Guns are bad, mmm kay?

This is a new anti- gun crime cinema advert made by Choice FM (Matt blogged this before me)



The remarkable thing is that, as jaded as I am, I actually found myself thinking they really were going to show what it looks like when you shoot a kid. Obviously, it would have been done via CGI rather than actual homicide, but I was still really expecting it. When the kid's head came up, I actually drew breath. Clever stuff. Oh, and I like the way the skin of the fruit sort of splits itself into little segments - that's neat.

Chris Rock for Obama

Big Arm, David Jordan, and Envy Corps

Went to a gig at Water Rats tonight, and saw three great acts, for the bargain price of £6.

First up were Big Arm, the spin-off project from Happy Monday Paul Ryder. It was alright stuff; very poppy beatsy indie, with repetitive choruses of chantable lyrics. Paul had surrounded himself with bright young things who seemed quite technically minded (you can always tell this when the band all wear headphones), whilst he stood there looking leathery, wearing a tracksuit top and a man-bag, singing his lyrics of a sheet on the floor. The tracks all seemed ripe for remixes and the indie/dance crossover crowd (shades of Mint Royale in some of the rhythms). It's not going to change the world, and he must be feeling happy that the Mondays have reformed, but it was a good start to the evening.

Next up was David Jordan, the act me mate Tom reckons is "one to watch" over the next year or so. And rightly so; he had a beautiful voice, with incredibly tight control and a wide range. He had a very soulful, retro-pop sound, a great falsetto, and very tight trousers. It crossed over into hair-rock a few times, which is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when he was supported by a suitably hirsute guitarist. The obvious comparison here, which I suspect he is fed up of hearing, is Terence Trent D'Arby, but there were also shades of Dangerous-era Michael Jackson (the GnR rock sound helping that), and maybe a little Prince and Lenny Kravitz in there for good measure. He's being produced by Trevor Horn (whose pedigree I had to have explained to me) and it surely destined for mainstream success. I'm not sure if the youth market will embrace such a straight pop sound though - they seem to like their pop a bit more kooky (Mika) and their soul a bit more edgy (Timbaland), and I think it could be more of a Radio 2 sound than Radio 1. A bit of remix action could work wonders though.

Finally, The Envy Corps. Geek chic American indie rock, it was right up my street. Really tight guitars, keys, and an amazing drummer. It was reminiscent of Doves and Bloc Party, with no pretensions and no egos, just really ordinary guys who liked their music. The band looked fantastic too, from the Napolean Dynamite-esque drummer, through to the Jack Black lead singer, they all looked like they were ready to rock. They're doing a four-week residency at Water Rats, of which this was the first night, and I might even go to see them again. Oh, and Edith Bowman was there with Princess Leia hair, running around taking photos with a Digital SLR. Which was nice.

Colbert on Wikiality

I keep losing this clip, and I always want to show it to people, so I thought I'd embed it here.

December Boys

I went to see a free filum tonight, so I feel I should write some things about it (cause when you get free stuff, it's only fair). The filum was called December Boys and it starred Harry Potter and three other kids as the four eponymous Australian orphans (all born in said month) who, for no apparent reason, get to go on a summer holiday to the beach and live with a dying woman. Life-forming incidents occur, and before you can say Stand By Me, Cobber, the boys have gone through a rite of passage and come out the other side ever-so slightly more grown up.

It was alright. My friend Annie thought it was poo, but I thought it was alright. There were a few bad things about it. Harry Potter is still a rubbish actor, and he still has an irritating speech impediment that means he can't say SH or CH sounds (this film was made between HP4 and HP5, and since he also had it in HP5, I'm not surprised). He also has a a weird head-bigger-than-body thing going on, which can be excused since he is still growing, but he has very little physical acting ability and looks like a gallumphing idiot when he tries to run.

Other bad things; it was very twee, nothing really happens very much, and it's difficult to think who it's pitched at - it's from a book, which I can imagine being too simple for kids, and not interesting enough for adults. So, I don't really know who's going to like it, to be honest.

Good things about it; it looked spectacular, though I give more credit to Sheila Nature for that, than I do to director Rod Hardy. The adult performances are good, especially from their benevolent host, the dying Skipper. And there's an interesting mix of music, from original score to 60s pop tracks. It's moving in parts, not too shmultzy, and the other three kids have definate potential as actors.

It's a kinda 2/5 to 3/5 on the old star rating - it's nowt special, but I didn't look at my watch or wish the lead actor was on a broomstick at any point, and that's an achievement for the lad.

I really wanted to like the Kate Nash album...

...but I don't. And I'm kinda disappointed in myself, because it's just soooo trendy to dislike her and I wanted to buck the trend.

People compare her to Lily Allen, and in many ways she is like her - they're both from London, they both have the Notting Hill posh-set accent, they both did the whole myspace thing, they both write observational lyrics (which, when you're just turning 20, are inevitably about going out, failed relationships, drinking cheap wine with your friends, and thinking your boyfriend's mates are much fittaaaah).

But if she were like Lily Allen, I'd really like her, cause I love Lily Allen! She's got a great variety of musical influences, she has a sweet voice, and lots of melody. And it's musically that Kate Nash is nowhere near Lily Allen standard. Kate's heard the Regina Spektor album, thought that it's acceptable to make plinky plonky noises with the piano, and chatter over the top, squeaking every now and then for effect. For Regina, it works to sublime effect, but for Kate it just sounds a bit playdays.

The album is repetitive and a bit dull, and doesn't even feature Caroline is a Victim for which she was held in good underground repute before the excellent (and really only Lily-esque track) Foundations moved her into the mainstream. But Foundations is as melodious as the album gets - you can barely notice a chorus in any of the other songs, which you just implore to kick in at some point, but never do. I've owned albums before where you never bother listening past track 6, but this is the first one where I would recommend stopping after track 2.

Bad luck Kate. And sorry for the Lily Allen comparisons, that I expect you hate, but hey ho.

PS - since writing this above, I have discovered the chorus in three more of the songs. But they're not as good as foundations'

Killing in the name of Mr Oizo

LOVING this at the moment-
Mr Oizo / RATM - Killing In The Name [visit the MySpace]

and the DJ Clumsy remix is amazing too
Mr Oizo / RATM - Killing In The Name (DJ Clumsy Remix)

Songs Prince didn't play

Raspberry Beret
Little Red Corvette
1999
When Doves Cry
Diamonds and Pearls
My Name is Prince
Sexy MF
Gett Off
Money Don't Matter Tonight
Most Beautiful Girl In The World
Nothing Compares 2 U (woulda been nice!)

silly purple tosser

New combined RSS feed

Nerdy indeed, but I've combined my several blog feeds into one feed, so you only have to subscribe to one thing (yes you, loyal reader). I've combined the three blogs, flickr, and my facebook status updates.

I did this using Pipes, a service on Yahoo that let's usually visually program your feed data to combine it into one output, manipulating the data along the way with Regular Expressions, etc etc. Very neat.

Here's my pipe You can click on the subscribe button on that page to get an RSS or other feed

iPlayer doesn't work

Tried to install BBC iPlayer, didn't work. Some random error message that caused some background process to fail to work which caused the iPlayer application to not be able to load. Or something. I'm sure they'll sort it one day, or they won't sort it at all, or something.

They really should have managed the press a bit better with the iPlayer launch, because the expectation is WELL high. All the news reports on Friday were of the BBC "launching" its new service that lets you download TV. It's not really their fault that when people go to the site and find its a Beta, and their application to use it has to be approved, they get disappointed. Well, it probably is their fault, but maybe not really.

The installation process was very complicated, even if it had worked. Go to a website, login with a password, accept an ActiveX control (but they didn't tell you about that part), install an EXE application, go back to the browser and refresh, sign in to bbc.co.uk with a different password (create an account if you don't have one, which is four screens of questions), then go back to the browser again and hopefully download the WMV file. I got as far as the EXE application, and it wouldn't run, so... meh.

I wonder if the BBC are really that geared for "delivering product". For the brief moments it lived before it was axed, the BBC Jam platform was ruddy awful. Should a corporation whose background is in making content really be trying to make computer programmes? Mind you, in both the iPlayer and Jam cases, they contracted out to Microsoft, so maybe that's their mistake right there.

Bikeathon

Doing the London Bikeathon tomorrow. Been plotting the route on Google Maps. It's a double marathon, in two sections. The first marathon is a loop around West London, and the second marathon is a double-back loop around The City.

Quotes from The Thick Of It this week

"that's easy for you to say, he threatened to shove an iPod up my cock"

"don't let him hear you saying that, he'd fuck you like Ron Jeremy- only with less warmth"

"I'd love to stop and talk but I'd rather have type 2 diabetes"

"we are going to ram you up Tom's arse so hard that he has to shit out of his lying mouth"

"you're so badly fucked, his bell end is wearing your appendix as a hat"

"you're about as secure as a hymen in a South London comprehensive"

"if he thinks he's leaking now, wait til I finished with him, he'll be like Mel Gibson's fucking Jesus"

"you don't go and get me some cheese, I'll rip your head off, and give you a spinedectomy"

"it's not like we're The Independent, we can't just stick a headline like CRUELTY and a picture of a whale or something underneath it"

"enough of the pleasantries, let's just oil up and get fucking eh"

"ok people WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COCK"

"you don't leak, not from the mouth anyway"

Glastonbury Photo sets

I just wanted a place to host together the photo sets of all the mates I was hanging out with in Glastonbury. So here we go:

• Mine
• Milf's
• Tom's
• Joe's
• Matt's

My new gimpPod, and, Why iPods actually cost more

Thought I'd post a picture of my new iPod, dubbed the gimpPod because of the black wubber skin I bought for it. Pretty neat the way not one part of the actual pod is exposed, and the way the touchwheel can work beneath the rubber. Thanks to the lovely folks for a great birthday present.

I was surprised when the iPod arrived how much the iPod "package" has been paired down. A while ago I was musing about how cheap iPods are now, relative to when they first came out, and I put it down to scales of production and the iPods popularity. But actually, the accessories the iPod *doesn't* come with any more, more than make up the shortfall in cost. My 3G ipod, which cost about £300, came with -

• a belt clip carry case (£19)
  
• an external power supply with integral 13A plug (£19)
  
• a dock (£25)
  
• an in-line remote control (now only available as FM Radio Remote £35)
  
• headphone foams (£8)
  

That little £106 bunch of stuff all came in a really ornate, exciting-to-open, 6-inch cube of packaging, with software CD-ROM and user manual. All those things are missing from the iPod now, which comes in a box about the size of a fat double-CD jewel case. At £240, it just comes with headphones (<1m cable), USB lead, and cloth bag. Most irritating is the lack of mains charger - I now have to find a computer every time I want to charge my iPod.

So, if you do the maths, iPods are actually more expensive now than they were four years ago.

Hilary Clinton loves Jesus (Jones)

Interesting to hear that Hilary Clinton's campaign theme song is Right Here, Right Now by Jesus Jones - I suspect the identity of the artist performing the song is rarely mentioned by campaign staff. Here's a "live" performance of the song, from 1991.

I find the stupid over-performance, which doesn't fit the relatively mellow nature of the song, quite amusing. They think they're big hair rockers, but they're really not. Note especially the stupidly manic keyboard, none other than the self-indulgent prat Iain Baker, who recently left Xfm in a cloud of DLT-esque "I'm not happy with some of the changes around here" (friends in the know make it quite clear he was actually let go, probably for being, umm, a bit of a twat).

Bees, glorious bees

I've got a bee home on my balcony. Here are some photos, and here is a video.

Super Duper!!

I haven't blogged about the US elections in a while, it had kinda gone a bit quiet as far as news reaching the UK was concerned. Couple of things caught my eye today though.

I got an email from Barack last night (he likes to write to me), telling me that he'd raised $25m so far, all from individual supporters (it's a big part of his campaign that politics should be a conversation with the people, and he's not taking contributions from corporates or lobbyists). Quite impressive considering Clinton has raised just $26m, and hasn't made such a pledge. Whether that means Clinton still has that card up her sleeve, and Obama will run out of cash, I don't know.

Then, I read about Super Duper Tuesday. "Super Tuesday" has been around for 30 years or so now; synchronous election days in multiple states, which usually cause the minnows to drop out, but often cause upsets or unheard-ofs to suddenly become heard of (think FA Cup giant killings, but with politics). This year, tired of the demographically-misrepresentative and smaller states like Iowa and New Hampshire shaping the beginnings of all the campaigns, the other states have decided to, practically speaking, make the primaries a general election. 25 states (and maybe more) will now be holding there primaries on February 5th, in what has been dubbed (it could only be so in America) Super Duper Tuesday. This includes California and Texas, who are the most populous and have the most electoral college votes. So, it could all be over and the tickets decided on Feb 5th 2007. This could be a bad thing - those small players without a voice used to rely on the gradual build up through the small states to gain momentum (Bill Clinton for example), and some commentators are suggesting this move will only be a good thing for the well-funded big candidates.

Finally, in a nod again to my working life, Joe Biden's website www.headtohead08.com is a smart use of YouTube video. Pick a candidate, and you can hear what they have to say about Iraq alongside what Joe has to say. It seems to be only about Iraq, but I'm sure that will change. Neat idea, and another example perhaps of an outsider candidate trying to quietly build support via the interwebs.

Myspace Impacts on Election

Myspace are running a portal page to each of the Presidential candidates' Myspace pages. I'm not sure if the myspace people set up the pages as well, but it's an interesting way to a) get young people interested in politics (the youthful addiction to voting/rating things doesn't seem to spill over into the real world particularly), and b) have a cheap popularity contest, though, I guess the electorate in this vote are much younger than in the real election. Hilary currently has 3,023 friends, and Barack Obama has 74,229.

Wemberley!!!

Me and Tom went to Wembley on Saturday, for the Community Day - the first public opening of the stadium, to test their crowd management. Their was a couple of celeb football games, but mainly it was a chance to walk around the stadium and take photos (here are mine, on flickr and here are Tom's) and go WOW.

Amusing cock-up of the week.

The Terry and Fearne show goes off the rails on the Eurovision Making Your Mind Up show. God knows what went wrong (earpiece faults? Maybe the lead changed at the last minute? Maybe Terry's a doddery old fool? Who knows), but it was hilarious and rounded off a great day of drinking and celebrating.


Fearne Cotton seems to have become one of these "safe pair of hands" presenters - she was on Comic Relief the night before, she did the Oscars for sky - she's quite irritating, but can always keep a programme on track, always finds something to say to keep things moving (even if it is something banal and vacuous). I quite like the way she "wheeled" Terry around the programme last night, sort of acting like the tour guide to his septuagenarian tinsel-and-turkey weekender. Come on grandad, it's time to read the winner out. Werther's original? Bless.

(ps, my mate Zoe built the Scooch website, way back in 2000 and it's still live)