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Archive: 2010 December

Just remember the simple phrase

5 December 2010 19:27

Categories: DVD, Entertainment, Humour, Television

One of my odd little interests is public information films. Lately I have been getting stuck into the ‘Charley Says’ DVDs. Fantastic stuff.

It was just after watching the ‘Splink’ PIF with John Pertwee that I realised that I hadn’t taken in what ‘Splink’ stands for at all. It always gets me how some mnemonics are far harder to remember than the actual thing they are supposed to remind you about.

I guess it was the inspiration for this brilliant video, from a Channel 4 pilot called ‘Shit Club’ by Alex Morris.

I also recommend the ‘Careers Adviser‘ video from the same television programme.

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Pulp reforming

5 December 2010 17:24

Categories: DVD, Entertainment, Music

I was pretty excited when it was announced a few weeks ago that Pulp are getting back together to play some concerts next year. Pulp have been one of my favourite bands since I was nine years old. Yet I have never seen them live.

Many times my friends and I have discussed going to see one of Jarvis Cocker’s solo shows. But somehow it has never quite come together.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they will play in Scotland. Only three dates have been announced so far, all at pretty far-flung festivals.

Mind you, I’m not too sure about the way it is being marketed as being “all the original members of the band”. It might be the “classic” line-up that propelled the band to the height of its mid-1990s fame. But it is by no means the “original” line-up.

The band had several incarnations throughout the 1980s until success was reached. Jarvis Cocker is the only common element of them all, although the majority of the band was in place by the mid-1980s.

I was listening to some Pulp from this period the other day. It reminded me of this footage from a 1980s documentary about the Sheffield music scene. The footage is pretty grotty-looking, but it’s great to have this rather rare peek into the band’s early days. This is available on the ‘Hits’ DVD.

Clearly, they weren’t quite the finished product. Masses of loo roll is an interesting choice of stage decoration, and Jarvis Cocker himself does not yet have the commanding stage presence that made him famous.

The band themselves always warn against listening to their earlier material, preferring to think of the 1992 release of ‘OU’ as their year zero. However, I like all of their earlier albums.

Even though their earlier material rough around the edges, there is still a lot of great songwriting and the potential can be heard. Fascinating to listen to with the knowledge of how they turned out to become one of the biggest groups of the 1990s.

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Moving out

3 December 2010 22:49

Categories: Dundee, Fife, Personal, Scotland, Weather

I am writing to you direct from my new flat. It has been a hectic week, trying to move up here at the same time as a particularly nasty cold snap has hit the UK, and the east of Scotland in particular.

I was hoping to get the whole thing pretty much finished this week – I had even booked the week off work in order to get as much done as possible. Instead I am sitting here having not done very much, and even feel like it is a major achievement just to be sitting here.

I got the keys last Friday, and travelled up with some bits and pieces. There was loads of kitchen stuff that I bought two years ago at the Woolworths closing down sale! I had my staff discount on top of all the discounts that were going on anyway, so I got plenty of bargains.

Over the weekend, the snow worsened. A trip to Ikea was planned for Monday, but I decided to postpone it until Tuesday as the weather was looking like it was due to be a bit better. But the trip down was pretty hairy. I am pretty glad that my dad decided he would drive the van that we had hired. The conditions would probably have got the better of me – as they got the better of dad a few times.

We hadn’t been in Ikea for more than perhaps 15 minutes when an announcement was made that they would be closing the store in 60 minutes! That is not enough time to do Ikea properly, so the whole rest of the time was a completely mad stress-rush.

Considering the time constraints, I think I did a pretty good job, but there are still glaring gaps. I don’t have shelves for all my CDs. I don’t have a bed for the second bedroom. And most of all, I still don’t have a sofa. All there is to sit on is one office-type chair that I bought for the computer desk.

After taking it all up to Dundee, we had real trouble getting the van out of the snow. Luckily, the main roads between Kirkcaldy and Dundee have been largely okay whenever I have made the journey. But as soon as you turn off onto a side-street, the snow gets pretty bad.

I can’t get anywhere near my proper parking space, and it looks like all of my neighbours have their cars properly stranded. We made the mistake of being a bit too ambitious coming in, instead of parking on the street before (as I have done today!). Luckily, the neighbours seem really good and helped us get out!

There is still an awful lot to do. My bed has been built, so I am sleeping here tonight. Tomorrow, an engineer from Virgin Media is due to arrive to install my broadband, television and telephone line. Unfortunately, I still  haven’t got an HD television to test out the new HD Virgin Media box! I ordered it a week ago but it hasn’t arrived here yet – not that I’m surprised due to the snow. Hopefully it won’t be too much of a problem for Mr Virgin Media.

Meanwhile, I am kicking myself for some of the things I have forgotten to bring with me! Despite owning two phone chargers, I have neglected to bring either of them – so I have to keep remembering to go easy on my phone usage. That means that this little stay at my flat will be short-lived. I will go back to “old home” tomorrow afternoon, and I probably won’t return here until Monday evening.

I will get moved in one day…

4 comments

The grim realities of early motor racing

2 December 2010 09:46

Categories: Formula 1

I saw this extraordinary video of accidents from the early days of motor racing over at Axis of Oversteer.

Note: This video is probably not for you if you are squeamish about seeing people being flung out of cars at high speed.

It is a shocking but fascinating video from a truly different era of motorsport. As the video keeps saying (as noted by Axis of Oversteer), “no-one was seriously injured”. But of course injury and death was a part of motorsport back then. Indeed it is today, even though great safety improvements have been made in recent decades.

But some of the stuff in this video is shocking. A particular stand-out is the flaming driver-less car free-wheeling around in the pitlane!

It seems that the video is a collection of clips from ‘Shell History of Motor Racing’. From what I gather, it was available on VHS years ago but has not been released on DVD. This is a great shame (even though it seems a bit strange — are the cartoon-like sound effects really necessary?).

You don’t often get the chance to see footage like this, and I find it absolutely fascinating to see the sport I love as it was so many decades ago. How many changes there have been!

1 comment

Well that didn’t last long

1 December 2010 19:37

Categories: Admin, Blogging, General, Personal

Back already? Yes I am — sort of. It is typical of a “hiatus”. The actual hiatus (which officially began ten days ago) has been much shorted than the month-long awkward silence that preceded it.

But I came to the conclusion quite quickly that I do want to continue blogging. I just don’t know how, or what format it should take. I am still not sure what I want to achieve with it, and what sort of things I want to publish here.

So I have decided to use the month of December as an experiment. I am aiming for the lofty goal of one post a day. Just like an advent calendar! Or something.

Some of these posts will be ones that I meant to write before beginning the hiatus, but didn’t get round to. I will also piece together some unfinished posts to get them out there too. Then there are the traditional end-of-year posts (about music and Formula 1) that I can’t leave out.

I have also come up with a nice idea for a little series of posts, which I feel like I have the energy to write. This is quite an interesting period of my life, and it feels silly not to document it in some way when I have the perfect tool to do so!

Over the course of the month I will be experimenting with styles and subject matters. I want to try and work out what I feel comfortable with, and also what interests the readers.

I am conscious that part of this is down to the fact that I have found myself with a bit more time on my hands this week than I was expecting (I had booked the week off work to move into my new flat, but Snow Week has made progress on this very difficult!). So I may well abruptly disappear again. But for the time being I am in the mood to create and experiment. Feel free to join me.

2 comments