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Archive: Nostalgia

Let’s all meet up in the 2,000th (or is it the 2,014th, or 2,996th?) blog post, as Jarvis Cocker never said

30 June 2007 15:48

Categories: Admin, Blogging, General, Personal, Technology

If you look at the archives and stats page of this blog, you will see that this blog has amassed 2,013 posts since it moved over to WordPress way back in December 2004.

I think this is a lie because the dashboard says that there are 1,999. Which would make this the 2,000^th. I am more inclined to believe the dashboard, because the one on the archives and stats page is generated using an old plugin, and I am guessing it includes ‘pages’ as well (which don’t really count, do they?). I should just uninstall that plugin because it is pointless and now, seemingly, inaccurate.

Anyway, the only reason I am pointing all of this out is that I am declaring this the 2,000^th post, and you cannot let such a milestone pass without mentioning it.

I have actually written many more than 2,000 posts, because I also wrote almost 1,000 posts when I used Blogger (from December 2002 until December 2004). So actually this is a bit of a meaningless event.

But anyway, I always forget the blogiversary (shudder) because it comes at Christmas. My first ever blog post was written on December 30^th 2002. That must have been one mighty boring festive period.

Anyway, I always forget it, so these milestones are the only chance I get to give myself a self-congratulatory pat on the back for having the “leet skills” to spend almost five years being unable to tear myself away from the warm glow of the computer monitor.

In case you were wondering, this blog has also amassed 3,743 comments (legitimate ones, that is — there have been 118,477 spam comments). According to the plugin, I have also written 442,678 words. Blimey.

My original plan for the 2,000^th post was actually to do something quite unusual for me. I was going to point out some of my very favourite blogs, and actually link to them, and actually write about them.

But this 2,000^th post has crept up on me, and I am itching to write about shoes, headphones and lifts (this is not a joke). And I can’t be bothered working out what my favourite blogs actually are just now. That will have to come later.

So I have had to think of something else.

These pleas never work, on any blog. But I am going to ask anyway. I know loads of people read this blog but never comment. So this comments thread is for you lurkers! Tell me please: How on earth did you end up reading this? And why on earth are you still reading it?

8 comments

Fined for a finger. But what about a f…?

27 April 2007 01:05

Categories: Current affairs, Formula 1, Sport

GrandPrix.com reports that Juan Pablo Montoya has got into trouble with the Nascar authorities after he flipped the bird to another driver during practice. The sweary-sign was broadcast live, and Montoya has been fined $10,000.

Wow! I wonder what Nascar would fine him if he repeated what he did at the Belgian Grand Prix a few years back. Yes, we Formula 1 fans have seen what Juan Pablo Montoya is really capable of. As James Allen would say, turn the sound up and enjoy (but probably not if you’re at work).

Meanwhile, it is always worth wheeling out this clip of Heinz-Harald Frentzen fingering Mark Blundell way back in 1995. Murray Walker’s commentary is a joy to behold.

Update: I’ve featured the video on this blog before, but I couldn’t resist giving it a repeat action. Scott Speed on fine form here.

7 comments

It was war. It is war

20 March 2007 18:21

Categories: Admin, Blogging, Current affairs, General, Internet, Personal, Politics, Technology

Hello there. I’m still really busy at the moment. It’s the last week of teaching at university, and with that comes a deluge of coursework hand-ins. Still, they are all quite interesting so it doesn’t feel too much like hard work, so it is consuming a lot of my time. Typical that this would be the week when I was asked to go into work almost every day.

My point is that, while I normally like to just pop out blog posts as and when, this week’s posts have been pre-recorded, though no more polished than usual unfortunately. I knew that this week would be busy, so I prepared some delightful posts that aren’t about what’s happening right now.

I hope it doesn’t make you feel empty to realise that I wrote that post about Twitter before I liveblogged the grand prix. Nor celebrated the second birthday of my iRiver (and the 21^st birthday of me) several days before the actual event. Look out tomorrow for a post with a witty pun on ‘RSS’ which was written a week ago.

But it turns out that, slap bang in the middle of the busiest week I’ve had since the third week of January (okay, so that’s not too impressive…), here I am wasting my time writing blog posts. That is because it is my birthday, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be spending all of it writing about fiscal autonomy.

I have also been tagged with a meme about the Iraq war. For some reason, people seem to think that the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war is more important than the second anniversary of me owning an iRiver. I don’t understand that mentality myself, but I will play along nevertheless.

I was tagged by Clive from The UK Today and the meme was started by Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads.

What did you post on 20 March, 2003?
(or as close to this date as possible)

I didn’t actually post on my blog on 20 March, 2003. This possibly indicates that I am a sadder 21 year old than I was a 17 year old. But I did write a post on the 19^th. And another on the 23^rd.

I would like to remind you at this point that in these posts I was 16 or 17, and that back then I was even more of a dick than I am now. I wouldn’t recommend anybody to visit my old blog because it really is quite bad. I never look at it myself because I’d rather not be reminded of it. It was from before I learned how to embellish my personal life to make it sound interesting.

I don’t even think I read other people’s blogs back then, so it truly is self-indulgent stuff. So there you have a post about some CDs I got in the post (yawn, mind you it contains an interesting reference to Chris Clark) and another one that actually seems to be about nothing.

As I’ve grown up while being a blogger I’ve been very aware of how much I have changed and… well, grown up. When you’re 16 or 17 you think you’re really smart, but actually you’re not. Of course, now that I’m 21 I am obviously a genius. (When I’m 25 I’ll be bemoaning the quality of this post.)

Seriously though, I always wonder if I will one day seriously regret blogging (and therefore having quite an in-depth record of my life and opinions up on the interwebs for all to see) from such an early age. I mean, somebody can see something I wrote a few years ago and take that as my opinion even though it is a few years old. They might not realise that I was a teenager with ridiculous hair when I wrote that stuff. A few years when you’re in your teens is different to a few years when you’re an adult.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Here is a post that I wrote on the 17^th of March 2003 which was actually about the then imminent war in Iraq. I actually remember deciding specifically not to blog about Iraq on the day itself. I felt all warred out, which is pretty much how I’ve felt ever since then.

Duncan Stephen: 17th March 2003 (posting as doctorvee)

I’ve not actually re-read that post, because I’m scared of what it contains. So, er, sorry if it’s really bad, which it probably is.

Now I have to tag five people. Tough. We are talking about four years back here, so I have to think of people who might have had something to say on the internet back then, which I don’t think is so easy. Anyway, here is my best shot.

1 comment

Ferrari’s yukky new livery

14 January 2007 23:18

Categories: Formula 1

Regular readers may have noticed that I haven’t written about Formula 1 for a while. That’s because there is none of it around at the moment! Yes, it is the close season. For the motor racing fan at winter there are three options:

Keep yourself occupied with the DVD of last season’s highlights
Watch A1 GP (not an option for me because I don’t have Sky)
Feverishly keep track of latest winter testing and car launch news

So, keeping track of car launches it is then! On Friday Toyota launched their new car. Today it was Ferrari’s turn (does anybody else find it odd that they’ve done this on a Sunday?). And oh my goodness. Ferrari’s new car is so ugly! Ferrari have banned photographers from being close to the car yet — presumably because they are so embarrassed by the car’s ugliness.

Ferrari F2007

Tobacco advertising is, of course, now banned. While most tobacco companies have bowed gracefully out of the sport, Philip Morris and Ferrari haven’t. In fact, if anything, they have upped the ante. The ‘Marlboro’ brand may not appear on the car, but an ugly “barcode”-style logo (which apparently does remind people of Marlboro!) will take prominence. You can see this in the photograph above on the rear wing, the front wing and on the nose towards the cockpit.

Furthermore, the shade of red is said to have moved even further away from Ferrari’s traditional rosso corsa colour towards something more like the washed-out bright red of Marlboro.

Add to this the rumours that Marlboro are considering putting an illustration of the Ferrari car on their cigarette packets, does it seem as though Philip Morris are keeping to the tobacco ban? Maybe they are keeping to the letter, but undoubtedly not to the spirit.

Ferrari aren’t the only team with tweaks to their livery rumoured for this year. The tobacco ban has meant that Renault lost its title sponsor, Mild Seven. Many were hoping that this would lead to the team reverting to its traditional yellow, which has been a secondary colour in recent years. But recent ‘spy’ photos unfortunately suggest that they will run with a dark blue next year.

Honda are also said to be considering a livery change in the wake of the loss of their sponsor, British American Tobacco. They to promote their supposed green credentials. I think this would be a massive mistake. The happy coincidence was that the Lucky Strike livery was almost identical to Honda’s traditional colours! But now that Lucky Strike have gone, Honda have decided to move to different, non-traditional colours.

As I said in a comment at BlogF1, do you remember the amazing ‘Impossible Dream’ advert for Honda? Can you imagine if the Formula 1 car in that was green? It would have ruined the entire advert.

8 comments

Obscure Pulp YouTube extravaganza!

19 December 2006 12:36

Categories: Entertainment, General, Internet, Music, Personal, Technology, Television

Pulp has been one of my favourite bands ever since I was nine. Maybe that’s why I turned out so weird. To think that I grew up listening to that mucky man’s tales of debauchery. I can’t have known what he was on about until I was well into my teens. I remember asking my parents what Jarvis was on about when he said, “Grass is something you smoke, birds are something you shag.” How embarrassing!

Still, I think I can be proud of the fact that I was heavily into such a good band when I was as young as nine. I did take a bit of a detour in my early teens, but we can gloss over that.

A lot of people might think that it’s a bit strange that I’m still heavily into Pulp. But it actually makes a lot of sense. When I was young, it was their futuristic, spacey sound that initially captured my attention. Pulp were influenced more by techno and Steve Reich than the insipid Britpop bunch they were more commonly associated with. How many of those bands had a member whose primary instrument was the violin?

There has never been another song that sounded like ‘Common People’. When I saw them perform this song on Top of the Pops I was amazed. (I must be one of the last people in the world to have been moved to buy a single by a performance on TOTP…) ‘Disco 2000′ is simply genius for the way it builds up and up without employing ham-fisted techniques like upping the tempo or the volume. And Jarvis’ songwriting is responsible for just about the only times I’ve been interested in a song’s lyrics as much as its sonic qualities.

With the triumphant return of Jarvis Cocker with his new solo album, I’ve entered a bit of a Pulp nostalgia trip. I’ve even dug out all of the old books and other paraphernalia I collected ten years ago, at the height of my obsession. Pulp’s story is probably one of the most interesting in the music business. Most people probably don’t know that they were hanging around the fringes of Sheffield’s music scene for over a decade before they hit the big time in the mid 1990s.

It would be easy to think that their early music must have been a bit rubbish if it took them that long to become successful. The band members certainly had plenty of derogatory remarks about it. But in truth their early songs were quite good, even if they weren’t quite as polished as their more successful songs.

Pulp’s relationship with their record company, Fire, was not easy. For their second album they were given the budget of £600, and had just a week to record it! The end result was slightly rushed and rough around the edges, even though the songs had plenty of potential. The producer refused to have his name associated with it!

Still, the budget stretched to the odd video. I had read about these videos, but I thought I would never see them. Enter YouTube, the intarweb’s single greatest invention. All manner of obscure videos can be found on YouTube. And the other day, while I was idly searching for Pulp videos I found a few gems that have got me very excited. I present them to you below the fold.

Click “click for more” for more.

Click for more »

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