In a week when Paul Gascogne kissed Prince William and Sylvester Stallone shadow-boxed with The Pope, do you have any A-list tangles to share?
Greatest lyric
If there’s a more powerful line in rock music than “I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard”, I’d like to know it.
Wordle side challenge
So. Wordle. What’s your opening gambit?
I know people like to pop in ADIEU, thinking they’re smart, but I reckon that’s just too heavy on vowels. I like to spread the consonants and vowels across three goes. I don’t care whether I get the answer in two tries or six, just as long as I get it. So my first three shots, for a while, have been STAIN, CLOUD and PERKY. All the vowels, lots of common consonants. Solid start.
Now, here’s the thing. I got bored with those and I’ve just come up with DEATH, GLORY and MUSIC. Wow, I thought, what an iconic trio of opening Wordle shots. No repeats and lots of likely letters. Cool.
Can you come up with a more iconic trio?
Bastardizing a classic drink, but somehow amazifying it
I am fully aware there are many strict rules of etiquette – nay, correctness – regarding high-quality and much-loved alcoholic beverages. Eg, don’t stick a Pepsi Max in a Glenmorangie, don’t whack a Fanta in a Hendricks.
But sometimes it just works. I am drinking a large Peroni Nastro Azzurro with the addition of a small shot of Bottle Green elderflower cordial. Man, that’s refreshing.
Any guilty booze pleasures out there?
Late to the party, but – DEVS!!!
Yes, DEVS.
I’ve just binge-watched this eight-hour FX miniseries and WOW. Totally smitten with the mindfuck of a concept, the creepy atmosphere, the funereal pace, the talent, the beauty, the slowburn shocks, the landscape, the music, the strangeness, the everything you care to mention.
Reviews seem to be generally 4/5 but I’m sure this’ll be Marmite. Many will have hated it. I for one am a yes. But then I would say that because I’ve been pre-determined to say it. Tramlines, doncha know.
To like: Sonoya Mizuno. Alison Pill. Alex Garland. Soundtrack. San Francisco.
Not to like: [ ]
Anybody else?
PS – Still available on BBC iPlayer.
Let’s do this again
Okay, so I have a massive list of my favourite songs of all time continually floating around in my head and I decided to have a bit of fun with that list and pick one for each letter of the alphabet [counting XYZ as one letter, giving two dozen songs in all]. Obviously, ignore “The” or “A” at the beginning of titles.
If you find this idea tedious or unworthy, don’t bother posting to tell me so; just join in if you want to. We may have done this before. But you may have time on your hands, as I do.
America [Simon & Garfunkel] Bell Bottom Blues [Derek & The Dominoes] Cinnamon Girl [Neil Young] Days [The Kinks] Everything Means Nothing To Me [Elliott Smith] Famous Blue Raincoat [Leonard Cohen] Gan To The Kye [The Unthanks] Harvest For The World [Isley Brothers] Into Temptation [Crowded House] Just Like A Woman [Bob Dylan] Kangaroo [Big Star] Life’s A Gas [T Rex] Mojo Pin [Jeff Buckley] Next [Jacques Brel] Ode To Billy Joe [Bobbie Gentry] Paranoid Android [Radiohead] Quicksand [David Bowie] Rainy Night House [Joni Mitchell] Strawberry Fields Forever [The Beatles] Tin Soldier [Small Faces] Up The Junction [Squeeze] Virginia Plain » Continue Reading.
Questions, questions, questions
I’ve been to my GP surgery this morning to hand in some prescription requests. The doors are locked and you have to speak to a receptionist via an intercom. The sign outside warns, “Please be prepared to answer a series of questions.”
Mine were: “What is the capital of Burkina Faso?”, “In which year was the Battle of Austerlitz?” and “Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” I thought the second one was a bit tough.
So I said to Elton John
So I said to Elton John:
“Elton – you’ve written some wonderful music in your time. How would you describe the feeling you get when you’ve put the finishing touches to a song, and you just know it’s a classic? Is it a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly? Is it the first ray of sunlight on a new morning? Is it a young rabbit bounding across an open meadow?”
Elton sat back on his piano stool, pondered for a few seconds, then replied:
“It’s a little fit bunny…”
Candy
Name songs. They are countless, and their quality is variable. From the heartbreaking beauty of Lennon’s “Julia” to the mind-numbing crassness of… well, there are too many bad’uns to choose from.
It struck me recently that Candy, a name which doesn’t crop up much on your average school or office register, appears to have produced a disproportionately high number of great songs. I offer “Candy Says” [Velvet Underground], “Candy” [Iggy Pop], “So Like Candy” [Elvis Costello] and “Candy” [Paolo Nutini] as evidence.
Is there any other name to rival it in songwriting history?
I used to think…
I used to think, when my mum said somebody was playing silly buggers, that it was actually a real game. Silly Buggers – like Hungry Hippos, I suppose.
My daughter reminded my the other day that she used to think we were talking about “McJagger” – like McNuggets or McFlurry – rather than Mick Jagger. And I remember a friend of ours saying some years ago that her little girl sang the old gospel belter as “Who built the Ark? No-one! No-one!”
Any cranky misconceptions you’d like to share?
I’m with Lana
I think her offer of 40% royalties to the Heads was fair. “Get Free” has an identical chord structure to “Creep” in the verse, plus a similar melody line. Lana then adds a chorus which gives the song a pretty different feel. Thom & Co want 100%, which I think is bullshit. You guys?
BBC News’ standards round their ankles
Another cock-up. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.
A couple of weeks after saying the Queen was married while Spain was embroiled in civil war and Neville Chamberlain was beginning his appeasement of Hitler, BBC News last night enhanced their report about the death of the veteran Indian actor Shashi Kapoor with film clips of two different Bollywood stars, neither of which were Kapoor.
Come on, people.
Monumental eff-up on Newsnight
Well, somebody’s for the chop, I’d imagine.
Emily Maitlis just wrapped up this evening’s edition of Newsnight by reminding us that on November 20, 1937, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip were married at Westminster Abbey.
Ah, I thought, said read that out wrong, she meant to say 1947.
But no – she ploughed on, informing us that at the time, Britain’s relationship with Europe was about to change dramatically and Spain was in the midst of terrible domestic upheaval. [Oblique references to the imminent Second World War and the ongoing Spanish Civil War]. She also remarked how on that day in 1937 [yes, she said it again], the skies were grey, just like they were today.
“Well,” said Maitlis, manfully continuing with the script [I wonder whether by now she was beginning to get a little shiver and thinking “What? Can this be right?”], “seventy years on, very little changes. Goodnight.” [Smile]
I’m a big fan of the BBC, but how can such a terrible fuck-up be made on such an occasion? I’m presuming heads will roll. I hope the Queen wasn’t watching. [“Philip! Was I really only eleven when we got hitched?”].
The End Of The World As I Know It
Just seen a Currys PCWorld advert in which the presenter talks about “haitch-dee” [three mentions, so it’s no slip of the tongue]. I can’t believe nobody picked that up before they committed it to VT or whatever the F they use these days.
It’s “aitch”, you ignorant pricks.
Honestly, I can’t live on this planet any longer.
Different songs, same title – which are the strongest?
I’ve had The Turtles’ “Happy Together” bouncing around my head for a couple of days, then suddenly The Jam song with the same title popped in too. It got me thinking, “Blimey, they’re both pretty good.” Then I began to wonder which song title has cumulatively produced the strongest collection of compositions.
Here’s a few I could think of.
ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS [The Jam, David Bowie]; ALL I WANT IS YOU [Roxy Music, U2]; BEST OF MY LOVE [The Eagles, The Emotions]; CHANGES [David Bowie, Black Sabbath]; COME TOGETHER [The Beatles, Blur]; CRY ME A RIVER [Julie London, Justin Timberlake]; DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT [Thin Lizzy, Toploader]; DO IT AGAIN [The Beach Boys, Steely Dan]; DRIVE [The Cars, R.E.M.]; FIRE [The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Jim Hendrix, The Pointer Sisters, Kasabian]; HAPPY TOGETHER [The Turtles, The Jam]; HEAVEN [Talking Heads, Psychedelic Furs, Squeeze]; JUMP [The Pointer Sisters, Van Halen]; LET’S DANCE [Chris Montez, David Bowie, Chris Rea]; THE LOOK OF LOVE [Dusty Springfield, A.B.C.]; LUCKY MAN [Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Verve]; ONE [Harry Nilsson, Metallica, U2]; THE POWER OF LOVE [Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Huey Lewis & The News, Jennifer Rush]; SHOUT [Isley Brothers, Tears For Fears]; STAY [Maurice » Continue Reading.
The Shins
Venue:
Hammersmith Apollo
Date: 29/03/2017
Only UK gig until Brecon in August [they’re in Amsterdam tonight, Zurich tomorrow, then off to America for the whole summer], so we were super-pleased to get tickets for this sell-out show. This version of The Shins is the one James Mercer put together for the deliriously good “Port Of Morrow” album in 2012. Five years on, they are touting a new collection of songs called “Heartworms” and the stage was kookily dressed up as the album cover replete with skull and giant flowers. After a glitch with the bass drum sound on the opening number “Kissing The Lipless”, the set moved into top gear and the band served up some well-loved tunes from the earlier [Shins Mk1] records, including “Saint Simon”, “Phantom Limb” and “Caring Is Creepy”, in thoroughly infectious fashion. The encore showcased a heartwarming rendition of their breakthrough song “New Slang”, followed by current album-closer “The Fear” and a banging “Sleeping Lessons” into which they shoe-horned a verse of Tom Petty’s “American Girl”. A wonderful night at what I still think of as the Hammy O.
The audience:
Broad. Mainly late-twenties/thirties/forties, some older like me and the missus, couple of family » Continue Reading.
Football poetry: Not the new Wilco album
I was listening to radio commentary of the Middlesbrough v Man City match and a couple of phrases uttered by the commentators struck me as strangely poetic. “The Shins of Stuani” sounded rather like a cult science-fiction novel, while “Another Bravo Fumble” could have been the new Wilco album.
Any other random phrases you’ve ever heard and thought, “That’s a film I’d like to see”, or similar?
Taboo, anyone?
It’s marvellous to look at, has a rambling plot to get lost in, and a fine cast. Tom Hardy overdoes the enigmatic thing a little, but overall it’s an enjoyable romp with just enough of the dark stuff and one or two very fine stovepipe hats. Regency London never felt so enticing. In a bad way.
I just did the first three episodes back to back. Anybody else seen it?
Sherlock – the finale
That. Was. Terrible. With a capital F.
How to screw up four seasons of superlative escapist drama in one excruciating episode. That had Moffat’s filthy Doctor Who fingerprints all over it. Damn him.
John Berger has died
He was born in Hackney in 1926 but moved to France in 1962 and lived there for over 50 years.
Berger was an internationalist and a brilliant polymath – art critic, painter, poet, novelist, essayist. He was a quite indefinable genius with words and creative concepts. He wrote a landmark treatise on the Western cultural aesthetic, “Ways Of Seeing”, which is still relevant nearly half a century later. His novel “G” won the 1972 Booker Prize. I would also recommend “A Fortunate Man” [1967, with Jean Mohr], a study of a country doctor’s life, and “Selected Essays” [2001, edited by kindred spirit Geoff Dyer]. And there are fascinating TV clips to explore on YouTube.
Damo Suzuki’s Network
Venue:
The Hope & Ruin, Brighton
Date: 11/10/2016
Former Can singer [“Tago Mago”, “Future Days”, “Ege Bamyasi”], now touring his improvisational project around a few European venues. This was a smallish room above a pub in Queens Road, packed with long hairs, short hairs and no hairs, trench coats, leather jackets and anoraks.
Damo is tiny, 66 and possessed of a still powerful voice which suits his freeform no-particular-language vocals. The band were a younger bunch – synth, violin, cello, drums, percussion. Reminded me of early experimental Velvets. A whiny, shaky, scratchy opening reminiscent of Bowie’s “Station To Station” build-up grew into what I thought was going to be Can’s “Paperhouse” but developed into one meandering, mesmerising continuous structured extemporization which powered, then lilted, then powered again into a formidable miasma.
I was alternately intrigued and infuriated. Some passages thrilled, some hurt. From about ten minutes in – the point at which I realised this was probably going to be one long piece – I veered between begging for it all to stop and hoping it would never end. The whole thing lasted around fifty minutes and involved amazing stamina from all the musicians. The denouement was ecstatic as » Continue Reading.
UKIP leader to stand down after 18 days
Makes Big Sam’s England tenure look epic.
Blackstar saxman covers Bowie
Teaser from Donny McCaslin’s upcoming album Beyond Now; the voice is Jeff Taylor’s.
I have a small quantity…
…of a brittle silvery-coloured substance with an unusual propensity to expand upon freezing; more precisely, a pentavalent post-transition metal with the atomic number 83.
I asked a friend to look after it for me.
He told me to mind my own bismuth.
Wretched Europe
For the first time since…
No – for the first time… I really don’t care how England get on at a major tournament.
The England team are not the problem, they’re actually quite good. Europe is the problem. Things are falling apart. I’m a “remain” voter and now I worry even more than I did before that a “leave” vote by the UK will spell serious social unrest and inflame existing divisions in other EU countries. Civil wars in the near future seem a genuine possibility to me now.
I can’t remember disruption and violence this bad at a European Championship finals or World Cup finals for a long time, if ever. It’s just not worth it. The real football fans who are there, with their face paint, spongy hats and good faith, must be very depressed. Unless they’re German or Spanish or Italian, of course, and have a realistic chance of winning the thing.
Wake me up in 2025 when the Apocalypse has blown over.
Anyone else feeling hopeless and vulnerable?
