If I heard this on the radio I wouldn’t think it was any better or worse than anything else out there – but the video and the song, everything about it, was created by AI.

I know if I was Charlie Booker I’d be imagining a world where Anna has a devoted following of millions and when she is switched off, people kill themselves – but I can’t quite see that.

What I can see is that people with a bit of talent can use their own ideas and then organise everything else using AI and be their own bedroom Bowie – by which I mean gathering the best session musicians and getting them to jam away until something happens, using your idea as a base.

Thoughts?

I am pleased and privileged and indeed humbled to announce that I am making a few enhancements to my leadership team and I hope you’re as excited as I clearly am.

I have been instructed – I mean – I have decisively instructed myself with NOONE else involved- to invite Lord Cameron to join his …MY team. Mine. As Foreign Secretary. MY Foreign Secretary. All right? Good.

I thank the former Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, for her tireless service to my administration but (chuckle) don’t let the door hit you on the “lifestyle choice” when you leave! (Cheeky grin – confused silence)

Anyway, stability is key and what could be more reassuring and stable than a failed former PM who caused all of this in 2016?

I can reassure everyone that we get it. We have listened and now we are not going to be silly any more. Bleep! I’ve lost my sausages! Nanu Nanu!

I was intrigued by the thought of this largely because overall I think Trev is a bit of a genius and has been largely responsible for many truly remarkable pop music moments. Particularly Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise? which refused to leave my turntable for many years, not to mention The Age of Plastic and the Frankie stuff. I’ll put Yes to one side, because I’m not sure that was a good idea but, for FFS, he produced Lexicon of Love and Slave to the Rhythm, so he deserves a sustained round of applause just for these things.

Dear old Iggy is an adopted national treasure and I feel affection for him and he has a few belters under his, er, belt but it was mainly the Trevor Horn involvement in this cover version that made me prick up my ears.

Verdict? Well, it’s actually not a million miles away from the Johnny Cash version of Personal Jesus largely due to the old, quivering vocal delivery and the sparse acoustic guitar noodling away. So, it’s a let-down in that sense. If you can imagine Leonard Cohen singing the song, it would be a similar vibe.

And what’s wrong » Continue Reading.

It’s bollocks really, isn’t it? I don’t mean just Halloween itself but the whole arena of the so-called supernatural. I know I may be goading the “demons of the underworld” here, but I know I’m not – because such things definitely do not exist.

Having said that, I am lying here, right now, in my bed just before midnight on Halloween, wondering why I have goosebumps and feel so nervous.

Of course, at midnight the new Wordle puzzle appears and although that’s very exciting, it’s not that.

An icy breeze has just brushed past my face too, which is a bit weird. Am I experiencing a supernatural experience in real time, right here, on the Afterword? Woo-ooo! It’s a g-g-ghosst!

Of course not. As I say, it’s all bollocks. I must say that things are a bit strange, though. I like total darkness in my bedroom but tonight when I close my eyes there’s a definite light shining – like a torch pointed directly at me.

This light switches off the very moment my eyes open again. It’s happened three times now. On the last occasion I heard heavy breathing but it’s just me in here.

Right. It’s » Continue Reading.

I was first alerted to NFTs by an acquaintance who seems to believe the tech sector runs everything. He can’t shoot the breeze or chew the cud, he will always get the subject back to blockchain or something unfathomable to impress everyone.

He explained NFTs to me a few years ago – like a teenager in 1963 explaining The Beatles to her grandad. I kept responding along the lines of “it doesn’t make sense” and “why would anyone want that?”. He was amused at my naïveté and gave me the kind smile of a care worker, whose job it is to stop you getting on the bus in just your undies.

Anyway – I was right. It seems the whole thing has died

I’d like to know when YOU were right. You followed your instincts or just used basic intelligence – sometimes against the grain. Could be about anything.

https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/10/20/are-your-nfts-worthless-now-youre-not-alone/

Acting on a suggestion from @fentonsteve, let’s talk about bands with terrible names. The ones that spring easily to my mind are :

Does it Offend You, Yeah?

I can’t get past the thought of a home counties-based Tarquin hyphen-hyphen in his late 20s, pretending to be edgy. I can hear the voice too.

5ive

No it’s not clever. It’s stupid.

Very pleased to hear that Labour have pledged to do this if elected.

On the face of it, using the VIP lanes during COVID was rife and cost the taxpayer billions. The fact that there was a significant theme of “there’s money to be made here!” during the pandemic is disgusting enough, but the lack of accountability afterwards is the aspect that I think rankles the most.

Some responses to the announcement are that the Commission will cost more than they can recover (because these crooks know what they’re doing re hiding funds) misses the point. Those that made money from the pandemic and then ran for the hills need to be identified and asked questions publicly. If they have technically broken no laws, then that’s fine – but I want to hear from them so that they can tell us what they did, what was paid to them and tell us why this was OK.

There was a TV show in the 70s in which a TV presenter/journalist was given a challenge over 6 weeks – something like to sing an aria at the Royal Albert Hall or complete an elite-level military assault course. Yes, a bit like Blue Peter.

Anyway, in one of these shows, the presenter was told he was to do a standup comedy routine at some glittering variety show at the London Palladium. He’d never done anything like it before and wasn’t a naturally gifted comic/storyteller. He was terrified. Anyway, he was given a routine of one liners and jokes by none other than the great Barry Cryer. Should be OK, then?

No. The jokes were awful.

As the day approached, the hapless journalist meets some established comedians for advice. One of these was Ken Dodd. He had a look at the routine – he said that yes, there were two or three “belters” in there and read the awful routine in the way HE would do it. Reader, the jokes came alive. Just a few tweaks using slightly different, funnier, words and Ken Dodd turned it into a very funny routine all in the space of about 3 minutes.

» Continue Reading.

Welcome to our third foray into the Wordle-as-a-round-of-golf journey.

Each “hole” is a par 4 and we play 18 of them and see who does the best. The Baron has triumphed in the first two, but there are players nipping at his heels – eager to be top dog.

Everyone is welcome. Just remember to respect the rules and be on your guard for when Lodey conducts one of his highly invasive drug tests. Believe me, it’s better to go along with it rather than kick up a fuss.

Soon, Game 834 starts in NZ. 1st October 2023. See you on the course.

It turns out he was surprisingly young in his 70s/80s heyday on the BBC. As an impressionist he was not in the same league as Rory Bremner or Alistair MacGowan but that was the niche that he occupied in the TV schedules on Saturday nights – drawing in breathtakingly large audiences by today’s standards. I even recall him having a go at Margaret Thatcher, with an apologetic side-comment to the audience, saying “well, it’s cheaper than hiring Janet Brown!”.

His impressions weren’t uncanny but they did entertain. The shoulders of Ted Heath, the eyebrows of Denis Healy and the guppy-like pipe smoking of Harold Wilson. The politicians certainly appreciated the portrayals as they would often comment that they felt they’d “made it” if they appeared on the show.

He was given a hard time for the “…and this is me” sequence, when he would croon a Perry Como number at the end while 15 million kettles gave the National Grid a simultaneous pummelling. This was not necessarily his fault – in those days a light entertainment/variety show was given a bigger budget by the BBC than a straight comedy show, so having a song on the show facilitated that. This » Continue Reading.

About three years ago there was a very entertaining thread of cryptic crossword clues that revealed the titles of albums, once you worked it out.

You don’t need money to have a little bit of fun. So shall we do it again? (4,3,1,6)

I don’t think we have done one of these for a while. A post on my “dog”:thread brought to mind a very funny line I remember from Clive James – “They say Sophia Loren’s body was designed by a committee….of perverts!”. You need to imagine the great man’s delivery there,

And then I remember something my wife said when I observed that New Zealand is small…but feels big at the same time. She replied “that’s deep…but shallow at the same time”.

So I’m in the market for witty things said by the rich and famous but also that stinging rejoinder or that chucklesome one liner you heard at work or at the chemist.

Or, more to the point, the family wants a dog. I have fond memories of our border collie when I was their age and I do think there’s life lessons when it comes to looking after a dog – keeping it happy, healthy, fed and exercised. I’ll be looking to the whole family to share in this but I am realistic enough to know that after a brief period of devotion, over the long-term, this responsibility of daily care will fall to my wife and I.

We now have 4 teenage children in the house and this has been something I have been delaying because our house wasn’t well fenced. We now have a dog-proof fence so we are pretty much mutt-ready. We haven’t told the cat but he has had a good look at the fence and even with his pea-sized brain, he knows something’s going on.

According to the song, Pet Shop Boys wanted a chihuahua, but I’m not looking for a tiny yappy thing. I also don’t want a giant slobbery buffoon, unaware of its size and strength. Don’t want a staffy, rottweiller, Alsatian or anything along those lines. A mid-size pooch about the size of a » Continue Reading.

I would be roasted alive on other internet places for this opinion. But I think this place has a more mature, considered take on things generally- so here goes.

The Coronation is very much a religious service. The millions that follow the Christian faith through the Church of England believe that the monarch is anointed by God to be Defender of the Faith and that as a member of that church, you are expected to swear allegiance to the monarch – as you would towards God, because that church believes the monarch is a divine appointment.

During the service, the congregation and the people viewing at home will be asked to say those words because it is what they believe. Those of us who aren’t CofE won’t have to.

In the Catholic mass there’s stuff you have to say out loud about believing that there’s only true, Catholic apostolic church and the Pope is yer man. Catholics will repeat those words but nobody else has to.

Storm in a teacup.