It’s HERE! IT’S A BRAND NEW YEAR!! Apologies for the delay, but as you can imagine, there were wild festivities to say farewell to 2020 and welcome the new year in.
Anyway, we’re all here now, so please gather round and share – what have you been listening to, reading, watching – and are there any other pastimes you’d like to tell us about ?
Seen
El Hoyo – The Platform. Terrific Netflix film about “a vertical prison with one cell per level. Two people per cell. Only one food platform and two minutes per day to feed.” It’s a metaphor for capitalist society, where the people at the top get as much as they want to eat, the people lower down get the leftovers and the people right at the bottom are left with feck all. It’s violent, intense, gripping and thought provoking. I loved it.
Honey Boy. Ever since Shia LaBeouf stole the show with his hilarious off-script method performance at the read-through thingy of Fast Times at Ridgemont High a while back, I’ve been curious to see him in a proper film. This month I’ve watched two, Honey Boy and The Peanut Butter Falcon. Both very good films and he’s very excellent in both. Honey Boy is the most interesting of the two as LaBeouf wrote it, all about how his relationship with his alcoholic abusive father eventually led him to rehab. The Undoing’s child actor Noah Jupe gives another excellent performance; that boy’s headed for stardom, mark my words.
Read
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize and endorsed by Barack Obama. About racism and injustice and stuff. Fiction based on a real reformatory school in Florida where delinquents were sent and got beaten and sometimes killed. As gruesome and sad as it sounds. Does it deserve the Pulitzer? How the feck should I know? I’ve not read much else that was published in the past year. Looking at other books that have won the Pulitzer in the past, I’d say it’s not in the same league as The Color Purple or To Kill A Mockingbird. But it’s a helluva lot better than The Goldfinch.
Another shout for El Hoyo. I think it’s been available a while as it was months ago, I think, that I caught it. Visceral fare indeed.
I almost watched El Hoyo the other night, but went for Tarde Para La Ira (The Fury of a Patient Man) instead. Also recommended.
Great set-up with El Hoyo, but like many a horror film the film-makers find it’s a lot easier to set something up than resolve it.
Read:
Speaking of Pulitzer winners – I read the excellent novel The Stone Diaries by my latest favourite author, Carol Shields. 10/10, even better than Larry’s Party and now I need to buy everything she ever wrote. The way she dissects a life, an unremarkable but unique life, from birth to death is brilliant. Switching narratives and recording the different voices and thoughts of not only the main character but also the side characters surrounding them, with a few letters and to-do lists thrown in to really give the full picture of life in all its banality and greatness. Highly recommended!
Still reading the Obama tome…it’ll take a while because I only read it at lunch, while I quickly gulp down my kefir and muesli (always in a hurry to not miss my bus to work), and it’s so very long. I’m currently on page 260 and he’s won the election but hasn’t moved in yet. No wonder he’ll need a Part Two to cover all of his presidency!
Other than those I’m reading Julia Child’s autobiography on my commute (I enjoy her enthusiasm on food, so far it’s still just OK – but I’m not that far in yet), and my bathroom book is How To Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy (the opposite of the Obama tome in size…just started reading it yesterday evening, haven’t been to the bathroom at home more than twice since, and is almost through it! He’s very encouraging and is charming and funny, but I don’t want to write any songs – been there, done that – I just want Jeff to have all of my money because he’s earned it…also a bit of a completist in all things Tweedy 😀 ).
Over Christmas (starting late on Christmas Eve as usual, and completing it in a few sittings, finishing on New Years Eve) I continued my cherished tradition of reading A Christmas Carol by Dickens aloud to the appreciative audience of me, myself and I. Hamming it up, crying floods, blowing my nose so often that a small hill of used tissues heap up on the table beside me; it’s what I look forward to the most about the holidays these days.
Seen:
I don’t think I’ve had the time or peace of mind to sit through a whole film or program longer than thirty minutes in all of December. Saw most of the documentary Greta (about Thunberg, not Garbo), both interesting and frustrating to watch, but also a bit dull after a while, which is why I didn’t last all the way. I may go back and watch the ending later (but that hardly ever happens, despite good intentions…)
Heard:
nothing apart from revising the 2020 albums in preparation for the end of year list. And my bank account tells me it’ll be a while before I buy the first album of 2021!
AOB.
Christmas was a bit quiet and dull this year…but I rather liked it that way! Being an introvert has its advantages…
@Locust – I would dispute that your Christmas could be dull, if you were giving an impassioned reading of A Christmas Carol over the season…
Ah, I mostly meant solitary I suppose, rather than dull! No family party this year, no grand meals, no gatherings at cafés for hot chocolate after walks with siblings etc.
I do enjoy myself immensly as I read to my imagined audience…mind you; if I did have an actual audience, my reading would turn absolutely awful, as I know from experience…
It’s been out for a few months, but having really enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix over Christmas, Mrs Lefthand and I then binged on Unorthordox, which is about 43 times better. A better or more compelling performance in a leading role you will not find. And it led to a very late night and an even bigger hangover on my first day at work on Monday. Eek….
I don’t know I thought both excellent but QG was a more inventive, lively series, working on different levels. Unorthodox was a fairly straight telling of a tale, albeit very well done. I’d rate QG higher.
Moi aussi. QG was a world I’d never been shown before, whereas Unorthodox’s “escape from an oppressive religious background” has been shown so many times (Yentl, anyone?). Plus I’d say the lead character/performance in QG was far more interesting than the rather emotionless, deadpan lead in Unorthodox.
Loved Queen’s Gambit. Used to play chess a lot which probably helps, but I thought it was a very well told story, perhaps let down by the last episode a bit, final scene was great though.
I agree that the seventh and final episode of The Queen’s Gambit was significantly less good than the previous six.
Nice to see Bill Camp as Mr Shaibel – his juiciest role since his barnstorming performance as Dennis Box in “The Night Of” (2016)
Not much watching except working my way through Mad Men for the second time, now hitting peak form in Season 5 (and see below).
Listening: McCartney III, it’s pretty good, and is indeed something of a grower. I think some of the positive reviews have been well over the top, though.
Reading: Talking Heads and Kraftwerk special Uncut issues. Strange that Byrne does the foreward for the Heads one, but the (fewer) Tom Tom Club records get more relative space than his solo records. I also worked out from their individual track ratings that Remain in Light was rated lower than most of the albums that preceded it. I am more and more convinced that these ratings are generated randomly or made by someone who has never heard the record.
In other business, my Christmas break project was experimenting with a DVR * (digital video recorder) that can record OTA (over the air) TV as well as streaming channels. Really cool thing is that with some software and a little computer know-how you can set up your own 24/7 channels streaming your own media from a computer. Haven’t got it working properly yet, but have tried out Hancock, Beatles and Top of the Pops channels (amongst others) to dip into. Fun when you don’t know what to watch and can just see what’s playing right now.
I am intending to reduce all my streaming subscriptions to a minimum, think Netflix will be going for a few months, probably Prime too. My daughter insists on Disney Plus.
* Channels DVR
December was the month to lump on football and cinema as it would appear the only person in the country who didn’t think there wasn’t going to be a lockdown in the New Year was Fat Boy Johnson… unless, of course, Fat Boy was lying.
Cinema:
Couple of meals in the restaurant and …
“Falling” (highly recommended), “The Mole Agent” (wonderful; much was made by the critics about how this film was made, rather than the fact that everyone who saw it seemed to be talking about it … and it’s a film about a care home in Chile … I certainly wasn’t thinking about that subject when December started!), and “Singing in the Rain” on Christmas Eve.
Football:
We went to a host of games knowing that this season, at the level I like to watch sport anyway, isn’t going to finish. Everyone had the same idea, the crowds were 2 or 3 times the norm. Even did a mercy dash into the middle of Cornwall for a match which got postponed.
TV:
For about the fifth time… “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries,” about a female detective in 1920s Melbourne; I’m in good company, Roger McGuinn loves it.
Reading:
Cornish newspapers … 1946-1970.
January:
Avoid the Sainted Dave.
Might stop listening to Mayo and Kermode, they’re getting more sentimental and giggly by the minute, and I don’t like dodgers at the best of times.
Hope that the Sri Lanka-England series gets played – I’ll be amazed if it happens, but here’s hoping.
Music: One album a day … always Golden Age … Monday – “The Tumbler” John Martyn, yesterday – “Get the Picture” The Pretty Things, today – “Cauldron” Fifty Foot Hose.
Gave up on Mayo and Kermode about 2 years ago, quite a while after they disappeared up their own back passages.
What a busy month aside from the xmas festivities which were charming and small in scale to satisfy the twerp who thinks he is running the country.
READ: Just started the Mark Lanegan autobiography Sing backwards and weep.He writes well and I havent got to the sticky bits yet but can tell it is going to be brutal.
SEEN: As mentioned above The Peanut butter Falcon is a really good film .
Queens Gambit I loved from start to finish.
Bridgerton is an enjoyable period drama which is perfect for the ladies and mildly amusing. my wife doesnt usually like period dramas but this one was right up her street.
However my favourite this month was the BBC series The Serpent which was just fantastic. I know true life dramas use poetic licence but if half of this was true then the main protagonist was both inspirational, demonic and lucky in equal measure. How he got away with what he did for as long as he did is pretty unbelievable. Its on BBC iplayer – If you havent seen it i urge you to check it out. Brilliant.
HEARD:
Drive by Truckers – The New OK. Love this band but for them to release their best two albums in the same year after a long career is nothing short of exceptional. Not sure if this better The Unravelling but it is damn good.
I love Nils Lofgren and picked up his 2 cd set Weathered which is the tour for material from his last studio album Blue with Lu. There is a live jam that segues into Papa was a Rolling stone that segues into I came to dance. 16 Minutes of sheer brilliance.
M Ward – Think of Spring – he reworks Billie Holiday’s Lady in Satin – hushed, reverential and utterly charming.
I didnt buy Paul Weller’s On Sunset when it was released because I thoughtI had as much Weller as I need. Decided to jump in when it was £4.99 on the Dodgers site. Glad i did – easily his best since Stanley Road. Top of his game.
Applewood road which is a trio of females lead by Emily Barker – exquisite harmonies on a bunch of songs that are their own but sound like they came from the Mountains of Virginia any time in the last century or before. Absolutely love this cd which has been around for a year or two now.
Finally I came across a cd purely by accident by an Aussie outfit called Cookin on 3 burners. Hammond lead funk that recalls The James Taylor Quartet or Jimmy Smith. Stonking.
This is the cover that drew me in:
like this? Why not the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio? They have a new album out this month, but for a taster this is their album ffrom a couple of years ago. Colemine Records their label is always interesting.
@Alias right up my street – thanks for the tip
Here’s my favourite jazz organist. A highly-modified Hammond B-3, as you will hear.
Listened : Kris Drever’s voice could charm the gargoyles off the churches, but neither last year’s solo album nor Lau’s Folk Songs get anywhere near previous heights. Every now and then, I think Lau like to remind the folk world that, for all the mischief and experimentation, they are still a folk band at heart. A couple of year’s back, they toured with a set opening with an ‘unplugged’ first half; it felt like a riposte to critics who thought they weren’t the real deal. But these five songs feel pedestrian by comparison.
Fortunately Tom Moore and Archie Churchill-Moss have brought out a new Lau album for us. The debt is clear, right down to the loops and the deliberately audible wheezes from melodeon bellows. I’ve always heard something extra in these guys’ arrangements, and they pop up accompanying many doyens of the folk world. Have they got what it takes to stand on their own? I think so, though I’ve yet to see how they bring their double act to the stage, sans vocals from Jack Rutter ….
… who also has a new album out. I’ve already identified three songs on it I want to learn to sing – always a good sign.
Fancy that;
https://www.folkradio.co.uk/2020/11/tom-moore-archie-moss-spectres/
@retropath2
and over here at Concert 6
http://www.baroqueattheedge.co.uk/category/event/
Always the fiddle player who gets duped into play violin……
Listening: A not-for-profit gang called Jazz In Britain (find them on Bandcamp) have been releasing some fabulous vintage British jazz recently, drawn from the archives of various late legends including Jon Hiseman and Ron Mathewson. My recent JiB purchases have included the Ray Russell Quartet’s ‘Spontaneous Event Vol.1 – Live 1967-69’ (download), bassmeister Ron Mathewson’s ‘Memorial’ anthology (download) and Group Sounds Four & Five’s ‘Black & White Raga’ (CD). I know nothing of Ray (a guitarist) but this live collection is intoxicating, exciting stuff, imbued with the air of late-night Soho in the 60s. Group Sounds Five (losing one member to become Group Sounds Five) was a mid-60s outfit featuring Jon Hiseman, Jack Bruce/Ron Rubin, Henry Lowther, Lyn Dobson and Ken McCarthy – progressive jazzers itching to move forward, and most of them soon did just that, in all sorts of exciting directions. This album contains just about the only aural evidence of the group – two BBC broadcasts from November 1965 and June 1966 (Bruce just days away from Cream), long thought lost. It’s modal jazz in the Miles mode, and the title track is a hitherto unknown Mike Taylor composition. All the JiB stuff can be previewed on Bandcamp – wonderful stuff! The curious should probably start by giving the Ray Russell set a listen…
Also released digitally, in this case by an artist very much with us, is the Irish fiddle legend Martin Hayes’ ‘Live at the NCH 2020’ EP – typically soulful, exquisite music, with two subtle accompanists on this occasion. Martin is a magician, in my view – an incredible player, with a revolutionary concept: to play Irish music with the fullest range of space and dynamics, not at 100 MPH. I well recall how sensational this approach was when he first emerged as a major force in Irish music in the mid 90s. I lost touch with his music around the mid 2000s – I did see one performance by his four- or five-piece band The Gloaming, but it wasn’t for me. Strangely, it did seem to be for lots of other people – who possibly weren’t aware of the purer magic of hearing him in a sparser context. The two accompanists – spectral piano and the periodic sounds of other stringed instruments – on this new live EP (26 minutes, mind!) really understand Martin’s ‘thing’. It’s a fabulous follow-up, of sorts, to Martin’s ‘Live in Seattle’ album from c.1999, with guitar minimalist Denis Cahill. And it’s only a fiver.
https://martinhayesfiddle.bandcamp.com/releases
WATCHING: Snooker – lots of it. Mrs H keeps finding tournaments on obscure channels and recording them. Though the Masters is starting on BBC this Sunday. we’ll try to watch it as it happens rather than months later… Also watching ‘Richard Osman’s House of Games’. I don’t care for ‘Pointless’ or this sort of show generally, but it feels like half an hour of gentle fun most days in a grim time. Plus ‘Only Connect’ and ‘University Challenge’.
READING: Some Julian Symons (60s-70s British crime) novels – modern, for me. Read a Bill Cotton autobiography from a chazza recently – the kingpin of Light Entertainment at the BBC for decades. Fascinating in places (I’ve a soft spot for Light Ent / Variety memoirs), but he was a tad ‘of his time’ in his views here and there. And one winces on coming across gushing references to Jimmy S, even (thankfully) if brief. I was slightly involved in the just-out Barbara Thompson ‘Live at the BBC’ 14CD set from Repertoire, and Babs’ daughter Ana kindly gave me a copy of her also-just-out autobiography ‘Journey to a Destination Unknown’ (published by those good people at Jazz in Britain). Beautifully presented and fascinating – a woman in not only the music business but in jazz (with brief forays into pop / cabaret in the 60s)… and an instrumentalist, not a singer. It’s easy to read and doesn’t require any previous knowledge of her career, but you’ll want to hear her music when you’ve read it. I’m about 30% in (to the book) at present.
AOB: I’m very fortunate to be unaffected by Covid job-wise. Aside from a varied slew of proofreading at present, I’m curating an expanded version of Repertoire’s ‘Pretty Things at the BBC’ collection, which will be 6CDs – an exciting project. Repertoire’s mastering maestro Eroc is world-class, and a delightful fellow, and he will be mastering the entire set afresh (c.60 ‘new’ tracks plus the original content from the 2015 4CD edition). My ‘occasional band’ Bourgeois Fury put out (i.e. on YouTube) last month a new rant about Northern Ireland politicians called… ‘Northern Ireland Politicians’. It’s fronted by Shock Treatment legend Dave McLarnon. Dave pitched the idea of a ltd edition vinyl 45 release for the track – with 2018’s ‘Smash the System’ on the b-side. I’m amazed I hadn’t thought of that myself! 😀 So we’ll probably do that… A friend badgered me on the phone about it being time I made a solo album (a guitary thing, I think he meant) last week. I’m not in any way as prolific or driven as, say, Twang with this sort of thing – I’m really in awe that Twang can pick a theme and turn out an album on that theme within a month – and I’m perfectly aware that there’s no need or demand for me to do anything of the sort. But it hasn’t stopped me before… It felt like a ‘commission’, though, and something positive to do in a bleak time. It won’t be an album, but an EP – and I’ll get my jazz piano pal Scott Flanigan to help out on it. 🙂
Ray Russell is one of those names that crops up now and then but doesn’t seem to stick.
I knew he was a highly-regarded session guitarist but I didn’t realise (or hadn’t noticed) that he was also a pretty prolific composer of TV themes. His Wikipedia entry is interesting and his Discogs.com entry is quite extensive.
I will be following up that Martin Hayes lead; all that you say is true. But I also love The Gloaming!
That Jazz In Britain collection on Bandcamp is quite something. They’ve just announced a new Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet album to be released in April. It’s live material from the quintet’s early years (1964) with Colin Purbrook on piano and from the archives of Neil Ardley and bassist Dave Green. Who would have thought that we would have two recent Rendell Carr reissues?
Yep. I’ve bookmarked their page for when my finances are a bit better. Car repair bill coming soon and just forked out for road tax and insurance.
Good piece here, by Richard Williams, about that Group Sounds Four and Five album on Jazz in Britain.
https://thebluemoment.com/2021/01/02/group-sounds-four-five/
The brief period in the late 60s when the younger generation of jazzmen and jazz-attuned rock bands started to explore new avenues has always appealed to me. I’m thinking of Manfred Mann Chapter Three and Keith Tippett’s Centipede.
Read: KolymskyHeights (Lionel Davidson/Phillip Pullman) after it was recommended on here by @mosleymole (?). I enjoyed this book, a great Cold (literally) War yarn and followed up by reading Davidson’s The Rose Of Tibet which wasn’t as good but could have been with better editing.
Heard: Been playing lots of LPs in the last month, some pre-owned, some new: several Arlo Guthrie who I obviously was aware of through Alice’s Restaurant and Greatest Hits. I really enjoyed them (too many to name or remember). The Rose City Band an off shoot of Wooden Shjips main man Ripley Johnson, this album is well known and liked by many AWers. Some Drive By Truckers live LPs, l love this band and as @SteveT says their two 2020 studio albums are very good. Lots of Doug Sahm LPs (pre-owned) superb Americana. The Baroness bought me Shakey’s Archives II, although 3 of the CDs had been previously released there is lots of great music to be heard, maybe not if you don’t like Neil Young.
Watched: 39 Days about the prelude to WW1, enjoyed this and it left a lot of questions of what might have been. Occupied a Norwegian/French series set in the very near future. Norway goes Green and stops the last of the planets oil and gas production The EU don’t agree and connives with those criminal Ruskies who they get to invade 🇳🇴 Norway. I enjoyed it but…
Doug Sahm is always worth looking out for, a reliable and prolific name ahead of his premature demise. From early days as/with the Sir Douglas Quintet, thru’ lashings of solo output and later days as a 1/4 of the Texas Tornadoes. Augie Meyers, his usual right hand man still keeps the flame alive.
Aye Retro I have many of Doug Sahm`s albums in all his guises and not a dud amongst them.
@baron-harkonnen glad you liked Kolmynsky Heights, a slow burn at the start, and always at risk of teetering into incredulity, but he brings the story off brilliantly by the end. Proper page turner. I agree that Rose of Tibet is inferior, but must add Night of Wenceslas, his first to my to-read list.
WATCHED: seen a couple of good movies recently: Melancholic is a 2018 Japanese movie that ends up as an odd but very successful mix of yakuza thriller, romance, and family drama. The lead character is a recent graduate from a prestigious university who is socially inept and drifting through life. He gets a job in a local bathhouse, only to discover that after hours it is used by the yakuza for executions and body disposal. At the same time he is starting a hesitant romance with an old school colleague. I really liked this. For a film where like 90% of the cast are totally gung ho about stabbing people to death and then chucking the bodies in a furnace it’s properly likeable, even heartwarming, and I found myself genuinely caring about what was going to happen as the climax came closer and closer. Best film I’ve seen so far this year.
Why Don’t You Just Die? is a Russian film that is essentially one of those spaghetti westerns where everybody double-crosses everybody else to get the gold for themselves, except it’s entirely (a few flashbacks aside) set in a small Moscow apartment. It’s extremely violent, albeit in a Looney Toons sort of way, but very entertaining. Disney’s new Mulan was entertaining enough. I’m a sucker for Chinese legendary / mythic stuff, and I always like to see a wirework fight scene, so it pushed my buttons as much as an Americanised family friendly take on wuxia could. Fun, but not likely to stay with me for very long. We avoided the Hootenanny by rewatching Airplane! on NYE. An absolute avalanche of gags, some of which are flat out brilliant, some of which haven’t aged well at all. The 13 year old sat absolutely stone faced throughout.
READ: I’ve started rereading Alastair Reynolds‘ Revelation Space books. Whisper it, but I reckon he does big space opera stuff better than Iain M Banks did. Catriona Ward‘s The Last House On Needless Street is a superb gothic thriller, the twistyish turnyish thing I’ve read in ages. The Galaxy And The Ground Within by Becky Chambers continues, and supposedly concludes, her Wayfarers SF series. I think the thing I like most about her books is that they are nice. It’s a word that is too often used as a sneer or a substitute for cloying and twee, but it’s the apposite word for the way she shows us the best versions of ourselves, with love, principles and courage as the cardinal virtues.
LISTENED: tip of the hat to @retropath2 for highlighting the Cunning Folk album. It’s one of the very best occult influenced folk mixed with electronica records I’ve heard this month. I’m still digging The Avalanches, as discussed elsewhere, and I’ve also been grooving on Cocteau Twins. I largely missed them at the time (my go to for wafty ethereal 4ADness has always been Dead Can Dance), but I’ve listened to Blue Bell Knoll loads over the last few weeks, and it’s excellent. Nothing‘s Great Dismal is a record I picked up on from the end of year polls, some quality muscular shoegaze (more Swervedriver than Chapterhouse), as are the Nat Birchall & Al Breadwinner albums @duco01 and others have raved about. Shame on me for taking so long to pick up on them!
Read
Tender is the Flesh by Augstina Bazterrica
In a dystopian future (is there another kind?) animals have been infected by a virus that makes them poisonous to eat. In order to satisfy humankind’s insatiable taste for meat, world leaders declare that cannibalism is legal. More than a treaty for the benefits of a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle the book interrogates capitalism, greed, consumerism and human’s ability to adapt to the unthinkable. Gruesome and uncomfortable.
Broken by Don Winslow
A sort of taster menu that highlights the author’s various styles and stories. One reads like a shortened version of his novel The Force, another is a prequel to Savages. There’s a nifty crime thriller in the mode of Elmore Leonard whist the final story, centred on the decision to take the children of people entering the US illegally draws from the well of anger and rage that is the source of The Cartel novels.
Dead Man’s Walk by Larry McMurtry
This sequel to Lonesome Dove was everything I wanted it to be; a rollicking adventure with well-drawn characters, exciting set pieces and menacing bad guys.
Seen
There were meagre rations on the telly over the month (I am seriously thinking about ditching the full fat Virgin package and getting Disney and / or Netlflix)
Despite all that, there were a few tasty morsels amongst the pap.
Death of Stalin (A queasy mix of humour and horror)
The Revenant (Grimy and visceral.)
Inside Out (As my daughter grows older, this film seems to become more relevant to me. I have seen this numerous times, but it still has the power to make me cry).
Gone Fishing (Sweet natured, thoughtful and calming).
Heard
December was mainly a Spotifu list of Christmas classics old and new.
“Dystopian future” – this is still a very common phrase and I think it’s very dated. We should just be saying “future”.
Good point.
@marwood we did exactly that – what Virgin offer over and above the freeview channels we weighed against Netflix and found mostly unused. So downgrading to their most basic package from ‘fullhouse’ has saved us £20 a month. Be prepared for call centre hell as they surprise surprise don’t let you do it on the website, but when we did get through they were polite and helpful.
At the risk of this turning into Top Tips, at the start of lockdown last year, we reviewed all our outgoings and I was able to cut our mobile phone bills in half by going to O2 and saying that I had 5 contracts and wanted the same new members deal I found on a comparison site. They agreed and I saved £50 a month. It took about 45 minutes on web chat.
Virgin are buggers like that. I wanted to downgrade TV and upgrade Broadband.
Broadband upgrade = £35, TV downgrade = £10 saving. But … if I upgrade the TV, I get a broadband increase for a tenner a month.
It’s cheaper to upgrade everything (even though I dont want it) than just increase the bit I fo want.
Buggers!
I am steeling myself for a long, drawn out conversation with Virgin (as you say, their website is great at selling you stuff – not so good when you want to downgrade!). But worth it to save some money and invest in The Mandalorian and the new Marvel TV shows.
Being out of contract, I changed my Virgin package today & found it surprisingly easy.
Ringing 150 & choosing thinking of leaving (option 4) I first had a recorded message saying they’d reduce it by £4 for the next 6 months – basically avoiding the March price increase – I waited to talk to someone.
I’ve gone from the “full house” package, with loads of stuff I never watch (kids, animals) to the basic Big package”with drama”
It means I lose the +1 channels & most of the HD options, but BT no longer have tennis & I can get the Eurosport app.(£40 for the year)
I’ve also changed my landline from the “free calls anytime” to just free calls at weekends – which reflects how much I use it.
Keeping broadband the same (M100] my bill will drop from £107 to £70.
The Virgin website is rather frustrating as it doesn’t show you the options for downsizing & I had to look at a channel guide to see what the options are, but the Call Centre assistant was friendly, helpful & didn’t push me to keep the bigger package.
Yes I think they know when it comes to TV they are the past rather than the future, but as a broadband provider they are set fair for many years.
@marwood Death of Stalin was one of the few things i really enjoyed over Christmas.
Simon Russell Beale as Beria was chilling. Cruel, spiteful, conniving.
It is a real shame that he doesn’t do more film parts. Maybe it’s his choice.
Seen
Quite enjoyed The Serpent on BBC. Was a little style over substance, but it is a chilling, yet fascinating story. I’m sure there is a good book out there, as it seems a lot of artist license was granted to the making of the series.
For some unknown reason, I have always been reluctant to watch the US version of The Office. My son insisted I give it a go, so now it’s on Netflix I did just that – and loved it.
Heard
Been enjoying the ambient album by J. Willgoose, Esq of Public Service Broadcasting. Goes by the name of Late Night Final and the album is titled ‘A Wonderful Hope’.
Also took the time to listen to all The Divine Comedy vinyl reissues over the holidays. They sound terrific and the inner sleeve notes by Neil are great to read along to whilst listening.