Well, i'm still here.....

Despite the wind, rain, and high tides.
At the present time, we seem to be in the eye of the storm, and there's a strangely serene, calm feeling to the day. As the drops of rain run down the window over my shoulder, and a small patch of blue sky peeks through the clouds, this song popped up onto the ipod: it seems rather fitting, despite it's seasonal references.
The Durutti Column "A Sketch For Summer"
FYI: the album from which this track came: "The Return Of The Durutti Column", originally came in a sleeve made of Sandpaper. It was a typical Factory Wheeze, supposedly to reflect the clash of textural sounds within the grooves, but more than likely Tony Wilson's astute ability to be able to mix marketing and style. Also typical of Tony Wilson was his penchant for saving the pennies here and there: he couldn't find anyone brave enough to fold up the abrasive sleeves, so asked one of his other Factory bands if they'd like to earn a few quid by assembling some sleeves. Reluctantly, they agreed. The band in question? Joy Division. Legend has it then, that as all the sleeves were hand-folded by Joy Division, some of their skin was left on the sandpaper, and thus all the sleeves contain tiny fragments of Joy Division DNA. it's probably wishful thinking, but it's a cute tale, nonetheless.

Stormchasing.....

there's a certain amount of breathless anticipation when one goes to sleep the night before all reputable sources are predicting the whole of the South coast will be pounded by one of the worst storms for decades. Will there be rain sheeting down the windows when I wake? Will the howling gale mean I can't go for my morning jog along the seafront? What will the sea look like? Time for me to wrap up this Sunday evening, go to sleep, and see what happens tomorrow.
Night all.
x

Here's one from the photo archive...

That's me and Mike, at Harrow skatepark, in 1988

Hardcore, you know the score........

I had a DJing gig on Saturday night that was a wonderful excuse to rip a load of Old School Hardcore vinyl onto mp3....and first out of the box and onto the hard drive was this slice of dub'n'break madness from 1992: truly one of the biggest old school tunes EVER:
The Criminal Minds: "Baptised By Dub"

(the sample "Can't beat the system, go with the flow!" is from an old MC Duke tune "I'm Riffin" which also provided most of the breaks for the early 2 Bad Mice tunes....)
But what else have I been up to? Well, trying to emerge from the depression of a long and difficult February. I'm getting there.

I'm not normally swayed by advertising...

But I ended up buying The Times and The Sunday Times this weekend, purely to get the free CD-Roms of Monopoly and Scrabble that were attached to the front. Monopoly, particularly, is utterly fantastic, and the experience of playing versus the computer means you can rattle through the game nice and quick (no more of those interminable games I played as a kid- which always ended up in huge arguments) . I'm starting to formulate a strategy to win the game; it's fairly simple, viz:
1) Buy EVERYTHING
2) Get all the railways
3) Get the Orange set
4) Sod Park Lane and Mayfair
5) Likewise, Old Kent Road

And now.....

The inside of my head sounds like this:
Terry Riley "A Rainbow In Curved Air"

1969.
I'll say that again- 1969!
Blimey.

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.