The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Generation Zero?

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No, that’s not a tangential insult aimed at the bearded brigade or the rucksack-toting tattooed wonder children, but a computer game.

It’s set in Sweden in the 1980s, and has you trying to unravel the mystery of why the country’s huge arsenal of autonomous defence robots has gone postal. Me neither, I had no idea that Sweden was a) riddled with huge underground defence bunkers – probably true in hindsight, what with the history with the pesky neighbours and all – and b) awash with massive autonomous killer robots almost 40 years ago. But there you go.

So the premise is simple; when you get back from your hols on a remote island, everyone has either buggered off or been slaughtered by the civil defence ironwork, which is now roaming the (vast) countryside shooting at things that breathe and move. You can play solo, as I have been for a few weeks now, or in co-op with others, which is likely where the biggest fun is to be had.

So my question is this – do any other Massivistas indulge in this hoot of a game on their PC?

Here’s something for you all to hear and enjoy

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There’s an album out there I’d like to tell you of, one of those that’s slipped under the radar – well at least under my radar – which has a very special magic all of it’s own and a bright charm that won’t fail to delight anyone with ears to hear great things.

I came across it as a result or having gone to see June Tabor sing last week in her guise as the voice of Quercus. I wondered about other collaborations she’d done, and found this album: Singing The Storm by Tabor/Thompson/Stevenson.

While listening to my newly received copy this evening, I note with surprise its general unavailability, yet astonished that there are currently other copies available from the dodgers at fairly silly prices – and I don’t mean silly high prices, I mean for a modest amount of quids.

This album is a glorious delight and richly repays close listening – the playing is phenomenal. My advice is to grab a copy while there are some to be had – I’m bewitched by it.

View post on imgur.com

Quercus

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Venue:

St Georges, Bristol

Date: 02/10/2019

The hall was two thirds full last night, which means that roughly enough people to fill a third of St. Georges missed out on a plum demonstration of the glorious and unmistakable power of one enormously talented voice, one mesmerising saxophone player and one skilled and fearless player of a honeyed Steinway.

Anyone who’s heard the combined magic of the members of Quercus will know that few singers can inhabit a song like June Tabor, and boy was she on form last night. She has the uncanny ability to sing the words as if they were springing directly from the writer’s pen; there’s no artistry finer than a singer’s complete immersion in the soul of a song, taking it straight to the listener’s heart. June, undoubtedly still at the very top of her game, has had decades of experience and is fully in control of the evening; she knows how the set must unfold, and helps us along with witty asides and gentle teasings reflecting upon the circumstances of the origins of each number. The audience are uncannily silent throughout each song; in fact, June remarked upon how they felt, from the » Continue Reading.

Investment opportunity

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I’m repurposing my potting shed. It’s going to be a Customs post for the border with Ireland. The great thing is it’s a couple of hundred miles from both the Republic and Norn, so it won’t affect the Good Friday agreement. Trouble is I’ll need to make a substantial infrastructure investment to install the weighbridge where the veg plot currently sits.

Anyone fancy coming in on the investment?

Oh, and we’ll need some stables for the Unicorns.

“Why should I?” The clarion call of the snowflake parent.

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It’s 3 o’clock on a Friday afternoon. I’ve just finished a particularly gnarly piece of work and I’m looking to call it a week and lay back into some music and beer. The primary school opposite Foxy Towers is kicking out in a few minutes and the yummy’s have started to appear in their oversized SUVs, parking badly in the narrow lane outside, just up from the school entrance, so that Jasmine and Teejay don’t have more than 30 metres to walk.

The one parked right outside my office window has a truck the size of Wiltshire, still has the engine running, and is concentrating hard on her mobile, probably trying to find TOWIE on Neflux or something equally engrossing. She’s breaking two traffic laws simultaneously, and pissing me off into the bargain. I go downstairs and put the kettle on for a wind-down cuppa, look out the the back and yes, she’s still there pumping fumes and tapping away. So I stroll out and walk around to the driver’s window. “Hello, would you mind turning your engine off while you wait, please?” I ask, polite and everything.

The response, with a snarl: “Why?”.

She’s straight in » Continue Reading.

An evening with Graham Nash

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Venue:

The Forum, Bath

Date: 18/07/2019

Well, what a blast! My mate and I decided to go to this when the tour dates were first announced months ago, and neither of us wanted to venture a guess as to how well the show would go. I’ve been a CSN/CSNY fan since the first album with the band on the porch at Cass’ house, and I’ve got pretty much everything they’ve ever done, together or singly, brilliant, bad or indifferent. I love their voices together more than any other band, and the back catalogue is bursting at the seams with gems. My old pal Mike is (was!) much less familiar with the canon; a battered vinyl of Four Way Street and maybe a couple of Hollies 7 inch singles. So Mike didn’t want to cast doubt over my enthusiasm, and I didn’t want to big the gig up so much that he’d maybe be disappointed.

We had front row seats in this exquisite venue, maybe 20 feet from the front of the stage, pretty much in the middle. It’s an old art-deco building which still has its original seats, beautiful wooden internal doors and so on, and is a » Continue Reading.

Salute to Freddie Jones, who has passed away. Trooper par excellence. RIP

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Another one bites the dust – Freddie Jones, who absolutely EVERYBODY must recognise as one of the greatest character actors of our time, has slipped away. I can’t begin to count the number of times his amiable fizzog has brightened up my entertainment. Post your own tribute below.

Here’s my fave, where he’s bloody creepy:

https://youtu.be/KO2itnKNd5k

Condolences to Toby and the family. Your dad was a top fellow.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48940202

Pattern recognition – we humans are good at it. Have a go yourself!

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Hello fellow human, can you spot the pattern in the list below?

David Amess (Conservative – Southend West) Steve Baker (Conservative – Wycombe) Henry Bellingham (Conservative – North West Norfolk) Paul Beresford (Conservative – Mole Valley) Bob Blackman (Conservative – Harrow East) Peter Bone (Conservative – Wellingborough) Suella Braverman (Conservative – Fareham) (Proxy vote cast by Steve Baker) Andrew Bridgen (Conservative – North West Leicestershire) James Brokenshire (Conservative – Old Bexley and Sidcup) Fiona Bruce (Conservative – Congleton) Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party – East Londonderry) James Cartlidge (Conservative – South Suffolk) William Cash (Conservative – Stone) Rehman Chishti (Conservative – Gillingham and Rainham) Christopher Chope (Conservative – Christchurch) Simon Clarke (Conservative – Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) Therese Coffey (Conservative – Suffolk Coastal) Philip Davies (Conservative – Shipley) David Davis (Conservative – Haltemprice and Howden) Nigel Dodds (Democratic Unionist Party – Belfast North) Steve Double (Conservative – St Austell and Newquay) Richard Drax (Conservative – South Dorset) David Duguid (Conservative – Banff and Buchan) George Eustice (Conservative – Camborne and Redruth) Kevin Foster (Conservative – Torbay) Roger Gale (Conservative – North Thanet) Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party – South Antrim) Robert Goodwill (Conservative – Scarborough and Whitby) James Gray » Continue Reading.

Be proud of your political representatives, they deserve your respect.

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Hysterical (I use the word advisedly), gesticular and on the verge of insanity, Auntie Tom Cobley works herself into a stroketastic frenzy addressing the assembled unfortunates of the EU earlier today. What a laughing stock we now are amongst the grown-ups.

Meanwhile toad-faced Farrago grins inanely in the next seat while mentally calculating what he’ll spunk the £30k a month on that he trousers – on top of his MEP salary – just from being someone who appeals to wankers, because there are so many of them.

Who’ll give me decent odds she blows a big one before too long, rolls over boggle-eyed and foaming, pops them and croaks, and then we get the BBC tribute, the hilarious Strictly moments and all the rest of the nauseous amelioratingly apologetic treatments we’ve come to expect from the media when someone downright bonkers and dangerous does the decent thing and shuffles off?

The world has gone mad when these people are PAID – BY US! – to behave as they do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48869520

Bu99er the Tories, I’m watching Top Gear on iPlayer tonight instead

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F*ck ’em. They can debate all they like; they’re all pissing into the wind – their party has done the damage and now I want to see it go down in flames forever.

Rory needs to jump ship, sharpish, unless he wants to go down in the same sucking vortex of lethal mediocrity; I wish all of the rest of them the worst years of their lives in the coming debacle, but I’ll cut him a little more slack if his voting record improves on other issues.

I’m having another beer and watching the recent Top Gear episode on catch up instead. Is anyone else here as heartily fed up with this entitled bunch of smug tossers as I am? What do you suggest watching instead? Even paint drying would probably be more educational.

See you next Tuesday, Boris Johnson, for the next vote.

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So the tory party are playing to form, voting as expected and hardening their arteries and attitudes as we gambol gaily towards a catastrophic exit.

With 85% of them in the ABC1 group, and two-thirds at or close to retirement age, 120-odd thousand I’m-allright-Jacks at the tail-end of having-a-clue-about-anything-at-all are wagging the rest of us, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Democracy, innit?

ABC WTF Oz?

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Can we have some unbiased local angles on whatever the heck is going on in Oz as regards the state versus public service broadcasting?

From the coverage I’ve seen thus far, I can’t say I can easily reconcile recent police activities with the laid back ocker attitude to life I’ve come to associate with my antipodean chums.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-48522729

Tickets for Bath Festival Finale – Sunday all afternoon and evening – Van the Man headlining

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Simple question: anyone here want two tickets to the above? It’s this Sunday, June 2nd, and the gates open at 1:00 pm, with the event ending around 11:30 pm. Weather forecast is looking good.

I bought two adult tickets aaaaages back, but due to circumstances etc. we can’t go.

Tickets cost me £50 a pop; if you can use them, PM me and just make an offer; I can hand ’em over anytime until Sunday lunchtime, or courier them to you if that’s easier.

Gretchen has a string quartet…

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..and they make a wonderful sound. By the time you read this, Gretchen and her performers have played their Bristol and London gigs for the current tour, which is advertised as having “strings attached”.

We were there on Friday night, at a hushed St. Georges – obviously rammed with long term fans – where we heard a blinding set of songs; it was yet another treat of an evening.

Her band played a blinder, not swamping the songs but supporting them, and the strings really worked their extra magic. Gretchen announced early on that they were recording the show, so I can only hope that we will be treated with another live album as a result of the ‘strings attached’ experiment, and that one or two of the tracks will have come from Friday’s performance. Certainly, when she started ‘On a Bus to St. Cloud’ the place went silent and you could have heard a very small pin drop for the duration of the song, such was the calm of the moment, as 500 plus people allowed themselves to just go with the flow and the feeling of a very special and human piece of observational songwriting. Earlier on » Continue Reading.

Where the HECK is the latest CD Swap thread?

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OK, so I’m suffering at home with bronchitis, going nuts with boredom, when it occurs to me that I haven’t yet put the finishing touches (run-out groove etchings, hidden tracks, etc. etc.) to my contribution to the latest swaperama thingamajig.

So I fire up the various apps, rip a load of Tuvaluan throat-singing epics and obscure Sussex farmers singing agricultural favourites from the Napoleonic wars, and burn a couple of discs to send to my victim, er, swap buddies.

When it comes to finding the CD Swap thread, I can’t. Can we make it sticky in some way, or in any case possible to locate? Just until we’re done?

Tickets for Kathryn Tickell’s gig, Wednesday night in Bristol, going spare here…

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I have two rather good seats for the Kathryn Tickell gig at St. Georges in Bristol this Wednesday night (April 3rd) but can no longer make it to the gig.

If any of you good people of the Afterword can use them, or pass them on to friends who can use them, please get in touch as quickly as possible.

I don’t want any money for them, though they cost me £22 a piece, but if you can see your way to bunging a few quid to my pals at a dog rescue centre I know, that would be a nice compromise.