Fantata

Oh the irony - Amazon sneak in and Delete 1984 from Kindle owners

2009-08-23T10:17:00.000+01:00

Ha, this is hilarious. Turns out you don't own what you pay for anymore.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/17/amazon-remotely-deletes-orwell-e-books-from-kindles-unpersons-r/

Bad design gets you more traffic...

2009-08-08T02:00:00.005+01:00

...but perhaps annoyed traffic.

If anyone out there is like me (perhaps they are not, it is entirely possible) then they will have, at some point, gone on the search for and found a great tutorial/article about something they need to do.

They'll then, perhaps, read it through & think they've got it sussed, only to find themselves 5 minutes later re-googling the same thing to get back to that self same page because they've forgotten a vital detail.

Imagine that the pertinent information is on page 5/5, imagine the navigation is so ill-considered and non-re-factored (pre-factored?) that there is no way to go from page 1 to page 5 without clicking next 4 times.

This is highly annoying, but the content is strong, so you do it. Perhaps not 10 times, but then again, perhaps you are that forgetful.

What does this do for the developer of the site you're using? Piss you off with them ...for sure. Make their boss 5 x more happy with the analytics figures? sure that too. grrrrr.

UPDATE: yes, I am aware of the existence of back buttons, browser history, bookmarks and having a short term memory.

PDO lastInsertId issue

2009-07-09T20:39:00.004+01:00

OK, so i may be dimmer than most, but I spent over an hour pulling my hair out over this.
To get the correct id back from PDO::lastInsertId(), you have to call it before the commit.
e.g. somthing like...

$dbh = new PDO();
$dbh->beginTransaction();
$stmt = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute($params);
$return = $dbh->lastInsertId();
$dbh->commit();

...will work nicely

David Cameron has it large!

2009-04-29T01:17:00.003+01:00

Is this David Cameron at a rave in 1988?

For the full video, check out youtube (although this is about all you get of "probably not" David Cameron)

The Lonely Island - Jizz in my pants

2009-02-07T12:29:00.002Z

Keep an eye out for these guys, this is "Jizz in my pants" from the forthcoming album "Incredibad". Just brilliant!

thelonelyisland.com/

The Chin Review - Origin of species

2009-02-06T02:01:00.001Z

jonni Music

2009-02-06T01:58:00.000Z

Eoaaaohah...

Good Riddence you bastard

2009-01-21T17:28:00.002Z

I think Graham Linehan sums it up best

Timewaster Phone Calls

2009-01-19T18:03:00.001Z

Phone calls from Robin Cooper - the chap behind The Timewaster letters.
Great stuff. What is the number for 118 118?

http://www.robertpopper.com/?page_id=55

The Super Broker Shuffle

2009-01-08T14:10:00.001Z

New Flight of the Conchords! Series 2 - watch now!

2008-12-17T18:35:00.001Z

Season 2 Online Premiere - Flight of the Conchords (US Only) - watch more funny videos

The first episode of series 2 of FOC is available now! Only to US users though. I absolutely do not suggest or condone using a US open proxy service such as can be found here. http://www.xroxy.com/proxy-country-US.htm

"Internet" - the future

2008-12-17T11:12:00.000Z

The Multiple Kill Vehicle

2008-12-09T20:27:00.001Z

Terrifying.

Angry Mob Playset

2008-12-09T12:30:00.001Z

Angry Mob Playset - the must have toy this christmas.

Oh dear

2008-12-06T15:40:00.006Z

ok, I really can't draw. to attempt to get better, I'm going to draw myself every day.
I will post occasional attempts to see if I'm getting any better. Here is no. 1 - I don't look like this really!

I've got the look of a Russian from a Big Train staring contest here!

Sebastian Rogers

2008-12-06T15:13:00.004Z

Check out Sebastian Rogers - met him and saw him perform at a house concert in Brighton last week & he's travelled the length and breadth of the US giving concerts in peoples living rooms. Interesting guy, great music.

I'm sure this is how hitler started

2008-12-06T15:11:00.001Z

Overcoming adversity

2008-12-06T15:10:00.001Z

Sand Therapy

2008-12-06T15:09:00.001Z

http://chir.ag/stuff/sand/

A first for me

2008-11-30T17:51:00.011Z

I got called a Paki last night outside a bar in Hampshire. To give some context, I'm a middle-class white man from Norfolk.

I didn't really know how to react. Me and my mate George (also white) were just baffled to be honest, as we walked outside the bar for a smoke and the ignorant scum-boy started to quiz us - "not being funny mate, but does your uncle own a corner shop?". No, not being funny, thats the single part of your sentence that made any sense.

Racial inaccuracies aside, I would have genuinely liked to have known what reason he thought he had for instigating confrontation from a distance of 10 yards purely based on someones skin pigmentation. Unfortunately, I judged that this particular chap and his gang of giggling fuckwits weren't really up for some analysis of the issues at hand, or really a friendly chat.

I'm lucky, I don't really witness racism that often, and when I do it's usually in the form of ignorant old men in pubs who have never left Norfolk, and are scared by anything remotely unusual ("sponge pudding, on a Wednesday?! you're starting to make me uncomfortable Mary."). I've certainly never been on the receiving end of it, and I can tell you I didn't much enjoy it.

I really would have loved to be equipped enough physically (or have useful fighting super-powers) to have taken him on and tried to find out exactly how the crazy fuckers mind works. But I'm not, so we took the moral high ground and walked off, a bit confused as to what had just happened.

New UK VAT Calculation - 17.5% to 15%

2008-11-28T11:50:00.002Z

This is as much for my memory as anything else, but I'm sure there are one or two of you out there having to tweak a load of code for the VAT change (Thanks Darling).

Old Calc = Gross * 7 / 47 = VAT amount
New Clac = Gross * 3 / 23 = VAT amount

Google Chrome is here!

2008-09-02T20:14:00.002+01:00

The new browser from google is here...if you have a Windows PC running XP SP2 or higher.
A Mac and Linux version on the way soon. Boo you Google :(

If you have a smelly Windows PC, you can download it here

DIE, DIE...

2008-09-01T20:19:00.006+01:00

...IE6! For you have long been the bain of my life.

I wish that I could turn my back on IE6, as most web dev's do. I'm pleased there's lots of chatter at the minute about stopping support for it.

I like this a lot The Ultimate way to stop supporting IE6 and clearly web professionals are pretty much in agreement.

But sadly for me, and a lot of transactional sites, we simply cannot afford to be turning away customers, and yes, I do appreciate some people have computers so old that they can't upgrade. It's easy to say they SHOULD, but people have different priorities and means in life.

I checked our logs today and a massive 46% of our traffic is IE6 - although people do suggest that a lot of bots use the IE6 agent, so I need to have a look at that, because 46% is depressingly high.

I long for the day I can stop hacking my lovely designs about. I'm off to dance around a burning big blue e.

Start and stop mysql on OSX

2008-09-01T10:45:00.000+01:00

If you want to start MySql in Leopard, you need to call the startup item directly from the command line:

sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM start

And to stop it:

sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM stop

Extract a specific file from tar archive

2008-08-11T11:19:00.002+01:00

If gzipped, first run gunzip {filename}.tar.gz Then...

tar --extract --file={filename}.tar {file(s) to extract}

HOW TO: list files within a gzipped tar

2008-08-11T00:11:00.000+01:00

tar -tzf file.tar.gz

-t: lists files
-f: instructs tar to deal with the following filename (file.tar.gz)
-z: informs tar that the it's dealing with a gzip file (-j if it's bzip2)

PHP Front Controller Tutorial

2008-05-20T21:59:00.001+01:00

The best introduction to using a front controller in PHP I've seen...

http://w3style.co.uk/a-lightweight-and-flexible-front-controller-for-php-5

Getting started with Subversion on Mac OSX

2008-05-20T21:58:00.001+01:00

Quick start guide for subversion...
http://www.rubyrobot.org/tutorial/subversion-with-mac-os-x

Regular expression cheat sheet

2008-04-28T15:26:00.002+01:00

http://www.ilovejackdaniels.com

Glastonbury Festival 2008 - Line Up

2008-04-28T14:56:00.002+01:00

Pyramid Stage

Friday
Kings Of Leon
The Fratellis
Editors
The Gossip
The Feeling
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
The Subways
Kate Nash

Saturday
Jay Z
Amy Winehouse
Manu Chao
The Raccounters
James Blunt
Crowded House
Seasick Steve
The Hold Steady
Shakin’ Stevens

Sunday
The Verve
Leonard Cohen
Neil Diamond
John Meyer
Gilbert O’Sullivan

The Other Stage

Friday
Panic At The Disco
The Enemy
We Are Scientists
Foals
Ben Folds
Vampire Weekend
Joe Lean & Jing Jang Jong
Hilltop Hoods

Saturday
Massive Attack
Hot Chip
Elbow
Duffy
The Wombats
Neon Neon
Black Kids
The Golden Silvers

Sunday
Groove Armada
The Zutons
The Pigeon Detectives
Mark Ronson
Scouting For Girls
Jack Penate
Newton Faulkner
Black Mountain

John Peel Tent

Friday
Jamie T
The Cribs
Reverend & The Makers
MGMT
The Ting Tings
The Young Knives
Lightspeed Champion
Glasvegas
Patrick Watson

Saturday
Biffly Clyro
The Futureheads
Band Of Horses
The Black Lips
Vampire Weekend
The Courteeners
British Sea Power
Holy F*ck (edited for pesky firewalls)
The Teenagers

Sunday
The National
Spiritualized
Crystal Castles
Brian Jonestown Massacre
The Stars
Rocket Summer
Friendly Fires
The Whip
Dogtanion

Dance East/West

Friday
Fatboy Slim
Roisin Murphy
X-Press 2
Hercules & Love Affair
Cicada
Way Out West
Cagedbaby
Stanton Warriors
Utah Saints

Saturday
UNKLE
Eddie Temple Morris
Roni Size
Simian Mobile Disco
Pendulum (DJ)
Kid Sister
A Trak
Metronomy
XX Teens

Sunday
Kosheen
Annie Mac
Sam Sparro
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Black Ghosts
South Central
Sonny J
Derek May
System 7

The Park

Friday
Pete Doherty
Dizzee Rascal
John Cale
Edwyn Collins
The Duke Spirit
Operator Please
Sons & Daughters
Santogold
Beggars

Saturday
CSS
Battles
MGMT
Kool Keith
Guilty Pleasures (DJ)
Alphabeat
St Vincent
Eugene MacGuniness

Sunday
My Morning Jacket
Tunng
Vetiver
Laura Marling
Mystery Jets
Kathryn Williams
Cave Singers
Alberta Cross

Duran Duran "f*cking up in style"...

2008-03-27T20:26:00.008Z

...I find that hard to believe. F*cking up in dated suits and crap hair is more likely.

Duran Duran's last studio album, "Red Carpet Massacre" sold almost 300 copies* in the UK and US when released last year.

Duran Duran's World tour got off to a shaky start in Auckland this week as front man Simon Le Bon forgot the words to "Hungry Like the Wolf" causing bassist John Taylor to storm off stage.

"I could not dance to that" fumed Taylor upon appearing back on stage, "These people have come here to dance!".

"Duran Duran f*cking up in style", Le Bon anncounced to the crowd...who hadn't even noticed.

full story here

*factually inaccurate

A and Arse : the nineties music

2008-02-15T23:52:00.004Z

John Niven talks about the high life of a major record label in the champagne charlie world of the
nineties music industry in this Times article - an interesting read for those of us who were lining the pockets of the record labels during this period.

Thank god for bittorrent, and do they really wonder why they're getting their cumuppence for years and years and years of fleecing us?

Viva la revolution!

Macworld a go-go!

2008-01-14T19:01:00.001Z

Well, I guess it's a little geeky to get excited about the prospect of finding out what Steve Jobs and Apple have in store for 2008. Sod it, I'm a geek, I don't care.

It does just so happen that my boss is about to buy me a shiny new Mac laptop, so I will be watching/reading tomorrow's Keynote with quite some interest.

The new sub-notebook looks now to be a dead cert, whether or not it'll be called "MacBook Air" - I'm not convinced. Speculation over the name seems to be based on this photo someone managed to snatch of the Keynote backcloth...

...possibly alluding to the name for the much talked about sub-notebook, or perhaps a new wireless offering as the centerpiece of the keynote.

It remains to be seen just how sexy the "Air" is going to be (my guess, really very sexy) but as I'm not on the road that much, I don't think I'll be choosing it over a high end Macbook. But we will see, Apple has a habbit of wowing prospective buyers at these events. If the "Air" has gestural controls, and the MacBook range isn't touched, I might be tempted. After all, we all want to be the cool kid with the latest iToy, don't we?

So we wait to see - I have to wait til the tail end of the day tomorrow as I'm here in the UK, but a fine end to the day I hope it will be, and with a bit of luck on wednesday, I'll have that wonderful feeling of going to the Apple store with my bosses credit card!

MacRumors has all the gossip ahead of the keynote, and www.macrumors.com/mwsf/ has all the latest news from the expo.

mclovin12four

2007-12-11T23:27:00.000Z

What the hell is mclovin12four? It's showing up in google trends.
Some seem to claim it's an aimbot (see here , although I thought that was a way for cheating at first person shooters), and others that it's a promo for Superbad, but thats been out for ages now.

Apologies if you've found this by googling and were hoping for an answer (although, bizarrely, google has only 10 results for this - are they filtering it?)

Please do come back here and let me know if you find out what it is!

Led Zeppelin reunion - People get older, but the song remains the same!

2007-12-10T23:48:00.000Z

Led Zeppelin tonight played their reunion gig at the O2 Arena after nearly 20 years.
John Bonhams son Jason was on Drums and the reports are that it was amazing, and that boy they can still rock the joint.

Channel 4, in their infinite wisdom have the excellent 1973 madison Square Garden gig on now & I'm sitting here watching just wishing I could have got a ticket for tonight :(

The set list at the O2 arena in London was as follows...

'Good Times Bad Times'
'Ramble On'
'Black Dog'
'In My Time Of Dying'
'For Your Life'
'Trampled Under Foot'
'Nobody's Fault But Mine'
'No Quarter'
'Since I've Been Loving You'
'Dazed And Confused'
'Stairway To Heaven'
'The Song Remains The Same'
'Misty Mountain Hop'
'Kashmir'

encore...
'Whole Lotta Love'
'Rock And Roll'

Search Page Larry to marry!

2007-12-08T17:02:00.000Z

It seems there'll be a glass of cheap plonk or two being consumed on Necker island (owned by Best Man, Richard Branson) this weekend as Google Co-Founder, Larry Page, marries his girlfriend of just 1 year, Lucy Southworth.

Here's a picture of the happy couple, and hasn't he done well! (although he does look as if he's sneaked into the back of this shot, unbeknown to her!)

Tell me, Lucy Southworth, what first attracted you to joint 5th richest man in America, Larry Page? I jest of course, I'm sure they're very much in love and I wish them every happiness (I'm sure larry will be breathing a sigh of relief now he has my blessing).

Page and Branson have become good buddies in the last couple of years incidentally, enjoying booze fuelled evenings rolling around in their underwear on huge piles of money.

Oh, to be a quitter

2007-11-13T18:48:00.000Z

Stopping smoking is tough.
Prohibition just makes the urge stronger

I like this article by Clive James.

...and I'm lighting one up in my memory right now :)

Maps

2007-11-12T12:34:00.000Z

I saw Peter, Bjorn and John at the Forum last week. They were OK - they seemed to relax more once they'd played Young Folks and a third of the audience left (some people!). Bizarrely, most of the crowd preferred to chat amongst themselves than listen to the bands.

Anyway, supporting them were the wonderful creation of Northampton's James Chapman - Maps, and for me it was they who justified the cost of my ticket.

I'd heard bits and pieces of them before without thinking too much, but seeing them live was enveloping from the moment they strolled onto the stage and burst into their first song with a rightly held confidence. The sound was fairly shit at the forum, but this didn't seem to matter - somehow the energy in the performace and hypnotism of the tunes made you not even notice after a short time.

We can create is their album, and you can hear them on the hype machine too.

National Novel Writing Month

2007-10-31T12:53:00.000Z

They say everyone has a book in them. I've never been too sure if that's actually true, but thought I'd attempt to get mine out in national novel writing month, which starts tomorrow.

The idea is that you start writing tomorrow, write an average of 1667 words each day in November and have a 50k word novel at the end of the month! Lovely stuff. The emphasis is on quantity, not quality, and theres to be no editing til December.

It doesn't matter if it's disjointed, nonsensical in places or is just plain arse. The idea is simply to get people writing. I for one am going to give it a bash, if you fancy joining me, head on over to NaNoWriMo.org and sign up.

JOIN ME!

How to compress and decompress tar and gzip files

2007-10-30T17:05:00.000Z

How to untar a file

A lot of Linux/Unix files you find yourself working with will be compressed using tar and/or gzip. These are files with extensions like .tar and .tar.gz.

Extracting

For.tgz, tar.gz, or tar.z extension use this command:

tar -zxvf {filename}

Eg: tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz

This will extract the file for you in the directory you are currently in. Using the above command will save you from having to redirect the output for gzip or anything else (because the z option automatically decompresses the file for you), otherwise without the z argument, you would have to do the extraction for the gzip first, then do a tar -xvf for the tar archive.

Archiving

To create a gzipped .tar file, use the following command...

tar -cf {filename}

...to create filename.tar
Eg: tar -cf filename

- Then -

gzip {filename.tar}

...to create filename.tar.gz

It's amazing what you can do with a few boxes

2007-10-20T13:50:00.000+01:00

OK, This is incredible. This dude, Chris Gilmour makes things out of cardboard - like the car above. How the f*ck? More Here at his site...

TV Links Raided and the operator arrested

2007-10-20T13:28:00.000+01:00

A 26yo man from Chelteham in the UK, was arrested yesterday and the web site TV-Links shut down.

Many sites exist hosting and streaming video content across the web, what made TV-links so popular was that it aggregated these videos and allowed users to browse and search them from one place.

Although not actually hosting any of the content, the operator has been arrested for 'facilitation' of copyright infringement. This raises the question of what actually constitutes an offence. If I linked to TV-Links or a similar site from my blog, would I have the long arm of the law knocking at my door tomorrow?

Anyway, at the very least, the movie and TV industry need to realise that the way people want media is changing and there is a huge demand for their programmes, and back-catalogue ( wheres ya Mac iPlayer BBC!?!?), prefereably all in one place. I for one would pay a fiver a month to have access to BBC/C4/American content streamable and maybe pay a quid a time for a movie. They'd make a not so small fortune for sure.

RIP Tv-Links (not that I ever used it myself, you understand).

Code for simple PHP timer script

2007-10-15T15:53:00.002+01:00

<?php

// Simple timer script

function timeStamp() {
list($usec, $sec) = explode(" ", microtime());
return ((float)$usec + (float)$sec);
}

$startTime = timeStamp();

// Do some things here - i'm just sleeping for a bit
usleep(150000);

// get the split time
$splitTime1 = timeStamp();

// round to 4 dec places, unless you want to be crazy accurate
$splitTime = round($splitTime1 - $startTime,4);
echo "Split Time: ".$splitTime." seconds.";

// Do some more things here
usleep(500000);
$endTime = timeStamp();
$totalTime = round($endTime - $startTime,4);
echo "End Time: ".$totalTime." seconds.";

?>

Radiohead

2007-10-14T14:02:00.001+01:00

I bought In Rainbows for £2. A bit mean you may think, but I could have had it for nowt, and after all the idea was to pay what you wanted, so thats what i did. I must admit I love it right now. Weird fishes and Jigsaw falling into place particularly do it for me. A throw back to OK Computer for sure, and a very welcome one for me as someone who didn't really go on their unmelodious beepy journey of the last 3 studio albums.

But, what In Rainbows has really done for me is to make me go back and realise what an truely amazing album The Bends was. With The Bends, High and Dry, Fake Plastic Trees, Just, My Iron Lung and Street Spirit on ONE album, I'd forgotten just how incredible it is.

Faith in their product - great advertising idea

2007-09-17T15:14:00.000+01:00

In a recent marketing campaign in Vancouver, 3M sought a strong image for their security glass.

They modified a bus shelter, fitting it with their security glass and filled it with REAL BANKNOTES!!!

Many have tried to gain access with golf clubs and baseball bats but obviously the glass remains intact!

This is what you call having faith in your own product .... great advertising!

Codeigniter ahoy!

2007-09-12T18:07:00.000+01:00

This week I have mostly been loving Codeigniter (not literally, that'd be hideous). Never has the MVC approach made as much practical sense before, and CI has the good sense to let you quite happily just use a VC approach where MVC would be overkill.

No framework is ever going to exactly fit the things you want to do in the way that you want to do them, but what I love about CI is that is doesn't try to do too much, but it's extendable if you want more. The initial setup comes with more or less everything you need for most purposes I would have thought.

CI also has great documentation and community, small overhead/footprint and is a doddle to setup (just copy the dir structure and set a couple of config settings). Plus it works with PHP4, which is a huge bonus to me as my shared hosting STILL have no date for migration to 5.

Is PHP's ROR? Time will tell, but it's like a breath of fresh air to this web monkey.

Note to self...

2007-09-12T11:35:00.001+01:00

Cross-browser test EVERYTHING, ALWAYS!

:(

Typeface the facts

2007-08-08T00:10:00.001+01:00

Typography is something not a lot of Web Developers gave much of a hoot about a few years ago. How things have changed, and these days a web monkey worth his salt needs to know his points from his serifs and kern with the best of them.

Heres my collection of typography resources...

A Guide to Web Typography
The wonderful webtypography.net is a superb guide to creating beautiful text. A wealth of information drawing on principles from The Elements of Typographic Style - the design industry standard by Robert Bringhurst. This site covers ground from the basics to the advanced levels of web typography. An essential for the serious web designer.

Typographica
The greatest Typography blog out there. Plenty that won't be directly applicable to your day to day work - but hugely inspiring creatively, fascinating and wonderfully written by people with a clear passion. Well worth keeping an eye on.

80 Beautiful Typefaces - compiled by Smashing Magazine
80 of the lovliest typfaces ever made. Pretty much all of the typefaces you'll ever need.

Thinking with type
A whistle stop tour around the finer points of working with type. Really nicely designed site, I got a lot from this one.

The Adobe Type Primer
In depth look at the issues surrounding text and typefaces from the daddies of documents. In PDF form, naturally.

Former Spam King admits "I'm going to hell"

2007-07-19T17:55:00.000+01:00

A retired spammer, simply known as Ed has revealed at a security conference in London, how he used to make up to $15,000 a week by targetting the vulnerable members of society with specific spam emails.

Using lists of reformed gambling addicts and those dependant on prescription drugs he sent out thousands of emails to try and lure people to gambling and pharmacutical sites. Using networks of average consumers drone machines rented of hackers, Ed spent up to 10 hours a day sending spam and working out ways to evade spam filters.

After making nearly half a million dollars in a year, Ed decided to pack it in to write a book. In his words "It's hard to go into a bar and explain your job to a woman by saying "I advertise penis enlargement pills online, It doesn't go down very well.".

Full story at Yahoo! news

Jesus Action Figure on a Wal-Mart shelf near you soon!. one2believe for sure.

2007-07-18T00:57:00.000+01:00

That's right folks, as of next month Wal-Mart will be selling the one2believe talking Jesus action figure. Your very own little plastic Messiah will deliver quotes and stories Action Man style - presumably along the lines of "Does this wine taste funny to you?" and "My hands hurt."

Harry Potter Leak - the Deathly Hallows available on bittorrent!

2007-07-18T00:35:00.000+01:00

Well, the biggest book security operation of all time has fallen flat on it's arse - the new Harry Potter book is available in it's entirity across the bittorrent network. The torrent has appeared on the controversial torrent site The Pirate Bay.

I've had a look and it seems to be there as a series of photographs in pdf form - weighing in at 73MB. I'm sure there'll be some red faces at the publishers, Bloomsbury, and one would think an investigation to find those mystery fingers. Could it be the work of you know who?

Of course, I do in no way condone copyright theft, but should you be curious just go to The Pirate Bay and search for harry potter. I expect there will be one or two seeders!

Smart ass exam answers

2007-07-17T19:58:00.001+01:00

The Hype Machine

2007-07-17T00:17:00.000+01:00

This is a great aggregator of tunes posted on the best of the nets music blogs...

The most inept Crystal Maze performance ever.

2007-07-14T17:37:00.000+01:00

What a plum.

Guerrilla Marketing

2007-07-12T10:23:00.001+01:00

Ikea Bus Stop

Cingular - Hate dropped calls?

Wrigleys Extra in Starbucks

Saatchi & Saatchi ad for coffee shop utilising New York
steaming manhole covers

PETA - People for Ethical Treatment of Animals

Great Bags

Glastonbury baby! Wed, Thurs & Fri

2007-07-04T23:34:00.000+01:00

Well, having been away for 3 years I can't put into words how much I was looking forward to the Big G this time around. Was I dissapointed? In a word...not really very much.

Thanks to a spot of precision organisation from the undisputed heavyweight champion of getting things done (we'll call him Keef, for ease), I was able to arrive as late as midnight on Wednesday by train (which was an amazingly hassle free way to get there) and still enjoy a great spot within spitting distance of the other stage.

After meeting up with a few of the boys and Hannah, we took a jaunt around the site, ending up at the stone circle, which was rammed (and I mean RAMMED). The atmosphere was great and we loitered for a bit trying to find the pissed Jenny and watching a group launch papery firey things into the sky.

Being out of practice at festvials, we'd brought no booze or owt with us on our stroll so a quick dash back to the tent (NB: no such thing exists at Glasto) was called for. Of course, by the time we got back to the camp there were a few others there and a roaring fire. We all got comfy, but I decided to try and venture back to the circle with a bottle of rum. Naturally, halfway there the heavens opened and dreams of dry Glasto disintergrated there and then. I managed to find Jenny and a dodgy burger and somehow managed to get completely shit faced within half an hour - perhaps due to absent-mindedly sipping my rum like it was water and generally being a bit over-excited.

Thursday was relaxed and cool (albeit with a slight rum-over) - we mainly spent it sussing out the site, drinking cider from the brother bus and working out the best plan of action for the next few days. Showers ensued on and off (as they did for the entire weekend!) and thursday night was eased in with some tequilla shots & soon deteriorated into a drunken blur! I remember losing everyone except for Jen within minutes of wandering about & trotting round in elongated circles talking shit 'til the early hours.

I managed to lose my bag (fortunately with nothing much in) on thursday night, and so Friday morning was spent re-tracing a few of the last nights stopping off points - to no avail. We hooked up with a few of the others and started Glasto proper with a quick blast of Chas and Dave in the park (lovely stuff), followed by a classic set from the Super Furry's on the Other Stage. This was a perfect start, with the classics rolling out in true SFA crowd pleasing style (Juxtaposed with you / Northern Lights / Golden Retriever & The Man don't give a fuck to finish). The novelty outfit for Gruff Rhys being an motobike helmet with a hole around the temple which he seemed to be singing out of!

A quick trot over to the Pyramid stage next to arrive just as Kel from Bloc Party was starting Song for Clay, which sent shivers down my spine straight away & as the drums indicated 'that' riff was seconds away, it really sank in that this was Glastonbury baby! A great set from Bloc party with the sun shining, and their bassist had happy birthday sung to him by 20,000 people. Banquet and Helicopter got the whole field moving and I was really up for it by the end of their set.

We hooked up with a couple of mates in the dance field and I left Jen to go and have a dance while I strolled up to the stone circle and went to meet people for Arcade Fire at the Other Stage at 8. I met the bearded wonder (we're talking an 8 and a half on the beard scale here) that is Fogg at the tent and we went to try and get a good spot for the Arcade Fire. I was probably looking forward to this one more than anything else over the weekend & I was delighted to see a pipe organ on stage when we got there. It was rammed, as would be expected, but we found a decent spot to the left of the sound desk. Aside from the constant buffeting from people coming and going thoughout, i was just in awe all the way through this. The sound could have been louder (and I know a lot has been made of this since), but Win & co pulled out all the stops (literally on Intervention!) and didn't disappoint. The audience collective went crazy for Wake Up & I was really chuffed to hear Rebellion, Black Mirror (a great set starter) and the wonderfully chilling My Body is a Cage. I left this one happy, it was everything i was looking for. Even the woman next to me repeatedly shouting "You're a winner, Win" was absolutely fine!

Next I had a dilemma - I couldn't decide between Bjork or Arctic Monkeys...so I went to see Hot Chip. And boy, was I glad I did. They said the monkeys were amazing, and the last couple of Bjork tunes I caught on the way back through were as entrancing and dramatic as you'd hope. But, the Hot Chip gig was just superb. I wasn't 'enhanced' as I think most were in the John Peel tent that night, but the whole place was pumping, and boy these lads are good live. I liked the album a lot, but with several fairly downtempo tunes on there, I wasn't sure what they'd be like in the flesh. The answer...a million times better than on CD. As could be predicted, the roof nearly came off the tent as Over and Over started to work up. One of the best live bands out there right now I'd wager. Theres something truly infectious about the clinically of synthesized drums. I'm REALLY not much of a dancer, but just couldn't stay still! If they play near you, go see 'em!

We retired to the camp after that, not wishing to overdo things on the first night proper (having already had a go on thursday!) satisfied with the first days adventures.

I don't want to mention the mud too much, but it was was tiring and there throughout. It does make the whole experience more of a mission & take the edge off things a bit. Wall to wall sun would have been the icing on the cake, but you get on with it don't you & by Sunday night I was truely 'at one' with the mud! Jen certainly wouldn't have had the fine selection of facial hair styles throughout the weekend had it not been there (and wouldn't have made it into the NME's 'moustache feature' the week after!)

Anyway, more about all that later, 40 winks for me now.

Saturday and Sunday to follow soon.

Ooooooo, it's a Youtube classic!

2007-06-01T00:43:00.000+01:00

In Q this month they've got together 100 of the best music related youtube flicks. There are some real corkers, and whilst trawling through I thought I'd put together a list of my faves...

The Bee Gees on Clive Anderson
Ah, a classic indeed. Not sure exactly what the hairy disco sisters were expecting, but the big fella takes a distinct dislike to Clive - whose face drops somewhat as they all leave. "You'll always be Les Tosseurs to me." Nice one Clive.

Beatles on the Roof of Apple

The Beatles last live performace. Good quality vid and a joy to watch, until the police stamp their authority on the situation. Jesus these boys are good.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Shane McGowan interviewed for Belgian TV
"Is that water you're drinking?" - are you fucking kidding? My favorite bit is MacGowans mate trying to leave the room through a mirror.

Shaun Ryder, Pretty Vacant on TFI
Ryder on vintage f*cking form. C4 changed their charter after this to prevent live broadcasts of this particular nature!

Serge Gainbourg chats up Whitney Houston

A lesson to us all in how to win over the ladies. He's smoooooooth. Anyone fancy a brandy?

James Brown feels good on CNN
The Grandaddy of funk sensitively reflecting on his recent arrest for assulting his wife with a lead pipe.

The Rocket, Don't look back in anger
An alternative take on this Oasis classic. No snow yet though.

Pissed off Dylan
Bob's a bit annoyed. Someone has thrown a glass into the street and he wants to know who, he's not afraid to count to 10 if he has to. Donovan stays well out of it.

MJ's first moonwalk
Jackson doing the moonwalk for the first time performing Billie Jean. I love that crazy right leg move too, or maybe it's just an unfortunate affliction. Hee hee hee.

Kraftwerk on Tomorrows world
The future is here. "Next year, they hope to build jackets with electronic lapels, which can be played by touch". Fuck yeah, why do we even still have normal instruments? Shouldn't we be playing using lasers, robots and mind-control by now?

Charlotte Church and Amy Winhouse
Winhouse struggles to stand while Church valliantly struggles through this shambolic version of Beat it. On reflection, rehab might have been a good move.

Fat Elvis
6 weeks before his death, the original burger king not looking so hot but still sounding amazing...until he gets to the talkie bit and forgets the words...his name...where he is...what day it is...Thank you very much.

Courtney Love on Letterman
...reported after as saying "something went wrong with my context. It might have been the crack."

White stripes cover of Jolene by Dolly Parton
One of the best songs ever written performed by the White Stripes. Lovely Stuff.

Rocket Man, as interperted by William Shatner
A true gem to finish on. Shatner, looking even more of a twat than usual chats his way through some classic Elton at a 1978 Sci-Fi awards show.