Sad but beautiful

it's good to know that, in the face of horrible circumstances, some people are born romantics. Beautiful.

Bring out your dead!!!

I'm sure this is being greeted in the respective boardrooms as a fantastic bit of trans-brand synergy, two quintessentially british brands uniting etc etc, but frankly I see something more sinister.



Marmite and Guiness coming together? Wasn't there something about that in the Book of Revelations, in between the whore of babylon overdoing it slightly on the blood of saints and wise words about anointing one's eyes with eyesalve?

14 And then I come unto the tabernacle where victuals lie
15 and a voice said 'Lo! the yeast shall combine with that which is already yeast-ed
16 and the beast will arise in the seven corners of the kitchen
17 The black drink shall blacken further and black shall be the matter
18 and all movement shall stop and blacken further'
19 and all who heard where sore afraid and did infuse water with herbs
20 and added the juice of the four-legged...er...unto..it.

Business Time

OK, so they've only been featured countless times on TV, had their own advert and their own series on Radio4, but somehow I feel that Flight of the Conchords are mine. Mine! Mwahahhaa.

I was going to put on a video version of Business Time but frankly the two vid versions I could find are a bit shithouse compared to that MP3. Same goes for this. I think that's part of the reason I like'em as the songs change every time I see'em. OK, so that means occasionally a version of a tune doesn't quite ignite (if that's not a bit too ROCK!), but I'd rather that then see identikit versions of songs, let alone entire acts. Yes, I'm looking at you. They're also one of the few comedy acts I've seen (see also Jim Tavare) who play instruments as part of their act without leaving you with the sneaking suspicion that they're living out a rock star fantasy and you're being dragged along for the ride. Unlike....

You can listen to more here here and and watch more here.

Pete'n'Dud

Recently I've been getting in to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (and in fact any Beyond the Fringe I can find). Getting in to things long after the bandwagon has done it's final nostalgia tour and been decommissioned seems to be a bit of a recurring theme at the mo, as I recently 'discovered' The Smiths. This summer I'm setting sail west from Plymouth and sticking a flag in whatever land mass I come across.

Anyway, I was going to post this, which is Kruder and Dorfmeister or whatever those muppet grouches are called recut to voice a classic Derek'n'Clive sketch. I then realised it was a slightly less funny version of this, soI thought I'd find some of the good shit instead..

Bussa Bus...Mr Mosley on the beats...

Two of my favourite people in hip-hop in the studio. I put this on mainly for how excited Busta Rhymes gets when he hears the little hidden loop on Tim's keyboard. That and his Timbaland impression.



Of the two in terms of output, Busta misses more but when he gets it right, he really gets it right. Also, what can you say about a man who was given his name, aged 9, by Chuck D? Not much bad, that's what.

As for Timbaland? Genius. Totally recognisable style, makes pop hits with the strangest instrumental vocab: an entire song made up of hand clapping, one horn sample and a bass synth note = worldwide chart hit. He is, quite simply, the badger's nadgers. See what I mean?

Is it just me

...or is it a bit too easy to not notice the 'O'?

It's like a text version of this.

Yikes!!!!

"The main thing is to enjoy life and all the rest of it"

I'm not a massive football fan, I'm certainly not expressing any sectarian preferences, but you've got to love this short collection of interviews with Gordon Strachan. I bet he looked like he was listening at the media training courses he was no doubt sent on.



Beautiful. As is this, but for slighty different reason.

Different Strokes

Now, I hate anything that could be described as 'Acid Jazz' as much as the next man (assuming the next man has 'Death to False Metal' inexpertly tattoed on his forehead). I realise that holding this much hurt around for a genre that died on it's arse somewhere in the mid-90s is a bit counter productive, but just the thought of red-jeaned goatee-strokers sitting around thinking they'd just discovered 'groove' still rankles. OK, so this partly comes from school days when I had the piss taken out of me for buying an original vinyl copy of the Funkadelic classic 'One Nation Under a Groove'...Six months later the same lot were sitting around in Kangol hats talking about how they'd always been into 70s soul and funk. Grrr.

I digress.

This dislike of all things jazz/funk-lite-like (catchy, huh?) has meant I approach the Broken Beat/Nu Jazz scene with trepidation. Now you won't catch me snogging Gilles Peterson just yet, but I was really presently surprised to hear a Nu Jazz version of Last Nite by the Strokes in a bar last night that (gently, tastefully etc) kicked arse. It's by Jumbonics, about whom I know very little (apart from that whoever wrote their bio deserves a slap). Have a listen here, or hear a longer version as part of this podcast (it starts at 10'26"). Enjoy. Just keep away from those red jeans.

Amazon knows me better than I know myself.

Amazon, in it's binary wisdom, has decided that my life is taking a wrong turn. Adrift in a sordid sexual world of superficial physical stimuli and emotionally empty, hollow-eyed liaisons, they have thrown me a life line. Behold:


Finally, a book for single women who want to follow a new and godly direction. By a salty blogger, no less.

Needless to say, I am a secular male.

"From insecurity to purity, from forlorn to reborn". Very snappy. I assume they thought of the following and rejected them:
From insulted to exalted
From prey to pray
From twice nightly to the arms of the almighty
From spanking to thanking (God)
(contd. p.94)

Cookin' with Gas!

You may have heard this on the DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist 'Product Placement' Mix. Whether you have or have not, prepare yourself from some charmingly-amateur-yet not-as-bad-as-it-could-be, heavily-subject-led late 80s whitekid hip hop: Rappin' with Gas!.

I'm hoping to find a vicious dis response tune from the Elektrik Hob Po$$e somewhere on the net.

*edit* OK, I realise 'whitekid hip hop' may be doing a disservice to the ethnic smorgasbord that is this group, but you take my point.

From the frankly genius 365 project.

BBC in sub-editing bias shocker! (probe romp etc)

The BBC prides itself on impartiality but even the most even handed sub-editing webmonkey can't help but add some editorial comment in a picture caption from time to time.



Boom tish.

Lucy sez "Britain is a complete mess. I just don't appreciate people coming into our country and taking over our culture....I'm for the British Empire and things. I'm for slavery, but that's never going to come back."

What are the odds that she eats curries, listens to vapid american R'n'B, drinks foreign booze etc etc? Or is it all tweed, bagpipes and offal for this proud daughter of Wallace?

"Metaphor? Metaphor???"

Ouch, baby, very ouch.



Asher D throws down the gauntlet at the launch party for Life'N'Lyrics, calling for rappers to come and battle him. The gauntlet is picked up by freestyle specialist MC Stig and used to slap Asher in the face. Very hard.

Asher D dies a little on the inside when Stig gets his first big laugh with the 'Metaphor' line.

Arf.

There's a version with better audio sync here, but the sound is veh quiet.

Oldie But Goodie

This is rather good. Well done that man.

Stansted is dead to me.

I am officially over Stansted airport. I think we have to thank it for sucking any remaining traces of glamour from air travel and showing it for what it is: An eco-mangling, fart-smelling airborne cattle service.

BA will try to make your 28 inches of personal space feel like a little golden slice of luxury, with you in either the Leonard Rossiter or Joan Collins role, depending on preference. The crappy plonk, the complimentary socks...oh monsieur, what high living....what style. So what if the films are picked by the cinematic equivalent of Simon Cowell and they've still got ashtrays (come on, it's only been 10 years or so since smoking was banned, give them some time to get round to it)?

No, like a casual shag who wont pretend you're lovers, Easyjet and Ryanair let you know how it is. Things I love the most include...Ugly 'survival of the fittest' dash for seats? Check. Gum snapping stewardesses who don't even pretend they don't hate you? Yep. Bonus points available if they're named after a major brand or alcoholic drink. Twix at prison blackmarket prices? Oh yes. DVD player with 1hr30min film to watch, offered on a 1hr05min flight? Oh you cunning bastards.

Let's not even mention the carbon footprint associated with getting a load of Burberry apes off the ground for 74p (on the way there - £50 on the way back, sorry sir).

As for Stansted itself....Heathrow is a London airport. Gatwick is a London airport. Stansted is one of those tourist traps (in the truest sense of the word) that is so far from the City it pretends to serve as to be a pisstake. I'm looking at you as well, Narita. It is an airport serving Bishops Stortford and Essex. It's so far away from London that there's another place called London right by it.

It's Heathrow and expensive fares for me from here on in.