A Kaleidoscope of Piles
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Don't you just love Duracell! In April (I've just noticed) they started colour-coding their batteries, so it is much much easier to tell the difference between an AA and AAA cell. Great! No really, this has enhanced my life no end, when I can remember which colour is which it is then a positive boon.An engaging blog by a young musician. The Story of My life. Reminds me of me.
London: a disparate group gathers in the pouring rain outside Aldgate tube for the Ripper tour. None of them have umbrellas.
Marc Almond has recorded an album of Russian songs: Heart on Snow.
The Beatles' Let It Be has been rereleased without the Phil Spector production - Naked. It's number 71 so I expect you already knew this. Interesting reviews there.
A film came out on DVD in May which sounds worth watching. 28 Days Later. Yes! Let's hope there is at least one good film next year.
If Alan Partridge was forced to write a blog, would it be like the XFM Breakfast Show? ω 12:44:00 AM.
He screamed like a panther in the middle of the night
Saturday, December 27, 2003
(Name that tune!)We are so lucky to have Apple Computer. This year they have refreshed most of their range of cunningly designed, sexy, useful, intricate devices and then last week when I thought they had gone a bit quiet they made available new versions of OS X, QuickTime, iTunes, Java 3D, Xcode, Final Cut Pro, LiveType, DVD Studio Pro and Remote Desktop. Amazing: how do they do it? There's room for somebody in Apple to write a book on their business methods, maybe titled: How not to put a foot wrong - most of the time.
Another computer company I was fond of was Digital: now part of Compaq who keep telling me they are the new HP. There's an interesting book about their downfall: DEC Is Dead, Long Live DEC: The Lasting Legacy of Digital Equipment Corporation. ω 11:24:00 PM.
Transcendental Beyond
Thursday, December 11, 2003
I forgot to tell you that the cable channel BBC4 had a J. G. Ballard season, which repeated 1970s documentaries on the great man (excerpts from Crash dramatized by Gabrielle Drake squeezing in and out of wrecked cars in iconic manner; our Jim standing around on concrete carparks) and featured a new film called Home starring Anthony Sher in his first TV role for ten years. Mike has written a great review on k-punk. Home was rivetting and I started to believe in the new universe that the house became.I was pleased to see that film director David Cronenberg's reaction to reading Crash was the same as mine: he thought it was the most perverse, disgusting thing ever and put it back on the shelf to read another day.
Another gem was Thirteen to Centaurus from 1965. I wonder if the BBC are embarrassed to show these old plays: they are so much more intelligent than the stuff they make now.
Later I read a few bits from an old copy of RE/Search and discovered a whole tranche of pages was missing, others were duplicated. If I were a Ballard hero I could discern some meaning from this after making a collage. ω 2:07:00 AM.
Failure to communicate
Monday, December 08, 2003
Everyone's Jamming Cell PhonesMobile phone signal jammers are illegal in the US, but that doesn't mean they're not used. They're apparently increasingly common, and are expected to spread quite a bit in the near future. The FCC says that using a jammer is considered "theft" of airwaves, because that spectrum has been allocated as property to a commercial entity. The writer of the article wonders, though, about "passive jamming" - such as putting up buildings made of material that block out cell phone signals. While some don't like the idea of having their signals blocked - others think it may become a lot more popular in the future, if only to have areas to "disconnect". The article points to the rise of camera phones as a "bottom up surveillance society" as a reason why we might want areas that have no signal.
Humanity will survive information deluge - Sir Arthur C. Clarke. [via MacSurfer.com]
Billions for Bombs.
Journeys into Darkness
Monday, December 01, 2003
I once had a short piece published in Roadworks in collaboration with old chum Allen Ashley: now the magazine is called Midnight Street and they are running a short story competition which Al is judging: up to 5000 words on the theme 'journeys into darkness'. ω 3:20:00 AM.Inappropriate Breakfast Item
During their gig tonight at the Bloomsbury Theatre, Caravan played a short acoustic set for the first time ever in thirty-five years. Despite this respite, my ears are still buzzing. I thought Caravan had passed me by, since I never bought any of their records back in the 'seventies, but I recognized a couple of songs like Nine Feet Underground.They did two encores, and rocked with precision. Most excellent: not often that one hears a spoons solo or sees a song accompanied by hedge trimmers.
Although far too good and too musical to succeed in today's market, anyone wanting to check them out should try All Over You Too - the current line-up is superb. Their new album is Inappropriate Breakfast Item, named after an incident in America when Geoffrey Richardson tried to take some croissants from breakfast to eat later. Geoffrey is a newcomer to the group - he joined in 1972. Kevin Ayers and Gong are also still going: these Canterbury bands are real survivors. ω 12:45:00 AM.
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