It's a dull Thursday afternoon......

And i'm sitting here updating the globe. Afternoons like this are always a little bit odd, there's a luminosity to the sky which really gets me: the whole horizon just seems suffused with this creeping wave of frigid air, rolling up from the sea to the houses on Clifton Hill.
Seeing as the weather is making me feel like this, there can be only one course of action: give in.
It's time for some Thursday Afternoon.
(and BTW, it's available on DVD at last!)

Want to know what it's like inside my head at the moment?

It's like this.
"Droid"

This one's for Nick.....

Makes me think of the two of us going into the shopping centre in Leeds, to get matching Paisley shirts- Nick got one in dark blue, I got one in Crimson.
The Long Ryders- "I Had A Dream"

One of the reasons it's been so busy recently..

Is this. It's given me an immense feeling of pride, that this site Andy and I started, can change peoples lives.
In other news, I have a cold. How long has it been since I was properly under the weather? Well, quite some time, but that isn't much comfort to me right now.
*sniffles*

"I didn't get where I am today by selling ice cream tasting of bookends, pumice stone and West Germany."

I've been close to tears, laughing my head off for the last hour or so, digesting all of this.

Meme of the moment seems to be the whole "Fail" thing...

..and looks set to outstrip LOLCATS in the very near future.
Check it out here, and also here.

I've blogged about Panic! At The Disco before....

Specifically, how at a sunny Reading Festival, and as someone who'd previously been wholly suspicious of their theatrics, they suddenly made all the sense in the world. Now, to show that itwasn't just the beer and sunshine addling my brain, they've released one of the singles of the year.
Panic! At The Disco "Nine In The Afternoon"

And, as if all that wasn't enough, they appear to have morphed into the Monkees in "Head". This, as you can imagine, is a good thing.

So, Goodbye then, Xfm.

Well, perhaps that might be slightly premature, but it's fair to say that the decision of Gcap to sell the Xfm licences outside London marks the beginning of some very tough times for Xfm. The decision is one which is taken, ostensibly, to save money. £1.5 million will be saved, and it's pointed out that the stations are losing money. however in the case of Xfm south wales, surely this is down to one-off costs involved with starting the station, which let us not forget, only started in NOVEMBER. Jeez, how desperate can you get? To contemplate handing a licence back to Ofcom a matter of mere WEEKS after it started broadcasting! What pains me, is the fact that i've been in these situations before- when new managment arrives, sweeps that new broom, installs a raft of middle-managment idiots, and throws a number of hard-working, relatively low-paid, totally professional presenters, and employees of the station, on the scrapheap. The middle management goons will move on, effortlessly, to another job, when their experiments fail, and the real casualties will still languish on the scrapheap. It's playing hard and fast with peoples lives, careers, houses, incomes, and professions. It messes with peoples minds and their confidence, and all this so the managers can do all they can to protect their share options from shrinking.
Well, let's look on the bright side..all of this means that Gcap are running scared, trying to shed ballast from their rapidly-sinking balloon, as it drifts down to the welcoming arms of the Global group, who must surely fancy their chances of a successful takeover bid.
I'd say that would end the careers of those, whose malicious and spectacularly inept tinkering has sent Xfm London into a spiral, losing it's voice, it's passion for music, and it's reputation in the process. If a takeover would mean there was an outside chance of the station being run by people who actually understood ONE IOTA of the music it played, and the listeners it represented, then I for one, would welcome our new radio overlords. Global, (or anyone else for that matter) it's over to you.

OK, a bit of a hiatus...

..Should really be rewarded with something special. So, i'm not sure how many of you have seen this, but it's priceless. Aussie clebrity chef Peter Russell Clarke, with some rather NSFW bloopers from ads he filmed in the 80's. Warning: contains swearing. A lot of swearing.