It’s a Friday afternoon. It’s just after 2pm my lunch time is over and I have 4 hours before I can go home. Someone in our office is leaving today and in his leaving speech helpfully pointed out that he believes that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be and that the merger a year ago really changed things and that the good old days are over. Well so does everyone else but as he must have found about the only job going in the city good luck to him and commiserations to us.
I wonder if Friday afternoon for every office worker in the world is full of that utter inertia when your mind is already having the weekend but you body is still stuck to your PC and your fingers still look like they have to be tapping.
I have listened in my lunch hour to Andy Hamilton’s comedy on radio 4 Old Harry’s Game which is always entertaining although I am not too happy about the demise of Gary the Demon or that God has got bored of creation and turned it over to some newly promoted Project Managers. I liked Gary he was a very kind well-spoken demon – even if he was somewhat dim, and God’s voice, with the secret name of Nigel, was only rivalled by Joss Akland’s God in Piccolo Mundo.
I am even checking my Yahoo SPAM mailbox religiously and have just discovered how to get a bigger penis, a fake university degree and government funding although I have missed the e-mails offering me the chance to make lots of money even if I am really dumb. They seemed to have stopped since the bank crisis – if something looks too good to be true. . .
I have the eternal optimism, that only the truly deluded can have, that I am one yahoo e-mail away from an afternoon of entertainment or one work e-mail away from having something to do.
I fear this is also the problem with being in my mid-thirties and being childless. I am sure if I had children the utter boredom and drudgery that comprises the daily lot of motherhood (and before all you Mothers get antsy – I know this is true my Mother told me this and she really loves me and would never lie) would make any kind of outing with adults, even if it is to work, seem stimulating by comparison. For the childless work becomes the drudgery you do to be able to get out and do things that stimulate and excite you, for Mothers of young children work is the excitement that keeps you sane.
So, my solution to my Friday inertia? Find a random sperm donor, have a child and this will seem exciting – hmmm. But ohh look, its now 2.30 and I just got a work e-mail! If I’m slow it’ll keep me going until 6!
Friday, 20 February 2009
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Slam
Slam among other things can be South London and Maudsley NHS trust, an organisation which hosts massive techno club nights around Europe, half a basketball technique or a book slam. The last one is a monthly London event in a club just near the top end of Portobello road, beside a busy flyover and near an equally busy mosque. It was set up by writer Patrick Neate and the guy from Everything But The Girl who has now left it all to Patrick, as an alternative to readings in libraries and bookshops.
The venue is certainly different from a Waterstones or an independent bookshop. It suffers a bit from a lack of vodka or ecstasy googles as it is a night club open very early with not very loud music and not a lot of drunks. Everything was painted black some time ago so it is mostly scrapped, the toilets are, quite frankly, scary and everyone is sober enough to notice. But it does remove reading out loud from the gentility of the bookshop, it does give it more of an edge and does give a literate high brow audience a chance to be gritty and urban without actually getting gravel on their shoes.
The audience seemed to consist of types who work in publishing, types who wished they worked in publishing and types who were looking to be published. I was quite disappointed by the lack of white men with dreadlocks. The best that could be had was Jamie Bing, the head of Canongate Press’ slightly long hair pushed behind his ear.
Maybe white ‘dreads’ like gravel.
On the night I attended there were four young men listed all to stand up and read from their new novels, two of them having just published their first. Patrick was the compere playing it with that self-deprecation and apologetic air so beloved of posh Englishmen. Think Boris on old episodes of Have I Got New for You with less stammering and wearing a hooded top.
The compere repeatedly informed us that the ‘gimic’ of the evening was how the four writers Ross Raisin, Chris Kullen, Joe Dunthorne and Richard Milward had been selected to read because they all were all exceptionally good looking. Personally I thought that they were all chosen because they were exceptionally thin. Apart from the married Ross Raisin they all looked as if you could fold them up concertina like and put them inside a small suitcase as if they were pieces of cardboard.
The now fashionable 80s drainpipe jeans with trainers does nothing for an exceptionally skinny man except make him look like an actual drain pipe or a cardboard cut out of himself. An awkward young writer nervous about reading to an audience of over 300 people ends up looking like a cardboard drainpipe in a Lowry painting. The actual readings were entertaining if somewhat predicable (awkward young men, unfathomable women, self-hatred and doom) and I am sure that all of their books are worth a read. And if enough people buy their books they all will be able to eat some decent food.
The venue is certainly different from a Waterstones or an independent bookshop. It suffers a bit from a lack of vodka or ecstasy googles as it is a night club open very early with not very loud music and not a lot of drunks. Everything was painted black some time ago so it is mostly scrapped, the toilets are, quite frankly, scary and everyone is sober enough to notice. But it does remove reading out loud from the gentility of the bookshop, it does give it more of an edge and does give a literate high brow audience a chance to be gritty and urban without actually getting gravel on their shoes.
The audience seemed to consist of types who work in publishing, types who wished they worked in publishing and types who were looking to be published. I was quite disappointed by the lack of white men with dreadlocks. The best that could be had was Jamie Bing, the head of Canongate Press’ slightly long hair pushed behind his ear.
Maybe white ‘dreads’ like gravel.
On the night I attended there were four young men listed all to stand up and read from their new novels, two of them having just published their first. Patrick was the compere playing it with that self-deprecation and apologetic air so beloved of posh Englishmen. Think Boris on old episodes of Have I Got New for You with less stammering and wearing a hooded top.
The compere repeatedly informed us that the ‘gimic’ of the evening was how the four writers Ross Raisin, Chris Kullen, Joe Dunthorne and Richard Milward had been selected to read because they all were all exceptionally good looking. Personally I thought that they were all chosen because they were exceptionally thin. Apart from the married Ross Raisin they all looked as if you could fold them up concertina like and put them inside a small suitcase as if they were pieces of cardboard.
The now fashionable 80s drainpipe jeans with trainers does nothing for an exceptionally skinny man except make him look like an actual drain pipe or a cardboard cut out of himself. An awkward young writer nervous about reading to an audience of over 300 people ends up looking like a cardboard drainpipe in a Lowry painting. The actual readings were entertaining if somewhat predicable (awkward young men, unfathomable women, self-hatred and doom) and I am sure that all of their books are worth a read. And if enough people buy their books they all will be able to eat some decent food.
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Nae Mair Arran Jumpers
As a Scot in London is a Scot and in London, January is the perfect month for some self-indulgent, misty eyed nostalgia of the kind practised by those members of the Caledonian Club who dream about Scotch pies being available at Selfridges a la Stanley Baxter.
A Scot in London is not a member of the above illustrious establishment so I had the choice between a few tartan ceilidh, some extremely overpriced Burns suppers or a concert called Burns Eclectica. The latter is part of a series at the Barbican called Eclectica and seems to have the remit of ‘whatever we haven’t really thought of putting together before’ ranging from Jazz to opera singers singing blues songs.
Last week the organisers had asked Ayrshire composer James McMillan to curate an event. He invited Shetlander Chris Smout and Dundonian Catriona Mckay (although for some reason he insisted on calling her Catrona) to play on the fiddle and harp respectively and then afterwards he had Salsa Celtica.
I had seen Salsa Celtica before at the Fruitmarket in Glasgow and at the time I was stunned. The combination of pipes, banjos, timbales, fiddle playing and son left me thrilled and delighted, although I took it as a sign of my increasing age that it was the first time I had been to a concert where the only drugs anyone was on were actually prescribed by a doctor.
I have a general aversion to folk music, my first phrases in schoolgirl French were J’aime la music pop et la musique classique mais j n’aime pas la musique folklorique. I have images of bearded men in Arran jumpers singing about the massacre of Glencoe or red haired ladies with kilts down to their ankles strumming on harps in some 1970s time warp.
I was fully prepared for the above experience from Chris and Catriona as the last time I had seen Salsa Celtica I had endured their support band stoically as some boy band from Uist with a median age of 70 whistled and wailed their way through one of the longest hours in living memory. I was extremely pleasantly surprised. Catriona arrived in a short dress knee high boots and a sequin jacket – no tartan to be seen, and proceeded to get sounds out of a harp that I didn’t know were possible. It was at various times a guitar, a banjo, a drum and seemed to be on many occasion at least two instruments. Chris, dressed all in black, played the fiddle without recourse to the stereotypical droning so beloved of 70s folkies. They both looked as if they were doing their favourite thing in the whole world and that their only hope was to infect the audience with some of their genuine pleasure. From the sounds of the applause and the nodding of heads they succeeded. I now have full faith in the demise of the Arran jumper and the floor length kilt.
Salsa Celtica were as enjoyable as I expected, but I don’t think they will be saying the same about us. The venue had no bar during the show or at the interval, the floor just below the stage was covered with tables and chairs. The Venezuelan lead singer explained that they were used to no chairs and people dancing and drinking. Having an occasionally rather shell shocked audience who appeared to have been expecting Jean Redpath and My Love is like a Red Red Rose applaud very loudly and happily but not move any which way was a real disappointment to them.
The evening started with the Edinburgh conga player telling us the songs they were about to play were from Burn’s little known tour of South America (well he was planning to go and work as an overseer in Jamaica before his poetry was published). To the complete incomprehension of a large section of the audience he went on to say that it didn’t matter as we would have a good time and as Burns was mostly steaming anyway, he would have approved of the event.Salsa Celtica were playing a sold out gig at the Fruitmarket on Saturday 24th with a well stocked bar and no seats. I am sure Burns would have approved far more.
A Scot in London is not a member of the above illustrious establishment so I had the choice between a few tartan ceilidh, some extremely overpriced Burns suppers or a concert called Burns Eclectica. The latter is part of a series at the Barbican called Eclectica and seems to have the remit of ‘whatever we haven’t really thought of putting together before’ ranging from Jazz to opera singers singing blues songs.
Last week the organisers had asked Ayrshire composer James McMillan to curate an event. He invited Shetlander Chris Smout and Dundonian Catriona Mckay (although for some reason he insisted on calling her Catrona) to play on the fiddle and harp respectively and then afterwards he had Salsa Celtica.
I had seen Salsa Celtica before at the Fruitmarket in Glasgow and at the time I was stunned. The combination of pipes, banjos, timbales, fiddle playing and son left me thrilled and delighted, although I took it as a sign of my increasing age that it was the first time I had been to a concert where the only drugs anyone was on were actually prescribed by a doctor.
I have a general aversion to folk music, my first phrases in schoolgirl French were J’aime la music pop et la musique classique mais j n’aime pas la musique folklorique. I have images of bearded men in Arran jumpers singing about the massacre of Glencoe or red haired ladies with kilts down to their ankles strumming on harps in some 1970s time warp.
I was fully prepared for the above experience from Chris and Catriona as the last time I had seen Salsa Celtica I had endured their support band stoically as some boy band from Uist with a median age of 70 whistled and wailed their way through one of the longest hours in living memory. I was extremely pleasantly surprised. Catriona arrived in a short dress knee high boots and a sequin jacket – no tartan to be seen, and proceeded to get sounds out of a harp that I didn’t know were possible. It was at various times a guitar, a banjo, a drum and seemed to be on many occasion at least two instruments. Chris, dressed all in black, played the fiddle without recourse to the stereotypical droning so beloved of 70s folkies. They both looked as if they were doing their favourite thing in the whole world and that their only hope was to infect the audience with some of their genuine pleasure. From the sounds of the applause and the nodding of heads they succeeded. I now have full faith in the demise of the Arran jumper and the floor length kilt.
Salsa Celtica were as enjoyable as I expected, but I don’t think they will be saying the same about us. The venue had no bar during the show or at the interval, the floor just below the stage was covered with tables and chairs. The Venezuelan lead singer explained that they were used to no chairs and people dancing and drinking. Having an occasionally rather shell shocked audience who appeared to have been expecting Jean Redpath and My Love is like a Red Red Rose applaud very loudly and happily but not move any which way was a real disappointment to them.
The evening started with the Edinburgh conga player telling us the songs they were about to play were from Burn’s little known tour of South America (well he was planning to go and work as an overseer in Jamaica before his poetry was published). To the complete incomprehension of a large section of the audience he went on to say that it didn’t matter as we would have a good time and as Burns was mostly steaming anyway, he would have approved of the event.Salsa Celtica were playing a sold out gig at the Fruitmarket on Saturday 24th with a well stocked bar and no seats. I am sure Burns would have approved far more.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Earphones and Inaugurations
While I still officially have one of the most boring jobs in the world I have just been banned from using earphones at work. I think that three of us have been told this and it is my fault as I got caught watching the inauguration yesterday by my boss who is the type of person likely to ask ‘who’s inauguration and why is this such a big deal?’
Not allowing your staff to listen to music or the radio or have earphones during work might, at first glance, appear to be a good thing. However I, for example, am now looking very industrious typing away on a Word file which is in fact this blogpost. Had I been left alone I would be listening to a radio 4 programme on child trafficking in
Rather than actually dealing with these speadsheets I have now googled (is anyone elses life becoming so virtual that it isn’t very different from the Matrix?) How to Deal With Boredom At Work.
According to careerknow-how.com if boredom is left unattended (ie if I don’t get my earphones back) it can get so intense and last so long that it will leads to burnout which is a costly and potentially dangerous threat to my life and my career, To cut to the chase I will end up a depressed alcoholic selling the Big Issue on your street.
However professional speaker Michelle Yozzo Drake at michelleydrake.com (the time that woman must have spent thinking up her URL) on her blog tells us to face the facts that some jobs are just dead boring and we need to look on balance at the benefits and see if it is worth the boredom. For example they may offer you health insurance so that when you do become a depressed alcoholic you can go to the Priory instead of an NHS psychiatric ward. You may be the only person you know in your social circle who isn’t facing redundancy, that is a positive. On the other hand you may be bored, burnt out and facing redundancy- the good thing about that is you will be so busy saving in case you get made redundant that you won’t be able to become an alcoholic, just depressed but you can still get Prozac on the NHS.
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
iplayer and me
I appear to have one of the most boring jobs in the world. The problem is that now the panic and bad organisation on a massive scale is coming to an end by 11 o'clock I have done all my work and am left with merely pretending to work for most of the rest of the day barring meetings and a couple of hectic days at the end of the month. Being still glued to a chair and semi-attached to a PC for another 6 1/2 hours I have decide to moonlight on the job and am now the self-declared official listener to the BBC iPlayer.
Thus far it is an unpaid position and being official listener may prove as lucrative as my attempts to become IBMs mystic at their Greenock office, but it passes the time.
For those of you unaware. the thoughtful people at the Beeb have created a website where you can see online lots of TV programmes as well as listening to radio programmes. If like me, you are deprived of the opportunity to download Real Player into your work PC due to the pesky IT department's admin rights, you cannot listen to Radio Scotland, Wales or a lot of the World Service, neither can you download anything for later. This still leaves a lot of listening and stealth watching as you can switch screens if anyone is walking by and watch TV on a tiny window in the left hand corner safe in the knowledge that it is covered by your head and your on-line CRM programme takes up most of the screen. You can therefore look like you are working while watching Wallander.
So for all the bored skivers out there in the blogosphere with access to the BBC iPlayer (I don't know if it is available outside the UK ) I can tell you so far:
Radio 7 might not have it still available as I can't see it, but if you get the chance to listen to A Thousand Splendid Suns, don't bother. The radio programme is just as bad as the book and reading it was a waste of time. Buy A Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam instead and use your time wisely.
Radio 4's new book at bedtime is Alexander McCall Smith's new novel (He of Mama Ramotswe) La's Orchestra Saves The World. It's sure to be one of those heart warming novels where a London lady saves a village and the world from the Nazis with a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge cake. I know this after 15 mins of the first episode because the lady in question, La has just come from London to a small village in the West Country, wearing what the quaint villagers suppose is London fashions. Emilia Fox also sees fit to impersonate Clarry from the Archers every time she is reading the words of the villagers, just to hammer home the point that these are simple country folk. La herself has wasted no time keeping secrets and has declared to all and sundry at the end of Episode One that her husband has run off with another woman so she herself has run away to the country.
It is the auricular equivalent of lavender oil for the temples, chamomile tea for the nerves, chicken soup for the soul. You will find in comforting and refreshing or so sickly sweet you will want to vomit and throw your computer out of the window. If you choose to do the latter make sure you have removed the earphone from your ear so you don't follow your PC out the window.
On a far more sombre note Adventures in Poetry also on the Radio 4 section of the iPlayer has a study of John Clare and his poem I Am. John Clare wrote this poem in a lunatic asylum and it may be argued, was partly driven to levels of utter despair by the consequences of the Enclosure Act of 1809 and the resulting land grab by the aristocracy where peasants lost their rights to common grounds and were forced to become low paid labourers, urban poor in the new cities or to emigrate elsewhere. Trying to get a sense of the circumstances of Clare's life takes us to his cottage with a lengthy explanation of coffin hatches and a tour of the asylum where Clare wrote I Am while the psychiatrist currently at the hospital explains his mental state during the years Clare was there is a tremendously moving experience.
Thus far it is an unpaid position and being official listener may prove as lucrative as my attempts to become IBMs mystic at their Greenock office, but it passes the time.
For those of you unaware. the thoughtful people at the Beeb have created a website where you can see online lots of TV programmes as well as listening to radio programmes. If like me, you are deprived of the opportunity to download Real Player into your work PC due to the pesky IT department's admin rights, you cannot listen to Radio Scotland, Wales or a lot of the World Service, neither can you download anything for later. This still leaves a lot of listening and stealth watching as you can switch screens if anyone is walking by and watch TV on a tiny window in the left hand corner safe in the knowledge that it is covered by your head and your on-line CRM programme takes up most of the screen. You can therefore look like you are working while watching Wallander.
So for all the bored skivers out there in the blogosphere with access to the BBC iPlayer (I don't know if it is available outside the UK ) I can tell you so far:
Radio 7 might not have it still available as I can't see it, but if you get the chance to listen to A Thousand Splendid Suns, don't bother. The radio programme is just as bad as the book and reading it was a waste of time. Buy A Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam instead and use your time wisely.
Radio 4's new book at bedtime is Alexander McCall Smith's new novel (He of Mama Ramotswe) La's Orchestra Saves The World. It's sure to be one of those heart warming novels where a London lady saves a village and the world from the Nazis with a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge cake. I know this after 15 mins of the first episode because the lady in question, La has just come from London to a small village in the West Country, wearing what the quaint villagers suppose is London fashions. Emilia Fox also sees fit to impersonate Clarry from the Archers every time she is reading the words of the villagers, just to hammer home the point that these are simple country folk. La herself has wasted no time keeping secrets and has declared to all and sundry at the end of Episode One that her husband has run off with another woman so she herself has run away to the country.
It is the auricular equivalent of lavender oil for the temples, chamomile tea for the nerves, chicken soup for the soul. You will find in comforting and refreshing or so sickly sweet you will want to vomit and throw your computer out of the window. If you choose to do the latter make sure you have removed the earphone from your ear so you don't follow your PC out the window.
On a far more sombre note Adventures in Poetry also on the Radio 4 section of the iPlayer has a study of John Clare and his poem I Am. John Clare wrote this poem in a lunatic asylum and it may be argued, was partly driven to levels of utter despair by the consequences of the Enclosure Act of 1809 and the resulting land grab by the aristocracy where peasants lost their rights to common grounds and were forced to become low paid labourers, urban poor in the new cities or to emigrate elsewhere. Trying to get a sense of the circumstances of Clare's life takes us to his cottage with a lengthy explanation of coffin hatches and a tour of the asylum where Clare wrote I Am while the psychiatrist currently at the hospital explains his mental state during the years Clare was there is a tremendously moving experience.
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
The Change We Can't Laugh At
As our modern society has replaced political debate and serious philosophical enquiry with satire we now have a serious problem on our hands. Those of us who eagerly watch America’s Daily Show on the net, listen to the News Quiz or watch its TV offshoot, Have I Got News for You and who are not yet alarmed, should be.
History has taught us that losing our leaders may also mean that we will lose our satire. The premature death of Spitting Image was a direct result of Mrs Thatcher’s replacement by John Major. Thatcher was a gift to Spitting Image. John Major in grey eating peas while looking at Norma just didn’t cut it (had we known he had his feet under the table at Edwina Curry’s house, it would have been quite different) and while Gerald Kaufman could whisper and scare over excited schoolboy Neil Kinnock, with no Thatcher there was no programme.
I am thrilled and extremely relieved that yes he can and he did it, that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States, but I wonder what we will slag off now. For eight years satirists and comedians have been shooting fish in a barrel with Bush. During the Presidential campaign all Tina Fey had to do was repeat Sarah Palin’s words and she made satirical history, now it is a lot harder.
It has not started promisingly. On The News Quiz, panellist Jeremy Hardy asked us all to cast aside our cynicism for a moment as he said how wonderful it was that Barack Obama had become the US President. The audience clapped and cheered and then his team mate Fred Macaulay suggested that if anyone was going to see Jeremy Hardy doing stand up that they wait for another six months until he became funny again. Jeremy seemed to forget the golden rule that those who wish to cast aside cynicism do not listen to The News Quiz.
Ian Hislop on Have I got News For You seemed to follow the maxim, if you can’t say anything nasty don’t say anything at all. Paul Merton’s comment, ‘Oh Ian you miss the empire don’t you’ and an oft repeated joke about Gordon Brown and extra salt in porridge made me fear unless the posh guy wins the UK election and soon, that particular show will not go on.
America’s Daily Show is fairing better. They have now introduced the concept of black liberal guilt, pointed out what happens when ‘brothers’ get together with white women and have their Senior Reporter in Chief Who Just Happens to Be Black valiantly attempting just the right level of patronising behaviour towards Hispanics. However nothing has actually been properly directed at Obama himself.
The problem is how can you? His kids are normal, his wife is normal, he himself comes across as normal. Thoughtful, highly intelligent and extremely well informed normal, but still normal. The Obamas are the kind of family you would want as your neighbours, you’d want your children to mix with theirs in the hope that some of their good manners would rub off o your rowdy offspring. You’d want to go on family holidays together.
The fact that America finally has its first African-American President is amazing, thrilling and will change the way many people look at the US, their own world and themselves. The fact that Sarah Palin is not Vice President is a relief of such proportions that language cannot fully express. But Obama needs to start messing up and quick or else satire will go soft and we will have to start asking our serious questions seriously and that will not do at all.
History has taught us that losing our leaders may also mean that we will lose our satire. The premature death of Spitting Image was a direct result of Mrs Thatcher’s replacement by John Major. Thatcher was a gift to Spitting Image. John Major in grey eating peas while looking at Norma just didn’t cut it (had we known he had his feet under the table at Edwina Curry’s house, it would have been quite different) and while Gerald Kaufman could whisper and scare over excited schoolboy Neil Kinnock, with no Thatcher there was no programme.
I am thrilled and extremely relieved that yes he can and he did it, that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States, but I wonder what we will slag off now. For eight years satirists and comedians have been shooting fish in a barrel with Bush. During the Presidential campaign all Tina Fey had to do was repeat Sarah Palin’s words and she made satirical history, now it is a lot harder.
It has not started promisingly. On The News Quiz, panellist Jeremy Hardy asked us all to cast aside our cynicism for a moment as he said how wonderful it was that Barack Obama had become the US President. The audience clapped and cheered and then his team mate Fred Macaulay suggested that if anyone was going to see Jeremy Hardy doing stand up that they wait for another six months until he became funny again. Jeremy seemed to forget the golden rule that those who wish to cast aside cynicism do not listen to The News Quiz.
Ian Hislop on Have I got News For You seemed to follow the maxim, if you can’t say anything nasty don’t say anything at all. Paul Merton’s comment, ‘Oh Ian you miss the empire don’t you’ and an oft repeated joke about Gordon Brown and extra salt in porridge made me fear unless the posh guy wins the UK election and soon, that particular show will not go on.
America’s Daily Show is fairing better. They have now introduced the concept of black liberal guilt, pointed out what happens when ‘brothers’ get together with white women and have their Senior Reporter in Chief Who Just Happens to Be Black valiantly attempting just the right level of patronising behaviour towards Hispanics. However nothing has actually been properly directed at Obama himself.
The problem is how can you? His kids are normal, his wife is normal, he himself comes across as normal. Thoughtful, highly intelligent and extremely well informed normal, but still normal. The Obamas are the kind of family you would want as your neighbours, you’d want your children to mix with theirs in the hope that some of their good manners would rub off o your rowdy offspring. You’d want to go on family holidays together.
The fact that America finally has its first African-American President is amazing, thrilling and will change the way many people look at the US, their own world and themselves. The fact that Sarah Palin is not Vice President is a relief of such proportions that language cannot fully express. But Obama needs to start messing up and quick or else satire will go soft and we will have to start asking our serious questions seriously and that will not do at all.
Friday, 19 September 2008
Shuffling along
Having succumbed to the wonders of modern technology I have finally purchased an iPod. It is the tiny 1GB shuffle version as opposed to the full bhuna but it can take over 130 songs that will take over 13 hours to listen to and is a vast improvement on trying to change a CD while driving a car at 80 mph along the M8.
My first problem was that my laptop wasn’t working so I couldn’t transfer anything from my iTunes onto it and the CDs I have are packed away in someone’s attic so I couldn’t download them onto someone elses iTunes to then give them a listen. I have duly uploaded a random mix of a friend’s iTunes to listen to myself.
Unlike other iPods the shuffle is too small to have a screen so listening is rather like eating an unknown dish blindfolded with a peg on your nose as you have no idea what is coming next and, unless you recognise the song, no idea what you are listening to.
There is also something so utterly personal about listening to a random mixture of someone else’s music through headphones. While you may be exposed to another musical taste when you are in their house, listening on loud speakers you are being invited to share that you are not sneeking into their mind to see what it is like in there. Also your host, if they have any consideration (and if they haven’t, find yourself better friends), may realise that their devotion to Megadeath is not necessarily shared by you and will choose their music accordingly. That in itself can be a fascinating experience as you if you listen closely enough you can find out what your friends really think you are like. I often seem to be mistaken for a old Suzanne Vega song fan and am also frequently subjected to Coldplay and Travis droning about rain (answer to the question Why Does It Always Rain On me? – You live in the West of Scotland, it’s nothing personal my dear, it happens to everyone). I am, however, fortunate to no longer be friends with the Bluegrass fans who tried to convert me to their music with a zeal that Bluegrass musicians themselves normally reserve for Jesus.
But listening to someone elses iPod selection is like being inside their head. No one else on the Picadilly line can hear anything- well apart from the occasional tinny drumbeat leaking out of my ears, so they have no idea that I am listening to a rather bizarre selection of Classic 1950s Bollywood songs mixed with Aerosmith and Guns and Roses numbers. It’s only two tiny speakers in my ears that isolate me from the rest of the passengers, mentally even if their elbows are in my ribs, and I realise that this particular selection is only listened to by someone else also through two tiny speakers in her ears on the District line. All we need to do is swap heads.
Try it. Borrow a friend’s iPod or download their iTunes and play the random selection. It will give you an insight into who they are, who they used to be and what they dream. You may lose some respect for intellectual Spice Girl fans, be rather taken aback at an atheist's passion for Gregorian chant but you will know them better in the end.
My first problem was that my laptop wasn’t working so I couldn’t transfer anything from my iTunes onto it and the CDs I have are packed away in someone’s attic so I couldn’t download them onto someone elses iTunes to then give them a listen. I have duly uploaded a random mix of a friend’s iTunes to listen to myself.
Unlike other iPods the shuffle is too small to have a screen so listening is rather like eating an unknown dish blindfolded with a peg on your nose as you have no idea what is coming next and, unless you recognise the song, no idea what you are listening to.
There is also something so utterly personal about listening to a random mixture of someone else’s music through headphones. While you may be exposed to another musical taste when you are in their house, listening on loud speakers you are being invited to share that you are not sneeking into their mind to see what it is like in there. Also your host, if they have any consideration (and if they haven’t, find yourself better friends), may realise that their devotion to Megadeath is not necessarily shared by you and will choose their music accordingly. That in itself can be a fascinating experience as you if you listen closely enough you can find out what your friends really think you are like. I often seem to be mistaken for a old Suzanne Vega song fan and am also frequently subjected to Coldplay and Travis droning about rain (answer to the question Why Does It Always Rain On me? – You live in the West of Scotland, it’s nothing personal my dear, it happens to everyone). I am, however, fortunate to no longer be friends with the Bluegrass fans who tried to convert me to their music with a zeal that Bluegrass musicians themselves normally reserve for Jesus.
But listening to someone elses iPod selection is like being inside their head. No one else on the Picadilly line can hear anything- well apart from the occasional tinny drumbeat leaking out of my ears, so they have no idea that I am listening to a rather bizarre selection of Classic 1950s Bollywood songs mixed with Aerosmith and Guns and Roses numbers. It’s only two tiny speakers in my ears that isolate me from the rest of the passengers, mentally even if their elbows are in my ribs, and I realise that this particular selection is only listened to by someone else also through two tiny speakers in her ears on the District line. All we need to do is swap heads.
Try it. Borrow a friend’s iPod or download their iTunes and play the random selection. It will give you an insight into who they are, who they used to be and what they dream. You may lose some respect for intellectual Spice Girl fans, be rather taken aback at an atheist's passion for Gregorian chant but you will know them better in the end.
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