Category > media
The world as seen by those paid to be seen to see it,
Potty
Just when you thought Pottermania had gone (You wish. Wait until the next book comes out) somebody pays £28,000 for clues to the next book. But this isn't the bad thing.
According to Jakob Nielsen, In the Future, We'll All Be Harry Potter.
Jakob is really beginning to scare me.
- 2002-12-14 16:14:00
- By
- From The Geekhouse, Cambridge
- More Journal Entries
- Filed under Media & Useability
The Name's Mas. Christmas.
So I went Christmas shopping, and got stuff for siblings, parents, girlfriend and housemate. Oh, and me.
It's terrible. At least this time I spent more on the presents than I did on me, but these are all things I've been meaning to buy for ages, but I really should stop it. I keep accidentally buying things people are getting me for Christmas...
Today, to pick a random example, I bought the first four Lemony Snicket books, a new JC Grimwood paperback, the fifth Preacher book, and Catch22, which I've been meaning to read forever and was on offer. Then I left Borders. I went into Game and bought Tropico Gold to replace my original CD that got scratched. I walked into HMV and bought Monopoly Tycoon (Which is a CitySim based around the Monopoly world). Yesterday we went to Sainsbury's and I accidentally bought a couple of James Bond DVDs (Two for the price of one. Evil, I tell you. Old fiery-eye himself could learn). I failed to accidentally buy the Buffy six box set, but on the other hand failed to buy myself some new pillows or - and since this was the other reason for going out I'm quite miffed at this - go in to book an appointment for some new glasses.
The shadowy threat I've been hinting at for the last week has come and gone, leaving just a dark stain of it's presence. The company that is retaining the company I'm contracting (horrible word. Verbing wierds language) for decided to stop doing so, thus the project I was to move to got delayed, thus my contract was not going to be renewed when it ends on the 23rd December. This is bad, because I like working where I'm working, and kind of object to being kept hanging - not by the company who hired me, who have been helpful and hopeful throughout - but rather the fact that it had to happen at all. It's been resolved in a non-optimal but unpessimal way in that my contract will indeed cease on 2002-12-23, but will restart again mid to late January, and I can coast until then. All the above has made my new year's resolution to pay more attention to my cash-flow so I can survive weeks like this without panic attacks.
Hence the influx of media, BTW. Now I know work will continue at some point, I've allowed myself some spending :-) Reviews on the above will happen - it's the promise I made myself when buying them.
Oh, and hello Livejournelers, you are once again back with us after my sabbatical. For those of you unaware of this saga, it goes like this: Livejournal has the ability to add RSS feeds as LiveJournals, so that people who pay LJ.com money can add them to their Friends List (So it appears on a list of the most recent entries you're interested in). Somebody (Either Sam or Rho) set up Aquarionics as one. I don't mind this, really. I wouldn't publish an RSS feed if I didn't want people to use it, but my problems with this implementation are threefold. The first is that by default all syndicated journals have LiveJournal's internal commenting system enabled, so people can make comments on the items in my RSS list. Now, I'd really rather this didn't happen, since I have my own commenting system (all right, so you can't post to it currently, but that's not really the point) and I'd rather not have my comments spread across three or four sites.
Secondly, there is apparently no method of changing an RSS feed's details. Aquarionics' feed moved from /rss/all.rss to /meta/all.rss. The original was only linked to for a week, but apparently the address was taken from the announcement post by whoever did it, which should teach me to modify links, so I've now hacked Epistula so that /rss is exactly the same as /meta, but it's a horrible kludge.
Thirdly, LJ's engine automatically produces RSS feeds of all journals (just add "/rss" to the diary URL). This includes syndicated accounts.
So I raised an Issue on LJ's support forum. The problem is that because it's an Open Source venture, we have to wait until some enterprising hacker with some CFT decides to fix it, or until the paid maintainers do. Since it's not a problem for the people who use LJ, just a problem with the people whose feeds are used by them, I doubt it'll be fixed anytime soon, so I kludged it, and downloaded the source. Time to brush up on my perl...
Eleventy-first
So, to mark Tolkien's birthday, we went to see The Two Towers, and it was good. Full review coming soonish. I liked the fact they kept more of the spirit of the books in this episode - I found the first tended to avoid the spirit in favour of the words, which they occasionally cut.
Oh, and the Elvish was wonderful, natch :-)
Those who spoke on this:
Two DVDs for the fan-boys on their dark office-chairs
Today, I finally got around to watching the Extended Fellowship Of The Ring DVDs. In this, I have to agree with almost every person who has reviewed it - it is a far better film than the original cinematic was. The charectors (Particually Gimli and Aragorn) are far better developed, and the opening is far cleaner - with Ian Holm/Bilbo reciting the "Concerning Hobbits" passage over a few scenes which illustrate The Shire and it's ways and means, Natually IMDB have a complete list of all modification.
The problem with the DVD set is a less obvious one. After spending a year steeped in Stop In The Name Of Love
Argonath Statue references, Very Secret Diaries (Has anyone not seen the VSD's yet? if not, do. Really, Really do), The Abridged Script (Again, really funny), The The Rocky Fellowship Palantir Show (via rho) and 50 reasons why LoTR sucks type stuff, you may find it difficult to take it seriously. To which I can only suggest you put it out of your mind for the duration. It really is a wonderful movie and I can't wait until the third part to find out what happens next!!.
Those who spoke on this:
dearg:
I think it’s a shame ‘The Very Secret Diaries’ haven’t been updated to include the new film (or it’s accompanying novel, which is missing lots of important parts of the plot, and spends longer on some other bits, tch).
Submit!
Invader Zim rocks.TVTome has more information. Nickelodeon canceled it. Kazza is my friend. That is all.We've struck pure moron
So, Today I was surfing, and discovered...Welcome to The Buffy Network. It has come to our attention recently that a lot of visitors to this website do not have the correct setting on their computer when they try and access the site. For example, 0.82% of visitors are using Netscape - which does not support the kind of html coding we use. 2.10% of visitors dont have Java installed and/or turned on, Java is essential for some of the pop up windows we use. And 40.76% of vistors are using the wrong screen resoloution. Anything larger than 800 x 600 is too large, and the pages do not diosplay properly. Please try and use the right settings on your computer before entering the site, in order to make it look on your screen, how we intened it to look on ours. Thank you for visiting The Buffy Network. Please click 'Ok' to close this window."
Those who spoke on this:
Laurabelle:
Wow, there are just so* many things wrong with that site. Typos and misspellings galore, and they have *help pages for glods sake, purely for problems with the website itself (not at all about Buffy). And their help pages are on a different “sever” [sic] because Geocities keeps shutting down various parts of the website for breach of TOS. And take a look at that source! I really wonder if whoever wrote it has ever looked at a HTML book or even website.
dearg:
Scary.
I guess some people have never heard of accessibility. I wonder if they’ll complain about blind people not being able to read it, disabled people not being accurate enough to click on things etc.
Dive into Accessibilty should be considered compulsory reading for web designers.
Laurabelle:
For that matter, HtmlGoodies should be considered compulsory reading. Nested
, , and even tags! Sheesh!
Food of love
On Monday July 27, I begin a new project. I will be recording an album of a band for a very famous Producer. The band is relatively unknown other than within the Record Industry which, for the most part, is currently filled with bitter losers of the biggest bidding war in the history of the music business.
The tale of a Mixing techy, and the project from hell...
Hobbits
Frodo is wandering through Hobbiton on his way somewhere, when suddenly
he decides to pick up a brick and throw it through a window.
"Argh" says the person inside. "That Evil Halfling threw a brick at me!"
"Well?" says someone else inside, "Throw it back then." and indeed, the
brick comes sailing out of the window and thwacks Frodo square on the
arm, and bounces harmlessly onto the grass.
"'E's not even hurt!" cries the voice, and starts throwing logs, more
bricks, and heavy stuff at Frodo. All to no avail, however, for it all
bounces off him without any harm done.
"Argh!" shouts the voice "It don't do no good" it continued, lacking in
grammer, "No matter what I throw, it don't seem to harm him at all"
"Well of course not," replied the second voice.
"Everyone knows bad hobbits are hard to break"
Small Screen LoTR
Lord Of The Rings: The TV Series:(Via Añejo)This is a fansite dedicated to the much loved "Lord of the Rings: The Series" television show, which was produced by Warner Bros. after the huge success of the Lord of the Rings movies (directed by Peter Jackson).
Grr, Argh
I don't know if it's a function of my generic love of musicals, or the fact I like Buffy so much, but I've now had the OMWF soundtrack almost on constant repeat for nearly three days. This cannot be healthy.
In other news, my Gentoo system is booting cleanly, sound works (see above), net works, and now I'm compiling Rox & XFree, and have been for the last hour....
Oh, and I'll be at the UKBlogs thing on Friday.
Those who spoke on this:
Viewometers
On the front page of Aquarionics there could be at any one time several little pictures with the names of TV programs or films or something in them. These are the Viewometers, and this is why they exist:
A little while ago, I made a concentrated effort to catch up with Buffy by borrowing nine boxes of VHSs from LadyLark. In order for interested people to keep track of where I was on these, the Buffometer was created, a ever-changing graphic that represented where I was.
A while later, it was updated for my following of Buffy Season 6 (For which I’ve given up until the DVDs come out) (The DVDs have now come out, and I’m now waiting ‘till I can afford the DVDs).
Later still, I designed one for my minor obsession with “24”, and then later for The West Wing. If these are increasing quickly, you can probably bet that I’m watching lots of DVDs (probably via Kazaa) which may be why there is a lack of other stuff being updated on the site. Mostly it’s a way of allowing the rest of the world to keep ever-increasingly detailed tabs on what I’m doing with my life, which – after all – is what the site is here for, isn’t it?
Harry Potter And The Infinate Sequels
At 13:00 I started to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
At 18:00 I finished it.
’s good.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Wang
From Bash.org, IRC quotes to the gentry.
[JonJonB] Purely in the interests of science, I have replaced the word “wand” with “wang” in the first Harry Potter Book
[JonJonB] Let’s see the results…
[JonJonB] “Why aren’t you supposed to do magic?” asked Harry.
[JonJonB] “Oh, well—I was at Hogwarts meself but I—er—got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wang in half an’ everything
[JonJonB] A magic wang… this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.
[JonJonB] “Yes, yes. I thought I’d be seeing you soon. Harry Potter.” It wasn’t a question. “You have your mother’s eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wang. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wang for charm work.”
[JonJonB] “Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wang. Eleven inches. ”
[JonJonB] Harry took the wang. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wang above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls
[JonJonB] “Oh, move over,” Hermione snarled. She grabbed Harry’s wang, tapped the lock, and whispered, ‘Alohomora!”
[JonJonB] The troll couldn’t feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry’s wang had still been in his hand when he’d jumped – it had gone straight up one of the troll’s nostrils.
[JonJonB] He bent down and pulled his wang out of the troll’s nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue.
[JonJonB] He ran onto the field as you fell, waved his wang, and you sort of slowed down before you hit the ground. Then he whirled his wang at the dementors. Shot silver stuff at them.
[JonJonB] Ok
[JonJonB] I have found, definitive proof
[JonJonB] that J.K Rowling is a dirty DIRTY woman, making a fool of us all
[JonJonB] “Yes,” Harry said, gripping his wang very tightly, and moving into the middle of the deserted classroom. He tried to keep his mind on flying, but something else kept intruding…. Any second now, he might hear his mother again… but he shouldn’t think that, or he would hear her again, and he didn’t want to… or did he?
[JonJonB] Something silver-white, something enormous, erupted from the end of his wang
[JonJonB] Then, with a sigh, he raised his wang and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.
[JonJonB] ‘Get – off – me!’ Harry gasped. For a few seconds they struggled, Harry pulling at his uncles sausage-like fingers with his left hand, his right maintaining a firm grip on his raised wang.
Take no lergie
So, there are people out there who enjoy watching me rant about technology. Current rants are being shelved until we go public, mostly because I’ve kinda been asked to keep quiet about work stuff (We are doing Cool Things. This is all) because when I mentioned who I was working for, our webtraffic trebled and the number of google matches on our name shot up for a while. Behold the power of a single C-list weblogger.
Anyway, The big thing in the ISW1 right now is either that TheFeedFormat (AKA Pie, Atom, etc) is still happening; or that Greg Dyke wants to open the BBC Archive up. I’m with Danny and Stuart and Half the frigging internet on this one. With the notable and exceptional exception of the British Conservative Party, who think that shutting down BBCi is better fitted to their remit.
The BBC is a fun entity to behold, and it may need to be explained to furriners. Basically, the BBC is funded by us – the TV watching UK public – to (originally) “Inform, Educate and Entertain”. This was then expanded (Or contracted, depending on how you see it) when commercial TV happened, in order that the non-profit nature of the BBC didn’t kill it off. The Remit is a large document on what the BBC can and should do. Generally, the other channels feel that the BBC should stick to public service stuff, and basically leave the entertainment and profitable activities to them. I’d disagree with that, mostly because of what passes for entertainment on channel five, but these are the same people who want to shut down BBC news because Reuters do it commercially.
The first result of this pressure was to shut down half of the BBC World Service, which for many years was (and some would say still is) the best advertising that Britain had. They now want to limit it further – or shut it down completely. All this misses the point. The BBC was invented to “Inform, Educate and Entertain”. It has the wonderful motto “Nation shall speak peace unto nation” not “Nation shall watch it’s borders and keep to itself”, the point of the BBC was – and I’d say is – just to be. To be an example of a public service not just to Britain, but to everything and everyone.
There has been an argument over who owns BBC content for years. Last year it was triggered internally when the BBC Tech department started looking at Ogg Vorbis as an alternative to RealPlayer for their streams. The crucial difference between the technologies was – is, in fact – that Ogg is open. People would be able to download the streams and save them for themselves for playback whenever they wanted. It was a fantastic idea, but got bogged down in legal stuff and then completely killed when BBCi lost half it’s workforce.
The opening of the archive is a wonderful idea, but I have a horrible feeling it’ll get bogged down in “Can we do this” until it gets stop-energied to death.
[1] International States Of Webloggers, because “Blog[o]sphere” is a deeply horrible word.
We wants... a training day!
Arrrr! Ahoy and avast me wenches and scurvy sea-dogs, In true pirate style, I’m publishing MP3s that aren’t mine. In this case, it’s both relivant and something everyone should hear at least once.
The Million Pound Radio – Pirate Training Days
(This was a link, but it doesn’t work anymore because I’ve lost access to the hosting, and I lost the MP3 in a hard-drive crash. Sorry folks)
Those who spoke on this:
sil:
”...in a nice hotel near Hastings.” Pieces of eight! I haven’t heard this for years. Downloading to remind myself what it actually says, although I could probably recite this sketch from memory…where did you get it, you scurvy bilge-rat? The Million Pound Radio Show was top quality booty.
Phil:
Thank you so much for the Training Day sketch! I have looked for this online before and found nothing, so I was chuffed to find the mp3 of it on your site. It be a classic. ;-)
Peter Duby:
I’d appreciate a copy of the Pirates don’t need no training days’ file as an mp3. Please let me have a copy or let me know where one can be found. Many thanks!
Phil:
Email me at muttleee at hotmail dot com and I’ll send it to you.
Gary:
Hi Phil, I have just emailed you on your hotmail account to see if you would be kind enough to also send me an MP3 copy of the Pirate Away Day sketch. Hopefully this is OK
Ian:
Do you have a copy of the Pirates training day sketch that I might have/purchase?
Ian:
Do you know where I can obtain a copy of the “Training Day” sketch? Ian
Guilty until proven dead
Okay, that wasn’t a suprise. The man was going to be found guilty from the second he stepped into the courtroom, from the first photo in the Sun, from the first day of the trial. I doubt even if he had presented conclusive evidence to the contary, he’d have been given manslaughter instead. That isn’t the problem – the jury found him guilty, and that is accepted.
The scary thing is the “For The Children” attitude that appears to have sprung up today. Huntley had been questioned – and occasionally arrested – a number of times over his life for sexual advances towards underage girls. The prosecution had been hinting at this all though the trial, trying to pin sexual assault to the case, but because Huntley was only on trial for the murder of the girls, previous convictions were not allowed to be brought into consideration. He wasn’t being tried for them again.
He is now.
Trial by Media. Apparently every person who ever gets a job in – or near – a school must never ever have been so much as questioned over such a crime. Huntley, admittedly, possibly shouldn’t have been working in that school. A couple of questionings is one thing, but the 10 accusations over the past seven years raises some kind of flag. But should it? If I stand up and say “Hah! Joe Bloggs likes little girls!”, does that mean that Joe Bloggs can never work near children again? Even if it’s proven that Bloggs has never seen any female below the age of 40? Even if apologies are made, statements withdrawn, lies retracted. Is there allowed to be smoke without fire?
But the most worrying thing is that they – they, in this case, being the General Public – want tabs kept on anyone who is so much as linked with such a crime. This isn’t innocent until proven guilty, nor even guilty until proven innocent, this is guilty for being accused, and having this accusation follow you for the rest of your life.
Because, obviously, you can not reform criminals.
- 2003-12-18 17:00:19
- By Aquarion
- From BrowserAngel, Kings Cross, London
- More Journal Entries
- Filed under Media & Current Affairs
Anime hiatus
There is something intensly irritating about buying a box set of an Anime series, only to discover that it only contains volumes 1 – 4. I didn’t even know there was a volume five until I got to the last episode on the disc and the characters were about to be destroyed by – inevitably, this is anime – giant evil sentiant robots.
Then it played the end theme.
“argh” I said.
“Bastards”, I added with feeling.
And bastards I believe them to be.
All of them.
(Also currently orbiting Planet Aquarion: Someone in my street has an open wireless connection, which occasionally lets me online. Sadly not all the time, though. Also, I hate wireless networking with a passion normally reserved for hardware. In addition, I’ve spent large parts of the weekend fucking around with hardware which, as I’ve mentioned, I detest with a passion I normally reserve for wireless networking. It ebbs and it flows, but never works properly. I’ll explain this when I know what it is I’m explaining.)
Those who spoke on this:
naomi:
um, what’s the big deal with wireless networking? Buy router, plug into cable modem/dsl, turn on encryption…
pol:
Which assumes the routers encryption is compatible with the cards encryption, the router is compatible with the card (not guaranteed), the sun is shining the right way, your house isn’t steel framed and blocks WiFi.
There’s a lot can go wrong with Wireless and quite likely will.
I happen to know the router Aq has and if he has any problems with it I can only say “It’s all his fault” as it worked just fine for me :@)
P.
Rory Parle:
Did you say wireless networking? Excuse me while my head explodes with the memory of weeks of frustration. Actually, maybe I’ll just bask in the glory of (very well-earned) eventual success. Oh yeah; that’s the stuff.
Rory Parle:
Did you say wireless networking? Excuse me while my head explodes with the memory of weeks of frustration. Actually, maybe I’ll just bask in the glory of (very well-earned) eventual success. Oh yeah; that’s the stuff.
Rory Parle:
It seems Aquarionics was lying the first time, when it said it “couldn’t authenticate”. Shame on it.
Paul:
Wireless networking: Oh yeah, that will be the thing that works perfectly except for the unrare occasion when it doesn’t, e.g. the mysterious deadspot in the corner of the room where a PC sits, or how despite having all the same manufacturer of cards and WAP, I can only get WEP to work for the laptop and not the PC, or the fact my Dad has the same hardware as me, came round my house and plugged in my wireless card into his laptop, it worked on my network, same laptop and card onto his network – fails, my laptop and card on his network – works, his laptop and his card at his network – fails, his laptop and his card on my network – works. However, the zaurus works everywhere including the brief 10 seconds on the bus when I pass through an open network somewhere onroute.
A new TV program
The premise is quite simple.
We take Suvivor, Big Brother, Shattered, Matchmaker, ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here’ and we put them on one after the other spread across ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five.
Every couple of weeks, one of the shows has to be nominated to be taken off the air and put out of it’s misery on live TV, by rounding up the creators of the series and shooting them.
Eventually, there will only be on series left, and the producers will recieve £1,000,000 each on the provision they never produce another ‘Reality TV’ program as long as they live.
If they refuse this option, they will be dunked into a vat of battery acid.
If they accept, they will be given the chance to use it to pay the legal bills when they are charged with crimes against humanity.
Not that I dislike Reality TV.
Or anything.
End of the week
Things went up slightly. I went out for drinks with folks from work, which was fun (Cherry beer is very much like… well, alcoholic cherryade) and then for a curry, and then they put me up for the night to stop me having to take the bus back at 21:30. Which was nice.
Next morning I got dropped off at the station, found out I had a half hour to wait, and accidentally walked into a music shop then a comics shop and accidentally bought music, DVDs and comics. Then I caught my bus and went home.
On the other hand, the unusually painful blister that I thought I had on my toes turns out to be usually painful frostbite instead. Bloody delayed buses.
Ow.
Those who spoke on this:
Mary Perkins:
Glad to hear things went up a bit ;-)
Mary x
Murky:
Frostbite? Crikey… is that poetic licence or are we talking bits going blue and falling off?
Guardian Post
The new shape Guardian has launched, and I’m actually impressed. It looks cool, it’s well designed, and while they’ve dropped a couple of things I liked (Doonesbury and Pass Notes, both from G2), they seem to be replacing them with Good Stuff.
To celebrate the new edition, The PDF edition of the paper at Digital Guardian is free until the 26th, so you can see what it looks like, though that doesn’t help show how much easier the thing is to read on the bus…
- 2005-09-12 13:31:40
- By Aquarion
- From Evolving Media, Bedford
- More Journal Entries
- Filed under Current Affairs & Media
Those who spoke on this:
Jason:
Nice design, shame about the size.
Balance in all things.
On the plus side of the news, Anne Rice will never again write another vampire novel.
On the minus side, she doesn’t appear to have abandoned the notion of people you can kill and then they’ll be back a couple of days later.
Anne Rice is novelising the bible
- 2005-10-24 12:16:41
- By Aquarion
- From Evolving Media, Bedford
- More Journal Entries
- Filed under Current Affairs, Fiction & Media
Bad Science
Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science is a column that I would buy the Guardian for, if I didn’t get it every every week day anyway (Except it’s published on a Satuday now, the one day I don’t buy it, not having any buses to catch).
The last few weeks he’s been exposing a fraudulant lab as being the source of most of the various MRSA scares (Articles One Two and Three on the subject) and is getting increasingly frustrated that nobody’s paying attention, because the papers that publish ”$FOO IS AN EVIL FRAUDSTER!!” stories are the ones using the lab…
Those who spoke on this:
Stuff
Vidium
- The Hogwarts Coordinated Dance Troupe
- Funny videos of cats
- Shatner singing Elton John’s Rocketman
- Family Guy’s Stewie singing Shatner’s Rocketman
- Will Ferrell as GWB on Global Warming
Audium
Gamium
- 2005-12-04 09:54:26
- By Aquarion
- From Casarufus, Letchworth
- More Journal Entries
- Filed under Computer Games, Media & Movies
Those who spoke on this:
dearg:
Hmm, Cloud is a very calming game, nice and peaceful.
And gah, new adventure games to spend money on. I’ve only got one of the Broken Sword games so far. Speaking of adventure games, I notice Still Life, from the makers of Syberia, has been available for some time. I wonder if it is worth investigating…
On the importantance of qualifying your arguments
O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct.
All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, ‘If you said so, then I said so;’ and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If.
(And, from the same scene, because I love it so)
He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.
[Download the original file]
Attachments
Twirly
I have a love-hate relationship with the Radio 4 UK Theme.
The Radio 4 UK Theme is, for those evil non-uk people and also students who will never have heard it, a collection of traditional themes and tunes interleaved and played by an orchestra. It is, in fact, probably the original mashup. Like so many quintessential examples of British culture, it was composed by someone not native to this green and pleasant land, a Mr Fritz Spiegl, and it is played every morning at half past five to mark the return to the airwaves of Radio 4 – the long lost BBC Home Service – after its place is taken overnight by the tattered remains of the World Service.
I have, as I mentioned, a love-hate relationship with the Radio 4 UK Theme. This is because from October 2004 to December 2005 while I was spending five hours a day commuting (And yes, I shall shut up about it soon) the UK Theme was the thing that would always be playing at half past five to lull me into a false sense of awakening. So, on the one hand, it is a wonderful thing in the abstract, a great piece of music, part of our cultural heritage, its loss will be a damning indictment on the state of the country, etcetera, etcetera.
On the second hand, I shall be quite happy if I never hear the dratted thing ever again in my lifetime.
The thing that worries me slightly is that it will be replaced, we are told, by a ‘pacy news briefing’ which, to my mind, is the very last thing anybody needs at Oh-dark 30. Not least because it comes between the glacial news briefing of the World Service and the normal speed news briefing of the standard Radio 4 News. This means that the effect of this will be to replace: ”[news] [music to wake up to] [news] [Farming Today] [Today Program]” with ”[news] [more news] [news for farmers] [Yet still more news]” which isn’t really any use at all.
So, they are campaigning. Mike Flowers, who used to have some Pops is leading the charge to Save the theme by getting people to sign petitions! for the WIN! Because that will change EVERYTHING!
Also, they’re going to release it as a single, so that even if they do replace it, you can put the CD on instead. Yay technology.
- 2006-02-07 08:22:13
- By Aquarion
- From Home, Paddock Wood
- More Journal Entries
- Filed under Current Affairs & Media
Weekending
This weekend I inhaled more weed than I intended to, had my arse grabbed, drank lots of beer, watched an entire football match, bought a hat, nearly had my mobile ran over by a taxi, saw every Radio 4 Comedy Panel Game Evar live, and went to a Blockheads concert featuring Phil Jupitus and Geoffrey Perkins.
It’s 10 past 1 on Monday Morning, and I intend to see how far into this I get before I fall over.
So, lets start with the Strawberry Fair. The Strawberry Fair is, basically, what happens when you take your average village fete, blow it up until it is a City Fete and host it in Cambridge. It appears to be the hippy summer migration point of the universe, and there was not one but two massive stalls advertising “Herbal Highs” and “Legal Speed”, both with massive inflatable blue pills above them. I left home without my hat or my personal mobile (I also have a work mobile. The personal one was uncharged, so I plugged it in and diverted all calls to it it to the work one. You will be quizzed on it later), got to Cambridge, wandered around to see if I could find anybody, failed, and wandered around the Fair instead. At three, I went to meet larpers under the big blue pills (having sorted out which set of pills it was) and we hung around in the hot sun for a while, before half of us went home, and the half involving me wandered around the fair a bit more. By this point the streaming hot sun was giving me a headache, so I bought a hat. My Larp character is called Panama, so I bought a Panama style hat. It is a good hat.
It is slightly complicated to contact people when you answer your work phone with your real name which the people you contact don’t generally know you as, especially when they phone a number that diverts to the current number and are therefore phoned back on a number they don’t recognise. We met people, then we promptly lost them again. Then I went home.
On the way home I had my arse grabbed by a strange woman who proceeded to attempt to look innocent of such an act. This is a rare event in my life, so I am documenting it here. In fact, it hasn’t happened since university.
This is an observation. Not a complaint, really, but… it was odd.
Went home, remembered I was going to London Sunday and attempted to organise an instameet.
Sleep.
Wake, headache, laundry, shower, clothes, station, fight with ticket machine, buy tickets, wish Oyster would get this far, Train, London, Rearranged Kings Cross again, Tube, Tube, Chinatown, De Hems.
De Hems is a dutch themed bar. It sells very nice beer in the traditional glasses, and me and Random drank lots of it. Nobody else turned up.
Now, De Hems is a dutch bar. The World Cup not having started yet, it did not even occur to me to check to see if there was going to be a match on in there today. There was, it was against Australia. The entire bar was bright orange, the staff had orange dungarees on. It was very odd. Anyway, being sat next to the TV, and having had beer (which, I found, helps) I ended up watching the entire thing.
One team or the other won, I forget which. Doesn’t really matter.
Got fairly drunk, owe Random much beer, then rapidly sobered up by mainlining Coca Cola (Careful not to use the common abbreviation there, fact fans) when I realised I was going to have to go to the theatre very soon.
Got to Victoria Palace Theatre in time, thanks to Random knowing the secret secrets of London Above, and I met my mum for a trip to the theatre.
The thing we were seeing was a tribute to Linda Smith, one of Radio 4’s panel pool of comedians who tend to appear on the various panel games. She died earlier this year, and this was a charity concert in her honour.
It started by being hosted by Jo Brand, not one of my favourite people of all time, and with Sandi Russell a jazz/scat singer and her group. The Jazz trio were excellent, I was less a fan of the singer.
Despite a few sound problems involving a dodgy mike, the rest of the evening was excellent, with the whole crews of “The News Quiz”, “Just A Minute” and “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue” on hand to do a few rounds of their shows. It was like a “Best of Radio 4” theatre show, which is either your idea of hell or a wonderful evening, depending on who you are.
(Phil Jupitus made a joke which won’t make the broadcast, so I shall record it here for eternity: On Paul Macartney’s relationship problems: “You shouldn’t fuck a pirate”)
Also around doing standup bits were Hattie Hayridge, Barry Cryer, Mark Steel and Mark Thomas (Who talked about wandering around an arms fair as an anti-war campaigner. It was really complicated, he asked for a ticket and they sent him one, which apparently was the last thing they were expecting him to do. He is far funnier than the few TV bits of his I’ve seen would lead me to believe).
There was an interval, in which I had a gin and tonic. I blame Sian, who is a bad influance on my spirit drinking.
But the music was the best bit. Apart from Humphrey Lyttleton and his Quintet being wonderful, and Steve Gribbin doing a few political songs the best bit was the very last act.
One of my favourite bands of all time is Ian Dury and The Blockheads. The end of the evening was Phil Jupitus taking the place of the late, lamented Ian Dury for a number of the Blockheads greatest hits. The man was living my ultimate dream in part, and looked like he was having the time of his life. He was better at it than I thought he would be, in fact he was very good indeed. They opened without Phil with a song called “Spread It”, which I hadn’t heard before, and then Phill joined them for went though Wake Up And Make Love To Me, Billericay Dicky, Hit Me, and finally…
The last track of the evening was wonderful. They brought up on stage the BBC news/continuity announcers, Geoffrey Perkins to Charlotte Green, and they joined the Blockheads to sing “Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll”
It was glorious.
There was a recording made, though I’ve no idea if it was for broadcast, or sale, or will never be seen again. If you see mention of it, find it. This show will never be seen again, and deserves to be heard.
On the way out of the theatre I dropped my mobile on the road, and was nearly run down by a taxi and a bus trying to get it before it got ran over.
Those who spoke on this:
avocadia:
It was a draw, the game. However, when adjusting for the soft bigotry of low expectations, it was a total and crushing victory for the Australian team, resulting in a belief held widely across the nation that the entire Netherlands nation has sunk into a deep depression that can only be solved by beer. Superficial sideways glances have confirmed this.
AdrianO:
Mark Thomas’ best known TV work was probably the Comedy Product, which is good, but uses the comedy purely to support whatever cause/point he was making that that week and is therefore somewhat diluted. I’ve seen him doing straight standup before, and he’s superb.
How was Hattie Hayridge? Good to hear she’s still around; not heard anything of her in a while. Spent some time with her at a Red Dwarf Con about 10 years ago and she was a thoroughly nice person.
All in all it sounds like a damn good event; wish I’d known about it, and I will keep my eyes open for the recording.
Random_c:
Ah, I knew I’d commented, but I was a muppet and did so on LJ.
This is probably for the best as all I managed was hung-over groaning.
What I wanted to say was something about what I can’t help thinking is a rather disturbing trend – the sexual objectification of young men. A bloke grabs a young woman’s arse, the expected reaction would be a scream or possibly a good hard slap. I don’t care who he is, Johnny Depp would still get a wallop. A woman grabs a young man’s arse and he’s expected to appreciate the attention, even if it’s Mo Mowlem.
A useless post
This post is entirely useless.
I mean, you already know that Warren Ellis is writing a free webcomic, issues released every friday, called FreakAngels, don’t you?
And you already know he wrote Transmet, and various other important things like the novel Crooked Little Vein which you should also read if you haven’t.
You know all this, so there is no point in mentioning it.
Is there?
Dorothea Salo:
“Ohhhhh “ David said as we walked out of the theatre. “So that’s what they did with all those military commands I gave them.”
We thought they only got used in the FotR prologue. How wrong we were. :)
Castellan:
So here I am at work bored out of my skull as the illiterati of The Northern Town That Must Not Be Named return their Xmas presents for refunds when I decide to read Aquarionics.
And then it hits me, Dorothea Salo as in David as in rec.arts.books.tolkien, reads and posts to Aq’s blog. Good grief man do you realise how cool1 that is?!!
[1] note that this word is written on the understanding that it is read with the same sense of reverant awe that I imbue it herewith.