge with plenty of logs on the fire watching a recording of that nights Celebrity Master Chef taking my first sips of the Carlsberg speciality brew (not to be confused with Carlsberg special brew) when the door bell rang. It was one of my neighbours who had spotted that my Smart car was currently letting quite a bit of rain in due to the back window no longer filling the hole where the back wiondow of a Smart car would normally be found. Instead it was in several hundred small pieces, some in the car and some on the road.

I went round to investigate and found that both the doors were still locked and there was no sign of anything having been taken. It appeared as if somebody had just decided to smash for reasons of their own. I went back to report it to the police before going back round with some bin bags and a roll of parcel tape to see if I could do something to fill in the gap.

I finally manged to cobble something together, but I can confirm that parcel tape is not very good at sticking something that is wet to something else that is also wet, especially while you are trying to perform the sticking manouver in torrential rain. By the time I got back to the house I was even wetter than I had been in Sainsburys carpark so I dried off in front of the fire and continued watching celebrity masterchef. I don't normally watch programmes with the word celebrity in, but this was an exception because a) I quite like masterchef and b) it had Midge Ure in it and the first time I ever heard of midi was on some TV program where it showed Midge Ure doing some stuff with midi and that inspired me to get into it myslef and also I think he is better than Bob Geldof.

Anyway back to the story.

I now had to decide how I was going to sort all this out. I though the best bet would be to get a taxi to the nearest rail station in the morning and try and arrange for autoglass to fit a new back window on the car where it was parked during the day.

So next morning the taxi dropped me of at the station and I ran to get under cover as it was still chucking it down.

traintime

The train seemed to be somewhat delayed and eventually a guard came and asked if anyone was going to Leeds. I said I was and he said the line was closed between Harrogate and Leeds and no buses were running but if I got the train to York I could then catch another one to Leeds. I reckoned that would take me most of the morning to do so I tried to think of an alternative. The option seemed to be as follows:

1 - Take the train to York and be resigned to the fact that it would take me hours to get to work, though it would give me plenty of time to play Ratchet and Clank on my OSO.
2 - Go back home and drive to work in my Smart car with no back window.
3 - Go back home and take the day off.
4 - Take the train as far as Harrogate and then decide what to do when I get there.
5 - Ring my Mum to see if she is going anywhere near Leeds on her way to work.

My response to each was:

1 - Would take too long to get to work.
2 - Didn't fancy driving it like that and I had nowhere safe to leave it in Leeds.
3 - I'm and IT contractor - this one didn't even get a look in.
4 - Sounded the best so far, but wouldn't get me all the way to work.
5 - Seems the only available option really.

So I rang my Mum and she said she would collect me from Harrogate station and drop me off in Leeds on here way to Guisley. She had an appointment at 11:00 but as she would be collecting me at aroun 9 o'clock that should leave plenty of time.

So she colected me and off we went. Or at least we did until we joined a queue on the way up the hill to Harewood. I guessed the queue was from the traffic lights at Harewood and probably caused by there being more traffic than normal due to trains being cancelled. We got to the traffic lights at Harewood but noiticed the traffic moving fairly slowly after them and once we were through the traffic lights thing slowed down to a stop. We then didn't move for the next half an hour. Traffic was occassionaly coming past in the other direction but we weren't moving and my Mum was no in danger of missing her appointment. I sugested she turn round and go her normal way to work, but there was nowhere to drop me and she would definatley be late if she did turn back so we waited and hoped it would start shifting again. Eventually it did and I saw the road had been blocked by a fallen tree - which explained why the busses weren't running.

Eventually we got into Leeds and at a suitabel point I said thanks and hopped out of the car. I had aabout a 15 minute walk from this point, but my Mum didn't know the centre of Leeds very well and at least there were signs for her to follow from the point where I got out and she should end up not being as late as if she had dropped me nearer work.

I eventually got into work at 11:00 and rang my Mum at 11:30 to check that she had got there OK for here meeting. She said she had only just arrived and her meeting had actually been at 10:30 and she had been flashed going through some traffic lights after dropping me off.

Well I felt pretty guilty and I will, of course, offer to pay the fine, but it just shows what dedication and professionaism an IT contractor can have in the face of adversity.

dag 1218: I wish I was here

2007-06-05T17:35:00.000+01:00

Just back from my latest trip to the land of the midnight crayfish so here is the low-down.

You may remember that last year, and also each of the previous years, I had problems that almost, but not quite, caused me to miss the flight so this year I though I would take precautions. Rather than risk getting stuck in traffic I thought it would be a good idea to spend the night before the trip in one of those hotels that provide parking into the cost of your room. That way it wouldn't cost much more than the parking at the airport and we would be able to get to the airport earlier than usual without having to get up quite so early as usual. What a plan - you get benefits from both ends and it doesn't even cost too much. How could anything to wrong?

I had never used one of these stay and park hotels before so I didn't really know how they worked so I did a bit of investigative journalism first. It seems there are a number of different option depending on the hotel chosen. Some let you park on their site while you are away, while others arrange for you to park at the airport, but the cost is met by the hotel. Some take your car off you when you check in to the hotel and you don't see it again until your return. This last one wasn't any good for me as I wanted to be able to leave our dirty closes from the day we checked in in the car so we didn't need to take them to Sweden in our luggage.

I managed to find a website that searched all the hotels around Manchester airport so I entered the date of the night we wanted to stay and it came back with a choice of 3 hotels. One of them was 10 miles from the airport and didn't look very nice in the picture, another one was not as far away and was called a "county house" hotel and had a nice looking photo of the exterior. The final one didn't have a picture, but sounded ok and was in the same hotel group as the country house one. After thinking about it for a bit and discussion it with other interested parties the general consensus was that the country house one sounded the best bet. There was a coach that would take us to the airport and bring us back and I was sure the parking would be nice and secure and away from dodgy areas if it was in the grounds of a country house hotel.

Unfortunately by the time we tried to book the country house hotel was booked up so we looked a bit more into their sister hotel, which was actually only 3 miles from the airport so a much closer location. The website for this hotel didn't have a picture of the hotel exterior, but it had some interior shots and it looked very nice inside. There was no mention of how frequent the coach journeys were, but as the hotel was so close to the airport it looked like the journey wouldn't be much more that around 10 minutes so we should be able to get up at a decent hour and get to the airport with plenty of time to check in and get some breakfast before boarding the flight. So we booked the room and everything was ready to go.

If you read last years report you will know that a few days before the flight out the booking I had made disappeared off the website and when we got to the check in desk we found we didn't actually have a booking. I didn't want this to happen again so I checked the website each day leading up to our day of departure and the booking showed up each time so it looked like that was all ok, so what could go wrong?

The only other thing I could think of would be that I would forget to take something important. There weren't many things I needed to remember and the full list was:
Swedish money - I had some left over from before and had managed to accumulate more at Christmas and my birthday.
Passports - Obviously we wouldn't get very far without these.
Directions to the airport hotel - just to be sure as I had no idea where it was.
Flight booking reference number - just in case the booking ended up getting lost at the very last minute.
Vouchers - SAS had sent us some vouchers for free food and drinks on the plane (very nice of them).
Bulbs - we needed to buy some replacement light bulbs for a light we had bought in Sweden.
Camera charger - last year I forgot this so couldn't take as many photos as I wanted to.
Disk case - containing a selection of DVDs to watch in the hotel room.

We had bought the light about 6 years ago. It was a flat board with about 20 tiny bulbs in it that hangs on the wall and , I may add, looks really rather nice and quite unusual. It came with a load of spare bulbs, but as I hadn't thought to remove the ones that were already fitted before packing it in the suitcase, they had all been squashed and destroyed during the flight home. I had, therefore, had to fit almost all the spare bulbs the first time we used it. So the following year on our trip to Stockholm I had needed to buy some more spare bulbs from the shop were we bought it. They only had about 10 spare bulbs as they had stopped selling that particular light so I just bought all the ones they had. Since then the bulbs had gradually failed and been replaced. Each year I had tried to find more, but never managed it. We even tried to get a local electrical company to see if they could get hold of them, but they failed to locate them anywhere. About a month before this trip we had to use our final spare bulb - if any failed now we wouldn't be able to replace them. About 2 weeks before the trip another bulb failed and a week before a second bulb failed. I still had the packet from the spare bulbs so I needed to make sure I took it along with one of the dud bulbs to make sure we could get some more spare ones. I kept reminding myself each night when I looked at the light that I need to get the bulb packet and a spare bulb and pack them carefully and take them with me.

As we got nearer the trip I began to fell a little uneasy. I couldn't really put my finger on what was causing this unease, but I remember mentioning it in an email to the proprietor of Cloudhands at some point.

The day of departure finally arrived. I was to travel to work in Leeds by train and would be picked up after work so I could drive straight to the hotel. We needed to get there as quickly as possible so the kids, especially the youngest, didn't have to wait too late for their dinner.

About half an hour before I was due to be collected I call a call to say that my wife thought she had forgotten to pack the DVDs. It wasn't the end of the world, but I nipped out of the office to see if I could find anything decent and cheap in Virgin. I managed to get a copy of series 1 of New Tricks for a reasonable price, which was good as we had only started watching this program in its second series and had been really enjoying series 3. So far all was OK.

I got picked up around an hour later than originally planned so I needed to put my foot down. The journey was pretty fast and smooth and we soon found the hotel quite easily.

When it came into site I realised why there was no photo of it on the website - it looked like some ageing concrete clad tower block in much need of knocking down. As we unloaded the car I noticed a group of about 6 hoodies on bikes watching us and didn't have a very good feeling about the place at all. Still there was nothing much we could do about it so we want inside to check in. There was 1 person at the desk and a queue of people waiting to check in. I looked around the lobby and into the bar area and restaurant and noticed that everything looked old and in need of replacement. Eventually we got checked in and I was asked to move my car up a ramp into their car park once we had got our stuff sorted out in the room. We went up in the lift and found our room. The photos of the rooms on their website looked clean, bright and newly decorated. Our room looked dirty, dark and very much in need of a complete redecoration including new carpets and new furniture. The room was also unbearably hot. The double bed looked about 2 inches wider than a single bed and the kids bunk bed looked home made.

I went down to move the car and also find out about the frequency of transfer couches. There was sill a queue at reception so I went to move the car first. I drove up the ramp and looked for a space. I found one and noticed that there were signs all over the place stating that this is not a security car park and people should not leave anything inside their cars. This is something that wasn't mentioned on their website (or at least if it was I hadn't spotted it).

Back in the hotel I saw more signs warning people not to leave anything in their cars and was given a coach schedule. It seemed that the coaches only leave once each hour and take 45 minute to get to the airport. This seemed a bit strange when the airport was only 3 miles sway, but then I realised that the coach goes to the airport via the country house hotel that belongs to this chain, which happens to be further away than our hotel.

By this time I was wishing we had managed to get a room at the country house hotel. I noticed a big sign advertising the hotel as a suitable venue for wedding receptions and I wondered who would ever consider having a wedding reception here.

Looking at the coach timetable I realised that we would have to get up at 06:00 the following morning in order to be ready to catch the coach that would get us to the airport at around 08:15. We may as well have stayed at home and driven in the following morning as we were still going to have to get up really early and we would have had to sleep in this dump.

The night was hot and hardly anyone got much sleep and we were all pretty much shattered when we finally got ready the next morning.

There were quite a few other groups of people waiting for the same coach as us so it took quite a while to load it up, and then we set off for the country house hotel. The coach turned down the drive and I noticed that there were cars parked on every available bit of verge and grassy area. One of the first cars I noticed had its front side window smashed. I was beginning to feel a bit relieved that we hadn't managed to get a room in this hotel. There were even more people waiting for the coach here than at our hotel so it was some time before we set off for the airport and the coach was now full. We then had to wait for the drop offs at each of the terminals and, of course, it stopped at our terminal last. I found a trolley, piled all our cases on and headed of for the SAS check in desk. The airport seemed crowded and when we got to the familiar location of the SAS check in desks we found that they were no longer SAS, but some budget airline. I pushed the trolley into the main check in desk area with a growing fear that maybe SAS had changed terminals since our last trip, but fortunately I found their desks round the corner. They didn't seem to have as many as they used to have. I wondered if this was due to the increasing market share of the budget airlines encroaching into the traditional airlines market.

There was quite a queue at the desks but fortunately my SAS Eurobonus gold status had been extended for an extra year so we managed to get checked in nice and quickly with none of the problems we had last year.

We then headed down to the passport control where we saw lots of people chucking bottles of water into big plastic bins. We had brought 3 large bottles for the kids and so these went on the bins with everyone else's. We were told we could buy more once we got through passport control, which no doubt would cost at least double what we had paid for these ones - what a waste of money.

Once we got to the x-ray machines the jar of baby food we had brought with us was packed so we had to open that and eat some, presumably to prove it wasn't poisoned. They then told us that the bottle of perfume in the bag would have to be thrown out. This was almost full and had cost about £50. It was quite obvious it was perfume as you could spray it and smell it, but for some reason it was not allowed on board so in the bin it went. I had forgotten about these newly introduced security measures that were introduced just before we went to Spain last year. Personally I fail to see what good these new restrictions do. We could quite easily have drunk from each water bottle to prove it was Ok and spraying the perfume onto our skin and allowing the guard to smell it quite easily proves what it's contents are.

Once all this was over at last it was our chance to get some breakfast, or at least that was the plan. All of the tables were occupied and there was a large number of people balancing trays loaded with breakfast walking round hoping they could catch somebody about to leave and grab their table. We queued up for ages bought some over priced breakfasts containing under cooked bacon and joined the seat searchers. We managed to find one and ate our now cold breakfasts. We had also brought some replacement bottles of water, but in the rush to try and get finished quickly to enable somebody else to have our table we managed to leave them only realising once we had boarded the plane.

So we hadn't had the same troubles as last year, but we still boarded the flight feeling pretty stressed, although as before once we got up in the air the stress began to go. Freddy slept for the whole flight and the other 2 kids kept themselves quiet and busy so we could have a glass of champagne and make a start on reading Prime Time by Liza Marklund.

As we touched down in Arlanda Airport I was feeling pretty contented. I would be spending the next 6 days in Sweden. I knew the time would fly by but just now at that time it was the beginning so I had it all to look forward to.

A couple of Swedish Birds

dag 1186: There's a ghost on the horizon

2007-05-04T12:57:00.000+01:00

Hope there's someone

In the last week I have bumped into 2 people, on seperate days, who I hadn't seen for over 20 years. They are both people I have thought about at various times and wondered what they may be up to with their lives. It was a surprise that they are both living fairly close to me. Meeting both of them left me feeling both very excited but also a bit down (though for very different reaons).

Although they were both involved in music in the past only one still is and his myspace page can be found here. I used to play synth in Dick's band Nova Grace before I went away to Manchester Polytechnic to study Computer Science. The excitement that we might get chance to do something musically in the near future faded away a bit when I remembered how little free time I get at the moment. However we should at least manage to meet up for a cup of tea and a chat about music at some point soon. We will at least keep in touch from now on which is good.

My second chance encounter was at Leeds Railway Station but we didn't leave any contact details and didn't really get time to catch up on all that we had been doing since we last met up, which was also just before I went away to Polytechnic. That was also the last time I saw my skateboard.

They say things happen in three's so now I can only wait and wonder what third thing fate is going to bring to my door...

Dag 1180: Let the happiness in

2007-04-28T11:43:00.000+01:00

My life seems to be getting more and more involved in music these days, which is a good thing, but unfortunatley, it is mostly listening to music rather than making it as I just never seem to get time for the latter these days.

My iPod died a month or so ago, but as I had managed to wangle a new W880i, which comes with a gig of memory, out of my mobile phone provider, I have started listening to music on that until I can afford to buy a new iPod. The sound seems noticably better than it was on my old The headphone I had been using were pretty cheap ones I had picked up from Edinburgh airport some years ago as I don't like using the in ear type that come with an iPod. I noticed that the sound from the W880i was far superior to my previous phone and as my headphones were beginning to fall apart I thought I might inverst in a new pair.

I had once tried on a pair of noise cancelling Bose headphones when I was working in Scotland and was amazed at how they much were able to reduce the background office noise. I thought it would be great to get some of those but they just cost so much that I thought I might get some noise cancelling headphones by a cheaper brand instead. I read a few reviews and it seemed that although I could get some for under £100 I shouldn't expect them to work as well as the Bose ones.

So one lunchtime last week I headed out to Richer Sounds to see what they had. On the way there I passed a Bose store and thought I may as well just pop in and see if they had some special one off offer on that meant I could get their noise cancelling headphones at a greatly reduced price. I found that not only did they have the noise cancelling headphones on display (unfortunately only at full price), but they also had 3 models of non noise cancelling headphones - and these were within my price range. The 3 models were in-ear, on-ear and around-ear and each (apart from the on ear model) was hooked up to an iPod so they could be tried out. First I tried on the noise cancelling ones, but the iPod only had a Michael Jackson CD on it so that reduced the value of any test I could do. I then tried the over ear ones and the iPod they were attached to was pretty full of all sorts of music. It actually took me longer to choose what I was going to listen to listen to than I spent listening to it. The sound quality was excellent, but I felt these headphones were too big to wear on the train or when walking through town. The on ear ones were a better size but I couldn't listen to anything with them. I decided that I had originally set out to get some noise reducing headphones from Richer Sounds so I headed of to see what they had to offer.

When I got there I saw that all the headphones were up on racks behind the counter so they couldn't be looked at without having to look around the staff which means you are bound to get one trying to help you sir. I wanted to be able to have a good look in peace. Also, as the headphones were all sealed in their boxes it meant that I couldn't try them out or get a feel for how comfortable they might be. I spent a bit of time looking at the Cd players and speakers while deciding whether I wanted to go up and look at the headphones or not. I was feeling that the sound of the Bose ones was so good that maybe I should just go back there, but then I remembered that I had originally intended to get some noise cancelling ones so I bit the bullet and went up to the counter.

I couldn't see any noise cancelling headphones on the rack and then came the inevitable "Can I help you sir". I asked if they had any noise cancelling headphones. He said he didn't think so, but checked on the computer and then said they should have 1 pair in stock but they must be in the back, so off he went to look for them.

While I was waiting a guy came in with a pair of headphones and handed them over to one of the other guys behind the counter. He explained that he had bought them one month ago and the sound crackled so what were they going to do about it. He handed the headphones over. I looked at them and was astounded to see that the whole length of the wire was filled with knots and some of the knots were themselves made up of knots. It looked a right old mess.

The conversation then went roughly as follows:

Guy behind counter: "Can I help you?"
Customer (handing over a set of headphones): "I bought these from you a month ago and the sound has become really crackly. I expected them to last longer than this."
Guy behind counter: "I can see exactly what is causing the problem - it's all these knots. Audio cable isn't designed to be treated like this and it causes the wire inside to break over time."
Customer: "So what are you saying?"
Guy behind counter: "You shouldn't have let the cable get into this state. This is what has caused the crackly sound."
Customer: "I didn't know that. Can you replace them?"
Guy behind counter: "I'm afraid this can't be classified as damage through normal wear and tear."
Customer: "So what are you saying mate - are you not going to exchange them?"
Guy behind counter: "We can only really exchange things that are damaged by normal wear and tear. All these knots ain't normal wear and tear mate".
Customer: "Yeah but mate no one told me that you shouldn't let them get knots in them".
Guy behind counter: "We don't mention that fact as normal policy when we sell headphones. How did they get like that?"
Customer: "I don't know that just got like this."
Guy behind counter: "Sorry, but there isn't really anything that we can do."
Customer: "But mate how can you say that. I didn't know that I shouldn't let them get like that."
Guy behind counter: "But mate you've got to see that this isn't just normal wear and tear. I don't see how they could have got like this in only one month."
Customer: "What are you saying mate? Are you saying you don't believe me."
Guy behind counter: "No mate, but I can't exchange these as this is not normal wear an tear."
Customer: "What are you saying mate? Are you saying that you're not going to do anything?"
Guy behind counter: "Mate, you could try sending them back to Senheisser to see if they will do anything, but I doubt they will as this is purely down to them not being looked after properly."
Customer: "So what are you saying mate? I appreciate about the knots, but no one told me that I shouldn't let the knots get in there when I bought it so I didn't know that it would damage the cable."
Guy behind counter (still managing to sound incredibly calm and collected): "But mate, really each time you saw that a knot had got into the cable you should have undone it to prevent it getting in this state."
Customer: "So what are you saying mate? Are you saying that if I had undone all the knots outside the shop before I brought it in then you would have replaced it?"
Guy behind counter: "Mate, I can see what condition they are in and I know that it is these knots that have caused the sound to become crackly."

During this conversation the guy behind the counter was staying very calm. I was very impressed with how he was handling the customer and he is a credit to Richer Sounds. I, on the other hand, was getting more and more stressed.
Who in their right mind would let their headphone cable get into that state and still expect them to work? Presumably the fact that this guy is still alive is purely because someone told him to "make sure you keep breathing and eat and drink occassionally" early on in his life.

At this point the guy looking for the headphones for me came back. He hadn't found them so I said I would call back next week and headed back to the Bose shop and purchased the on-ear headphones, despite the fact that I hadn't been able to hear a demo of them. The price was £20 more than the over ear ones so I thought they had to be at least as good.

I got back to the office and tried them out and the sound was incredible. It seems to make all the instruments have their own space in the mix and the bass is one of the best I have heard on a pair of headphones. In fact the best way of describing them is to say they are addictive - I just want to listen to music through them the whole time.

One of the first things I listened to on them was Smile's OK by The Hope Blister. This is a pretty high quality recording anyway and it sounded so good through these headphones that I became very anti-social at work and listened to it over and over again. One of my favourite tracks is called "Only Human" and it was originally recorded by Heidi Berry, who sang "Till I gain control again" on the This Mortal Coil album Blood. I had been aware that she had recorded some albums on 4AD but never heard any of them, but now I really wanted to hear the original version of "Only Human" through my new headphones.

The next lunchtime I trawled round all the record shops in Leeds but couldn't find any of her CDs so I had a look on amazon. The only one that seemed to be available new was Pomegranate (an anthology which includes Only Human), but it had a 6 to 9 days delivery. I ordered it along with Singularity by Peter Hammill and in order to keep me busy while I waited for these to arrive I went back into Leeds and bought the newly remastered version of Secondhand Daylight by Magazine along with a remastered Secrets of the Beehive by David Sylvian (which contains the track Let the Happiness In, also covered by The Hope Blister on Smile's OK). I have been listening to these 2 alot while awaiting my CDs from amazon. I had forgotten just how good Secondhand Daylight is and the David Sylvian album is great to listen to on these headphones as it is such a high quality recording. I hadn't heard this before and comparing the original version of Let the Happiness In with the Hope Blister version just shows how talented the peple invoved with the This Mortal Coil and Hope Blister projects are when it comes to arranging covers of other peoples songs. I pressume that Ivo Watts-Russell is the one who would take most of the credit for this.

The CDs from amazon have now arrived and I chose to listen to the Heidi Berry CD first as it was the one I had most been anticipating. The outcome of this is that I still haven't listened to the Peter Hammill CD (or anything else) since I listened to Pomegranite.

This is currently the my all time favourite CD of all time and I am sure it is going to remain in my top CDs list for the rest of my life. Her songs have a bit of a folky edge to them, and in some ways they remind me of Sandy Denny, who was one of my favourite singers in my youth. However, I certainly wouldn't class her as purely a folk singer/songwriter by any stretch of the imagination. Her voice is both beautiful and mournful and the songs themself are at times melancholic but uplifting and full of emotion. These songs are all over 10 years old, but have a timeless quality about them and sound like they could have been just recorded. In many ways they make me think of my youth, but I don't really know why.

It was interesting hearing the original version of Only Human as The Hope Blister had changed the lyrics around so they were directed at the singer, whereas in the original version the subject of the lyrics is somebody else. This is the only song on the CD to consist of piano and vocals - all the other tracks have a greater number of instruments involved. The tracks that so far stand out as the best are Northern Train (one of the greatest songs I have ever heard), Only Human, Mercury, Time and Follow, though there is not a weak song on the whole CD.

I now wish that I had sought her music out when it first came out so I could have had the chance to see her perform live. Looking at her website I see that she is currently teaching courses in songwriting in Brighton. I feel very jealous of people living in Brighton now as I would love to attend one of her courses, but it would be a bit of a commute from Yorkshire.

Dag 1162: If in doubt, be dancing

2007-04-10T11:06:00.000+01:00

As predicted last time I have continued my CD buying spree and have been getting a bit more up to date on the current music scene. In the 70s and 80s I was pretty much up to date with what was going on, but things went a bit out of kilter in the 90s and carried on until fairly recently. The whole thing started during a visit to Scotland when I bought a Capercaillie CD. I liked it so much that I bought all their other albums and started going to see them at every opportunity. I soon started to listen only to Scottish music, but that felt too mainstream so I narrowed it down to only Scottish Gaelic music, then I started learning Scottish Gaelic and narrowing down my music purchases to ever more obscure Gaelic artists. It got to the point that if it wasn't recorded on the smallest most remote Scottish island during a force 9 gail then it was just too mainstream for me.

Fortunately, just when I was on the brink of adding a Mac to the start of my surname and refusing to speak English anymore I started working in Sweden. This enabled me to get into Swedish music and start learning Swedish instead. Fortunately though, instead of ending up only listening to music that was recorded under a midnight sun in the far north of Sweden, I discovered some really great new music that I just would not have discovered if I hadn't been working there (such as Kent, Eva Dahlgren, and even Roxette, who I hadn't been that keen on when they first became known in the UK).

So back to my latest music purchases:

Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I miss Everyone ****

I went to see a band called My Latest Novel in Edinburgh last year (or the year before) and was very impressed. I discovered they were on the Cocteau Twins' Bella Union label. I ended up signing up on the Bella Union website and have had quite a few trips onto it to check out their band roster. There are plenty of interesting bands on there and this is the first one I have bought (apart from My Latest Novel). Like Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails I was presented with a cheaper normal version of the CD or a limited edition double CD at a higher price. Unlike Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails I bought the double CD version, and am pleased I did. The first CD contains the album tracks and the second contions remixes. Normally I think remixes are rubbish, but in this case I don't. The album is made up of 6 instrumental pieces and there are another 6 on the remix CD. The music is very atmospheric and melancholic which makes it fit nicely into the sort of stuff that I have come to realise that I like and the remix tracks sound sufficiently different to make them worthwhile listening so all in all this is a great CD. So far the final track stands out as being a particular highlight with its sparse and beautiful tinkly opening that gradually builds up to a full on climactic end. This is great music to listen to while working.

My Latest Novel in Edinburgh

Other Bella Union artists to look out for are Midlake, Devics, The Howling Bells and, of course, My Latest Novel.

Slowdive - Just for a Day ****

After doing some more browsing on wikipedia I found an entry about a type of music called Shoe Gazing. I wasn't familiar with this term, but it seemed that quite a few bands I really like fit into this genre so I guess I must be a shoe gazer too. So if you see me looking down at my shoes in future now you know why. The article listed many other shoe gazing bands that I hadn't heard before. I thought I would probably like them so I wrote about 12 of the band names onto a post-it note and headed off for Virgin Records in Leeds. After some frantic floor walking I discovered that they didn't have a single band on my list so I went across to HMV hoping they might be better kitted out for us shoe gazers. All I can say is that HMV in Leeds is a veritable haven for shoe gazers. They had multiple CDs from most of the bands on the list so, bearing in mind that I hadn't heard any of them, it was difficult deciding which CDs to buy. The bands at the top of my list (as they seemed to have the most said about them on Wikipedia) were Chapterhouse and Slowdive. There were a couple of CDs by each band and I ended up choosing a slowdive one as they had a girl singer so I thought I may just like them better. This is a double CD containing their first album along with their early singles and Eps. I only found this out after I'd bought it so I was a bit concerned that I may have been better off getting a later album, but as soon as I heard the first track I was transported back to that time period. The music sounds heavily influenced by the Cocteau Twins and as it was in the same style I liked it straight away. I must confess that I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but that is purely down the fact that a) I have bought so much music lately and b) I just keep on going back to the Cocteau Twins time and time again (I am currently listening to Victorialand, again, as I write this). They were once my all time favourite band of all time and they may well just be about to become so again. If only they would finish their unfinished album and reform for a tour - I would probably try and get to every date.

Puressense - Planet Helpless *

Once I had picked my Slowdive CD I decided I'd get one more from my list. I nearly bought a Catherine Wheel cd as the cover looked good and Tim Friese Green (who worked on the later, and greater, Talk Talk albums) was involved, but if I got that it would have meant I was spending more than I wanted to I ended up getting Planet Helpless by Puressense as it was on the list and it was only a fiver. As soon as I started playing it I realised that this was a mistake. Whereas slowdive definitely fitted in with bands like Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil Puressense did not seem to fit the shoe gazing genre one bit. I would have fitted them squarely in with the Madchester bands who I have no interest in whatsoever. I listened to 2 tracks and took it off. This is the first CD I have bought in a very long time that I have regretted. If anyone wants to buy it off me please leave a comment to that effect.

dag 1152: The Fearful Symmetry of Life

2007-03-31T14:12:00.000+01:00

I had to drive 22,222 miles in order to take this photo.

dag 1133: Where do baby beams go when they die?

2007-03-12T22:45:00.000Z

I have been buying music lately and in some sort of real breakthrough for me it isn't Swedish music.

Månen hänger lågt

Bill Nelson - Getting the Holy Ghost Accross ****:

I originally bought this on prerecorded cassette and it quickly became one of my favourite albums. I tended to only listen to tapes in the car and this was without doubt the tape I played the most. Since I got my first CD player I have been on the lookout for this on CD but no shops ever seemed to stock it. Some years ago I found out it had never been released on CD and that there was a group of fans trying to get people to sent requests to the record company to try and get them to do the right thing and release it on CD. I sent them an email and kind of forgot about it until a few weeks ago when I spotted it in HMV in Leeds. I had been considerring getting a Ramstein CD (because the bass player plays a Sandberg bass), but when I saw this I felt duty bound to buy it as I had sent the record company that email some years back. I hadn't heard it for many years and although it did sound somewhat dated I had heard the songs so many times first time round that it seemed instantly familier to me. It reminds me very much of the Simple MInds album Sons and Fascination. If you liked that album you will definately like this.

Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral **:

I was busy trying to think of a good name for my new musical project and each time I wrote one down I googled it to see if anyone had already used it. One of the names I came up with was Downward Spiral. It turned out that it is the name of a Nine Inch Nails album so I looked it up on Wikipedia and read a few reviews on amazon where in general people were saying it was one of the all time best albums of al time. I saw that there were 2 version of the album available at the moment. One was the standard one and the other was a 2 disk special edition. The special edition was quite a bit more expensive and I knew that if I ended up really liking this I would kick myself if I didn't get the special edition. The album was recorded in the house where Sharon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson and that kind of made me feel that this album might actually just be someone trying to be controversial. I opted for the lower cost version and after a couple of plays it was the right choice. There are a few good moment on it but mainly it comes accross as someone trying to break a few bounderies. I was looking forward to hearing Hurt (the last track) as I realy like the cover of it that Johnny Cash did and that is saying something as I have never liked anything else I have heard by him. Unfortunately the NIN version just isn't a patch on the Johnny Cash version. I may play it again occaissionaly but on the whole it was a bit of a let down, whcih is a shame as I liked the Quake music that Trent Reznor did.

Muse - Absolution ***:

Since getting my new bass I have joined the bassworld forum and really enjoyed reading a lot of the threads. One thread had a few people discussing how good Muse were so I thought I would take their word for it and give them a try. They both said how good they thought the album Absolution was and as it had a song called Stockholm Syndrome on it this seemed the best one to give a try.

The openning track was amazing and I had to play it over a few times before moving on. I got as far as Stockholm syndrome and thought it was all great. It was one of those albums where I keep getting to the end of Stockholme Syndrome and then having to start again from the beginning. I have to admit that the first 5 songs are so good that I haven't actually played th whole thing through yet. The music seemd to me to be pretty unique, but then I realised that it did remind me of another group - one that I didn't know particularly well, and then it came to me, it was Queen. They remind me of Queen, only they are heaps better than Queen were - in my opinion anyway. So well worth checking out if you don't yet know them.

Emmerhoff and the Melancholy Babies - Electric Reverie *****:

I spotted this CD when I was browsing through Virgin Records in Leeds last week. I was looking at the ELP CDS and this was next to it. I liked the cover picture and I liked the fact that the name had the word Melancholy in it as I seem to be really into melancholic music at the moment. I was sensible and didn't buy it there and then - I went back to work and looked for reviews. The reviews were all good so I bought it the next day and was not at all disappointed. The album features a cover version of the song Cowboys by Portishead and it has to be on the best songs I have heard. I feel that it surpases the original. It is worth buynig the album just for this track, but the rest is really good too and it gets better with more plays. I decided that I just had to send them a myspace friend request and not only did they accept, but they put a message up on my myspace page which I think is pretty decent of them. I should also add that I felt that the trees on the cover looked like Scandinavian trees and I was right as they are from Norway.

Robin Guthrie - Continental *****:

I first heard one of the songs from this album when I spotted Robin Guthries myspace page. It sounded just like the Cocteau Twins but minus the exquiset voice of Elizabeth Fraser. I new it was only a metter of time before I bought this and I ended up downloading it from iTunes after failing to find it in Leeds. It is great music to listen to while working so that what I have been doing. In fact it is possible that I have listened to this album more than all the others reviewed in this post. I should also add that Mr Guthrie has a jolly enjoyable blog.

Big Star - Third***:

This Mortal Coil covered a couple of songs from this CD on their first album (It'll End in Tears) so I thought it would be good to hear the originals. There are 2 tracks from this album on the "It'll end in tears" TMC album and as the TMC covers are usualy pretty different from the originals I had no idea what to expect of the originals. It turned out thet the originals were pretty similar to the ocvers and wher I thought Howard Devoto was probably being pretty left field in his singing on Holocaust - it seemed to me that he was just trying to be as close to the singing on the original as he could. All in all I liked both the songs that TMC covered and I quite liekd a few others, but this is not an album I have felt compelled to return to much. I prefer listening to It'll end in tears as the other songs on it are beter than the others songs on Third.

There are a few more new bands I have spotted and may be making a few more purchases pretty soon. Reviews will no doubt follow at some point.

dag 1126: The world is sinking through the ground

2007-03-08T16:08:00.000Z

A few recent internet related problems in the Nelson Mandela building at the Björk Bjiggler Critical Mass HQ (Northern) combined with a general lack of available time have prevented me from posting over the last few weeks. Things seem to have sorted themselves out a bit so I can once again put finger to keyboard and produce some more prose full of insight and thought - or maybe not.

First of all it is about time I drew your attention to the fact that we now have a new blog layout which, to the non internet savvy, means that it doesn't look the same as it used to do. As with most things that happen in my life, it did not come about due to me being proactive, but reactive. I logged in to write a post one day and was presented with a message saying I could either carry on with the blog as it is, but miss out on the all the new features that are being introduced or upgrade to the new format and be able to make full use of all the wonderful new features. There was an inviting link to click on to start the upgrade process and a message next to it warning that all template customisations would be lost. As our template had been heavily modified over the years I thought about this for a bit (ok for quite some time actually - I am not very good at making decisions at the best of times). Eventually I came to the conclusion that the only way forward is to keep up with the times and move on rather than staying stuck with the old ways and getting left behind. So I clicked the link and ended up with what you now see before you. At the same time I decided to start using blogger comments (these weren't available when we first set it up), which means we have lost all of the old ones I think it is better to have them integrated rather than being separate and its probably better to do it now than in the future which would mean even more comments getting lost. If you can remember any comments that are missing please feel free to re-enter them against the appropriate post.

Since the last instalment my new Sandberg bass arrived from Germany. It seemed to take quite a while for my order to get processed, but once it had been shipped it only took 2 days to arrive. The box was huge and filled with airbags which surrounded and protected bass, which was inside the Sandberg gig bag that is supplied with all Sandberg basses. Opening up the gig bag was pretty exciting as I finally got to see my first glimpse the bass I had been waiting for for the last week or so. I chose the bass based on the picture on the left, though I new mine would have a black rather than a pearl pick guard. I thought the bass looked good in pictures, but in the flesh I think it looks even better. The first thing that struck me was the quality. Every component just oozes quality in both design and build. I just had to have a play and was also amazed to find that the bass was practically in perfect tune - I only had to adjust 1 string slightly. The violet burst colour is much darker in reality than the picture and will go perfectly with the type of music I will be playing with it. I was a bit worried about how I would get on with 5 strings as I had only ever played 4 string basses before, but so far it hasn't seemed any harder to play because of that extra string. Now I want to get a smallish bass amp (got my eye on a Phil Jones briefcase) and I must say I also wouldn't mind getting a few of these EBS pedals (their amps look pretty good too) - nothing to do with them being Swedish of course!

I've also got to think up a name for my new band - then I can start recording stuff.

Dag 1104: I must have been blind

2007-02-14T00:49:00.000Z

While pondering over how my new "This Mortal Coil" style musical project would start I dug out some of my old recordings from when I had a very small and very basic home studio setup. I soon realised that the music I was making back then already was pretty similar to TMC. Not many people heard what I recorded then, but I did send a four track demo to Home and Studio Recording magazine and when it finally got reviewed one of the comments was that the music was pretty sombre.

Back then I had limited equipment and recorded using midi, a 12 input mixing desk and a 4 track portastudio. I only had 2 synth modules (Roland D-110 and U-220) and I found that if I tried anything with too many parts they wouldn't be able to cope and timing would go to pot and various notes would get dropped. So rather than go about trying to write a load of new songs I decided to revisit my original collection of songs and re-record those that I liked the best.

In those days I used to subscribe to Home and Studio Recording Magazine and when editor Paul White left to become editor of the newly founded Sound on Sound I started a subscription to that magazine. HASR fell by the wayside, but Sound on Sound kept going and is still going strong today.

I started a new Sound on Sound subscription around a year ago, and it was in the December issue that I spotted The Korg Micro X.

I managed to get one of the limited edition white ones for my birthday. It arrived last week and I am really impressed with it.
I bought it without ever seeing one or hearing one in the flesh so it was a bit of a risk, but it has turned out to be just perfect for what I needed.
I have a number of other synths, but most of them are either monophonic, or have limited polyphony or are locked away in the attic.
This one is small and has a really neat case to keep it in and has some great sounds.

When I first switched it on I held down a chord and what sounded like a whole band started playing. Although the quality of the sound was awesome, I was initially a bit put off as my first thought was "This is one of those home consumer thingies that provides the accompaniment automatically". But I soon realised I was completely wrong. These patches are just showing what can be done using the built in dual polyphonic arpegiators. The possibilities are endless, and, I have to admit, it is great fun just going through all these patches and seeing what you can come up with.

For the style of music I want to record what I really need are some really good pad and string sounds and it didn't take me long to find quite a few that sounded similar to those used by TMC. It got me thinking that I would probably add the odd guitar part with my Shergold, which I haven't recorded anything on yet as the 1980s synth music of Strange Devotion did not require guitars. This then got me thinking about what I would use for bass. Before, I played all the bass parts on a keyboard and although they filled in the bass regions of the song, they didn't sound like they were being played on a bass. The bass guitar is quite often prominent on TMC and Cocteau Twins songs and I realised last week that, even though I've only just got my new Korg, if I was going to do this thing properly I also had to have a bass guitar and I needed one now.

once I was...

I used to play bass in a band when I was student and at the time I had a red Yamaha bass which I had really liked that hadn't cost a fortune, so my first thoughts were to get one of those again. I looked on the web and saw plenty of reasonable priced Yamahas, but the body shape was different to the one I had had. The new ones seemed sort of space aged to me and I didn't like the look of them. It didn't take long to find some Fender basses and although these were more expensive I thought I might be able to stretch to one, as after all it is unlikely that I will ever buy another bass again. The Fenders I had seen were made in Mexico and the world wide internet soon informed me that the Mexican Fenders are not the ones to go for as they are made of cheap parts and the ones to have are the ones that are made in USA. So I started looking at these. The trouble is they seem to be about double the cost of the Mexican ones and my initial budget was set at half the cost of the Mexican ones. I kept going back to look at various cheaper models, but the name Fender just seemed to be stuck in my head. By last Monday I had realised that my new bass had to be a Fender and it had to be made in USA.

I then started looking at the colours available. The first guitar I ever bought was a fender copy with a sunburst colour scheme and a white pick guard. It cost about £25 and it was a piece of junk full of buzzing frets. Most of my friends had similar guitars or basses and ever since then I have hated guitars in that colour scheme. It was obviously copied from Fender as most of those available seemed to be that colour. However I spotted a colour called Orange Sunset that only seemed to be available on the USA made Fender basses and I was instantly smitten. The trouble is this option adds another £100 to the cost so we are now looking at around £1,000 for a new bass. I didn't really see how I could justify this.

On Tuesday I decided I had better go and have a look in Music ground in Leeds to see what Fender basses they had in stock. Maybe they would have a second hand Precision bass in Orange Sunset for some ridiculously low price. On the way there I called in at Northern Guitars and had a look at their selection of basses. They didn't have too many and they were all budget makes which were all very reasonably priced. I could have got a perfectly decent looking one for under £100 pounds, but of course I didn't.

Instead, I went over the road and had a look at the basses in Music Ground. They had a good selection and plenty of Fenders. They had a fair few "made in USA" ones, but I just couldn't get that excited about them. I didn't really like the colour schemes of the ones they had, but I realised that not only did they look pretty similar to the Mexican Fenders, but they also looked pretty similar to all of the many fender copies that so many budget manufacturers make. I decided to go upstairs to the Music Ground guitar museum to cheer myself up. I had a good mooch around and spotted a Fender bass that used to belong to Sid Vicious. This was in terrible condition and parts of it were held together by sticky tape. I thought it looked pretty cool and I wondered how much it was worth.

I went back to work and realised that I now felt that the only bass that would do was a Fender USA Precision Bass in Sunset Orange and I would just have to save up for it by working plenty of weekends. All of the websites I could find that offered this exact colour and model of bass did not have any in stock so I kept googling away to try and find one, when I came across the bassworld forum. Someone had bought the exact same bass as I wanted and had posted some pictures up of it. It is truly an item of beauty and I just knew we were made for each other.

However, while reading through the forum I saw the name Sandberg a few times. The name sounded Swedish, but it seems these basses are hand crafted in Germany and quite afew people had written good things about them. I saw that in the UK they cost around the same as the Fender I had originally lusted after, but I read that they could be bought from Germany for quite a bit less. This lead me to this German Site which had a number of Sanberg basses available. The cheapest one in stock was much cheaper than the Fender and was in a fantastic Violet burst colour. I looked at it over and over again fro the next few days and yesterday I finaly added it to my basket and checked out. So 5 strings of glorious bass are currently getting ready to be shipped over and I can't wait to have my first go on a hand crafted Sandberg 5 string.

To celebrate I had a great eveing out with Adrian and Guy in Harrogate. We started off at the Hotel Du Vin with a few Absolut vodkas with assorted mixers and Adrian and Guy had a few games of pool while I relaxed in a very comfy leather sofa.

That's a bad miss.

We then moved on to the Drum and Monkey where we had a very nice meal of assorted seafood and then home to our respective beds.

I got home to find that the copy of Filigree and Shadow by This Mortal Coil, that I had ordered from amazon last week, had finaly arrived. I originally had this on double LP and haven't owned a record deck for around 10 years so this will be getting quite a few plays in the morning.

Dag 1092: Bithday Special

2007-02-02T23:05:00.000Z

As usual, it was my birthday on 1st feb, and as usual I felt less bothered about it than the last one (apart from being bothered about the incremental effect it has on my age).

As we get older we have more idea of what life is about and what it has to offer, yet we also find that as we get older we have less chance of making dramatic changes to our lives.

Mr Hammill once said/sang "It's a hallmark of adulthood that our options diminish as our faculties for choice increase" and I think that sums it up pretty well.

My last post was written a couple of months ago, but since I got round to adding it to the blog I have been listening to pretty much nothing but This Mortal Coil, though I have been alternating this with Victorialand by The Cocteau Twins. I was an instant fan of the Cocteau Twins when I heard their first LP and have bought everything they released since. I can remember that when Victorialand was released I thought it was quite a change in direction for them and was leading towards the style of music that they would become so well known for. Like many LPs I bought back then I bought the pre-recorded tape version so I could play it in my car. My first car was a very battered and unreliable Renault 5 which had both rear side windows held in place with glue and masking tape. I remember driving to Leeds with Adrian one day and putting Victorialand onto the tape player. I remember him saying that it was probably the most depressing music he had ever listened to, but I can't remember what I put on instead. I hadn't thought of it in that way before. I realised that it could possibly be thought of as depressing, but I tended to find that if you are feeling a bit low listening to this sort of stuff can actually make you feel pretty uplifted. I find the music on Victorialand beautiful and something that one can get become completely lost in. I once went to a wedding where Victorialand was played as people entered the church and it seemed very fitting and appropriate.

When I first bought a CD player Victorialand was the first CD I bought to play on it. For some reason I never bought any This Mortal Coil on CD and my original copy of their first album It'll End In Tears was a pre-recorded cassette. The tape has long since worn away and I hadn't listened to it for years so I purchased it from iTunes last night as an extra birthday present and am listening to it as I write this.

As I mentioned in the last post, whenever I start listening to This Mortal Coil it makes me want to make music like that. However, making any sort of music at all is not really possible at the moment, partly due to lack of free time, but mainly due to the fact that all my equipment is stored away in the attic and various wardrobes. It is not really practical to get it out as by the time it was all set up I would need to put it away again. But all this listening to TMC and Cocteau Twins has made me really want some way of recording some music again. I also had the dilemma of what to get for my birthday. I always want more music equipment, but there is no point buying any if you have nowhere to put it. The answer was provided when I read through december's copy of Sound on Sound and I saw that Korg must have realised there is a market out there for people in the same boat as me. When I read about the Korg Micro X I felt it could have been made specially for me. It is small, but doesn't have small keys it has full size keys, just less of them. It also comes in a custom plastic hard case so it can easily be put away neatly, but best of all it contains sounds from their top of the range Triton synths. Editing small synths without many buttons is often a chore, but this one comes with a USB cable and some software to enable all that to be done from the computer. The SOS review mentioned that as well as the standard black case, the micro X also comes in a limited edition white case. Not only does it look far better in white, but as it is a limited edition, if I can get one I can feel all the better about the whole thing. However if I can't find one I will need to listen to even more TMC to cheer me up.

I spent the weeks leading up to my birthday trying to find a white micro X 50. It seemed that not only were the black ones pretty hard to get hold of due to their popularity, but the white ones were almost impossible to find. Digital Village advertised both on their website, but had neither in stock. Another site I had brought from before had the black one in stock, but no mention of the white one. Every day I looked on the Digital Villages website to see if they had got any, but they were always out of stock.

I began to worry that the limited edition white ones may have already sold out, but this just made me all the more determined to get one (I must me a marketing mans dream come true). The day before my birthday I emailed the other supplier to see if they had any plans to stock the white ones. They said they has spoken to Korg and they would be able to get some in 2 to 3 weeks time, and I should order one straight away to ensure I get one. I didn't really want to wait that long so after a few hours weighing it up I emailed and said I would like one of the ones they will get in. They said if I looked on their site I would see that the item was now listed and if I ordered it now I would get one when they got them in. I didn't like the idea of my card getting charged so many weeks before the item became available so I told them I would order it next week instead.

Before leaving work that day I had one more look on the digital village site and the status on the white micro X had changed to in Stock. It would have suited me better to have bought this after the weekend, so it would have appeared on march's statement, but I had the chance of getting one without waiting for another 2 or 3 weeks so I bought it. Once I had gone through the process I checked the item again and it was now showing up as out of stock again. The order has a clause saying the stock level on the web page may not be accurate so either they had just got 1 in that day and I had got it or there was an error and they didn't actually have one in stock. I wasn't likely to find out until the next day so I went home.

Next day I had an email to say the order was accepted and a few hours later another saying the item had shipped. There was also a tracking number. This morning I looked that up and my synth was officially out for delivery. Around 12:30 the status changed to delivered, so I have a brand new white limited edition Korg micro X waiting at home for me. I guess Strange Devotion will now be on hold (though in reality it has been since I left Scotland) and I am now looking forward to attempting some melancholic yet ultimately uplifting music inspired by TMC.

These birthdays may not be quite so bad after all.

There's ice in the cauldron, so look out now.

dag 1086: hope blisters eternal

2007-01-27T19:02:00.000Z

This post was written sometime towards the end of last year but my old PowerBook died on me before I had the chance to tidy it up and publish it. You will see that the bit at the end has actually been superceded by my latest post.

I have been spending some of my down time over the last few weeks looking things up on wikipedia. I think the principle that anyone can create new articles or contribute to existing ones is great. Since I first heard about it I have wanted to contribute something, but haven't found the time or the right subject as yet. The things I have been reading about has included musicians and groups I like and I am amazed at the amount of information people have contributed. My wanderings have included Peter Hammill, Kent, Nick Drake, John Cale, Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil. I can still remember the very first time I heard This Mortal Coil, I was driving along Penny Pot Lane listening to the radio for a change when they played the Song of the Siren - a cover of the Tim Buckley original. I instantly recognised Elisabeth Fraser's distinctive voice when the song began and I initially thought it must be a Cocteau Twins track, although it was different from their normal stuff. It was only when it finished that I actually heard it was This mortal Coil, and I wondered if the Cocteau Twins have split up.

Fortunately they hadn't (though of course they did do so later on).
This Mortal Coil wasn't a band as such, but a collection of musicians (mainly from the 4AD record label) that got together to record cover versions with various original pieces thrown in for good measure. The whole project was conceived by Ivo Watts-Russell, the founder of 4AD, who liked melancholic music and put together a band to play original music as well as cover versions of some of his favourite songs.

That melancholic music will surely cheer you up.

I bought their first Album, It'll End in Tears, and was amazed by it. Although it featured different singers, musicians and instruments it definitely had a certain mood about it which I think pretty much matched the kind of mood I have always liked and wanted to create in my own music (though haven't really managed it as yet). I bought the next two This Mortal Coil albums (both double) as soon as each was released - Filigree and Shadow, and Blood. I thought they were both fantastic. It was great hearing their cover versions of songs I already knew, but it also introduced me to some songs that I had never heard the first time around.

I kept looking out for the next TMC release, but it looked like the project was over and I ended up rebuying the originals on cd or from iTunes (where I bought Blood and the Sixteen Days/Gathering Dust ep shortly before leaving my contract in Scotland). But while reading all about TMC on wiki I discovered a link to a small piece about a group called The Hope Blister.
It seems that there was another TMC album after all. Although the band name had changed and it was the same musicians playing on all tracks, this was essentially a TMC album. It featured a set of previous TMC musicians, it still featured cover versions and, as I discovered once my copy arrived from amazon, most importantly it sounded like a TMC album.

For me the stand out tracks are Spider and I and Hanky Panky Nohow.
These are the last 2 tracks and seem to flow together as if it was always intended that they be together. Spider and I was written by Eno and I have never heard the original. This version is very relaxing,
starting off with strings and exquiset vocals and gradually transforms itself into a cacophony of banging drums and feedback in such a way that you don't notice the transition. This flows seamlessly into Hanky Panky Nohow, which is written by John Cale and taken from his Paris 1919 album. This is a track I did already know and Paris 1919 is generally considered to be John Cales finest album. This version is great, but does seem to lose
itself a bit towards the end, but I think that is just that the first half of the track is so good that it is not possible to keep that going for the whole track. The lyrics to this song are amazing, yet I have no idea what they mean - they just seem to fit together really well.

Hearing this John Cale track reminded me that
a) I hadn't listened to any of his music for ages and
b) I still hadn't managed to see him live yet.

A quick scour of the web resolved both these situations as I ordered the newly remastered Paris 1919 cd and his latest CD Black Acetate (I had seen John Cale perform a couple of tracks from this on Jools Holland last year). I also spotted that he will be playing a few dates in January - the nearest to my current location was Sheffield, so after rallying round all my concert going buddies I ordered a single ticket.
So if you see a bloke looking sad and lonely hanging around near the front of the stage it'll probably be me so why not say hello.

Nothing frightens me more..........

Dag 1084: in the bag

2007-01-26T16:51:00.000Z

Last night was my first gig since leaving my native Scotland - well ok slight exaggeration, it was my first gig since leaving my 4 year Scottish based contract. The last one was Gary Numan at Glasgow University and as I arrived so early I managed to get a place right at the front and took some pretty decent photos using my phone. The camera on my phone no longer works, but I now have a phone sized 5 mega pixel Canon Ixus so I thought if I can get to the front I will be able to get some even better quality photos. Some of the gigs I go to don't allow photos, but you can often get away with it if its is a big venue and/or large crowd to hide amongst. I thought I should be ok taking photos as I had noticed that the John Cale website had recently asked for people to send in photos they had taken at John Cale gigs so that some could be included in the packaging of the soon to be released live cd pack entitled "John Cale - Circus Live".

So I printed off the instructions on how to get to the leadmill from their website and set off down the M1 in search of junction 33. As I headed up to the roundabout at the end of the parkway I new my instructions. Take the 3rd exit, then turn left at the mini roundabout, then left again and then turn into Leadmill road and there the famous Leadmill will present itself in front of you by means of a glowing red sign - simple.

So I turned left and looked out for this mini roundabout. One didn't appear and After going through a couple of sets of traffic lights I got the feeling that I was heading out of town and had maybe missed it. I turned round and drove back looking for this mini roundabout, but still no joy. I began to think that maybe the directions were out of date. I had now driven past the station twice and the website had also provided instructions on how to get there from the station, but I hadn't bothered to print those out as I wasn't going by train.

So I ended up back at the big roundabout and wondered if maybe I should have taken the next exit which goes into the centre of Sheffield. As I waited at the traffic lights I already knew I was wrong and should have gone back towards the station, but I was committed so 10 minutes later I was back at the big roundabout and heading back to the station. It was now 15 minutes after the doors opened so I just thought I may as well park in the station car park and ask someone. I did this and was at the leadmill front door about 30 seconds later - why didn't I do that first time round?

I handed my ticket in and noticed a sign saying "The Artist has requested that no one smoke during the performance". I guessed Mr Cale must be thinking about his health and not wanting to go the way of Roy Castle. It also meant I had a chance of not going home with clothes stinking of smoke.

Once in the room I noticed that the stage only had a couple of people next to it and they were towards the left side so after depositing my coat I made a b line for the spot right in the middle. The layout seemed to consist of a back row for guitar, drums and bass and then a front spot on one side for when he was playing guitar and a front spot for when he was playing keyboard on the other side, so I was right between the 2 with the drums right in front of me. I had watched the John Cale performance on Jools Holland and had noted that the drummer was pretty good so all in all it was a good spot and I should get some great photos.

Just before 20:00 someone walked onstage to stick down the set lists. These were easily in view of the few people that had now claimed spaces at the front so he asked us not to look. We did as he said, until he had walked of and then all craned our necks to try and get a glimpse.

I couldn't read all the track titles as they were upside down, but I noted that heartbreak hotel was second on the list and quite a few old songs were scattered in there, though I couldn't see any tracks listed from Paris 1919, and a few others I thought he might do didn't seem to be their either.

At the end of the gig I could have got one of these set lists - they were handing them out, but I didn't see the point of getting one, but now I see that if I had got one I could have listed it here. So I'll try and do it from memory and list it further down. I did count them, though, and there were 20 (including 3 for encores).

It began to look like things might be about to start and I heard the sound guy telling the guy that stuck the set lists down that John had decided to swap the order of the first 2 songs. The other guy looked like he was about to go and rip up the first set of sheets, but the sound guy said to just leave it as it was. Then the background music faded and the heavily treated drone of a viola faded in. This went on for some time and then 4 guys walked on the stage and there was John Cale a foot or 2 in front of me. I had first attempted to see John Cale toward the end of the 1970s and although I had a ticket my parents didn't let me go. It had taken me about 25 years to finally get to a John Cale gig.

As soon as he was on stage I thought that he had a certain presence about him that is often present in successful musicians. It made me wonder a bit what it was like being as good as he is, yet be playing in small venues like the leadmill. I also wondered what it was like being in his band - whether he got really mad at them when they made mistakes or not.

They started off with Heartbreak Hotel, as expected, and it was pretty different from any other version I had heard. The vocals were heavily affected and the chorus had oooos instead of the "I could die" line. In al it was pretty tame compared to his original recording of it and very tame compared to the live video I saw where he was pulling up stage tiles as he was singing it.

Then came the second song (that should have been first) and I can't for the life of me remember what it was (why didn't I take one of those stupid set lists). I seem to remember that I enjoyed it more than heartbreak hotel though and thought swapping them round was probably not that good a move.

If I remember correctly it was Helen of Troy next and there followed a number of other tracks from that period.

There was also a selection from Black Acetate and by this point I was really enjoying the music. All the musicians were great, but the drummer was particularly good. I am definitely not a drummer, but there is a style of drumming that I prefer and would play if I could play the drums and John Cale's drummer matched that exactly. I found that even during songs that I didn't know or that were different arrangements I was tapping my hands in the way I would have been playing and it just seemed to match how the drummer was playing - it was quite amazing.

After great renditions of Outta the bag and Perfect there was an acoustic section during which we were invited to eat our sandwiches. For these track the bass player played an electric upright bas and the drummer fixed shakers to his feet and sat on, and played one of those boxes that I had seen used at the Paco De Lucia concert in Edinburgh.

All too soon they began singing choruses of "Goodnight goodnight" at the end of Pablo Picasso (if I remember correctly) and then left the stage.

They came back and plaid Dirty Ass Rock and Roll. This wasn't one of my favourite album tracks, but the live version was great. I expected them to go into the next of the 3 encore tracks (and I think the backing musicians also did), but John Cale signalled for them to leave and I though that might be it, but they did come back on and performed Hush (if I remember correctly) from Black Acetate followed by the song listed on the set list as Chorale. I had never heard this track before, but it was brilliant with some great singing from the whole band and it was a great song to end the show with.

All in all a thoroughly good gig and I ma sure my gig going buddies of the last few years would all have enjoyed it, even if they didn't know any of his stuff already.

So what of these stunning photos that I was expecting to take?

Mr John Cale has left the stage.

Well I usually wait for someone else to take a photo before I do just to see how the land lay first. Near the start of the gig John Cale seemed to have noticed something he didn't like in the audience and one of his security crew went over and made them put their cigarettes out. He then took up a position at the side of the stage and spent the rest of the gig scouring the audience. The first time a flash went off he shone a torch at the offending fan and told him not to do it again, so my camera remained in my pocket until just after the band left for the last time, when I took the above photo just before a heavy black curtain just about knocked me out as it fell to the ground blocking off the stage from view.

As far as the set list goes, so far I have remembered the following songs and they were roughly in this order. If you were there and can add any of the missing songs or correct the order please leave a comment.

The set list as far as I can remember:

Heartbreak Hotel
Can’t remember, but I think it is from Black Acetate
Helen of Troy
You know more that I know
Sold Motel
Big White Cloud
Outta the bag
Perfect
New Song

Ship of fools
Save us
Pablo Picasso

DirtyAss rock and roll
Hush
Chorale

The concert finished pretty early (around 21:45) so I had time to collect a chicken fried rice from Knaresborough on the way home. My plan was to have a vodka and sprite and eat it watching Jonathan Creek just like in the old days. It almost went to plan, but I had no sprite so I had to have my Absolut vodka with coke, and it just doesn't taste as good. Also the chicken fried rice wasn't very nice so I only ate half of it.

Dag 1076: äpple eller apelsin?

2007-01-17T09:50:00.000Z

As this is the first post of the new year we'll start with a topical quiz which is open to non Swedish speakers only.

There is just one question and it is: "Which of the Swedish words in the title means apple (äpple or apelsin), and for a bonus what do you think the other word might mean?"

You may be thinking that äpple is the obvious answer as it looks most like apple, however if you heard them both spoken you may think apelsin sounds closest to apple (as the character 'ä' is pronounced 'e' (as in end) and the 'le' at the end is not pronounced as the 'le' at the end of apple. So äpple is pronounce a bit like 'epp lay' and apelsin is pronounce like 'apple sin'.

The correct answer is, in fact, äpple and apelsin is Swedish for orange.

One of the things a like about the Swedish language is that lots of words have origins that describe what the word is (i.e. it says it on the tin). Oranges originally come from South China and apelsin means apple from China.

OK, so how did we get onto the subject of apples?

Well, I am currently on the last day of a 3 day opsware course and am writing this during the breaks. The course is in a hotel near Leeds station so I have been travelling in by train. I have always considered myself to be quite a relaxed easy going sort of guy who doesn't get annoyed that often, but something went wrong this morning. There are a number of different carriage layouts in the ancient trains that are used on the Harogate to Leeds railway line. The best ones are the ones where you have 2 seats on each side of the aisle all facing the same way. The worst ones, which I hate with a vengeance, have seats in groups of 4 that face each other. Some carriages are like this and there is a table between the seats, but on these particularly crap trains there is no table, and the reason for this is that there is no room for a table. In fact the seats that face each other are so close together that it is difficult to sit in one when there is no one in the seat opposite you, but if there is you can forget trying to sit there unless the other person doesn't have any legs.

So, this morning I was waiting on the platform and up rolls the train (late as usual) and I notice it is one of the crap trains - so that sets the day off to a bad start straight away. I got in through the door and noticed there was a section at the end of the coach which had a rack for luggage and next to it was a double seat with its back to the window facing towards the middle of the carriage. To race down the carriage and plonk myself into this seat, was with me the work of a moment, and as the train set off I had my headphones on and was immersed in playing my PSP. Each time the train stopped no one sat down next to me as I think the fact I am playing on a PSP gives me the same status as a leper, so all was well - until we reached Burly Park station. Some bloke got on and sat down next to me. This in itself was not even close to being a problem. I don't mind one bit if someone sits next to me, and I was quite happy right up until I heard a crunch. The bloke had an apple and seemed determined to make as much noise as he could eating it. Even though I had my headphones on every last crunch of that apple seemed to force its way through to my bones in the same way that the noise people make with their finger nails on a blackboard does. And to make things worse this apple seemed to be never ending. Each bite of the apple made no impact on the amount left at all. That apple lasted all the way from Burly Park to Leeds including a long stop waiting for a platform to become free, and by the time we finally got there I was thinking pretty bad thoughts about that guy next to me. As I mentioned earlier, this sort of thing never used to bother me at all, so it must mean that I am officially becoming a grumpy old bloke.

And just to tie up any loose ends with the story I have just spilled my orange juice drink over my prized new Apple MacBook Pro.

Dag 1059: Happy Hogmanay

2006-12-31T23:51:00.000Z

The wind is blowing outside and it is new years eve yet again. It is 8 minutes to midnight and I am in bed already because I don't like new years eve and there is no way I'm going to stay up past midnight tonight - no matter how awake I am. Some people probably don't like new years eve because they don't like going out, but I do like going out, just not on new years eve. It is far too busy and there is too much expectation about the whole thing. I don't like doing what is expected of me, I like doing what I feel like doing at the time, so new years eve is one of my least enjoyable nights of the year.

I think I also need to say that this year the TV has been about the worst that there has ever been over an xmas/new year period. There hasn't been a single new episode of Poirot, Miss Marple, Midsummer Moiders or any other program that I usually enjoy watching over the smas/new year period. One of the only saving graces is that there is a brand new Taggart on on Wednesday night. There have been a few good things on BBC, but they have been pretty much all comedies and they have shown them all about 3 times each to try and pad out the scedule. Fortunately I managed to get a Nintendo Wii which has filled in all of the many times when there has been nothing good ojn TV, but the downside is that I am now suffering from Wii Arm.

It is now 2 minutes past midnight and as the fireworks are going off all around, despite the adverse weather conditions, I am reminded that most countries on the earth, as we know it, seem to have come up with some derogatory term or other for most other countries. If some people from another workd were to decide to come up with a suitable term for us earthlings they would probably come up with something like:

Garlic eating, jockstrap wearing, carpet munching, cross dressing, whale blubber sucking, goat milking, tree hugging, double crossing, religious bigotted, crystal gazing, war mongering, armchair shopping, pulp fiction reading, tea drinking, sun worshipping, surrender monkeys.*

*Apologies if I have missed any of the stereotypes you may fit into, but there just wasn't enought room for them all to be included.

Dag 1056: God Jul!

2006-12-28T16:32:00.000Z

Or as they like to say in Bohemia "Vesele Vanoce".

Christmas has now come and gone and it is some time since we saw any posting action round about here. My initial excuse was that my trusty PowerBook had developed a strange fault with it's screen which made it look as though some sort of static interference was going on. It was just like the sort of thing you would see in some sort of sci fi film, or something, where screens were being affected by static interference from outer space. It made it very difficult to see anything. I bought a couple of CDs recently and it was very hard trying to get them imported into iTunes. I managed it in the end after several reboots.

While I was without a useable computer I did start a couple of posts (one of which is the next instalment of Snowblind - if you remember what that is) and I will hopefully be getting round to posting them up in the near future because Santa and his minions have brought me a brand spanking new PowerBook for Xmas - only now they are called MacBook Pros instead. This one has got one of the all new intel dual core chippy things in it and I must say it is faster than a fast thing that is travelling faster than it normally does. I have had a go at Quake 4 with all the options turned on and it works a treat - now I just wish I had the time to actually play Quake 4 from time to time. This is the sort of thing that you need to be working away from home to be able to do.

Santa and his heard of goats also brought a couple of Wiis, and as he bought them nice and early I was able to sell one of them on eBay. The profit from this just about paid for the brand new tyre that needed replacing on the trusty Volvo after someone in the household managed to bang it against a curb and pop it. I think there is some law that means every time I get the chance at making a bit of spare cash something will crop up that costs just a little bit more than the amount I have just made.

Well its not all doom and gloom because a kindly and altruistic Bulgarian property magnate sent this link to me and had nearly everyone at Björk Bjiggler Towers rolling in the aisles.

For some reason I couldn't see what was so funny.

As well and the new computer, the Jultomten was also kind enough to bring me a Vew Do Zippy balance board which has taken me back to my skateboarding days of yore. These things are great and it should enable me to return to my former sylph like frame that I used to have before I started eating too many chicken fried rice's from Mid Calder.
I haven't actually had a chicken fried rice from there for about 6 months now, but I have probably been making up for it by stuffing my face with loads of other rubbish as my stomach doesn't seem to have got any flatter since then. In fact, yesterday I came to the conclusion that the reason I have not lost any weight is because I don't have any scales. If I had some scales than I could weight myself everyday and keep track of the amount of weight I'm losing. Without the scales my weight will just flounder around and I'll never manage to get any thinner.

Most of my postings are written out in draft first and then pasted into blogger for final editing before being published. I have done this one in this way and have logged in ready to post the thing only to find out there there is an all new version of blogger that I didn't know about before that brings it into ones google account now. There was a big button that allowed me to begin the process of upgrading my blog. So I clicked on it and it said this would take a few minutes. After a while it said "I still haven't finished transferring your blog so go away and I'll send you an email when it is ready". This was about 30 minutes ago and I still haven't had this email so when you finally get to read this you will know that:
A) this blog is now an all new improved google blog rather than an old blogger one
B) this may not actually have been posted until some time (maybe a day or so) after I actually wrote it

In fact it took about 2 hours, which means I probably have what is known in the trade a pretty hefty blog.

So in the mean time hope you all not only have a "gott nytt år" but that you also manage to get all of your shoe related problems sorted out in 2007.

Dag 1008: Into you like a train

2006-11-10T23:51:00.000Z

I have been on a few trains of late and I have noticed a few things.

The first thing that I have noticed is that when people arrive at the station they seem to claim a spot to stand on.
They find their spot, which is not too close to any other person, and they just stand there. I presume that most people are hoping that their particular spot will be close to a door once the train stops. Occasional I see someone change their spot, but usually I find that once they have got their spot they keep it until the train comes into view. Once the train appears round the corner and slowly creeps up next to the platform I am reminded of the show Run Ararnd as a number of commuters will suddenly decide to move top another bit of the platform. It is all done with a great sense of purpose and gives the impression that the people who have suddenly decided to move know exactly where the train is going to stop. My only thought is why didn't they just go straight to the spot when they first arrived? Presumably they were trying to catch out other commuters in some way.

The other thing I noticed is that, as the station I leave from is unmanned, people need to buy their ticket on the train. The conductor starts at the back of the train and works his way forwards. Each time the train stops at a station he start at the back again. This means that by the time the train gets into Leeds the conductor never actually makes it to the front of the train and if you don't manage to get a ticket on the train you have to queue up to buy one at the barrier (which can take up to 15 minutes).
This means that people who need to buy a ticket will try and stand at the end of the platforms that will be nearest the back of the train so they can try and get on through the back door first and get a seat as near to the back as possible, thus increasing their chances of securing a ticket during the journey. I started off this way and soon became very stressed trying to make sure I sat near the back. Sometimes I would stand at the back and wait for the conductor to come so I could get my ticket and then find a seat once I had secured my ticket. Once I had my ticket I could relax, but as time went on I found more and more people were trying to sit near the back and there was the added issue that sometimes the conductor would just sit in his room at the back doing soduko and wouldn't start coming around until around halfway through the journey. I also found that on a great many occasions the conductor would announce that his machine was broken so he wouldn't be able to sell anyone any tickets.

After about 3 months of putting up with this train induced stress I finally got my photo taken in one of those booths and got myself a month long ticket.

Now when I arrive at the platform I walk right to the far end where the front of the train will be and get the seat nearest the front. It doesn't bother me whether the conductor is selling tickets or not and I can spend the whole journey relaxing and playing on my PSP.

This afternoon I caught the train back as usual, but noticed that although the train was full no one sat anywhere near me. The 2 rows in front and behind me remained empty though a great many people were standing. I couldn't understand why no one wanted to sit near me. I was beginning to wonder whether it was because of the wicker basket full of rotting fish I had with me, when I heard a voice in my head. It said "Hello Dom, it's me; the spirit of the blog. You haven't done a Weekly Woss Weport in ages and the people are getting restless. No one will sit near you on the train again unless you do a Weekly Woss Weport." I explained that I was usually too tired to watch the Jonathan Ross Show these days and didn't see how I could do another one just at the moment, thankyou very much. At this a few of the passengers nearest to me got out of their seats and moved away. The spirit of Blog said "You have to do a mini Weekly Woss Weport otherwise no one will ever sit near you on the train again".

I was tempted to tell the spirit of blog that I would far prefer it if no one did sit next to me and why didn't he go and annoy someone else instead, but for some reason I found myself agreeing and so here for 1 week only I present the new look partially featured mini Weekly Woss Weport.

As usual I missed the beginning, but while I was getting ready for bed I heard Wossy talking to some guy out of Doctor Who who is now in Torchwood. I haven't seen Torchwood yet, but I did tape the first episode. I'm not 100% sure, but it sounded like there was some sort of talk about homosexuality going on - didn't get the full drift of it though and by the time I was tucked up in bed with my trusty 1920s style powerbook there was a clip of the Mighty Boosh being shown. It was the one that featured Obsidian Blackbird McKnight and a rather good one that is too. Then to the sound of Babooshka being sung by the poofs and their pianos on walked a rather efeminately dressed Noel Fielding and a rather more bearded than normal Julian Barratt. They were interviewed by Mr Woss and it seemed to me that Mr Woss didn't know that much about them. He asked them how they came up with the name The Mighty Boosh and they came up with some reply about Noels brother having big hair (a bit like Adrians used to be), but I personaly think that there is a different reason for calling it that, but I don't think we should be going into that now.
They managed to get through the interview and that meant that it was time for the final guest "Emma Thompson".
She has been on before and I don't have anything to add here so feel free to read the post on this site entitled "The return of the useless napkin bandits" to find out all about her.

All that is left of this special mini Woss Weport is to see who the band is.
It turns out to be Gwen Stefani. I have never heard any of her music before, and once she had sung a few notes I realised why. She sang some song out of The Sound of Music or something that seemed to have been beefed up to try and make it trendy. Some people may have found it trendy, but that doesn't include the music staff on Critical Mass, who are of he opinion that she wasn't actually singing live. Each time there was singing with no music she seemed to hide here mouth behind the microphone, which is probably the best place for it.

Dag 1006: My name is Siem Anym

2006-11-07T22:32:00.000Z

I have been working on the next chapter of Snowblind (which is provisionally entitled "Snowblind III - this time it's for real") but due to various work commitments it is not quite ready for publication. So I'm just doing a quick round up style blog entry to be going on with.

First of all I should bring your attention to the fact that Critical Mass has now been going for over 1000 days (assuming the number I put into each title is accurate - it would be interesting to know how accurate these are, but not interesting enough to work it out).

I haven't been buying much in the way of CDs or DVDs lately, though I have bought the latest Kent single Nålens öga which is for charity (this should be read in a Nicey style accent of course).

Anna Ternheim - 28 Maj 2005

I also bought Seperation road by Anna Ternheim (who Adrian and I saw supporting Kent last year in Stockholm).
This arrived just before I was due to drive to Slaley Hall for a few days away so it had its first airing on the journey there and I was so impressed with it that it was the only thing I listened to for the whole time I was away.
Not only is the album fantastic, but Anna is also one of my friends on myspace - cool.

It is now almost 6 months since my contract in Scotland finished and I started this one in Yorkshire and I have noticed a number of changes in my life:
- I no longer fly each Monday and Friday, so I have stopped getting Eurobonus points which means I only have enough points for 1 more free flight to Sweden and the knock on effect that my Gold status will soon disappear.
- all my synths and recording equipment are locked away in various wardrobes and the attic so I only get to play the piano and my guitar at the moment (and that isn't very often).
- although Jonathan Ross is back on TV on a Friday night, I am now so tired each night that I can't stay awake late enough to see it, which in turn means no more Weekly Woss Weports for the foreseeable future.
- no more going out in Edinburgh with my chums during the week.

Mr Cloudhand and I have been saying it is about time we went to see another concert (the last was Goldfrapp in Edinburgh) so I have been trying to think of all groups that I haven't yet seen, but would like to see before I die (I realise he may not want to see all/any of these - we may end up seeing a group that one of us has seen before anyway).
John Cale - In 1978 I bought a couple of tickets to see him, but wasn't allowed to go
King Crimson - nearly seen them a few times, but never quite managed it (though I saw Robert Fripp at the Futurama in 1980)
Eva Dahlgren - last time I was in Stockholm she was playing a free outdoor concert the day after we left - bugger!
Shirley Clamp - not sure if she does tours
Eskobar - Akways seem to find out about their gigs after the event
Van Der Graaf Generator - Hopefully I will manage to see them when they tour in 2007
Pink Floyd - seen a tribute band, but would be nice to see the real thing
Toyah - she was my fave rave when I was a teenager (until her 3rd album came out and she went all poppy)

On a final front (ear), I have just discovered technorati and thus I have to put the following link into my next blog posting or something in order to get it working.
So here is my Technorati Profile

Dag 982: Snowblind II

2006-10-14T13:58:00.000+01:00

Before going to bed I hooked up my iPod to the sound system installed in my isolated cabin in Northern Sweden, turned up the volume and listened to some Kent while I unpacked all my cases and started to assemble the scientific apparatus I had brought with me. As I fitted the pieces of equipment together I felt excited at the thought of the work I would be undertaking over the next 7 days and the time flew by. As midnight passed and the song Månadens Erbjudande was coming to an end I realised how late it was and how tired I was from the long journey that day. I went to bed and was asleep before I had even had chance to turn the bedside light out.

The next thing I was aware of was the alarm on my mobile phone going off and interrupting one of my often recurring dreams with a start. I got dressed and went into the lounge expecting to be able to continue setting up the apparatus. However, this was not going to be possible, for it lay in pieces all over the floor. It had been smashed to smithereens while I had slept.

I stood motionless for the next five minutes, though it seemed like much longer as the questions piled up in my head. Who could have done this? How did they get in? Why didn’t I wake up from my sleep in the next room? How did they find this cabin? Its location was not only secret, but no one should have even known I would be going there at this time. The one question that bothered me most, though, was why somebody should want to prevent me from performing my work here?

I examined the door, but it was still locked and there was no sign of any forced entry. Likewise, all the windows were locked shut, again with no evidence of any tampering. The only possible explanation was that someone had a key to the door and had locked it on there way out after committing this surprising deed. But the lock had been custom made and I should have had the only key that would open it.

I unlocked the door and looked out. It had snowed after I had arrived so there was no sign of my footprints from the day before, but there was single set of fresh footprints leading up to the door and a single set leaving at a 45 degree angle to the ones arriving. I put on my outdoor clothes and started following the footprints that led away from the door. They led towards a large boulder that was about 400 metres from the cabin, and passed around the left side of it.

I followed them around the rock but there they came to an abrupt stop.

A few feet away from the last footprint there was a patch of red snow and next to the red snow was a man lying face down and not moving. I looked around but could not see anyone else or any other footprints; however I found that 2 words had been written in the snow and the fore finger of the man’s right hand was still in the indentation of the last letter of the second word.

This message was the last act of the dying man and must mean something to someone, but it didn’t make any sense to me. The message was simply “Red House”. Was this the complete message and who was it meant for?

I turned the body over and saw that the blood was coming from a hole in the region of his solar plexus. I felt in his pockets to see if I could find any identification. I found a passport, a wallet, a copy of the key to the door of my cabin and small piece of torn canvas. The passport was in the name of Professor Guy Dubh from Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis and his wallet contained some currency, a mixture of Euros and Swedish Krona) and the boarding passes for a flight from Malaga to Stockholm from 3 weeks earlier and then Stockholm to Luleå from 2 days ago. The piece of canvas looked like it may have come from an oil painting, but it looked very old and the paint was cracked. On second inspection I saw the name Laury painted onto it in feint strokes.

The name Laury meant nothing to me, but something else reminded me of a strange incident that had happened when I was on holiday in Spain a few months before.

The Spanish police had come to the door of my apartment one afternoon asking me if I knew anything about the man who was renting the apartment next door. I said I hadn’t even been aware that anyone was staying in that apartment and wasn’t able to help them. I later heard that it was being rented by a Professor of Art from Brighton who had been murdered by a single shot to the solar plexus. He had managed to crawl across the floor to the coffee table in the room in which he had been found, and had picked up a postcard from the table, which he was clutching in his hand when the body had been found.

The postcard showed a green field on a bright sunny day and in the middle of the field was a single building.

It was a red house.

Dag 968: Snowblind

2006-09-30T18:40:00.000+01:00

I awoke with a start and waited in silence for a few moments to see if I could sense what had caused me to awake in such a fashion. I heard nothing, so I rolled out of bed and looked out of the window. Although the sun was not yet fully up, I could see that the snow was thick all around and all that I could see was white; covered by the heavy fall during the night. It must have been at least minus 12 outside, but thanks to the triple glazing on the window, I was warm enough inside.

I looked at my watch, it was after 10:00 am and I had slept in. After a quick shower and a breakfast of knäckebröd with cheese, ham and tomato, I got dressed in my thermals, put on my outdoor snow suit and stepped outside into the virgin snow. The first thing that struck me was the silence. This was the third day since I had arrived at this house in a remote part of Sweden and I still wasn't used to the absolute lack of noise. The house was 7 miles from the nearest neighbour and the silence was so complete that it is not possible to imagine what it is like without experiencing it for oneself. It is said that the silence can drive some people to the edge of madness.

I checked that the packing I had done the day before was complete and tied securely to my skidoo. There was no need to lock up the house, so I started the skidoo up and rode due north. After 3 hours of travelling I stopped for a quick lunch and then set off again. I should really have left an hour earlier so I needed to try and make up some time.

I arrived at my final destination at 21:15, tired and hungry. I parked the skidoo and took the cases into the cabin that was to be my home for the next week. My first task was to get the fire going, and then I could think about getting some food ready. I decided to prepare a quick meal of pytt i panna with some beetroot, which I washed down with a single small glass of ice cold O.P Andersson Akvavit.

I now had 7 days in which to solve the puzzle that was the whole reason for my being sent here. It is a puzzle of immense proportions, which one cannot even begin to describe. I had first been told about it 11 years before and I had spent all that time preparing myself for the time that had now arrived. For the puzzle is of such a complex nature that it can only be solved within the Arctic Circle by someone born on the exact date of my birth. A few others had tried and failed and I knew the ramifications could be far reaching if I were to follow in their footsteps, but as I sat by the fire all I could wonder was what dark mysteries fate would bring to my door that night.

Dag 959: Andalucía when will I see you?

2006-09-13T23:02:00.000+01:00

When it is snowing out again.

I have recently returned from my annual trip to the Spanish Lourdes, which explains why there has been a distinct lack of postings on the old Critical Mass for a while.

A week before I flew out it was announced on the news that due to a foiled terrorist plot people would no longer be allowed to take hand luggage on board flights into and out of the UK. Instead they would only be allowed to take tickets, passports and money provided it was in a clear plastic bag. We were informed that this was likely to stay in place for some time. To me, it seemed like a knee jerk reaction that would do little to alter the likelihood that any particular plane might get attacked, but would most likely cause a lot of distress to many passengers; who could end up having things they would normally have taken in their hand luggage stolen from their suitcase after checking them in.

I spent the next few days posting letters of complaint to the BBC “have your say” topic about the new security restrictions. I would normally put a link in at this point, but this particular “have your say” topic has disappeared from the BBC website for some reason.

Anyway, by the time I came to travel the restrictions had been reduced to something a bit more sensible and I was able to take my laptop in my hand luggage and the plane didn't get blown up and all was well with the world. Apart from the fact that I left my zip up sweat shirt in the overhead locker due to the stresses involved with making sure we didn’t forget everyone else’s zip up sweatshirts and other belongings.

Booking the hire car had been a bit of a balancing exercise. We would have a lot of luggage so needed to fit all that in for the 2 trips between the airport and the apartment, but apart from that the car would be little used and a small one would fit us all nicely. I could have rented a Clio for about £200 pounds or a Ford Focus for about £260. So, did I want to pay an extra £60 in order to have a less stressful time packing the car on 2 short trips? I decided not, so I went for the Clio.

On arrival we were actually given a Fiat Punto and upon locating it we noticed a man trying to pack his luggage into a Ford Focus in the parking bay next to us. He was complaining that he had a Ford Focus at home and had got all his luggage into it with no problems on the way to the airport, but it wouldn't fit into this one. Each time I have visited Spain I have been surprised that the boot space in my hire car has seemed smaller than I would have expected it to be. My theory is that hire cars in Spain are actually built with smaller boots that the same car would have if it was not destined to be a Spanish hire car. So far I have seen no evidence to refute my theory so it must be right. I had the usual stresses trying to get all of the luggage into the car again, but as always, I finally managed to squash it all in. All of the passengers did, however, end up with various bits of luggage and push chairs etc. on their laps. But 20 minutes later, after turning left at the BMW garage, going under the cable cars and past the lighthouse, we were parked outside the apartment and we didn't need to worry about packing the car again for another 2 weeks and a day.

Once the car was unpacked and the electricity, gas and water turned on we always go en masse to the supermarket to do our main shop of the holiday (after that I just go on my own each morning to get what we need for the day). I always like shopping in foreign supermarkets so this first supermarket trip always gets me a little giddy. One of the things I notice while in Spain is how we get ripped off in the UK with the cost of cans of pop. A can of Sprite at home tends to cost 50p or higher. In the Spanish supermarkets they cost 31 Euro cents each. That is around half the price we pay. Also while we are on the subject of Sprite I should also add that Sprite bought in Spain tastes different to Sprite bought in the UK. They both taste good, but the Spanish version tastes better than good. The first time I ever saw Sprite was on a school trip to Athens and I really liked it. When it became available in the UK some years later I started drinking it, but it never seemed to taste quite so good as it had in Greece. I guess they must have changed to formula of it in the UK to make it taste more like what us Brits think lemonade should taste like. Well, personally I would rather they didn't do things like that. If a drink that used to only be available in other countries is introduced to the UK it should be left exactly the same as it was in the original country. If they want to change the taste, they should give it a different name and make it be a different drink. And while we are on that subject, I hate the way that the UK will start importing a foreign type of beer and then suddenly they stop importing it because they are now brewing it in the UK instead. Only now the UK version of the drink tastes nothing like the original version. It never taste as good once they start getting brewed over here so stop doing it - you stupid breweries.

Fortunately for now I am able to get real Lapin Kulta brewed in Finland from Beers of Europe and I can get real Baltika brewed in Russia from www.tesco.com. Thanks to Paolo and the Blue Blazer in Edinburgh, I have a Baltika glass (which I keep in the freezer), but I don't yet have a Lapin Kulta glass. Does anyone know here I can get one from? Email me at the usual address (and just putting Finland down is not an acceptable answer).

Right so back to Spain – a place in which, I am reliably informed, the rain stays mainly on the plane. Once the shopping was done and we had unpacked everything the holiday could start, and I could sit in my favourite place on evening 1 of the holiday.

My favourite place in Spain

Back in the dark, dank and ominous opening few months of the year the staff of The Cloudhands Weekly Expectorant presented me with a radio controlled shark as a birthday gift. I had decided that the best thing to do with it was save it so I could give it its first airing (and dunking) in the pool in Spain. Although I didn’t know at the time, this was to become known as Operation Chorizo, and I am pleased to report that Operation Chorizo was a complete and resounding success, though, unfortunately, the video evidence was lost due to operator error. And, I don’t just mean that one session of shark footage was lost. Footage was taken on 3 separate sessions and none of it survived, due to what is sometimes referred to as Klum Sithum Syndrome.

Now, I may not have driven over any lemons while in Spain this time around, but I did discover the delights of ITV3. This enabled me to watch an episode of Taggart pretty much every night before going to bed and meant I only ended up watching one of the many DVDs I took with me. You may recall from a previous post that I planned to watch Steget Äfter one night on the balcony and that is exactly what I did. The film was thoroughly enjoyable and sufficiently different from the book to make it count as story in its own right. Books generally have far more happening in them that can be fitted into a 90 minute film so invariably bits have to get cut out and in this case a whole key feature of the book was changed which enabled the story to be easily converted into 90 minutes and also removed a part of the book that would have been quite difficult to have on film – namely a man dressed as a woman that no one realises is actually a man until it is too late (I hope I haven’t ruined the book for anyone).

I watched thw DVD on my laptop, on the second Saturday night of the holiday while sitting on the balcony in my favourite position (see above - I should add that it isn’t really a balcony as it is on the ground floor, but I don’t know what else to call it). I had a few glasses of Absolute vodka with Sprite and then a Salame pizza from Papa Luigis along with a glass or two of cava. I should add that while I was in cultural nirvana watching my highly intelligent production (in Swedish with English subtitles) the others were in the apartment dumbing down to the culturally inept “How do you solve a problem like Maria” or whatever it’s called.

Other holiday highlights included the now ubiquitous lightning tour of Fuengarola Zoo followed by the forking out of money for overpriced toys (that I’ll probably never play with again after the holiday) in the gift shop.

a big cat

The hot suny weather was only interupted for a couple of hours one day by the appearance of a bit of mist, but as you can see it wasn't enough to make us fret.

look at those shores

We carried on the tradition of sticking to the same restaurant for every meal out (namely La Dispenser in Cabopino) until the last day when we had lunch at Giuseppe’s (also in Cabopino) instead. I had a very nice burger with barber queue sauce, though it was a little under cooked for my liking so I shall be asking for mine to be well done next time we eat there.

The only other thing to report on is the in car music. We had a bit of Shirley Clamps first CD to bring back memories of our first trip to Spain and we had a bit of Shirley Clamps latest CD, but for the majority of the time it was Snö by Eva Dahlgren that compelled itself to be played. The CD has grown on me exponentially since buying it, it is simply one of the best CDs I own. I didn’t want to play it on the trip back to the airport as there was a risk that I would forget to retrieve it when we returned the car so we listened to Shirley Clamps Favouriter På Svenska and true to form I forgot to retrieve it when we returned the hire car.

Still, I consoled myself with the fact that I could easily order another copy, but I would also be providing the next renter of that car with the chance of hearing some music they might otherwise never have got to hear.

I have been back at work for a couple of weeks now and it now feels like an age since I was soaking up that Spanish sun. Peter Hammill is playing in Gateshead in a few weeks time and I would like to go, but I haven’t dared ask yet.

Farmer John wants you louder and softer.

Dag 951: Dark Angels Scream......

2006-09-13T22:54:00.000+01:00

The moon shone obliquely through a crack in the curtains sending a shard of light into the centre of the rug that had Sergels Torg written into the pattern at one end. The window pain rattled in a sudden gust of wind and I walked over to the window and moved the curtain to one side allowing me to look out.

The sky was cloudless and I could almost see to the end of the garden, but not quite. A sharp crack caused me to look to the left, but all I could see was the stone wall that ran down that side of the garden. I held my breath for a moment as I looked to see what could have made the sound, but I saw nothing move. On the other side of the wall a fully grown fox was hiding in the undergrowth with senses on full alert. It had been sleeping in a wooden crate full of leaves a few days before and when it woke up it was too late to get out of the create as a lid had been put on it and the crate was swaying as it was being carried by 2 men onto a dark red 2.4 litre pathfinder land rover with a large scrape down one side. The land rover had driven for 2 days before reaching the village, where the crate was carefully taken out and the contents tipped onto the county communal compost heap. The fox had waited under the compost until the land rover had driven off and then slowly made its way to where it now lay in hiding. No one living in the village knew it was there and that was the way it was going to stay.

I closed the curtains, put another log on the fire and went into the kitchen. I took a glass, which had been made in Finland, off the shelf and walked into the utility room. I opened the freezer door, put 4 ice cubes into the glass and took out the bottle of Swedish vodka I had recently bought in Spain. It was covered in a thin film of ice and, as usual, I found it hard to unscrew the lid and my hands became very cold. I eventually got the lid off and poured enough vodka into the glass to just reach the top of the ice. I then returned the bottle to the freezer and took out a bottle of Sprite from the fridge. After filling the glass to the brim I put some macadamia nuts into a small bowl and returned to the lounge.

I felt the heat from the fire as I sat down and thought about the song that I needed to write. But that would have to wait, as I was about to watch a Nordic thriller on the television. As the opening music played and I took the first sip of my drink I wondered what dark mysteries fate would bring to my door that night.

Dag 907: Paris on principle

2006-08-08T14:05:00.000+01:00

There seems to be a new craze in the town of blogland at the moment and that is posting stories about trips to Paris. Any blog worth its salt is currently beguiling us with tales of bravery, resolve and triumph in the face of adversity from Paris. I'm not going to let the fact that I haven't been on any recent trips to Paris stop me from getting with the program. So here is the story of my school trip to Paris from arouand 1980 (give or take a year or so). No names or places have been changed to protect the innocent.

I was about 16 or 17 at the time and the night before we were due to set off for Paris I went to a disco at St John Fishers School in Harrogate. I have no idea how I came to be going to it as I didn't know anyone at that school (or it’s sister school St Aidens). I also can't remember who I went with, but I do remember that during the disco a girl called Harriet came up to talk to me and we ended up dancing together until the disco ended (so I probably didn’t spend much time with the person I went with – sorry).

I asked if she wanted to see me again when I got back from Paris and she said she did, so suddenly I wasn't as excited about going on the trip as I had been the day before.

I can't remember which airport we flew from, but it was probably Leeds/Bradford and I do remember that we landed at Charles De Gaul airport in Paris. I was a bit of a hippy back in those days and quite liked a band called Gong who had a number of French band members so I had already convinced myself that I would be bound to able to find a shop that had some Gong bootlegs in stock – there’s nothing like setting your expectations ridiculously high before a trip somewhere is there?

We collected ourselves and our bags together at the airport and piled onto a couch that would take us to our hotel. Once we got there I remember that it seemed more like a block of apartments than a hotel. The room I was assigned to was actually 2 rooms (you had to go through one to get to the other) and the first room had 2 single beds and the second room had 1 double bed. The bedding didn't match on any of the beds and the furniture looked like it had been bought from a junk shop. There were 4 of us in these 2 rooms so we decided to have a rota system so each of us only had to share the double bed once (or something - I can't actually remember how many days the trip was for).

From here on it all gets a little hazy. I can't remember the exact order that any of these things happened, but they all did happen, so I will list them in no particular order. No doubt other things happened too, but I either can’t remember them or don’t want to remember them.

We had a trip to the Palace of Versailles. I had a song by John Cale called “The Hall of Mirrors In The Palace At Versailles” so I was a bit more interested about this trip than I would otherwise have been, but not much. I seem to remember having a hot drink in some café somewhere as part of this trip and it may have been raining.

We went on a trip to some church that was up a hill and the roads were cobbled. I bought a hot dog in a French stick with mustard on it. It was the first time I had eaten one of those things and I enjoyed it very much.

On one of the coach trips the coach took us through the main red light district. We were all fascinated and gawped at all the prostitutes.

There was a group of girls from a school in Bath staying at our hotel. We got friendly with them and I got friendly with a girl called Daphne who had a big jumper with a banana on it (like the Velvet Underground album cover) that her Gran had knitted for her. I remember she slept in our room on the last night and I let her sleep in my bed while I slept on the floor - I hadn't forgotten that I was meant to be seeing the girl from the disco again once I got back home and wasn’t about to be unfaithful to a girl I wasn’t yet going out with.

Me when I was a bit of a hippy in Paris

We went to the Pompidomp Centre and there were various buskers and street acts going on outside, which I found pretty cool. I saw a French hippy with a really nice multi-coloured striped hat on and I tried to ask him where he got it from, because I wanted one just like that, but he couldn't speak English and I couldn’t say much in French so I had to give up none the wiser.

We wanted to get some booze to drink in our hotel room one night so I went out and successfully procured a small bottle of Pernod in my best French (which wasn’t saying very much). I then tried to by a bottle of Lemonade and could only manage "Je voudrai un boitaille de lemonade pour to take out" which just brought me a blank stare. I can't remember what we ended up drinking with the Pernod.

The Hotel didn't do food at night, but it did do breakfast (as far as I remember). All our other meals were eaten at the Moulin Rouge restaurant and we paid with vouchers we had been given when we checked into the hotel.

One night I was looking in a shop window and I noticed a man dressed as a cowboy standing next to me. He had very tight jeans on and he had something that looked like it may have been a truncheon inside the jeans going down one leg almost as far as his knee. I was pretty sure it must have been a truncheon – I certainly wasn’t about to hang around to find out.

A couple of guys went into a strip club and got fleeced by being made to buy an extortionately priced drink each and to make matters worse they reported that the stage was empty for the whole time they were in there.

By the end of the trip I felt pretty pleased with myself because I had learned all I needed to know about buying and using underground tickets in Paris.

That is about all I remember apart from the fact that I didn't manage to find a shop selling Gong bootlegs, but I did find and buy a couple of official Gong albums that I didn't already have.

Dag 899: What level of standby do you use?

2006-08-02T14:16:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I was listening to radio 4 on my way into work.
It was the Today Show and they were discussing how bad it was to keep your electrical goods (such as televisions and DVD players) on standby mode when not in use. There was an expert being interviewed who was basically saying you must always turn everything off fully and never leave them on standby because it is much better for the environment.
The presenter asked her what you should do if you have an item that loses its memory settings when it is switched right off.
The expert replied that in such cases it is ok to leave the item on standby, but make sure it is on a very very low level of standby.

I don't know about you, but none of my electrical items have levels of standby, as far as I know. Maybe they do but I just haven't found the setting switch yet. Maybe all my electrical stuff is set with its standby level to ultra high so that they actually use more electricity when they are on standby than they do when they are switched on.

My advice to you is to go round and turn down all you standby levels to the minimum possible value.

Dag 891: det spelar ingen roll

2006-07-25T15:02:00.000+01:00

You may have noticed that I have been providing occasional sustenance for those living in a world devoid of quality biopic film reviews by delivering timely reviews at critically opportune moments, thus helping the film going public in general. However, you may also have noticed that while I have been paying homage to the genre of film I have been sadly neglecting the humble book.

This is probably because I haven't read a book (i.e. a fictional story) for around 2 years and this blog has only been around for about that length of time. It is a shame I haven't read one for so long because It is quite possible that in my lifetime I have read more books then I have seen films (though it is also possible that I have seen more films than read books - I've no idea one way or the other to be honest) but, regardless of that, I feel, it is about time we had an official björkbjiggler book club posting.

I have been interested in books since the very first time I became interested in them and have always had one on the go. The thing with books is that it isn't just reading them that is enjoyable, but it is just as much fun buying them and looking at them on your bookshelf. The contents of a persons bookshelf probably says a lot about the person whose books they are.

I may not have finished a book for the last 2 years, but I have had one on the go for the whole time. I started reading it during my last holiday in Spain and haven't yet finished it. I have bought quite a few books since that one, but I can't start reading a new book until I've finished the previous one (in fact that statement is not quite true, it should read - I can't start a new fiction book until I have finished the current fiction book - I am allowed to read non fiction books while I am still reading a fiction book because they don't interfere with the plot). The book I currently have on the go is Detective Inspector Huss by Helene Tursten and there are 3 main reasons why I haven't yet completed it:

1) It is a bit heavy going - this allowed options 2 and 3 to creep in via the back door (as it were)
2) Sudoku - I used to read on the plane each week, but then I started doing sudoku instead
3) Family Guy - I used to read in bed every night until I discovered Family guy and now I watch and episode or 2 of that instead

So I am in a pretty sad state of affairs, book wise, but this week I have decided to break the stagnation and get back into books again ("hooray" I hear you cheering). And I have just bought 3 books and 4 cds to celebrate my return to literary prowess.

Now for the science part:
So how did I come to be reading a book that is a bit heavy going? Because it is set in Sweden and written by a Swedish Author, of course - nincompoop. Almost all the books I have read over the last 5 years have been releated to Sweden or Scandinavia in some way (they have also all been detective novels).

Now for the book review part:

Last week I bought 3 books and 4 cds, but I also bought a cd and a dvd in Sweden recently so I'll include those here as well:

The Books (3 for the price of 2 at waterstones):

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: Adult Edition (Paperback) by Mark Haddon

This was recently recommended by Adrian and I had actually thought about buying it when it first came out after hearing about it on a radio 4 program. At that point I had never heard of Aspergers so had no interest in it from that perspective and I also didn't like to think that a dog had been killed, so I didn't buy it at the time. However I have become interested in Aspergers over the last few months, and have been reading a good book about it on the train over the last week or so, so now seemed like a good time to get over the fact that a dog had been killed and get the book.
The first thing I noticed about the book is that the first chapter is chapter 2. I think that is really funny so I know I am going to really enjoy the book and I can't wait to start reading it properly - the trouble is I haven't finished my current book yet. I tried to find my current book last night, so I could try and rush through it, but couldn't. Maybe if I can't find the book that means I can go on and read this one - I would just have to make sure that if I ever did find that book I threw it out straight away.

There is also a children's version of this book which I may buy for my children.

The Man who Smiled by Henning Mankell (paperback)

This is the latest of the Inspector Wallander novels to be released in english, but it is not the latest in the series - it is from earlier on. It annoys me a bit when they do this because I like to read books in the correct order. I bought all the other Henning Mankell books as soon as they were released in English in hardcover, but I didn't get this one straight away so it is paperback. It is also the first time I have watched the film of the book before reading the book. I bought the DVD of this (Mannen Som Log) when I went to Stockholm with Adrian last year to see a Kent concert. While I was buying this DVD he was probably in some park in Stockholm pretending to be a tree or something. You may have noticed him. Anyway, I really enjoyed watching the film. This is one of those stories where nothing particularly spectacular happens but it was great all the same. Reading this book after watching the film will be a bit strange. I can't think of any time when I have watched the film before reading the book - it has always been the other way round.

Calling Out For You by Karin Fossum (paperback)

This is the fourth book in this series. I have the other three but have only read the first two so far. I really enjoyed the ones I have read so far they seem very true to life rather than the exagerated thenes you tend to see in Hollywood films and I felt I could really imagine what made the characters tick. I admire the fact that she doesn't just write about normal people with happy normal lives but includes a variety of characters (e.g. criminals and mental problems etc) and she really makes you feel you know where they are coming from and why they make the decisions they do. Nestor tells me I must move on now.

The CDs (from cdon.com - I've always had good service and really quick delivery from this company):

Eskobar by Eskobar (CD)

I've only listened to a couple of tracks from this so far. They were fairly mellow and acoustic rather than rocky, but hopefully there will be some rocky ones in there too. When I bought my first Eskobar CD (There's only now) I got into most of the tracks pretty quickly with the remainder taking a while to get into. The next one I bought (A thousand last chances) took me much longer to get into and I suspect this one may be the same. Not that it matters, because I always enjoy the process of getting used to music by a great band (which Eskobar certainly are). I haven't managed to get to see then live yet, but they are on my list.

Liebeling by Andrea Johnson (cd)

There was a track by Andreas Johnson on a trigger happy TV soundtrack cd I bought years ago and I had been thinking about getting this cd ever since, but never got round to it until I saw this at cdon.com for 4.95 euros so I thought now was the time to get it. I have only listened to the first track so far, and I played it 5 times in a row - glorious! I'm sure I'll get round to playing the rest at some point.

Äventyr EP by Eva Dahlgren (CD)

This is the first of the new batch of CDs that I listened to. It is the first new Eva Dahlgren music I'd heard for years and I was a bit worried that her music may not have been as good as it used to be. However I really enjoyed it but the downside is that it reminded me I have not managed to go to a concert of hers yet and don't know what prospect there is of me ever managing it. When I was last in Sweden it was announced that she was playing at a free concert in Stockholm 2 days after I was due to fly back home - bummer!

Snö by Eva Dahlgren (copy protected CD)

After enjoying the EP it was time to move on to the album. Eva Dahlgren's last studio album (Lai lai) was release around 6 years ago and was so good that I just didn't see how she could ever produce anything even half as good again, so I didn't buy this when it first came out last year - I was scared of listening to it. I started off with the first few tracks and thought it sounded good, but nothing special, but as the album progressed it just seemed to get better and better and during track 9 (Det som bär mig nu) I felt the same as when I first listened to Lai Lai. That tracks was as good as anything on Lai lai and I have played it many times since. The album as a while is reaqlly growing on me butg I just have to keep going back to track 9 again and again. In conclusion a fantastic album and easily up to par with the ground breaking Lai lai.

If you haven't heard any music by Eva Dahlgren buy Lai lai (if you can get hold of it and Snö.

It doesn't matter if you can't understand the words because the music is out of this world.

Buy them and you will know. And then buy some jewelrey by Efva Attling.

The Swedish purchases:

Favoriter på Svenska by Shirley Clamp (CD)

Some years ago when I was browsing in the music/DVD section of NK I noticed that I really liked the music they were playing. They had a stand on the counter marked "Nu Spelas" which had 6 empty CD cases on it. So while I listened to the music I examined the 6 cd boxes to see if I could work out which was the one that was currently playing. I could have simply asked someone, but I didn't feel up to taking the easy option, so I carried on trying to work it out. I ended up thinking that the most likely one was Den Långsamma Blomman by Shirley Clamp so I risked it and bought it. When I got chance to play it I realised I was right. This music is probably well and truly classified as pure pop music and it is not a genre of music I would normally touch with a barge pole, let alone listen to, but it had something different about it that I really liked - in fact you could say it had a certain "quelle heure est-il" about it. Shortly after buying this we went on holiday to Spain and this CD never left the cd player of our hire car. The music is really uplifting (apart from "Jag fick lånar en Ängel" which can reduce you to tears even if you can't understand what she is singing) and goes really well with the hot, bright sun and holiday atmosphere. Every time we played the CD after our holiday it reminded us if the holiday. So on our next trip to Sweden I bought her next CD (Lever mina Drömmar) and that one stayed in the CD for our last Spannish holiday and now reminds us of that one. Our last Spanish holiday was two years ago (which is when I started reading my last novel) so when we went to Sweden this year the first thing I did in the NK music section was to look and see if there was a new Shirley Clamp CD to take with us to Spain this year - there was, so I bought it.

This one is different from the others because all the songs are cover versions. I even thought I may not like it, but as soon as the first song came on I knew I was wrong. The album isn't as upbeat as the last two, but the songs are great and are made so much greater by her fantastic voice. The CD opens with her version of "It must have been love" by Roxette . The original song is great and very well known, but this version just seems to take it to a whole new level. The only downside to the CD is the inclusion of a Leo Sayer song - but that is easily skipped and the rest is great. The highlights are:

- När kärleken föds - It must have been love by Roxette

- Öppna din dörr - I've never heard the original version, but it seems to be by Tommy Nilsson

- Tro - Tro by Marie Fredriksson (fantastic song - Marie is also the singer with Roxette)

- Hur sköra vi är - Fragile by Sting

I am already looking forward to driving thorugh Spain with the windows open and this CD blending in with the hot spanish air (though the other Shirley Clamp CDs will also be getting another airing too).

Steget Efter by Henning Mankell (DVD)

I haven't watched this DVD yet, it is still sealed in its wrapper. I am really looking forward to seeing it, but I want to wait until a really good time to see it. I may save it until we are on holiday and watch it on my laptop. This is based on the book One Step Behind by Henning Mankell and it was while reading this book that I realised just how good his books were. While I was reading this book I thought it was the best book I have ever read. When I watch this I will have an ice cold Absolut Vodka with sprite and a bowl or two of top quality snacks. .

"It doesn't matter how we cry our tears,
the answer is a whisper in a far away world."

Dag 863: The case of the metallic case

2006-06-27T17:31:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time I booked some plane tickets for a trip to Sweden, using my air miles, a year in advance. When you use air miles you still have to pay the tax and this particular airline charges your credit card, for the tax, a couple of weeks before you fly rather than at the time of booking. There was a slight problem here because my credit cards all expired before the charge would be made so I picked the one I wanted to use and made a mental note that I would need to ring them once my new card arrived to ensure they had the correct details when it came to take the tax payment from it.

The only flights I had been able to find that I could use my air miles on had been Manchester to Stockholm via Copenhagen. I would rather have had direct flights but I'd flown via this route a few times before and Copenhagen has a very nice airport so I wasn't too bothered.

A couple of months later I got a call from the airline saying they had changed the time of the connecting flight so I would no longer get to Copenhagen soon enough to make my connection and could I book a different flight. There didn't seem to be any convenient alternative, but then she said "do you need to go via Copenhagen or would you consider a direct flight?" I said I would be happy to take a direct flight and the booking was changed accordingly. This was pretty good, apart from the fact that we now would be staying only 4 nights instead of 6 - but it would at least mean that we didn't spend so much money on the hotel. Which, I then reminded myself, I hadn't booked yet. The last few years we had stayed at the Scandic Hasselbacken Hotel on Djugården. It is in a nice quiet location next to Skansen and various other places the kids (and I) like to go to and it is also next to a ferry terminal so it was great to have a few drinks in the patio area in the early evening before taking the ferry to one of the restaurants in Gamla Stan. Each previous year we had booked direct with the hotel but this time I was determined to try and book online through one of those websites that gets you discounted rates. Over the following weeks I checked various websites, but most didn't have a decent way of specifying how many kids you had and how you wanted them to sleep (i.e. cots, foldaway beds etc). The ones that did let you say how many kids you had kept coming back with "This exceeds the maximum occupancy for this hotel", but I knew it didn't because we had stayed there loads of times before. I decided to put this off for a while.

I then thought it was time to look up the booking on the airline website to make sure it was still in order. I went to the "my bookings section" and there in bold letters was a single booking for a return trip from Manchester to Copenhagen. My heart sank as I clicked on it to open it up, but in the details it said Manchester to Stockholm so it seemed ok, so my heart rose again. I rang them up, just to be sure, and they reassured me that the booking was from Manchester to Stockholm, and as I had acquired more air miles by then I decided to upgrade the outward trip to business to make up for the fact that it was going to be a shorter trip than I had wanted. (I should add that it is impossible for any trip I make to Sweden to be long enough).

Time passed and my new credit card arrived so I rang up again to explain that when I had originally booked the flight my card had a date that would expire before it would be charged so could I give them the new expiry date. They asked if I still wanted to use the same card, so I said yes and just gave them the new expiry date.

Now it was time to try and book the hotel again. I had another few weeks of trying to book online, but then decided to give up and book directly again. So we rang the hotel only to be told, "sorry we are fully booked at that time." We asked to be put on the waiting list and then had to think about another hotel. We had stayed at Stallmästaregården before which was in a fantastic location by a lake with loads of grass for the kids to play on and a decking area by the water to have drinks on, but it was not in a good location for visiting all the places we liked to go, so we really needed to find a different one. The main criteria was:

1. central location
2. outdoor space for the kids to play
3. somewhere to have a drink outside before dinner

The Hasselbacken seemed to be the only one that matched all three, with Stallmästaregården matching numbers 2 and 3.

So, we not only couldn't find a perfect hotel, but there was also the possibility that we wouldn't find any hotel at all.
When I was working in Sweden the sales manager for the client we were working for used to stay at the SAS Radisson Strand hotel which he rated very highly. We had walked passed it on loads of previous trips and thought it looked nice so we rang them up and they had a suite we could stay in. We booked it in the hope that The Hasselbacken would come back to us as this room was about twice the price we had wanted to pay. It only met number 1 in the above criteria, but it had a lounge for the kids to play in, it overlooked the water, was extremely central and just round the corner from NK, which is one of my favourite shops in Stockholm.

It got closer to the day of our holiday and the Hasselbacken didn't phone, but I began to look forward to staying in a waterfront suite in the Radisson Strand hotel.

We were due to travel out on a wednesday and the sunday before I logged into the website to check my booking status. Sure enough there was the Manchester to Copenhagen heading so I clicked on it and then the browser froze. I waited for something to happen and eventually it came back with "no booking found". I tried going to a different screen and coming back to this one, but it would no longer display the "Manchester to Copenhagen" heading. I tried logging out and back in again, but it just said "you have no bookings".

I began to wonder if I had accidentally clicked on the cancel booking button when I tried to view it.
I found their booking number and phoned only to get a message saying "we are only open monday to friday". There was nothing to do but wait for monday, but as this was a bank holiday I wasn't expecting to get hold of anyone, and sure enough I didn't. So it was now Tuesday (the day before we thought we were going to Sweden, I had checked the website loads of times and it just said "no bookings found". I rang them up and they said that the booking was absolutely fine, nothing to worry about and we don't know why it isn't showing up on the website. So I could relax again.

The next morning we got up very early because the last 2 years we had nearly missed the flight due to being stuck in traffic on the way to the airport.

The flight was at 10:00 and we drove into the airport grounds at 08:00 - loads of time.

The first thing we notice is the sign listing the terminals. My wife asks which one we are going from. Oops - I am used to flying from Leeds Bradford which only has 1 terminal and I had completely forgotten that Manchester has more than one. I remembered that the terminal we went from before was not on the ground floor and there was a ramp up to the door for cars to use. I drove around and saw a ramp going up by Terminal 2. Ok then, that's that one sorted ok we are flying from Terminal 2. I followed the road sign to Terminal 2 long stay car park and drove in around 08:15. At 08:30 we were still driving round looking for a parking space and so were about 10 other cars. At 08:45 I was about to drive the car onto a bit of pavement and park it there when a car pulled out of a space and I zoomed into it before anyone else could spot it. Next job was to get everybody out of the car and get us and the cases to the bus stop which had a bus just pulling up to it.

We tried to make it, but the bus drove off just before we got there. I looked at the sign and it said the buses travel every 15 minutes. I was beginning to feel that familiar feeling of their being a possibility of not making the flight.

15 minutes went by and 2 buses drove into the car park. The first on said Terminals 1 and 3 and the second said Terminal 2. Both buses drove around the entire car park at walking pace before coming to our stop. We clambered onto the second bus with all the bags and push chair etc and I said to the driver - SAS go from terminal 2 don't they? "Nope, they go from terminal 1 - you should be on that bus" he said, pointing at the bus that was just pulling away. I said that I guess they must have changed terminal as last time we went it was from terminal 2 - I remembered because it had a ramp. The driver told me that they hadn't changed and both terminals 1 and 2 had ramps. I thought we were going to have to get off and wait another 15 minutes for the next bus, but the driver said he would drop us off at the station which was near terminal 1 and we just needed to go on the moving walkway.

He did this and we finally rolled up at the check in desks while they were still open, though we had wanted to get some breakfast and feed the baby before boarding the plane so we were far from relaxed. Fortunately as I have a gold card we could join the express check in queue and hopefully make up a bit of time.

Even though I had been reassured that our booking was ok, I was still a little worried that there was something wrong with it due to it not showing up on the web site, so it was a big relief when, after handing my Eurobonus card over to the check-in guy he started printing off stickers to go on the cases and sending them off down the conveyer belt. Once they had all gone he asked me for our tickets. I explained that I had booked these on an e-ticket so didn't have any. He replied that the booking showed that we had been issued with paper tickets and we needed to give them top him. He suggested that maybe they had been left for us at the ticket desk so I went and joined the queue there. By the time it was my turn there were only a couple of people still checking in at the desks. I asked if there were any tickets for me to collect, but there weren't. I gave my booking reference and the lady looked it up. She said there was an e-ticket assigned for a 10 month old baby, but nothing else.

I explained that I had booked them online a year ago and had been rung up to change the booking and that it had disappeared from the website, but that I had been re-assured that everything was ok.

So a phone call was made and then I was told that my credit card had failed authorisation so the tickets hadn't been issued (apart from the baby one as this was completely free). I couldn't understand this, so I gave my credit card to the lady who spoke on the phone again for a bit and then said that the number of this one didn't match the number of the one that they had used. I seemed that when I had given them the new expiry date I had forgotten which card I had originally used and so the new date didn't match that card. They tried it again and this time it went through and the tickets were issued.

By now everyone had finished checking in and they said we must go straight to the plane (gate 25) - thus no time to feed the baby or buy any duty free.

We raced off and joined the back of a monster queue through security screening. I noticed there was a little door manned by a man which seemed to be some sort of express screening line. I asked if we could go through and he said ok so we raced through, raced past the booze shop and raced on towards gate 25. We rushed past gate 23 which was half way through boarding and stopped at gate 25 where people were just sitting around waiting. After a few minutes of this there appeared to be no immediate prospect that people were about to start boarding so I decided to run back to the shop to get a couple of bottles of Verve Cliquot (2 for £40) which we would certainly need that night to recover from the stress endured this far.

As I ran back past gate 23 I noticed the last few passengers going onto the plane. That must be the Copenhagen flight I thought to myself.

I got to the shop picked up the dual pack of Verve Cliquot and joined the queue at the till. There was 1 till open with 1 lady behind it and about 5 other members of staff standing around, presumably making sure people aren't pinching stuff. The queue seemed to move very slowly and finally there was only 1 guy in front of me, He had a bottle of expensive looking cognac. "Can I have your boarding card please" she asked him in a very slow voice. He handed it over and she waited a bit and said "Were did you get the bottle from". He pointed to the area where booze is extra cheap, but only for people going outside Europe. So now I had to wait while she showed him where he should have got the bottle from, but thankfully he decided he didn't want to pay that much so it was finally my turn. She served me in the slowest way possible as my stress levels increased.

I ran back to gate 25, but slowed down as I got there because they still hadn't started boarding. By now I was panting and my mouth was completely dry and in desperate need for some water, and I also needed to go to the toilet. I looked to see were the toilet was and noticed that the sign by gate 25 said Copenhagen. I looked back to gate 23 and it said Stockholm. I looked at the boarding cards, but they did say get 25.

We raced back to gate 23 just as they were starting to call our names over the tannoy system.

As we boarded the plane we wondered if something was trying to tell us that we should be going on this holiday at this time.

Te flight went very well and I was felling much better when we landed and left the plane. My usual excitement of being in Sweden had returned and I no longer cared about anything outside of my Swedish bubble.

We went to the conveyer belts and grabbed our bags as they came off. Eventually we had all but the big silver metallic one and no more bags were coming out. There was a big metallic case on the belt, but it looked nothing like ours apart from that. It had bigger wheels that ours, it had stickers and labels on it, where ours had none and it was a different shape than ours.

When out case was weighed it had a heavy bag label fixed to the handle so I wondered if it might need to be collected from the outsize luggage area. I went over there but it wasn't there and I asked at the lost luggage counter if it would come out somewhere else if it was heavy, but they said no it would come out on the normal belt.

I went back to the normal belt, but our case still hadn't come out and the other metallic case was still there.

I decided we had better go to the lost luggage section and my wife said she thought someone must have taken our case instead of their own one. I thought they must have been pretty short sighted to have done that. My wife decided that as this case contained all here stuff, if it didn't arrive we would be going straight back home on the next flight. We got to the counter and I reported our case as being lost. My wife mentioned that she thought somebody may have taken out case instead of their own as there was a single metallic case left on the belt. The lady asked me to go and get it so she could put out a call in case they were still inside the airport. At this stage we began to worry about the fact that we had not put our name or address on our case.

I arrived back at the belt and noticed our case was standing next to the wall opposite the belt. I grabbed it and raced back to the desk. All was well so we went to find the taxi rank feeling at one with the world. And after I managed to conduct the whole taxi getting transaction in Swedish I felt even more at one with the world. In fact I have never felt more at one with the world than when I am in Sweden, so you could say I was actually feeling at one with Sweden.

The hotel was great, the view from our room was fantastic, and the remainder of our holiday was great.

As well as visiting the usual places:
Junibacken
Skansen
Aquaria Vattenmuseum
Grönalund
NK
Solo (for my jeans and t-shirts) - interesting review here
Sally's Bar
we also went on a boat trip to Fjäderholmarna, where we hadn't been before, which has a great pirate ship for the kids to play on, really nice views over the water to other islands and also a fantastic workshop with all sorts of amazing wood carvings. We had a really long chat with the guy who made everything and he gave me a tiny bit of wood that had come from the handle of a Viking axe that had been found buried in the mud under the water at the edge of the island. I could quite happily have spent the whole day on that island.

We also got round the missing hotel criteria by visiting a bar by the waters edge near the bridge to djurgården that had a big grassy area for the kids to play on and a place for us to sit right on the waters edge. We went everyday and ate there on the last day before heading back to the airport.

I have noticed on few visits to Stockholm at around this time of year that students celebrate their graduation by piling onto the back of lorries decorated in branches and driving round dancing, waving and screaming at passers by. It looks a lot of fun - I wish I had graduated in Sweden and then been driven round on the back of a lorry wearing a sailors hat and drinking and shouting at passers by. I wonder if I could do a similar thing in Harrogate?

Even though it was now more than a couple of years since I had been to my Swedish classes in Edinburgh and I hadn't had that much chance to practice, I felt that I had managed to speak much more Swedish on this trip than any of my previous ones.

We also managed to solve the mystery of the metallic case on our return to Manchester Airport. As we watched our metallic case come towards us the guy standing next to us grabbed it off the belt. I told him it was my case and he then said he had done exactly the same in Stockholm the previous Wednesday, and sure enough along came the other metallic looking case that had been left on the belt by itself at Arlanda Airport. Once he had reclaimed his proper case we got chatting and found he and his wife also visit Sweden every year.

I won't even bother going through the hassle we then had getting from terminal 1 back to the terminal 2 long stay car park.

Dag 824: Milk Lemonade Chocolate

2006-05-19T23:37:00.000+01:00

Everything has changed.

The car has moved south and the keyboards are in the cupboard.

Even while the cats are trying to get in through the back door the weekly woss weport is receding into the desert of nightmares.

All that manages to crawl its way back to the interspace is a drabble of half forgotten flashbacks.

Tonight we managed to catch a bit of Shatner and most of Wobbie Williamson. Mr Shatner was being a bit left field and Mr Williamson was going on about playing football in a left over football field. I have never liked football and as tonights Woss show has finished I am watching my new dvd of The Mighty Boosh series 2 instead.

I saw a few bits of the last 2 Woss shows but I was too tired to turn it into weekly woss weports at the time, so I made a concerted effort to store what I had seen somewhere in the vast recesses of my, as yet, uncharted mind. Unfortunately they seem to have become lost for the time being so

Dag 795: I've never done good things

2006-04-21T22:52:00.000+01:00

I have been working at a television company on some project or something for some time now. I used to work in a big room full of people with about 10 TVs at the front showing various TV channels. Usually it was sport and Australian aerobics, but one day about 2 and a half years ago it was decided that there wasn't enough available power for the computers so any non essential bit of kit that ran off electricity would need to be switched off and so all of the TVs were switched off never to be seen on again.

So it remained until about 1 month ago. By this time I was working in another room which was much smaller. There was 1 portable TV in here, but it only got switched on at night so when I was on the night shift I could watch Sinefeld, the simpsons or futurama. But about a month ago the TV was moved down to my end of the room and started being switched on during the day. Rather than showing sports channels the TV was tuned into music channels so I have been watching music videos for some weeks and it had been a revelation. When I was about 17 I used to listen to John Peel on the radio at night. I heard all the latest songs and knew pretty much all I needed to know about what groups were hot an which were goats. As I got older I started only listening to the music I liked. I bought all the albums produced by the groups I liked, but I never heard anything new as I never listened to the radio any more.

In the last few weeks I have heard many groups that I previously knew nothing about and I now feel I am getting back to my original status of knowing more about what groups are cool than anyone else.

Only this afternoon before leaving work, as well as hearing Mr Blunt telling us about his semi by the sea, I saw the video of "Don't forget to white your weekly woss weport" by Coldplay.

As usual I missed the beginning - but not as much as I usually miss.

First up is Mr Sir Tom Jones of Lady's knickers fame.

It seems Sir Tom is 65 years old but still going strong in the old tonsils department. He seems to have done pretty well of late as he is one of the few older performers that still seems to be considered cool.

Mr Woss showed a clip of Tom doing the song obla dee obla da, which reminded me that I had the single of this song, but mine was sung by a group called Marmalade. I remember it had an orange label, but I can't remember what the B side was.
I can't remember what the first single I ever bought was, but the first album I ever bought was Hunky Dory by David Bowie and the first 12 inch single I bought was Marquee Moon by Television. Both of these were played to death and were major influences on my life.

Soon after this Mr Jones leaves and Mr Woss starts talking about Tom Cruise and then goes on to relate the story of Xenu that Scientologists of level 3 and above seem to believe in.

This is followed by some footage of a stripper who just happens to be the next guest. It seems that she is the number 1 burlesque stripper of modern times and I suppose I'm not really in a position to argue against that as stripping is not currently one of my specialist subjects.

I've never done bad things.

I'm not sure if I have missed something but I think that Mr Woss may have just said that this stripper is married to Marilyn Manson.

The stripper has now left and Wossy is talking about the time he had a video camera up his bottom and they videod it. This reminds me of an episode of Jonathan Creek. Now he has decided to show the video accompanied by music from Sigur Ros. I can think of other things I would rather see to the music of Sigur Ros.

Now it is the final guest - Mr Graham Norton. I first came across Mr Norton on Father Ted. I think he has been on 2 or 3 episodes and at the time Father Ted was just about my favourite comedy on TV. I recorded the whole of series 3 on video and I used to watch it ever night when I went to bed for about 18 months around 2000. I haven't watched any Father Ted for some year so so maybe it is time to watch them all over again.

They are talking about some new program on TV presented by Mr Norton that is some sort of dancing competition or other. Some sort of follow on from come dancing or something - not my cup of tea so I think I will concentrate on trying to write the opening as I haven't thought of what to put yet. Up until now you may have thought that I write that bit first, but that is not the case - I regularly write the opening seg-way after I have written the actual Woss Weport. This is what is known as a trick of the trade and normally we are not allowed to tell people about these, but I have never been one to keep to the code of the magic circle, so now you know.

The show ended with a new song by Mr Jones which sounded ok to me, though I won't be rushing out to buy it in a hurry.

I've never done anything out of the blue.

Dag 788: The post that hurts the most

2006-04-14T23:13:00.000+01:00

The car was stuck behind behind 2 caravans and a lorry and progress was slow. The driver noticed that a green car had appeared behind him and was giving the appearence of impatience. The car seemed to be full of people and heavily laden.
The driver was not able to pass any of the vehicles in front of him and the green car was not able to pass him.
Eventually the winding road reached the motorway and the green car overtook the driver, who noticed that it appeared to be so heavily laden that the wheels seemed to be almost touching the wheel arches.
The green car was in the middle lane and had to brake as a lorry pulled out infront of it. The driver was picking up speed in his smart car and pulled into the overtaking lane passing both the green car and the lorry that had slowed it down.

The smart car carried on and the driver had forgotten all about the green car until about 15 minutes later he saw it in the rear view mirror. It looked like it was almost scraping the motorway under the weight of its load. It gradually caught up with the smart car and pulled into the overtaking lane. As it slowly passed the smart car the driver noticed that the passengers were watching the smart car and making hand gestures and shuffling body movements that suggested they were all willing the green car to be able to overtake the smart car. It took a while, but eventually the green car passed the smart car and pulled in front of it. The green car seemed to be going flat out as it stayed just infront of the smart car. The smart driver thought that maybe the green car hadn't liked being overtaken by a humble smart and wanted to assert its place in the car food chain by staying in front of the funny toy like smart car. After about 10 minutes the smart driver noticed that a bit of smoke seemed to be coming from one of the front wheels of the green car. He couldn't tell whether this was from the tire rubbing on something or coming from the engine. It had only been a wisp, but the smart pulled back a bit as he thought that this green car was probably driving a bit too hard and may be about to break down.

The smart car followed the green car for a few more miles and then suddenly a much thicker plume of smoke came from the green car and it slowed down, indicated and pulled onto the hard shoulder. The smart driver drove past and wondered what would become of the green car and its occupants. Were they on there way to a weekend away? Would the trip be over for them, or would they still make it to their destination. Would the car still have broken down if it hadn't been overtaken by that humble smart car? As these questions went through the mind of the driver a large motorway sign loomed up.

As the sign came into view the driver noticed the message made up of giant orange pixels "weekly woss weport next exit".

As so often happens he missed both the exit and the start of the show.

For me the show began with the tail end of some woman being interviewed and I have no idea who she is. No doubt I could find out with a quick diversion to google, but I think I prefer not to know.

So by the time I was sitting comfortably Mr Woss was talking about some drunk chimp giving him the finger. This was followed by Johnny Vegas doing what the chimp did (from the back room) and then it was his turn to come up to the desk of Woss. I find Johnny Vegas a really funny guy - I have seen quite a few episodes of ideal and really enjoyed it. It is currently on my list of DVDs to purchase. Whatever Mr Vegas says it always makes me laugh and tonight it was no different.

Next up was Joan Collins. I wasn't really very interested in hearing what she had to say so I spent the time catching up on emails and seeing if any more people had been visiting my myspace page. I now have 15 friends and my songs have had a total of 261 plays (even though 251 of those are probably from me visiting the page I can still kid myself that loads of people have been listening to them).

The show ended with not one but two songs by the red hot Chile peppers- I'm afraid they did not pass the old grey whistle test as far as I was concerned and were, in my view, what is sometimes referred to as rubbish. And the fact that they jumped around a lot didn't get them any extra kudos as far as I was concerned.

This morning I had seen that there was going to be some sort of religious type easter show in Manchester tonight and it was to be shown on BBC2. This didn't really catch my attention until they mentioned that it would contain music from Manchester groups including Joy Division and New Order, so I thought that might be a good thing to watch a bit of once Mr Woss had finished his stuff.

Changing the station to channel 2 was with me the work of a moment and I joined the program halfway through Blue Monday by New Order. It sounded pretty good with acoustic instruments. All in all I think it was a really good idea to put this show on and it certainly looks like plenty of people have turned up to see it. The only down side to it is the religious element which kind of puts me off, as I don't go in for all that stuff, but I still think it is a pretty good idea - if that can make sense.
I used to be a student in Manchester and have never been back since, but seeing the square brought back quite a few memories of those days.
In fact having watched this for a bit now, the religious elements are putting me off - even though I think the music is pretty good.

While I was driving back from Scotland today I was thinking about how people can believe that a god exists. It seems to me that if there was a god who had created the earth and all the creatures on it, if he was such a good god he would have created all creatures as vegetarians so that no creature had any need to harm or kill any other one. Various animals have various skills that help them survive, such as fur that blends in with the landscape. If god made them like this it seems to me that he/she was playing some sort of sadistic game whereby the animals that are considered prey get a bit of a chance of not being killed by the stalkers. Its a bit like those films where the baddies let their prey have a head start and then go after them.

Anyway that's enough religious talk - anyone would think it was some sort of religious day or something.

Dag 781: This is not my voice

2006-04-07T23:18:00.000+01:00

For some golfing type of reason Jonathan Ross is not on BBC1 tonight so as an alternative they have put Tarrent on TV on ITV instead.

Last week I went into the co-op in East Calder and after choosing my items I joined the queue at the checkout. An old lady in front of me had a £10 note in her hand and her total came to £4.85. She handed over the tenner and the lady on the till said "you haven't got a £5.00 note have you as we have run out".
The old lady said "No sorry this is all I have".
So the lady at the till said "ok I'll have to give you your change in pound coins".
This sent the old Lady into a mild panic and she said "Oh dear, I might have a pound coin in my purse, if I give you that will it help?"
The lady at the till said "no, I need a £5 note".
The old Lady then opened her purse and pulled out 1 £5 note and said "Oh, I didn't know I had that fiver that I did'nae know I had".

I found that so amusing that I thought I would relate it here - of course all of this was said in a Scottish accent.

Tarrent on TV has now finished, but I am not too bothered as Dylan Moran in concert is on soon on channel 4.
I am very much looking forward to watching this as it was the very first program I watched in bed on the TV that we have in our bedroom (and I only caught the end of it first time round).

Paolo and I had come to the conclusion a few months ago that we didn't go to enough concerts anymore so we managed to organise a night out at a gig on Wednesday. We didn't manage to get as many people as we did at our Goldfrapp night out, but we made up for it in the amount of booze consumed.

The chosen gig of the night was at The Caberet Voltaire. It was a special aniversary gig featuring:
The Presets - nice pair of old Korgs
Xvectors - fronted by one of Paolo's drinking partners
The Blackouts - Their first gig, they played really well and were well received.

The night started out with a few Baltikas at the Blue Blazer and then it was onwards and upwards to The Cabaret Voltaire.
Once in the door Paolo and I rushed straight down to the stage while the others hung back. Though once I had refused to buy them a drink after The Blackouts set they soon saw the light and came down to the front to join us for a drink and the Xvectors. They really were good and I will see them again at the first chance I get.
Finally it was The presets who really got the crowd dancing.

I knew it was a good night because I didn't feel good the next day.

Dag 774: The lunatic was on the gwarse

2006-03-31T22:38:00.000+01:00

The mist was swirling through the woods, causing me to stumble and trip over a hidden root.

So, without further ado, let me introduce tonights very special guests.
We've got:
Sir Alan Sugar - I don't think much of your program so you're fired
Tamsin Greig - I like her a lot, she has been in some tip top top of the range comedies (and she was also in an episode of Jonathan Creek)
Ant and Dec - Weddy to Wumble
music will be by - Gorilaz, in the mist

Mr Woss started off by showing us what a top internet buff he is by telling us how he surfed right onto the web site of My Morrissey Smith (the no show from last weeks show) and found that someone had posted a message onto his site saying what a good interview Morrissey had done and how great the 2 songs he sung were.

All I can say is that if Mr Woss was such a good internet buff he would have found this site by now and would be posting a Wjeekly Bjork Bjiggler Rjeport on his blog each week.

So Alan Suger came on, said some stuff and went off again. I didn't pay too much attention as I am not much of a high flying businessman and I hate wearing a suit. See me in a suit and you know I'm wishing I was somewhere else.

I'm glad all that stuff is over because now it is Tamsin so I can start paying attention. I used to know a girl called Tamsin Eskdale and she borrowed a triple LP off me by Godley and Creme and never returned it. I can't remember what it was called but it featured Peter Cook and Dudley Moore doing some pretty funny stuff between songs. I wouldn't mind that back if you are reading this Tamsin. And while we're on the subject - please can I have my skateboard back Heather. In fact could all the girls I know please return all the stuff you have of mine? Thankyou.

While we are on the subject of Black Books, the other week I saw the end of a Bill Bailey live show and he did an impression of Kraftwerk doing a german version of the Hokey Kokey which I found really good.

I've hardly finished writing this up and Wossy boy is kicking her off. I've never seen a guest be on such a short time. I pressume it is because those high flyers Ant and Dec up next.

The puffs and the piano sang lets get ready to rumble as they came on so they obviously have the same sense of humour as me.

Wossy and teh 2 boys have waffled on now for about 3 times as long as Tamsin was on and I can't really remember much that has been said, but right now thay are talking about some new film that is out featuring Ant and Dec. The film is called alien autopsey or something and the clip of it showed that it included somebody who has been in an episode of Black Books, so it might actually end up having a few decent bits in it - maybe.

As the show draws to a close we are informed that there will be no Jonathan Ross show next week, that of course meens there will also be no Weekly Woss Weport, so I'd better try and come up with something else instead.

Now it is time for the Gorilaz and although the song sounds pretty good and the band are joined by a childrens choir and various other live instruments, the 4 members of the band seem a bit wooden in their performance.

So Weekly Woss may be over, but if you want to carry on watching some music you could watch Georgie fame on BBC2 or the Gorilaz in concert on Channel 4.

I think I'll watch channel 4 (but I should add that I would rather be watching a film of the Cocteau Twins in concert).

Dag 767: When Mamma was Woss

2006-03-24T22:51:00.000Z

The watchlar stood in the fog, watching and waiting patiently. His tranquil eye caught site of a figure in the mist. Was that Bluebeard, with his rilkean heart, or had he just mistaken it for a Mizan? As the figure retreated into the background his gaze was drawn towards some frou-frou foxes frolicking in the midsummer fires beneath the pepper tree on the blue bell knoll.
It was nearly dawn and the sky turned pink orange red as the pearly dewdrops dropped. Throughout the dark months of april and may I would spend my time treasure hiding and I found that the thinner the air, the easier it was to bring a blush to the snow.

The watchlar had noticed that, with his treasure of glass candle grenades, the spanglemaker would travel by road river and rail to heaven or Las Vegas, while the moon waxed and wained in the gold dust rush.

The fifty fifty clown broke the silence of our angelhood with the sound of calfskin-smack.
"You should know who you are at every age" he said, "don't you know you have a Weekly Woss Weport to write".

He was right of course, so without further delay I put on my summerhead and began to pur.

The first bit of news is that Morrissey is a no show. The Radio Times said that last time he was on the wossy show he seemed very uncomfortable so they were a bit surprised he had agreed to go on it again, tough they did add that he had a new album to promote. I didn't catch who he had got instead, but it looked like some lady or other.

First up is Sir David Attenborough who is on TV at the moment with a new Planet Earth series. I have only watched a few clips of this so far, but I have been taping the series onto my hard disk recorder so I can put it on DVD and watch it in its entirety later. All the clips I have seen look brill and the use of Sigur rós as the background music adds to the atmospheere of the whole thing. The subject has somehow got onto religion and origins etc. Mr Attenborough is making some pretty good points in my opinion.

Now they are talking about global warming and stuff. My situation on that is that I have a smart car which is nice and green, but I also fly in a plane twice a week and today Leeds Bradford airport was fogbound so the plane I was in circled for around 45 minutes before heading off to Teeside thus negating all the savings my smart car had made in one fell swoop. I was offered a couch trip to Leeds Bradford airport so I asked if they could drop me off at Boroughbridge as the couch would go right past it, which would save me going all the way to LBA only to get a taxi bacl to my house (just outside Boroughbridge) only to be told "computer says no" - so I just got a taxi home from Teeside instead. It may have cost me £70 put it probably got me home at least 1 and a half hours earlier than I would have had I taken this couch. My taxi zoomed off while the other punters were still sorting out their luggage prior to boarding the coach.

Now it seem to be Charlotte Church's boyfriend being interviewed - maybe he is the Morrisey replacement. Mr Woss is basically taking the mikey out of him and talking in a Pakistani/Welsh accent. Once he got bored of doing that he spent the rest of the time going on about Charlotte Church. I think that teh guy being interviwed thought that wossy boy was a bit of a pratt.

Now it is Pink. When I was working in Germany we met a girl called pink in a mexican restaurant, but this one seems to be american. I like the german one better - though once she told us what her jack russel was called I warmed to her a bit more.
Now she is singing her new song and then suddenly the show was over - just as suddenly as it had started. The itchy glowblo blow worms had been suckling the mender and I just hadn't realised that Ella Megalast burls forever.

Maybe a trip in a kissed out red floatboat would make me feel multifoiled.

Dag 760: Heard, Duffy, Blatchford, Luxford, Rabie

2006-03-17T23:09:00.000Z

I wasn't planning on doing a post tonight, but I've come to bed and while deciding what dvd I wanted to watch before dropping off into the eternal slumber of the neophite, I decided to see what was on TV. The answer is that some sort of common wealth games or something is on, and if the names in the title seem familiar to you, it is because you too are watching a group of women in very skimpy bathing costumes riding around on bicycles followed by some camera men on mopeds filming their bottoms. Each bottom has the name of its owner written just above it. Some of the bottoms don't have very much covering them at all. I didn't know this sort of thing was called sport.

Apart from watching women's butts I have also been to a few concerts of late and have a few more coming up. I have created a mysql database to store details of all my concerts in and will be adding these to it in due course, however, I still need to learn how to retrieve this data and display it on a web page. But once I learn how to do it there will be a top website featuring all the gigs I remember going to along with photos, thoughts, memories etc of the gig in question, appearing on an internet outlet near you.

Recent Gigs:
My latest Novel
St Judes Infirmary
The 55s
Goldfrapp
GoldFrapps support group - can't be botherd to find out who they were at the moment
Sigur Rós
Amina

Coming up:
The Australian Pink Floyd
Gary Numan

I should also like to add that these bathing costume clad women are now off their bikes and running along the road. Their bathing costumes are made out of very thin material and the cameras are now filming them from infront rather than behind.
Some of the girls are quite a long way behind the ones at the front.

The other thing that has taken up some of my time lately is http://www.myspace.com/. It took me 3 attempts to get mine set up with the right name etc and each time I deleted my incorrect account I have to wait a day or too before I could try setting it up again. I eventually got it up and running and found I already had one friend called Tom. It seems he is the sys admin or something and you automatically get him as a friend when you sign up. Although I was grateful that at least I didn't have zero friends, but it did cause me some stress too. What are you meant to do with Tom? Obviously, I don't know him in real life, so am I meant to keep him as a friend or is he some sort of demo friend that I should delete once you know what I am doing? Obviously, anybody visiting my profile will know that he isn't my real friend and would know I was really a saddo.

I felt a bit strange for a few days as I only had my sham friend and as far as I knew none of my real life friends had got a myspace account. But then I thought to myself, "Air must have one - I can't believe he hasn't got this far in life without having one". So I typed in a few possible myspace profile names, but they all belonged to other people. It looked like I was the only person I knew with a myspace account - which is a pretty lonely state to be in.

Some time later I saw a feature that will read you gmail address book in and allow you to send an email to each person telling them that if they don't set up a myspace account pretty soon and set me up as thier friend I will begin to look like a really sad individual indeed. During the import I got a message saying air already had a myspace account. I knew he wouldn't have let me down, it was just me not being able to do a proper seach that had failed me from finding him before. So, to send a friend request in ro Air was, with me, the work of a moment. Unfotunatley my imprt them bombed out so I never got to send my blanket email, but I now had the chance of getting a real friend to go with my token Tom friend.

Once I had sent the friend request out I was hooked and wanted more friends. So I sent one out to Sigur Rós too. I don't know any of them, but they already had 59958 friends so I hoped they might be able to squeeze little old me in there (and I would just sit at the back and not say very much).

I should add that I do not know the correct protocol for getting friends on mypace so I may well have done it all wrong, but as yet my request to them is still pending.

Meanwhile Adrian had come up with the goods and set up his own myspace account and put in a request to me.

So with that accepted I had 2 real friends, 1 pretend friend and a pending request with Sigur Rós. At this point I thought the right thing to do was sever my ties with Tom and go it alone. I felt very guilty removing him as a friend and I would just like to say no hard feelings were intended and I really enjoyed the time we were friends.

This brings us up to date. I have a myspace account with 2 friends and 7 people have viewed my profile and 5 people have listened to my songs. And, although Sigur Rós currently have 59958 friends I am not one of them.

So I still don't really know anything about the myspace etiquet, but for some reason I have a real desire to have more myspace friends. So if you know me or you are in one of the groups I really like - please be my myspace friend.

Dag 746 - Illusion makes me want you more.

2006-03-03T23:23:00.000Z

It is exactly 1 month and 1 day since my last post around here. This is almost entirely due to the failure of Jonathan Ross to be on TV on Friday night anymore, which in turn means I have no weekly woss weport to write so I've been just watching TV downstairs and generally skiving.

So tonight things have changed. I'm in bed, I've got my new DVD on and when I've watched enough of it I will write a weekly woss style weport about it.

In the mean time I will fill you in on the important events since last we spoke.

I have recently come to the conclusion that I must be trying to go back in time to some seminal part in my life which seems to be around 1982 (which is when I was 18). This has manifested itself in me buying stuff that I had at that point in my life, and probably started about a year ago when I realised that I needed to buy an electric guitar and it had to be a Shergold because that is what I used to have. These guitars haven't been made for ages so it wasn't possible to get one straight away - it took me about 6 months to finally get my hands on one, so to keep me going while I was trying to find a decent Shergold I started buying music that I used to own at that time.

I thinks lists are pretty good so here is a list of what I have re-bought so far (I am still in the process of adding to this so I'll post an updated version at some future date):
Reproduction - Human league
The colour of spring - Talk Talk
Spirit of Eden - Talk Talk
154 - Wire
Real Life - Magazine
Play - Magazine
Some box set or other - magazine
Some double CD compilation CD or something (£2 from a church fete - mint and unplayed) - Simple Minds
Sulk - Associates
Seventeen seconds - The Cure
Unknown pleasures - Joy Division
Movement - New Order
Substance - New Order
Early - Scritti Politti
Blood - This Mortal Coil
I would have also re-bought all the Cocteau Twins albums on CD, but I already had them on CD so I just started listening to them again.

I'm sure there are some I've missed - and this includes the 2 CDs that were waiting for me when I arrived home tonight.

The first was The Scream by Siouxsie and the Banshees, whcih I had ordered earlier in the week from amazon, and the second was Y Su Conjunto by Senor Coconut, which I suspect must have been sent to me by Adrian. So, thankyou very much for that Adrian - I shall email a proper thankyou in due course.

So where were we up to?

Oh yes - I was listing things that I had bought that take me back to the late 70s/early 80s. My most recent must have aquisition was a Korg ms-10 synthersizer. I used to own one back then and not only can I not understand why I ever got rid of it, but I can't even remeber the circumstances involved with me getting rid of it. I have no idea when I sold it and I have no idea who bought it or how I even advertised its sale. Anyway my new vintage korg arrived about 3 weeks ago and its arrival enabled me to reform my 1980s synth band Strange Devotion and start recording new material.

All this pre-amble brings me to real subject mattter of this post. The DVD I am watching is called Made in Shefield and it has now finished so here is the One off Made in Sheffield Weport (which I shall write while watching the DVD extras):

There are 2 main reasons that I bought the DVD in the first place:
1) because I had reformed my 1980s synth combo and as this was all about synth music
2) it had some live footage of the Futurama Festival in Leeds which I had gone to. In fact I had managed to get myself in the first couple of rows so I secretly hoped I might even have managed to get myself caught on camera - though this didn't prove to be the case.

The last thing that struck me about this film is that it is very short. I was quite happily watching it and getting all nostalgic and getting back to my roots and all that and then suddenly it was all over.

The DVD is basically about the Sheffield scene from the late70s/early 80s and was therefore mainly about The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Vice Versa, I'm So Hollow, ABC, Clock DVA and various other groups. For some reason this also included Pulp, but to me they are a much later generation, so I'm not quite sure why they were included here.

The film seemed to focus mainly on The Human League and Vice Versa/ABC in terms of the music played, but Chris Watson of cabaret Voltaire was also interviewed alot, but they didn't go into Caberet Voltaire as much as I would have liked.

This calls for another list, so here are the groups I have seen that were on the DVD:
Human League - 05/05/1979 - Leeds University (Supporting Magazine with Simple Minds) - I hadn't heard anything by the Human League before this, but I remember being really impressed by them.
Human League - date unknown - Some nightclub in Sheffield - 1st date of the Travelogue Tour - I managed to get there really early and got a place right at the front in the exact middle about 1 foot away from Phil Oakey
Human League - date unknonwn - Unity Hall Wakefield - last date of the Travalogue Tour (additional note: after the gig while I was back stage getting autographs of the band, Phil Oakey was out front chatting my Mum up, who had given us a lift there)
Caberet Voltaire - 30/12/1980 - Institute of contempory arts London
Heaven 17 - date unknown - Warehouse, Leeds - Not what I was expecting - they only did 3 or 4 songs and they were miming - they then sat down at the front in order to sign autographs - I wasn't impressed
Vice Versa - date unknown - venue unknown (most likely in Leeds - in fact it must have been the futurama) - really thought they were good
ABC - date unknown - Warehouse, Leeds - one of the first gigs after Vice Versa changed their name to ABC - I was hoping they would still be a synth band - they weren't - didn't like them at all
I'm So Hollow - 13/09/1980 - Futurama in Leeds - great concert, I'm So Hollow were one of the main reasons I went to the futurama in the first place

So, the DVD extras are still going strong and I am well and truly ensconsed in nostalgia city arizona.
I have to say that the whole DVD is great, but a particular poin of note was when I played the photo gallery section which goes with the song Genetic Warfaer by Vice Versa. I used to have this and had forgotten it even existed until just now. What a fantastic song that was.

I am the fly.

I love my wife.

Dag 717: Welcome to Edinburgh

2006-02-06T17:54:00.000Z

After my plane touched down this morning the airhostess welcomed us all to Edinburgh. In my opinion someone who is traveling to a place with you is not the right person to welcome you to that place when you get there. I think only somebody who was already there before you arrived should have the authority to perform such a ritual.
You could argue that as she was sitting in a seat nearer the front than the passengers she did get there first, but I think the people sitting over the wheels got there first as that was the first bit of the plane to touch the ground.
But, to avoid all confusion I think that a time limit of 5 minutes should be set. So you can only welcome someone to a place if you got there at least 5 minutes before they did. That would avoid all unnecessary confusion.

In other news as I drove through Mid calder last friday morning on my way to work I noticed a large number of squashed milk cartons and big squashed plastic milk containers on the side of the road in a large puddle of milk. I am pleased to note that I didn't see anyone in the area with either red eyes or watery eyes.

You have been selected

2006-02-02T13:59:00.000Z

Got a letter yesterday.
From the Inland Revenue.
They want to "Review my PAYE status"

Does Bulgaria have an extradition treaty with the UK?

Dag 712: A new phase for an old flange

2006-02-01T17:26:00.000Z

Today I start my 505th month of life and in lue of any recent weekly woss action I am enclosing a recipe idea for you to try:

The recipe was named and improved by Paolo from an original half baked idea of mine.
It is called "Vitello alla Siarrem"

ingredients() {
lightly floured veal escalope;
sliced chestnut mushrooms;
shredded baby leeks;
baking potatoes;
sherry;
butter;
salt;
pepper;
}

method() {
Place the potatoes in the oven to bake;

wait until the potatoes are about ready;

heat the butter until just sizzling, then place the escalope in to it;

fry for about 2 minutes turning once;

remove the escalope cut into thin strips and set aside;

fry the mushrooms, when these have taken on a bit of colour add the leeks;

gently fry until most of the exuded water has evaporated then mix in the veal;

once the melange has recovered its temperature flambé it with the sherry;

split the potatoes and dress with the veal;

serve immediately with a Baltika in a frozen glass;
}

OK I could have gone much further with this them with the "until', "then" and "when" bits etc, but I couldn't be bothered.

Anyway, I haven't tried this, but I am sure it will be very nice.
If you do try this, please let me know how you got on with it.

And to save you doing the maths - yes it is my birthday today, but you will have to do the maths if you want to know how old I am.

Get it right up ye.

2006-02-01T14:19:00.000Z

It's quiet around here.

I'm sure everyone knows what I'm up to, so won't go into all that.

January is a bad month. I'm glad it's over. All it does is kill time before February, when you can start counting down to the end of winter. Unfortunately I've got lots of family birthdays, so can't really ignore it as it deserves.

So, let's get back to normal business, I want / demand weekly updates from celebrity fat club, get it sorted.

Dag 690: A new heading for an old post

2006-01-09T19:41:00.000Z

Happy new year or something.

So the weekly woss weports have ended and so has another year.
I can't say it was the best year of my life, but then none of the previous ones were either.

Here are some useful websites recently sent to me by my Brighton correspondant.

Who Represents?, a database for agencies to the rich and famous:
http://www.whorepresents.com/

The Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views:
http://www.expertsexchange.com/

Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island:
http://www.penisland.net/

Need a therapist? Try:
http://www.therapistfinder.com/

And there is an Italian Power company:
http://www.powergenitalia.com/

Finally we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales:
http://www.molestationnursery.com/

So what else has been happening on planet dom? Well my dinky smart car is currently suffering from a flat battery so it could be any one of the follwing faults:
1. battery is knackered
2. the alternator is knackered or something is stopping it charging the battery
3. the battery is getting charged ok, but something else is draining its power while the car is switched off
4. any combination of 2 of the above
5. any combination of 3 of the above

The following information may help narrow the fault down further:
1. I drove from Scotland to Yorkshire last friday arriving in the evening and the car was fine and started fine on each of my stops.
2. On saturday afternoon I tried to start the car, but the battery was dead. I bump started it, but didn't have time to drive it around so I just parked it at the top of a hill near my house so I could bump start it again next morning prior to taking it out to get petrol, jet wash it and give it a run to recharge the battery. After parking at the top of the hill I tried restarting the engine with the key and it started ok.
3. On Sunday the battery was flat, as expected, so I tried to bump start it going down the hill, but I didn't manage to get it in first gear so it didn't start. So the car was at the bottom of the hill with a flat battery. Once I had got someone to help push it back up I got it started and drove to the petrol station.
4. I had to switch the engine off to put petrol in, but it started ok after I paid.
5. I left the engine running while I jet washed it and then I went for at least a 20 minute run.
6. The battery was flat again on Monday morning, but this time I managed to bump start it first tikme down the hill.
7. On the way back to Scotland I stopped at the services and was out of the car for about 10 minutes. When I tried to start it it was flat so I managed to bump it again.
8. I had to stop for petrol near the end of my journey and the car started ok with the key after paying.
9. I parked on a bit of a hill outside work and after 2 hours I tried to start with the key and it was flat again.

On the basis of all this I am getting a new battery fitted tomorrow and am hoping everything will go back to normal again.

Dag 673: I befriend them in these dreams of mine

2005-12-23T23:35:00.000Z

Today is the day before christmas eve and it is the last Yonathan Woss show of the year. The next one will not be until March or May or something of next year, so that means this will be the last weekly woss weport for some time.

As it is the last weekly woss weport you may have expected me to go to bed early and start writing my opening story nice and early so I can represent every nuamce of the show within my weport. So I guess I should jump straight in and give you the full facts:

1. I was watching the xmas rosemary and thymne christmas special on pasue TV mode so Jonathan was well underway before I finished watching this.
2. I haven't written a pre woss weport story as I normally do I have just gone straight into the weport.
3. I started watching the show while a Scottish girl was being interviewed so I never saw any of the bits before that.
4. The Jonathan Ross show finished some time ago - I am currently flicking between BBC2 (extras) and CH4 (something about coming up with a xmas number 1).
5. The first lp record I ever bought was hunky dory by David Bowie, the first 7 inch single was I wish it could be christmans every day by Wizzard (I think) and the first ever 12 inch single I bought was Marquee Moon by Television and the first pre recorded tape I ever bought was A Trick of the Tail by Genesis and the first ever compact disk I bought was Victorialand by Cocteau Twins and the first ever music video I bought was pictures at an exhibition by ELP and the first ever music DVD I bought was volumen by Björk.
6. The more numbered items I can think of writing the longer I can get out of having to write the woss weport pwoper.
7. Last Monday when I was flying up to Edinburgh the air hostess asked some bloke near me if he wanted a breakfast. He said "yes please, what have you got?". She replied "Breakfast". I thought that was really funny - in fact some of those BMI hostesses are really nice people.
8. When you fly a lot you get to notice that some men on the plane behave as though they are superior to everyone else and will quite happily do things like:
8a not only take over the middle chair arm, but also up to a third of the space in your own chair
8b take off their jacket in such a way that it wacks you accross your face and just act as though it never happened
8c speak to the hostesses as if they are something stuck to the bottom of their shoes
8d various other things
9. ok I suppose I'd better get to the woss weport now

Ok so, for me, the woss weport began with a scottish lady from extras being interviewed. Extras conatins Ricki Gervase out of the office. A couple of years ago I really liked the office and I bought them on DVD and stuff, but I haven't been too impressed with extras and also when Ricki Gervais gets intervoewed on various programs he comes over as a bit of an arse (as far as I am concerned).

Next up was Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Me and Al went to see Rob Brydon at the fringe in 2004 and as we were on the first row we both got spoken to by him. They are quite funny and both good at doing impersonations. Steve Coogan sometimes comes accross as a bit of an arse when he is interviewed, but I think he does it on purpose. I think Alan Partridge is very funnny. These 2 manage tp get through the Woss Inetrview without having to do too much and the show ends with music by Richard Ashcroft.

So that is the end of the last ever Woss hsow from 2005 and this the end of the last ever woss weport from 2005. So as from next week I will be doing some other sort of posting.

I'll see you in the other room......