Wow!

Three episodes in and the best show of the year so far.

Stunning story. Stunning cast. Stunning B/W cinematography. Wha’s not to like?

Give it a go, you won ‘t be disappointed

As some AWers will hopefully remember, I’ve spent the last three-odd years struggling to stop the eco vandals who own the land next to my late uncle’s farm from destroying it with huge unnecessary structures.

Earlier this month, they were taken to court and fined. As they are Z list celebs, I got a leading paper interested in taking up the case. For them to do so, what I need to establish is: :

* Roughly when an illegal jetty was erected on a stretch of EU-habitats protected riverfront that belonged to me rather than the developers.

* Just how big the jetty is (it looks fucking enormous from the pix I’ve found on Instagram)

PM me with your email address if you can help and I’ll send you over relevant references

Thanks in advance

Just back from a quick three-day break in London during which I saw

One gig (the Who at the RAH @ £140)

Two films (Zone of Interest and Monster for a total of £23)

One exhibition (Romans in Britain for £24)

and

Three theatre shows (two evening and one matinee) for a total of £164 (£24 for A Mirror, £38 for The Motive and the Cue, and Picture of Dorian Gray for £100).

Anyone else here a theatre fan?

It’s getting to the point where grabbing a last-minute ticket to a play is a whole lot cheaper than shelling out for a gig sometimes a year in advance.

While the PODG ticket was pricey, the whole shebang – Sarah Snook playing 26 different roles unbind interacting with numerous screens and camera operators – was way more spectacular than some gigs I’ve recently seen for the same kind of money.

No.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/14/2024-glastonbury-festival-lineup-dua-lipa-coldplay-sza-shania-twain

Crowd-funded doc – The Clock Comes Down the Stairs at 10pm about a Criminally under-rated Irish band whose mix of Cathal (Fatima Mansions) acerbic lyrics and Sean ((High Llamas) gorgeous Melodie’s should have made them massive.

Am sure I won’t be the only AWer watching…

Just śaw this as was buying Phospherescent tickets for Dublin. Looks very interesting so grabbed myself a ticket

Seven-time BAFTA Award winner Steve Coogan will lead the first ever adaptation of the legendary film-maker’s work. Coogan will play multiple roles in Kubrick’s timeless production.

This jet-black comedy masterpiece, about a rogue U.S. General who triggers a nuclear crisis, is brought to the stage by acclaimed, BAFTA and Emmy Award winner Armando Iannucci and Olivier Award winner Sean Foley in an explosively funny satire of mutually assured destruction. Sean Foley will also direct.

Steve Coogan said: “The idea of putting Dr. Strangelove on stage is daunting. A huge responsibility. It’s also an exciting challenge, an opportunity to bring this timeless classic to a new audience. Knowing that I will be part of a creative team led by Sean Foley and Armando Iannucci means I will be working with the best people. Sean is a master of stage comedy and Armando and I started working with each other over 30 years ago. We made some memorable comedy together so it’s great to be collaborating with him once again. And we are thrilled to have the opportunity to take our version of » Continue Reading.

In this city they call you love

His ninth and first in five years.

https://townsendmusic.store/?utm_campaign=W%2FC%2019%2F02%2F2024%20-%20Richard%20Hawley&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Mailjet

Perhaps not as good as in its groundbreaking early seasons, but still pretty damn funny.

The closing shot in the first episode of the final season is worth the price of admission on its own.

Any other fan?

Jurgen Klopp to quit at the end of the season.

Not just a great manager – up there with Shanks – But also a wonderful character.

A hard act to follow on every level

Not content with selling diehard fans discs of live shows and outtakes that he includes on subsequent eye-wateringky expensive Archive box sets, our fave Canuck has now started issuing standalone vinyl versions of discs from those self-same sets.

Hard on the heels of last year’s Odeon/Budokan from 2020’s Archives 2, we now get Dume, a vinyl version of another AII disc. In addition to eight of Zuma’s nine original tracks (no Through My Sails) its contents include eight “unreleased” tracks – seven of them different or earlier takes of songs from other NY albums

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-dume-2lp-vinyl/

Much as I love Neil, with Archive III apparently set to run to 17 CDs, I’m holding. off on buying any future reissues until the box is released it comes out

Obituary

Neil Young Before and After (Reprise)

Even by Neil Young’s standards, £20 for a 48-minute song cycle of 13 predominantly acoustic retoolings of songs from a brobindingnagian back catalogue smacks of avarice. Given the recording of said song cycle must have cost about fourpence, the more expensive Atnos BluRay edition is even more of a pisstake.

The no-frills aesthetic is also evident on an album cover which consists of the title chalked on a wall (front) and written in sand (back). Hard to know whether our Neil is commenting on the transitory nature of his art, a remorseless release schedule that even Van Morrison struggles to keep up with or the speed with which his “Greedy Hand” is reaching out and grabbing his fans’ money

All of which is not to say that B and A is without its share of redeeming features. Perfectly suited to the Shakey one’s increasingly frail voice, deep cuts such as After The Goldrush’s Birds, Sleeps With Agnel’s My Heart and the more recent Barn’s Don’t Forget Love are especially affecting. Stripped back retoolings of better known songs like Buffalo’s Springfield’s Mr Soul and Comes a Time’s title track on the other hand come » Continue Reading.

The below thoughts are a logical extension of the direction @SteveTs post of yesterday was taking and is not intended as a criticism but I wonder if one’s preferred choice of medium broadly aligns with whether one is a left-brain/right brain or creative/scientific type person?

It’s interesting that vinyl lovers eager to justify their love of LPs frequently use hard-to-quantify emotional terms such as anticipation, engagement, feel, etc.

Those who prefer CDs on the other hand regularly reach for cold, hard statistics and side-by-side metrics.

The only thing that might be said to unite those on both sides of the analog/digital divide is a shared hatred of the term “vinlys”

Like many AWers, I started off with LPs and was an early adopter of CDs.

The big plus for me with CDs was that I led a fairly peripatetic career and their smaller, more robust format made them far easier, cheaper and safer to ship between countries than my old vinyls.

Having finally reached a stage of life where I was unlikely to move homes or work overseas, I began dusting off and supplementing my vinyl collection a couple of years back.

Probably still buy » Continue Reading.

This is no place for famous albums or artists you’re the last person to cotton on to.

This is about long and unfairly neglected records and acts – and the dustier and more lacking in AW approval the better.

For me, would have to be Link Wray. Remember flicking past his early 70s releases in the racks of the Coventry branch of Virgin Records 50-odd years ago.

And there this hugely influential guitarist might have stayed had two chance encounters – both fearing songs from 1971’s eponymous Link Wray alblum not inspired me to finally begin digging into and wigging out on the man widely credited with inventing the power chord. .

The first was being smitten when hearing album opener La De Da play out over the end credidts at the end of an episode of Barry (a party which like Link himself I had come unconscionably late.

The second was the inclusion of the same album’s Falling Rain on side one of the splendid Between the Music Vol 1 comp of a couple of years back.

Intrigued, I took to Discogs and scored a copy of 1995’s Guitar Preacher: The Polydor years which brought » Continue Reading.

Your favourite TV shows of 2023

No rankings – just a thread where you can tell your fellow AWers the TV shows you’ve watched and rated most highly during 2023 and they might like.

For the sake of brevity, with one or two exceptions I’ve excluded stuff I mentioned in the blog’s Best TV of the first half of the year thread (link at the bottom)

DOCUMENTARY

Once Upon a Time In Northern Ireland Best show of the year by some distance for me. Amazing to think that all of this took place about 100 Kms from where I now live

NEW SHOW

Beef Gen V

Diplomat Silo Last of Us Dark Winds

RETURNING SHOW

Slow Horses

Lazarus Project

END OF THE LINE

Top Boy

Snowfall Succession Guilt

NEW/ONE-OFF DRAMA

Sixth Commandment

The Reckoning Boat Story Scrublands

COMEDY

Nolly

Two Doors Down (Hard to see this continuing following the death of head writer, Simon Carlyle, Last series? Rain Dogs Colin from Accounts

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Ferry

The Glory Vortex

BELATED DISCOVERY

Mindhunter Barry Mr Inbetween

Bad Sisters Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared

HAVEN’T YET SEEN BUT WILL

Crowded Room Culprits » Continue Reading.

Who’s Next/Lifehouse 4-LP set – E50 on Amazon.de

Exile on Main St (Half-speed) – E20 on Amazon.fr

Try and catch the windscreen

The universal hard shoulder

Cosmic steering wheels

Link to story below in case the one in the box doesn’t work

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/10/24/singer-donovan-convicted-of-dangerous-driving-in-west-cork/

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/10/24/singer-donovan-convicted-of-dangerous-driving-in-west-cork/

Cometh the hour, cometh @fentonsteve (and thanks in advance for your help0

Finally decided to get shot of my aging Sony 5.1 system and upgrade to Atmos.

Checked prices and am torn between two four-speaker 5.12 sound Samsung systems= the (930C and 990C – the former is slightly less expensive than the latter but has – IIRC – four less speakers.

FWIW, will also be using a Sony multi-region player – probably the MX700 or MX800

As you know more about this sort of thing than I ever will, your input will be greatly appreciated