Sometimes I write my thoughts down.

Hurrah for Worcestershire Sauce!

We drink it by the pint back home, you know...

...as found by Elly, asks How Nerdy Are You?

A caution: it's overwhelmingly to do with computer and science nerdiness - if, like James, you know everything there is to know about LotR but not much about programming languages or the Periodic Table, you'll probably come out hippest of the hip ;)

My result: 76% scored higher (more nerdy), and 24% scored lower (less nerdy).

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is: Not nerdy, but definitely not hip.

I heard a couple of new singles by established bands recently which made me wonder...

Firstly, the new Coldplay single. It's pleasant enough, but not particularly noteworthy... except that in the verses Chris's voice is fairly low (for him) and there's a lot more patterned lead guitar and less of Jonny's trademark jangly riffs. It's almost as if, having written their comeback single, Chris now wants to actually become Embrace.

Then I heard the new Idlewild single. Driving indie guitars, a big yet understated chorus, and an overall feeling that it just wants to be your friend. It could almost be... *gasp* ... a scottish Coldplay. On this evidence, it looks like Bob's most feared NME prediction - that Idlewild's new material would "blow Coldplay out of the water" - may just come to pass.

The question is, who are the new Idlewild, if such a thing exists? (Not Embrace, clearly, though it would make an amusing new type of 'musical chairs'!)

I just hope the rest of Coldplay's new stuff is better, that's all. I had high hopes...

Edit: Ooh, an intriguing development! I don't think Coldplay even have a new single yet. So the question is, what did I hear? It was on Radio 1 over the weekend, possibly late Saturday morning, and was definitely Chris Martin singing. Was it an unreleased track, e.g. for charity or something? Or Chris singing on someone else's record? Or am I just going mad? Please help, people! :)

Argh! Another frustrating weekend. Ok, so Friday was my own fault... by the time Bob confirmed he was off to Nexus I was starting on a bottle of wine and watching Nathan Barley, and decided it was too cold and too far. Looks like Bob had a good night, though... ;)
But I should really have made it to Rock the Hobbit on the Saturday. A big apology to Bob - it's not so much that I missed a day of fun with my friends (which I did), but that I wasn't able support a charitable event which a good friend had put a lot of effort into organising. There were reasons... but then there always seem to be reasons. I'm not going to say any more on here, but I am feeling a bit disillusioned...

On a lighter note, I saw Dodgeball yesterday and laughed lots. Very funny, if a little unsubtle. It always helps when there's a character in it who's thinks he's a pirate... he goes round wearing a bandana, a waistcoat and an ample-sleeved shirt and talks like he be a salty sea dog. Yarrr!

I'd just like to say that Donkey Konga is possibly the best thing since sliced cheese :)

Also, Googlefight, as pointed out by Mac on his blog, is good for a laugh. 'Right' beats 'left' (nooo!), 'gay' beats 'straight', 'cheese' beats 'monkey' (just!). And 'evolution' beats 'revolution'. Because I evolve... I don't revolve.

This has already been through Bob, Mac and Al, and now comes to me. Here we go...

What is the total amount of music files on your computer?
2.25GB, apparently. But I’m not really much of a music-on-computers type of person. Most of that is from albums that I’ve copied from friends, along with random tracks of my own that I’ve ripped in order to make compilations. But then I don’t use my (home) computer all that much, since I’m not on t’internet or anything.

The last CD you bought is?
The Killers – Hot Fuss. The first track is fantastic, and overall it’s a pretty damn fine album. Not sure whether I’ll still be listening to it in a year’s time, but at the moment it’s on heavy rotation.

What is the song you last listened to before typing this?
Kate Bush – Hounds Of Love. You know when a certain artist keeps coming to your attention, without you really noticing? Well, Kate Bush was doing that to me recently, so I bought a Best Of. Even putting aside Hounds and the wonderful Wuthering Heights, there’s some good stuff on it. However, there’s also one or two songs that are just too weird (or just not very good, depending on your perspective), the nadir being something that sounds kinda like a distorted Sun Arise by Rolf Harris, with Kate wailing in a rubbish Australian accent. Interesting stuff, anyway!

Write down 5 songs that you listen to a lot or mean a lot to you?
As well as being not much of a music-on-computers type of person, I’m also not much of one for playing individual songs – I tend to listen to albums in their entirety. However, there are certain songs that I’ll look forward to in an album, or that keep popping up on the internal jukebox. Here are five off the top of me ‘ead:

Flaming Lips: "Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell". I love the Lips. Not only do they write great tunes, but you can get almost as much pleasure as listening to them from reading their lyrics: "I was waiting on a moment, but the moment never came; all the billion other moments were just slipping all away..."

Björk: "Joga". I’ve only seen the video for this once, but every time I hear the song now I can see it in my head. I want to go to Iceland. One day...

Idlewild: "Everyone Says You’re So Fragile". It was a close one between this and "When I Argue I See Shapes", but "...Fragile" pops into my head every time I check my blog (its title is a line from it, in case you didn’t know. But you should ;). Both are just simple, catchy, rockin’ tunes, and they’re great.

The Smiths: "Ask". This is just a perfect guitar-pop song. Good tune, evocative lyrics, subtle but effective guitar. Plus, there’s nothing better than a happy-sounding song with dark undertones.

Ben Folds Five: "One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces". My 'angry' song. "Song For The Dumped" isn’t bad either, but it's too specific and not as good a tune. Raaargh! Bash those keys, Ben!

Who are you going to pass this baton to (3 people)? and why?
Hmm, this is probably running out of steam a bit... Tell you what, if anyone reading this hasn’t done it yet and fancies it, then take it away! Free for all!

Well, that was possibly the dullest weekend ever. I did see "I, Robot", however, and enjoyed it; though I was amused to see that it was only 'suggested by' Isaac Asimov's book. Having not read it myself, can anyone tell me just how tenuous the adaptation is?

I was also amused to read about Brentford's march into the 5th round of the FA Cup - a 1-0 victory over Hartlepool in which the winner was scored by a bloke named Rankin! It's all opening up for them, it would seem - they play Saints in the next round...

(if you don't know what I'm on about, you'll need to read this ludicrous but enjoyable book.)

I'm bored, and feel like I should post, but I haven't really got much to say.
Hmm. The two biggest British news stories of the past couple of days are both really dull and inconsequential; but they still irritate me, I'm ashamed to say.

1) The Brits. Ok, the Scissor Sisters opened it with a fantastic Jim Henson-y stage show complete with a singing house, but otherwise, meh. "Angels" by Robbie Williams the best song of the last 25 years? Pah. Joss Stone best 'urban' act? Give me a break. There are no urban areas in Devon*, and besides, if anything she's a soul act.

2) Charles & Camilla. Man and woman get married. Wahey. The only interest here is the amusement gained by watching the C of E try to decide whether cohabitation or a divorcee re-marrying was the bigger no-no. Who cares? Henry VIII did much worse. And the spectre of Di has inevitably returned: Camilla won't be known as Princess of Wales (although officially she will be), and some people are seriously suggesting that Charles shouldn't re-marry at all, so as to not dishonour Di's memory. Argh!

Ah well. I'm off to get drunk in a couple of hours. Have a good weekend everyone!

Edit: Idlewild tickets have arrived, yay!
Edit 2: Al has passed me the baton, and I shall complete it presently.

*yes, this is a comedy exaggeration. Well, an exaggeration, anyway.

# posted by Pgd @ 2:21 pm 0 comments

Last night was extremely pleasant. Myself and 7 good friends, all the pancake batter and all the fillings. And Alan Partridge. And rum. I like evenings round friends' houses. Though it is amusingly ironic that Shrove Tuesday is meant to be about using up leftovers before Lent, whereas now everyone goes out specially to buy flour, milk, eggs and lemon :)

Then it was off to Lennons to imbibe imaginatively foul bottled drinks. At it's peak there were about 12 other people in the place, and it struck me how odd it is that the presence of a few more strangers in the same room can lift the mood of your group. Doesn't really matter who they are - it's just the fact you're not the odd ones out, I guess.

My good friend Liam wrote in an email this morning that it annoys him when people email and ask what he's been up to, but don't write about what they themselves have been up to. I am as guilty of this as anyone. I blame blogs. See, on the one hand, you may think that because of your methodically updated blog, everyone knows what you've been up to, so why repeat it in an email? However, not everyone have the opportunity or inclination to read blogs; and there's also (for me, anyway) the nagging aspiration to be interesting and noteworthy (and brief) rather than trivial, so you leave out a lot of the everyday stuff that your friends would actually like to hear about. I think I'm going to make a belated New Years resolution to contact my friends more often. You have been warned ;-)

Have these people really got nothing better to talk about? Every single day last week Pete featured large in at least one tabloid. You could play games of "Pete Bingo". And every day a columnist can be relied upon to tell us all just how much of a loser he is, complete with pictures of him looking off his face.

Yes, he is a shining example of why drugs are bad, kids, mmmkay? But for goodness' sake! It's the laziest of journalism, and he's being taken advantage of and being gawped at like a monkey in a cage. Leave the poor guy alone! And furthermore, if you want to be moralistic and denounce him as a junkie loser, then why provide graphic photos and descriptions of exactly how one takes drugs?! It's simultaneously saying "If you want to be cool like Pete, then here's how".

I imagine he, partly at least, quite likes all the publicity (he's not even "ex-Libertines singer" now, but "Kate Moss's boyfriend"), so maybe if everyone stopped banging on about him he'd wake up and realise what's he's doing. Maybe.


Oh, and whilst on the subject of tabloids, and inspired by Al's post this morning, why's everyone so down on 24h licences? Lots of places have late licences already, like the Hobbit, and I've never seen any trouble there. It'll just mean that non-clubbing types can stay out later in cozy locals, which is a good thing. Plus, as Al says, the vast majority of pubs won't be able to afford it anyway.

I've encountered a rash of monkey news stories recently.

Firstly, Woman given monkey ban (ok, so that was last year, but I only found the story recently)

Then yesterday: Bail for four over monkey thefts
and today: Row over Delhi's errant monkeys

"Our monkey correspondent, Marmoset Fitzgibbon, reports for us now..."

Last night Ben, Lucy, Al and myself fancied a quiet night down the pub to catch up, as we hadn't seen each other in a while. But which pub? We decided we ought to try one we hadn't been to before, and after a couple of minutes on the Internet Ben discovered this ingenious website.

The team behind it try to visit as many of the pubs on the site as possible, and signed-up members can give ratings out of 10 like on Amazon or suggest a pub that doesn't appear.
It appears to be pretty comprehensive for Southampton (and indeed Worcestershire isn't so badly represented - I found pretty much all our haunts except the Wyche) - the trouble is at the moment that not enough people have given ratings.

Anyway, we ended up going to the South Western Arms, and you know what, it was really rather good.

Try it yourself - as Neil Buchanan used to say :)

If anyone is interested, I've uploaded some of my photos from India.



Oh, and a pinch and a punch for the first of the month ;)