tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20943797508313103332024-03-14T01:19:37.222-07:00Don't Feed The PixiesThe random thoughts and musings caused by prolongued exposure to bus travel, mad family members and a steadily growing collection of singing potatoes. In short a load of nonsense as and when i get particularly boredDon't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.comBlogger430125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-83703383193902836112021-05-28T02:00:00.002-07:002021-05-28T02:00:34.033-07:00Fillum Reviews<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivfPOt_-2S3LiMy6HoYYX-i-ug3_EtTvJf7cfD3OTkeSyd2LVoMiazJ9OEjotr8AMxFKsQW67fSxjB4kKEf5wZ-AowycEFBdzzogFFdV6oCZ9tW89utKJ3Pdowlq58yrMcMDqIioXN0rR6/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivfPOt_-2S3LiMy6HoYYX-i-ug3_EtTvJf7cfD3OTkeSyd2LVoMiazJ9OEjotr8AMxFKsQW67fSxjB4kKEf5wZ-AowycEFBdzzogFFdV6oCZ9tW89utKJ3Pdowlq58yrMcMDqIioXN0rR6/" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Ever since Ted & Dougal protested against the blasphemous Passion Of St Tibulous in the hillarious sit-com Father Ted I've insisted on using the Irish pronounciation of the word Film (fill-um) so as I'm going to review two films set in Ireland now seemed a good time to use that alternate spelling as well - the connection between both films is that they are rooted in the process of making and recording music</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b>Fullum #1</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b>Sing Street</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Conor "Cosmo" Lawlor is a young Irish lad in the 80s whose life takes a turn for the worse when, due to his family's monetary issues, is forced to transfer to a strict Catholic school run by priests (worth noting that the main priest also played a priest in Father Ted). Unable to afford shoes he is picked out by the teachers and by the bullies alike until in an attempt to impress a girl he claims to be in a band and want her to star in a video.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">All he needs now is a band and some songs.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">The film then shows the journey as Cosmo makes friends with a small group of musicians (including one who looks a lot like he's meant to be The Edge as he was in the 80s), tries on costumes and a range of musical styles until he finds his own all the while trying to win the girls heart.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">This is a good, fun film that really captures the excitement of being in a band with some great tunes and some laughs along the way</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #202122;">https://youtu.be/fuWTcmjnEGY</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #202122;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="text-align: justify;">Fullum #2</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #202122;"><b>Once</b></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #202122;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">I've been wanting to see this film since I saw this youtube video of a street musician singing Falling Slowly with Glen Hansard (star of the film and co-writer of the song with his fellow star Markita Iglova) </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">It tells the story of a dissilusioned Irish street musician who meets a Czech immigrant who persuades him to give his music one more try as together their lives intertwine. This is a lovely film, shot to feel intimate, as two seperate lives intertwine and influence each other. Both of the leads are excellent and again the songs are strong.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">NB: as both films are a few years old you may struggle to find them but they are well worth seeking out</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #202122;">https://youtu.be/zgZd2i6r45k</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-57283103240568095852021-05-07T03:46:00.000-07:002021-05-07T03:46:03.202-07:00Mr Giles<p> One day in the autumn of 2010 a black and white cat snuck his way into our house in search of food. We kept the back door open for our siamese Willow (though she was often happy to stay inside) and he had obviously caught smell of her special diet food (kidney problems)</p><p>H was deshiveled and dirty with no collar and looked to be old. Every time we approached he would dart back out of the door...and yet one day when I found him lying in the grass I was able to sit down and stroke him for a bit.</p><p>It was clear he was a stray, possibly abandoned: it was that kind of area where animals would be exchanged between mates at the pub (no word of a lie I woke up one morning to the sound of our next-door-but-one neighbour yelling at some newly aquired chickens to "shut the $%^& up" - they were gone within 2 weeks)</p><p>So we decided to trap him in so we could get him checked out at our vets and somehow managed to close the door, an event that led to him leaping up towards the window and scrabbling against the glass to try and get out. Somehow we managed to catch him and take him to the vets, where we were surprised to find out he was only around 1 year old.</p><p>It was clear he wasn't being looked after and was having a rough time of it so we decided to adopt him and took him home, where he immediately hid under the sofa and refused to move. We set up a litter tray and a food bowl under the table so he could go and use it without feeling threatened and two days later he stank the house out using it for the first time. From time to time we would stick our head down and say hello but otherwise leave him to it.</p><p>Sooner or later he started getting braver and would go and hide under the bed and then, lay on top of it - it might have been two months before he was ready not to run away.</p><p>He continued to be afraid of strangers, particularly strange men but he started coming and sitting on us, rubbing his face into ours.</p><p>We decided to call him Giles - on the grounds that we had inherited a Willow and would keep with the Buffy The Vampire Slayer theme. He had a few other nicknames (I was occasionally known to call him Chairman Miow because of his imperious expressions) and eventually we lengthened his name to include Mr</p><p>When we came to move house we had no choice but to leave him in a cattery for a few days - when we came to collect him his bed was wet and he was clearly stressed. Again, as we were now in a new area we kept him inside until he acclimatized and took him out of the house on a lead to get him used to the area (something he disliked intensely) - once we were happy he was settled he came to love it and could often be found sitting on a rock or splayed out on the ground. In the winter he would disappear upstairs and sit in a small box in the attic where we put a blanket and at night he would push his way into the bed and lay down beside me, or moreoften with his bum in Herself's face.</p><p>The first time he was properly ill was when he suddenly started having manic episodes and would lash out and bite a hand, or run around crazily. It turned out that he had a thyroid problem and he had to have radiation treatment meaning we had to keep him seperate from us for ten days after he came back</p><p>Then, last year, i noticed some blood in his urine and we found out he'd been hiding stage three kidney failure (there are only four stages)</p><p>From there we tried him on specialist foods (which he ignored) and had to start him on diatry supplements. He began going off his food entirely and we had to put him on more pills to stimulate this and dull the pain...this worked for a while and we even got to the stage where we were lessening the doses for a while but then the pills started having less and less effect and last weekend, over the Bank Holiday, he refused even chicken and tuna which he would usually enjoy when all else failed. We took him in on Bank Holiday Monday and the vet gave him some medicine but the effect was negligible and so, on Thursday, we took the decision not to make him suffer any longer</p><p>We are now, for pretty much the first time, entirely cat-less: but our house is surrounded by his things and his memory. We will always miss him x</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnRWjj-6eOj-mQtbCByvbVLzi1NyrH3LSn875jnfhm_usSKd_b-ePt-BJjK_lZNmv1spHIQSDJaxTYF9rliXSUeLAURogBUWftRXbNP3FWQC-3Iyh-EJU_HfMnP5rxhFqIc2VE17c_aTXc/s660/mr+giles.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="518" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnRWjj-6eOj-mQtbCByvbVLzi1NyrH3LSn875jnfhm_usSKd_b-ePt-BJjK_lZNmv1spHIQSDJaxTYF9rliXSUeLAURogBUWftRXbNP3FWQC-3Iyh-EJU_HfMnP5rxhFqIc2VE17c_aTXc/s320/mr+giles.png" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-26273853893405431642021-03-29T03:39:00.003-07:002021-03-29T03:39:59.674-07:00Movie Review x3<p> Whilst the cinemas have been closed there hasn't been much chance to watch any blockbusters other than on the screen and no one has been allowed to queue around the block to our house to watch a film due to social distancing so you could argue there have been no blockbusters at all, but here's three films we've watched on the iplayer recently</p><p><b>Love And Mercy</b></p><p>Flitting between 1968-69 and the mid 80s this tells the story of Brian Wilson, genius songwriter of The Beach Boys, at two very different points in life: Paul Dano plays the young Brian at the peak of his powers as he pulls out of live performances to concentrate on the studio work for what will become Pet Sounds and John Cusak plays 80s Brian - a man who is clearly not in charge of his own life. Both eras are well played out - the scenes in the studio creating Good Vibrations are a particularly high point and there's just enough eerieness in the 80s scenes to make you aware there's something horribly wrong. Paul Dano is excellent and John Cusak gives good levels of John Cusak angst - if you're at all interested in music and popular music history then I think you'll like this</p><p><b>Sylvia</b></p><p>Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig star as Sylvia Plaith and Ted Hughes in the story of their tempetous relationship as Plaith struggles with depression and feeling outshone by her husband to create her works. Not a cheerful film this but an interesting character study - although I did feel that the film was very much geared towards showing Plaith's instability to the point where (not being previously aware of the story) I wasn't sure if Hughes's philandering was all in her head. I think that having read up on the two since I'd like to have seen something more balanced and that got under the skin a bit more but in general it was a good film</p><p><b>Rush</b></p><p>Daniel Bruhl and Chris Hemsworth play rival racing drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt respectively in the story of the twos rivaly in Formula 1 in 1976. Again - not being a big fan of sport I wasn't familiar with the story - but I did meet the real-life James Hunt (he presented me with a camera as a prize when I was a kid) and was aware of his playboy image so I was interested to find out more.</p><p>The film is well directed and as it progresses you become aware that the two drivers had a lot of respect for each other despite their distances - the race scenes are exciting enough for someone with no interest in F1 to be drawn in (Herself really enjoyed it as well and neither of us are sports fans) - definately worth a watch.</p><p>What have you been watching?</p>Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-26946991566929525942021-03-17T09:02:00.000-07:002021-03-17T09:02:01.698-07:00Accordion To You<p> About 12 months ago, give or take a week here or there, I went to a live music event for the last time.</p><p>I didn't know, as most of us didn't, that this would be the last occasion of going anywhere much for the next year or so - infact the event itself was very much a precursor to another event: my friend's Folk Musical</p><p>I have to say that I hadn't been previously aware that you could have an entire musical written in the style of Folk Music, but if anyone can do it then KF could - one of those people that you know who is just annoyingly talented and nice with it so that there's nothing you can actually get grumpy about as a lesser talent.</p><p>But the point of this story is that one of the people making up her band was the wife of a friend who plays accordion....</p><p>Now, if you're not a musician then you may not be aware of the following equation: n+1</p><p>This, mathematically speaking, shows the correct amount of instruments that you should own - where n = what you have now and, at the point during which i was watching the performance, my collection was sadly lacking in the accordion department.</p><p>To be clear here there's several instruments of different types that are often referred to as accordions:</p><p>* Hand-held squeeze box often with eight edges to each side panel comprising buttons on each side as often used threateningly by salty sailor types before they launch headlong into a forty verse sea shanty about mermaids</p><p>* larger instrument usually with one shoulder strap and buttons on both sides usually used for Cajun music where moving the bellows in and out creates a different sound</p><p>* the basic piano accordion - which is the one I was looking at. These sit on both shoulders with a strap, make the same noise whether going in or out (essentially a loud screech to the untrained ear) with a piano keyboard for the right hand and buttons for the left hand. To extract sound one has to: squeeze the bellows in and out, press the bass buttons (left hand) and play the notes (right hand) whilst somehow still singing said forty verse sea shanty</p><p>The amount of buttons available varies from instrument to instrument from 8 to 120, as does the amount of piano keys from around 40 to requiring two people to lift from the floor</p><p>It is quite the hardest instrument i have ever tried to learn - a fact that has not been helped by the fact that three lessons in we went into a national Lockdown and have been learning via zoom lessons ever since where the sound is deliberately set up to make everything other than human speech sound like a robot from 80s science fiction programmes</p><p>I'm also having to learn the bass cleff in music in order to try and fathom out what buttons my left hand should be doing and there has been much use of fruity language since we started but i am now able to play a broken version of Green Green Grass Of Home, a dodgy version of Tennessee Waltz, a version of Dirty Old Town in an uncertain time signature and a version of I Walk The Line that sounds like it just fell off said line....and it's only taken me a year</p><p>Still - it was something to do during lockdown, where i've found myself with lots of time to practice and no reasonable excuse not to....</p><p>What new skills have you/are you learning?</p>Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-82530064806505908482021-03-08T03:07:00.004-08:002021-03-08T03:07:48.965-08:00Right, That's It! I've Had It....(oh grow up)<p> I utter a deep sigh of dismay.</p><p>Not just for the original comment, but for those people who've chosen to respond and therefore fallen into the trap.</p><p>You've probably seen this yourself if you're on social media and have joined any kind of group/forum/page and I have to wonder: why?</p><p>Most recently I've seen this on a page I joined for Musicians Of A Certain Age - a talent competition for original songs with a closing date of end of February 2021. At first everything was all very friendly, a bit too friendly maybe and then, as the competition closing date neared it started.</p><p>"I'm not happy with this group" complains Impotent Of Norwich, "I posted a funny thing and it got deleted"</p><p>"Why are we being asked to make a donation" cries Saddo of Westward Ho! (and yes, that does exist) "I'm off!"</p><p>And then it starts - people, who should be old enough to know better, start making snide comments back - buying into the argument and creating An Atmosphere</p><p>I've had this with various groups i've been in - a sculpting group, a comedy show appreciation group, a pop-star's page....and just recently i've started to investigate a bit further</p><p>On the last few occasions I've seen this the person who posts the original bomb immediately leaves the group so they don't see the responses - but more interestingly when i've followed the link to their page they turn out to have no linked friends and only very generic posts</p><p>My conclusion from this, along with other types of internet comment, is that there are people who do this just to start a fight - they seem to be wanting some kind of validation or attention in much the way that a baby might cry</p><p>So my advice is - if you see someone whining about a page/group/internet clip - just report them and move on. Life's too short </p><p><br /></p>Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-48660501289264100822020-03-02T06:20:00.001-08:002020-03-02T06:20:42.422-08:00The Name Of This Band Is...A couple of months ago I read the inside story of (80s synth pop legends) New Order, as written and extensively researched by former bassist Peter Hook (aka Hooky)<br />
<br />
I'd read his inside-story of Joy Division (the band they were previously) and thoroughly enjoyed that, but knew that rough times were ahead.<br />
<br />
For those unaware of Manchester in the 80s and 90s it was a city knee deep in drugs, dance and guns - where the new rave culture was in control of the local nightlife and a small nightclub was being run incredibly badly by a bunch of people who had no idea what they were doing (look up the Hacienda nightclub if you want to know more)<br />
<br />
Anyway - as expected the book centered largely on Hook's own battles with drugs, drink and demons and his slowly deteriorating relationship with singer Bernard (Barney) Sumner - leading to the inevitable split in a rock n roll tale that has been told time after time.<br />
<br />
And today I was watching a video of them at their height and thinking what a shame it is when people who have previously been friends can barely stand to be in the same room as one another and it got me thinking:<br />
<br />
Joy Division were formed in 1976 - Hooky left New Order in 2007. That's 30 years.<br />
<br />
And I realised that the longest i'd ever worked with any one person was around 7 years<br />
<br />
And that's the nature of working in the world - you may stay or leave but the people around you will be constantly changing. In a band you're pretty much seeing the same people day in, day out for the whole of your career. Bands like the Rolling Stones have been working together since the 60s with only a few changes of personnel and none recently<br />
<br />
I've always said that the creative tension that makes any band great will only last so long - Hooky himself has said that the arguments over the songs were necessary to make the songs better, but sooner or later they can turn into bitterness. Add to that the strange working hours, long journeys and access to the seedier sides of life and its no wonder that the pressure cooker blows<br />
<br />
And for those of us sitting on the sidelines forever hoping that Morrissey and Marr, or Byrne/Franz/Weymouth/Harrison (insert favourite split band of choice) will sort out their differences and get back together maybe we need to just let those people move on to the new, better job - where they can, presumably, fall out with someone entirely new?<br />
<br />
NB: I've seen the Talking Heads Hall Of Fame induction performance....and it would have been better to have just let the memories aloneDon't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-49987473147912584442019-12-04T08:21:00.002-08:002019-12-04T08:21:41.545-08:00I Walk The LineThere's been a lot of talk on social media recently about self-service checkouts.<br />
<br />
Possibly not the most vital subject in the world, certainly further down the chain of importance than achieving world peace, stopping climate change and free asparagus for the under 5s (you know it makes sense), but contentious nonetheless.<br />
<br />
The main gist of this talk has fallen into two categories:<br />
#1 - it's putting people out of jobs so you should use the manned kiosk instead<br />
#2 - I'm not paid to work here - you should pay someone to do this for me<br />
<br />
Of the two above arguments I suspect that what's behind door number two is a bit more truthful. Let's face it - I've been getting cash out of a hole in the wall for a good thirty or so years and have not been into my local branch for at least 15 years (other than to steal one of those pens-on-a-chain they always have), thus putting many a potential cashier out of a job and now, increasingly, I am paying for things with a jaunty little tap or a swipe of my card and, by dint of doing so, presumably putting the people who fill the holes in the walls jobs into jeopardy as well.<br />
<br />
This is, of course, because cash out of a hole in a wall, or even better magical cash produced with a swipe, is less of a hassle for us than going into a queue, filling in a slip, handing it over to a person, having to make idle chit-chat about the weather whilst the lady with a life-savings worth of two pence pieces chooses peak time to deposit them...and this is why i suspect that reason two is the truth because of course having to swipe and bag our own purchases is less convenient to us so why should we have to do it, right? (What do we want? More shop assistants, when do we want them? At sensible shopping times in accordance with our working and leisure needs!)<br />
<br />
But none of the above is my problem with the machines - it's that because of their placement we British are losing our ability to queue.<br />
<br />
There are many things that are, despite all the evidence to the contrary, known internationally about the British: We're all cockneys and talk like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins (caw bloimey Muuury PoppIns, ows yer father, let's have a sing around the owld pianna), we wear bowler hats and carry umbrellas everywhere and look like Jacob Rees-Mogg, we're awfully polite and drink tea and we can queue like there's no tomorrow with nerry a sigh or complaint<br />
<br />
But the positioning in shops of these new-fangled gadgets is spoiling this because they are usually placed in a corner that is near, but not inline with, the regular tills.<br />
<br />
Now what should happen in a fair and just society is that everyone would join a single queue - and when either a machine or a cashier becomes free then you should go to that accordingly - however, because the line of approach is not consistent or clear you find people suddenly pushing past you and moving to form seperate sub-queues.<br />
<br />
Being British, no one complains or even raises an eyebrow - there might be a slight "tsk" of disapproval but even that is stretching things to the limit.<br />
<br />
I mention this in passing because just this week, for the first time in 20 years, I had occasion to fly somewhere from a plane station (and why are they called Airports when train stations aren't called train ports that's what i'd like to know). It was an economy flight - one of those in a rotor-blade plane with Amelia Earheart behind the wheel - the type where everything, including your seat, is extra. The flight was only an hour but as we taxied down at the next air station (I'm sticking with it, it's a thing OK?) and people began walking along the concourse we turned a corner and there, under the signs for Arrivals, was a nice, orderly queue of people. The type of queue that makes one nostalgic for days gone by.<br />
<br />
And so, being British, I joined it and politely stood in line for a good five minutes as a few of the other passengers continued past and around a corner - assuming that they had paid some additional fast-pass exit fee that i knew my company would have not paid (That Pixie can stand and queue, my boss would have said, twirling his hipster moustache)<br />
<br />
It was a full five minutes before the queue started moving and, at that point, i realised what i was actually standing in was the queue to board a plane back to where i had just come from<br />
<br />
Quietly, and with as much dignity as i could salvage, i made my excuses to the man in front of me and stepped out of the queue and around the corner. I didn't look back to see if anyone else would follow meDon't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-70583811770189300692019-11-17T14:23:00.003-08:002019-11-17T14:23:51.531-08:00The Greatest Show, Man!It is awfully remiss of modern day planners to build new Cinemas on public rights of way.<br />
<br />
At least: I assume that's what's happening. There seriously can't be any other reason for the constant march up and down the stairs during every single bloody screening. Honestly, if a small train of donkeys came through heavily laden with baggage and led by Shirpa Tensing I would barely bat an eyelid.<br />
<br />
Cinema is not how I remember it as a kid: and since the temporary hiatus of my favourite cinema (a small screen at a local university where they show what I like to call FROMAGE films - that's Foreign Road Movies About the Grimness of Existence), where you get a very cine-literate clientele who arrive before the adverts, ensure their snacks are finished before the main event and refrain from talking, snap-chatting or whispering plot-points to each other, I have been forced to go to screenings at (shudder) the multiplex.<br />
<br />
Things were very different back in the stoneage when I was briefly young (I was old at a very early age) - there were three main cinemas in our local city centre: the ABC (one big screen, one tiny screen - queueing was down the flight of stairs outside, often in the rain, and down the street all the way to the flag-post and if you were beyond that you might as well go home), the Odeon (former theatre, a shocking three and later six screens) and the Theatre One (known locally as The Flea Pit, two screens - both slightly smaller than the ABC equivalent, with no leg space aside from those who were able to take them off and store them under their seat) - there had also briefly been the Paris (but that closed down) and another on the outside of town that I forget the name of as we only ever went there once before it was a casino....<br />
<br />
Things started to change when the ABC was taken over by a big chain that subsequently over-stretched itself and closed down. This was the cinema where I saw E.T., Back To The Future, Top Gun and all those Buster Keaton that I improbably also claim to have seen when first released(and that one about the moon having a face - pretty impressive when it first came out)<br />
<br />
Then the Odeon first expanded and then moved to another location with 9-10 screens and suddenly the idea of queuing for a ticket became a thing of the past - you could book on-line (shudder). Of the several cinemas in the area this is now the only remaining one.<br />
<br />
These days I tend to go mid-week to see films - just because Fridays and Saturdays are still full of the aforementioned clan of wondering locals, out for a brief foray across the fens, stopping for a meal in the middle of the cinema and apparently unable to sit still for more than two reels of a movie - but I do think that cinema has lost a certain something - and it wasn't until my cat was ill that I realised what it was....<br />
<br />
And yes, you read that right about the cat.<br />
<br />
In the early spring of 2018 Mr Giles suddenly started going what is known in the cat world as "cracker-cat" - he was eating 3-4 times his usual amount of food, dashing about with too much energy and suddenly launching himself at me and biting - something he hadn't done previously. This was Concerning.<br />
<br />
We took him to the vet and they diagnosed him as having a thyroid problem - apparently something that is quite common in cats. There were three potential options for treatment. 1) Operation - slightly risky, medium chance of success, 2) pills for the rest of his life - less risky, more upsetting for him and us and also ongoing, 3) radiation treatment - most effective, most expensive. After a few moments of wondering what kind of super powers one might expect to get when bitten by a radioactive cat and who one's arch-nemesis might be, we went with option 3<br />
<br />
This meant Mr Giles had to be away from us for several weeks whilst he was in almost total isolation and then, once he came home, we were to only spend up to one hour a day with him for the next 10 days.<br />
<br />
To be honest this was quite upsetting for all three of us - Mr Giles wanted to be around us and to re-build the bonds and we wanted the same. It also meant locking him out of most of the house - or else vacating the property for several hours.<br />
<br />
Over the weekend was going to be the worst bit - I could go into the office the rest of the time and Herself could work around it - but I had a whole Sunday to fill - and so I went to see Avengers: Infinity War.<br />
<br />
I have to say - I have not been following the series and there were several previous films I hadn't seen - but at 3.5 hours it filled an otherwise difficult activity shaped hole in my life...and as part one of a two part film it left me with a problem of having to see another film that I hadn't really intended to see twelve months later.<br />
<br />
And so, this year, and with cat duly fully recovered and back to usual levels of sanity (for a cat) I found myself needing to go and see how it all ended.<br />
<br />
As it happened: I had some training to do in London and an evening to look forward to sitting on my own in a hotel room - and so I booked a ticket for a screening of Avengers: Endgame and went along<br />
<br />
It was the first sold-out screening I have been to in around 30 years (with the possible exception of Vampire$, which doesn't count because it only got sold out because The Blair Witch project had already sold out and people had bought tickets rather than go home (don't bother, it's terrible))<br />
<br />
And this is where I come back to my feeling that I started off with<br />
<br />
The problem with the multiplex, as opposed to the old fashioned ones I remember, is that they show 20-30+ screenings of the latest film per day on their 12-20 screens. This inevitably means that most of the time the screen is half empty (more recent example - I went to see Doctor Sleep and there was only me and one other person in the screening) - and the thing that you get from a full screen just isn't there.<br />
<br />
Seeing films like Back To The Future, Blair Witch, Terminator - whatever, in a full screen means that you laugh harder, jump higher, cry more than you do when its half empty - and as I sat in a sold-out screening of Endgame with fans whooping, cheering and clapping in a non-code-compliant but nonetheless appropriate manner, I remembered what going to the cinema was supposed to feel like<br />
<br />
Cinema is a great medium. You can see all sorts of films there and I like to try and see something different from time to time (a recent trip to see a black and white film about Cornish fishermen for instance....which I still don't know whether I enjoyed or not) - but I do think that by treating it in the same casual way that we treat something on the telly, or our Ipad (other pads are available) we forget to let ourselves go for that moment and enjoy the magic.<br />
<br />
So next time you go to the cinema get your snacks early. Go and see the terrible adverts for over-priced snacks and films you will never see. Don't leave until after the final credits - even when they DO bring the lights up<br />
<br />
And if you really do feel the need to go for a walk: get it out of the way before you start....<br />
<br />
"Oooooh I love to go a wandering...along the mountain track..."Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-843913381984880772018-12-10T07:13:00.000-08:002018-12-10T07:17:21.029-08:00The Bells Are Ringing OutFrom around mid-November my radio-dial on my car/home stereo/non fruit-based hand-held internet device of choice remains firmly switched to anything but commercial radio.<br />
<br />
As anyone will know Christmas advertising is pretty much fair-game from September onwards when the kids go back to school (though I heard my first Christmas 2018 advert back in January - a saving scheme for Christmas), but it's from mid-November that the war of attrition really starts.<br />
<br />
You see, it used to be A Thing, for UK music acts of a certain era to release a Christmas song to try and reach that all-important Festive No 1 slot. It still happens from time to time, but here are a few of the more well known ones:<br />
<br />
Merry Christmas Everyone - Shakin' Stevens (how someone doing a fifties rockabilly act at the height of the Punk movement had any hits is a mystery)<br />
<br />
Merry Xmas Everyone - Slade. The ultimate in Glam Rock and bad spelling. This one would be quite good if it wasn't on in Every Single Place You Go<br />
<br />
Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time - Paul McCartney. Some of you may be aware that in <br />
James Joyce's book <em>Ulysses </em>he describes the seven levels of hell. Well listening to this piece of bubblegum pap is worse than any of them.<br />
<br />
Merry Christmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon. Not content with Macca trying to burn in effergy any last vestige of credit The Beatles had by releasing his above mentioned Christmas missive Lennon brought out this with the annoying children's chorus at the end<br />
<br />
Stay - East 17. A song about a friend dying. Doesn't mention Christmas once, but has some Christmassy bells<br />
<br />
A Spaceman Came Travelling (At Christmas) - Chris DeBurgh - look, Chris, we all knew what the song was about - there was no need to add "at Christmas time at the end" other than to buy that Lady in red a new dress<br />
<br />
Can You Stop The Cavalry - Jona Lewie. In Lewie's defence this was never intended as a Christmas single and is about a bloke fighting in a war and wishing he was home. The monotonous, repetitive tone makes me want to stick explosives in my ears and light the fuse<br />
<br />
And then there is Fairytale Of New York<br />
<br />
Fairytale stands alone as a piece of brilliance shining in a dark December night. A song written by Irish wildboys and rockers The Pogues and featuring the vocal talents of the late, great Kirsty MacColl it's a song about two people living in the worst of conditions, coming to New York and getting lost - it's first line "It was Christmas eve babe/in the drunk-tank" tells you exactly where it's going. It should be miserable, but it isn't. Somehow the music and the lyrics transports you....<br />
<br />
...but it's a song that's under threat.<br />
<br />
In the middle of the song, written in the 1980s, the couple resort to name-calling singing:<br />
You're a bum<br />
You're a punk<br />
You're an old slut on junk<br />
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed<br />
You scumbag, you maggot<br />
You cheap lousy faggot<br />
Happy Christmas your arse<br />
I pray God it's our last<br />
<br />
cheerful stuff, isn't it? And yet it's gone to the collective hearts of the nation and across the country you will hear people singing along<br />
<br />
But in recent years that line about the cheap-lousy tinned sausage has caused controversy and there have been calls to ban the song because of the offence it could cause to the LGBTQ community. As far as we know no actual offence has been caused. Shane MacGowan, speaking from behind dark sunglasses and broken teeth, has declared that the line is Irish slang for something else and besides the characters in the story are clearly not nice people and the views and language of the song should reflect that.<br />
<br />
But is it ok?<br />
<br />
I've always argued that it is - because really if you ban this line of the song then you'd also have to ban most blues songs, any songs that objectify women. Fairytale is not the only song under threat this year as some stations have refused to play Baby It's Cold Outside in the aftermath of the #metoo movement...<br />
<br />
Very few people seem horrified by the line "you're an old slut on junk" (although both were bleeped out a few years ago) - but part of me does wonder if I would feel the same if a) I wasn't such a big Kirsty MacColl fan and b) if it was the "n" word or another minority insult<br />
<br />
Sometimes I think there's too much political correctness, too many people worrying that group a, b or c might possibly be offended or even actively looking to be offended...<br />
<br />
Anyway, here's the song - happy Christmas y'all<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j9jbdgZidu8" width="560"></iframe>Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-35327140065522879592018-06-26T01:19:00.000-07:002018-06-26T01:24:15.538-07:00Three Coins In The FountainThere are only so many days of the week that you can stand in the local book/stationary shop looking at the motorbike magazines before they start to think you're casing the joint and ask you to either buy something or leave.<br />
<br />
This, though, is the problem of lunchtime whilst at work: particularly if you want to save a fortune by bringing your own food: because you can't go and eat it anywhere that sells their own food and the benches in the shopping centres are designed to be just the right side of uncomfortable so as to stop people sitting on them for long and force them back into the shops.<br />
<br />
So inevitably you end up eating your sandwiches (or whatever you brought in your Tupperware container today) and mooching between shops, looking at things you have no interest in (motorbike magazines being a prime example) and perusing the shelves of CDs in the hope of finding that rare imprint of Blind Wombat Jones's rare imported second album and coming out having somehow bought the thing that was playing on the tannoy when you went in.<br />
<br />
My favourite record store posed exactly this problem: it was on the one hand a veritable Aladdin's cave of treasures and on the other a very dangerous cash black hole where money intended for replacing the fridge would somehow disappear.<br />
<br />
I actually no longer work near to this particular shop (where I tell Herself that I am regularly marched into the shop by the assistant and forcibly made to buy something) but always enjoy going back. I've made several wonderful discoveries there over the years...but then a few years ago the chain of shops ran into financial difficulties (because no one was buying music anymore in physical form) and was threatened with closure. Somehow, with a change of name and corporate identity, it was able to continue and with the resurgence of interest in vinyl was actually looking very good for the future...<br />
<br />
...until around Christmas time it closed again, with practically no warning, and seemed to be gone for good.<br />
<br />
This was sad in many ways: largely, of course, for the assistants who would now need new jobs. For me also it was the end of an era and I found myself looking at my last two purchases there (U2: Songs Of Experience and Bjork: Loopy Bonkers (her album is actually called Utopia - but I think my title is more fitting)) and wondering if I could have done better.<br />
<br />
So I'm sure you can imagine that it was with a certain bounce in my step that I dashed out of the house and towards my car when I heard that it had reopened again. I say dashed, but at my age and state of mind it was more a leisurely stroll; but you get the idea.<br />
<br />
I don't know how car parks work in the rest of the world but in England they can be anything from an abandoned patch of land that is rented out to permit holders with security being that if you hide your belonging well enough the local kids might not break your windows to multi-storey concrete edifices that were designed so that the ramps were just tight enough to scrape the paint off the sides of anything bigger than a mini metro.<br />
<br />
There are also, generally speaking, two ways of paying when on site: firstly there is the barrier car-park where, as you go in, you get a ticket time-stamped with your arrival that you pay for when you return, thus charging you only for the time you actually stay. This is my favourite type and is generally speaking a multi-storey park.<br />
<br />
Secondly there is the "pay-on-arrival" type where you have to find a space, go to the little ticket machine and then take a guess at how long you think you are going to be so that you don't end up paying too much. It was to this type of car-park that I was going on this day.<br />
<br />
I arrived, parked up and went to the ticket machine: trying to figure out the tariffs. 50p for 1/2 hour - well that was clearly not going to be good enough to walk-past that compilation album three times saying "you don't need it" quietly before finally caving in. £1 for an hour: well, I would probably be back within an hour: I don't like hanging around too long, but just in case I decided to pay £1.50 for 90 minutes. Hardly going to break the bank.<br />
<br />
And so I dutifully put 50p into the slot.<br />
<br />
Nothing happened. No light flashing, no bleep of acknowledgement. Not even a clunk of the mechanism as my hard earned cash was swallowed. And so I pressed the coin-return button<br />
<br />
And out popped a £1 coin.<br />
<br />
Blimey Charlie, I thought, not quite comprehending. I stood there and thought for a second and eventually decided that maybe this was the reason my initial coin hadn't succeeded: because of a blockage somewhere. And so I scrambled around in my wallet for another 50p coin<br />
<br />
And this time I got a £2 coin back.<br />
<br />
And at this point a person with less scruples with me would have continued to see how ahead of the game they could get. I, however, meekly went and found another machine.<br />
<br />
And so I sashayed forward (I didn't sashay, obviously; only people in Fred Astaire films actually sashay) and duly spent far more money than I should have in the newly-opened shop (an action which I defended as showing Support To A Struggling Venture)<br />
<br />
Coming back to the car later I still felt bad about the money I'd somehow made at the car park. There had, after all, been a parking attendant checking for tickets in windows at another part of the area and I could have offered it to him.<br />
<br />
And so I did the only decent thing I could think of: I gave the £2 coin to a homeless person and wished him a good day.Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-39441488706334040572018-03-12T04:03:00.004-07:002018-03-12T04:03:51.370-07:00Take Me To ChurchI don't sing hymns in church. Haven't done for nearly 20 years.<br />
<br /><br />
Not that the requirement to do so comes up very often - I tend to avoid going through the door at all in case the Heathen Alert goes off and I spontaneously combust.<br />
<br /><br />
There are, generally speaking only three times I ever go to church:<br />
1) Christening for the child of a friend/relative<br />
2) Marriage of a friend/relative<br />
3) Funeral of a friend/relative<br />
<br /><br />
Of course: any of these can happen in any order, but in general, and as you get older, you start to get slightly more of what lies behind door number three<br />
<br /><br />
The last time I sang in church was actually at the funeral of my Nan, nearly 18 years ago. Although generally speaking I have concerns around partaking in ceremonies that I don't believe in (I don't, for instance, believe that you should have a child christened just because it is a Nice And Expected Thing To Do, nor should you get married in a church because it's Traditional: only do either of the above if you are actually religious and go regularly) - my actual reason for stopping was more straightforward: I can't sing them properly.<br />
<br /><br />
The pitch is just wrong for my voice - I either have to come in very low, or slightly too high: and either way it sounds like I'm making fun of the service, which I'm really not (at my Nan's funeral I stopped because I was unintentionally making my brother laugh)<br />
<br /><br />
I say this because last Friday I went to a funeral - a friend of my parents that they had jointly known for 50 years and whose kids we had grown up knowing - and of course I didn't sing. The service itself was pleasant as it goes, but it reaffirmed my own feeling that instead of some stranger standing up and saying "I never got to meet..." I need to write out something to be said when I pop my clogs (hopefully in the very far away and distant future)<br />
<br /><br />
I managed to make it through an entire half-an-hour without anyone pointing at me and yelling "unbeliever!" and we moved on to the wake where it soon became clear that neither of her kids actually recognised me - no real surprise as it had been about 30 years since we last saw them<br />
<br /><br />
When I did introduce myself to her daughter she apologized for not having recognised me and said, "You've broadened out, haven't you?" - and then, realizing what she'd said, added, "Of course we all have..." she added - looking down at her stick-thin contours<br />
<br /><br />
The Son finally came over and it was an odd experience because he was larger and bald and tattooed he was exactly the same and pretty much how I imagined he would turn out. When he finally smiled in recognition it was like the kid I had known peered out from behind older eyes<br />
<br /><br />
I don't really have a point to this post. If you are religious and enjoy singing hymns then I'm glad that you have that. If you have recently met with someone who you used to know and find that, underneath all the exterior changes, there is still some of that person in you then think about what you have gained and not what you have lost. As Paul Simon once said - after changes upon changes we are more or less the same<br />
<br /><br />
<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-37510804472561738052017-12-21T00:48:00.000-08:002017-12-21T00:48:13.238-08:00Seasons GreetingsIt barely seems five minutes ago, but it's now a couple of years since we moved out of hell.<br />
<br />
We got lucky in the end: buying a small bungalow on a quiet road with little traffic. No boy racers tearing up the street (if you don't count the local lads who seem to insist on pulling wheelies on their bikes all the way down the busy bypass two roads away), no 3-day parties with open door policies to everyone in a five mile radius and no 2am fights about who ate the last slice of pizza.<br />
<br />
The house itself is not a bad size. At some point in it's past it had an extension done in a uPVC build that is half-extension, half-conservatory. There's a small bit of lawn at the back and a pull-in area at the end of the path for a few cars. We even have a garage - though as it was built in the 60s it's too small for modern cars and has an asbestos roof (fine until you come to move it, so they tell me)<br />
<br />
Prior to us the house only had two previous owners: someone who lived there from 1960-61 (approximately), followed by a family who only moved out when they moved into a retirement flat.<br />
<br />
Which makes the random Christmas Card all the stranger. It's to a Mr & Mrs R. White - and as far as we can tell no such person has ever lived here. It's certainly not the names of our predecessors and none of our neighbours even recognise the name from nearby. It's always inscribed to an Uncle and Aunt from a family of three and, of course, being a Christmas card there's no return address.<br />
<br />
We've had this same card every year that we've lived here and, to be honest, it makes me rather sad. Firstly it suggests that in the past few years that we've lived here these two sides of the same family have had little or no contact with one another - otherwise surely they would have the correct address. Secondly because there's little or nothing I can do about it. I would love to be able to re-unite these family members, if only by returning the card to its sender.<br />
<br />
It makes me wonder: not just about the state of their family relationships but of mine as well. How easy it is in this busy world to lose contact with family members and friends: whether by falling out or simply the process of getting on with the day to day things. My cousin, for instance, who I love to bits; but it could be a good 15 months since I've seen her and her boys are growing up quickly. My sister-in-law, that I'd like to be closer to, but who lives so far away. <br />
<br />
I sometimes feel frustrated, as I suppose so many people do, that it always feels like it's me that has to make the effort to keep the relationships going: and that no one seems to do the same to me - I don't know how true that is, but I guess that at the end of the day it doesn't really matter as long as someone makes the effort.<br />
<br />
There was a famous actor (famous in the UK anyway) who died recently. Not long before his death he had tried to reach out, not for the first time, to his former acting partner from the sit-com they were both known from. Back in the 70s Actor #1 had inadvertently told a story to the press about a minor occurrence in Actor #2s life (that, upon hearing his wife was pregnant, Actor #2 had swerved the car and nearly crashed). Actor #2, who was deeply private, never forgave him and never spoke to him again.<br />
<br />
It's simply not worth it. Whatever has happened in your life, if it's at all possible: reach out and build that bridge before it's too late.<br />
<br />
Last year we received a second random Christmas card, this time from Ireland, to a different family - who have also, so far as we can tell, never lived here. We have not received a second one from them so far. Let's hope they sorted it all out eh?Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-63005981954168799202017-10-31T08:39:00.000-07:002017-10-31T08:43:22.308-07:00Diminishing ReturnsIt seems increasingly doubtful that I shall be buying the new Morrissey album.<br />
<br />
I know, right?<br />
<br />
And I appreciate that there will be those of you reading this post and thinking either:<br />
a) Well, so what? or b) Who?<br />
<br />
So: Stephen Patrick Morrissey, erstwhile Miserable of Manchester. Singer and front-man with 80s icons The Smiths who, despite the lack of mainstream media support, burned brightly and have become one of the most important and influential bands of their time.<br />
<br />
And then, at the height of their fame, Morrissey (as he is usually known) and the others in the band fell out and went their separate ways. Johnny Marr, once tagged as a guitar hero, went on to work with a whole number of bands in all sorts of format: seemingly happy to be just under the surface of fame, whilst the others spent most of the 90s and 2000s sueing each other over rights and payments.<br />
<br />
And for a while Morrissey's solo career was promising. His first couple of albums were a good blend of pop and heartfelt sentiments - but with each passing release he seemed to be trading on former glories, repeating the same complaints and then, bereft of a record contract, he vanished.<br />
<br />
Seven years passed and then You Are The Quarry came out - a tour-de-force of a comeback, as vital and energetic as anything from his glory days....<br />
<br />
To date it has not been matched. Frankly I didn't even make it all the way through his last album World Peace Is None Of Your Business and haven't been impressed by the new stuff either...<br />
<br />
Why am I telling you this?<br />
<br />
Well: I always used to be a bit of a completest: once I liked a band or an artist I would keep following them, buying their latest release and eagerly looking forward to the next. In this way I have almost every album by the Pet Shop Boys, Manic Street Preachers, New Order and a few others, as well as a good sized back catalogue of early Genesis and Peter Gabriel<br />
<br />
But they say that your heroes either die young or live long enough to disappoint you - so I guess the question is: how long should you stay loyal? How long do you keep buying the new stuff hoping there will be a return to form?<br />
<br />
Here's a few examples:<br />
Bjork: she is the musical equivalent of Marmite (a yeast extract spread for toast known to divide opinion) and is, to say the least, eccentric. Much of her solo stuff is verging on weird and experimental and that's fine as far as it goes - but as of recent her albums have also been lacking anything approaching a tune. She's still getting rave reviews for her innovation and approach, but would it hurt to do something that I could hum along to?<br />
<br />
New Order:<br />
Haven't bought the new album despite the rave reviews. Peter "Hooky" Hook has left and, despite all the accounts of what a bad person he can be, it's not the same without him fighting his bass guitar to the death<br />
<br />
Pet Shop Boys<br />
Haven't bought their last 3 albums as I got bored of listening to daft throwaway tunes like "I'm With Stupid" (I mean, honestly...)<br />
<br />
U2:<br />
Apparently they have recorded their new album but have held back on releasing it in the wake of Donald Trump on the grounds that they are "no longer sure it says what they wanted it to" - and if the band don't have any confidence in the songs, why should I?<br />
<br />
I guess it's the same for people who've owned every I-phone since the start and now feel a morbid need to remain loyal and buy every upgrade.<br />
<br />
I guess it's the need to hope: hope that something that was once great can be great again - like maybe through them we can recapture that time when those things seemed to be the centre of our universe?<br />
<br />
Maybe it's me then that is the problem: maybe I've moved on from those times when hearing Morrissey reflecting the confusion I was feeling was somehow comforting despite the air of misery and maybe hearing him still trying to pay lip-service to those things is just too much to bear....<br />
<br />
<br />
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Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-19355646067254847892017-10-19T01:10:00.000-07:002017-10-19T01:10:50.358-07:00Early One Morning4am on a Saturday and I'm in that phase just between sleep and wakefulness, my brain turning the old cogs. There's a snippet of an idea for a song bouncing around in my head and I'm wondering - if I leave it and try and write it in the morning, will it still be there?<br />
<br />
The answer, of course, is no.<br />
<br />
It's very rare that I sit down with my guitar and think "Right: I'm going to write a song now" and anything useable emerges. I'm fully aware that there are plenty of people who do precisely this: and probably a few of them earn money from doing so. Usually these days what will happen is that I will get a fragment - half a lyric and a bit of a tune - whilst doing something else and will make a note of it on my mobile phone. I'm a bit ruthless with these and if they haven't developed into anything within a week or two I delete them and assume they never will.<br />
<br />
On this occasion I'd had two quite similar fragments appear in short succession. Initially I'd thought that maybe they would be part of the same song, but then the second fragment became a song of it's own and for a while it looked like the first would sit, neglected, on my phone until the next clean-up operation came along.<br />
<br />
But somewhere my brain must have been working on the problem; because here I was - awake at 4am and trying to decide what to do. <br />
<br />
Finally, aware that I wouldn't get any sleep with the words roaming around in my head like lost sheep looking to be herded somewhere, I got up and made the short journey to my desk: accompanied by the appropriate amount of stumbling over cats in the dark and reaching for light switches that were not where I remembered them being.<br />
<br />
With the words now written down I retired to my bed, switching off lights and trying not to step on the cat, hoping that now I would now get some sleep.<br />
<br />
And then the next line came.<br />
<br />
Swearing lightly under my breath and trying not to wake Herself I clambered out of bed, danced around the cat, groped for the light-switch and wrote the next bit down. It was around this point that I realised my fragment fitted in quite nicely to the idea - so I now had a promising intro to a verse, a bit of a chorus and a bridge.<br />
<br />
Back to bed. Close my eyes, aware that it is now 5am and I need to be up at 7 as I have a one day course in Blues Guitar ahead of me: a course that I'd quite like to be awake and sentient for if it's not too much to ask.<br />
<br />
Fragment four arrives. Part of verse one. This time Herself stirs and asks if everything is ok and in a slightly tense voice I reply that yes it is, it's just inspiration calling at an inopportune moment. She goes back to sleep and this time, over the next 30 mins or so, I pretty much get the rest of the song written, aside from the chords which will have to be worked out at a more sociable hour.<br />
<br />
As a result of all the to-ing and fro-ing I'm now awake before the alarm at 6:30am and so I pour myself a bowl of breakfast and switch on my computer. Once we're through the interminable time it takes for everything to warm up I log into Word and, with a few adjustments, type up the scribble on my piece of paper into something legible without having to go and find a modern equivalent of the Rosetta Stone.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong - I like being creative and am pleased with the resulting effort, so much so that I resolve to play it at my next appearance at a Folk Club (where it goes down like a lead balloon much to my disappointment) - but I do sometimes wonder how it works.<br />
<br />
Terry Pratchett wrote that ideas are like bolts of lightning and that some people are more susceptible to being hit than others and added that the right ideas might not always hit the right heads: which is one of the many reasons you see so many surprised looking cows. Agatha Christie would answer, when asked, where she got her ideas from, "why Harrods of course; where else?"<br />
<br />
I think that a large part of it is believing in the first place that you can be creative and then actively trying to be creative - once you do those two things the ideas will come: some easier than others perhaps, but still come.<br />
<br />
As for me well, my ideas may not change the world or, apparently, be suitable for folk club attendees, but sometimes they amuse me and my friends and maybe that's enough<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-42654613789937723322017-08-20T14:02:00.002-07:002017-08-20T14:02:20.152-07:00Cricket Whites And Multi-Coloured CoatsBack in the 80s the Doctor Who convention came to town.<br />
<br />
Of course: back then being a science-fiction fan meant something different. You were, by and large, white, male, pale from reading too many comics and single. You were also useless at sport, full of acne and obsessed with detail. Where Patrick Troughton ate his peanut-butter sandwich on day 28 of shooting season 4 was of critical detail.<br />
<br />
And equally, of course, pretty much all of the above was just bunk. Apart from the sandwich: these things matter, you know.<br />
<br />
The show had just been cancelled, no longer able to cope against the more expensive and more slick shows coming out of the USA like Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X Files had ended the days where a props man at the BBC could spray-paint a sleeping bag silver and stick two antenna on it and get away with it.<br />
<br />
And there was, despite all my denials above, a certain demographic at the conventions: ranging from bluff old men with pipes who could remember watching William Hartnell from behind the sofa to teenagers who could barely remember the "classic" 70s show.<br />
<br />
The events were largely affordable: tickets were reasonably priced, autograph sessions were free. E-bay would see the end of that: the price of a signing shooting up as "celebrities" saw what they were worth and wanted a slice of the pie.<br />
<br />
And just occasionally, maybe one out of every five hundred people at the convention, you'd get someone turning up in their home-made Jon Pertwee costume, or wearing the cricket whites of Peter Davidson or, if you were really going to go for it, the garish frock coat of Colin Baker (a costume that even the actor himself said was "the sort of costume that you want to be inside of staring out from"). There were slightly more of these fans at the Star Trek conventions: with Next Generation and then Deep Space Nine in full flow all of a sudden they were everywhere and you could see the corridors of the Albert Hall being filled with people in Star Trek Uniforms: still predominantly male, but a small amount of women now seeping into the crowd - perhaps drawn in by the handsome stars. At one memorable convention Michael Dorn (famous for playing Klingon officer Worf) asked a German Star Trek fan (who, frankly, looked like he had glued a Cornish pasty to his forehead) "Why do you dress like that? I used to get paid to do it!"<br />
<br />
At some point I slowly trickled away from the world of conventions: they certainly stopped coming to my home town after 3-4 years and as the prices went up and it moved out of the reach of the amateur collector I lost a little bit of interest. My sci-fi/fantasy going experience became the norm. All of a sudden it was quite fashionable and ok to be watching Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and those who were fascinated by sci-fi were no longer considered social lepers who lived with their parents and were afraid of direct sunlight (unless they were Twilight fans I guess...)<br />
<br />
I was reminded of all of the above today when I went to a nearby arts centre to watch a film (Last Portrait in case you are interested: a slow moving character piece about an artist who finds himself increasingly struggling against his own legend) only to find the corridors of the place festooned with people in costume.<br />
<br />
The answer to why was, of course, that there was some comicon event in place in one of the other halls...but in the intervening years something had changed.<br />
<br />
First of all: the convention goers were almost uniformly in...uniform.<br />
<br />
Secondly: the turn out was probably somewhere around 75-90% women<br />
<br />
But most interestingly of all, and despite the costumes, none of the people there were recognisably...a thing.<br />
<br />
Back in the 80s I had occasionally joked of going to a Star Trek convention dressed as Kerr Avon -a joke that only a true nerd would get - the point being that those who did go dressed in costume were always Picard or Riker, or a Klingon - or maybe a Borg. It would always be a Tom Baker scarf draping to the floor...<br />
<br />
...But although there were definitely a few Jon Snows and Tirion Lannisters around the main difference was that most of the people there were dressed in costumes as their own creation: people or races inspired by, but not actually of, the universe they were fans of. There's been a lot of talk of steam-punk in recent years (a thing where you have sci-fi, but with a retro feel - so as if steam engines powered space ships etc) and this seems to have led to people feeling free to express themselves in whatever form they want to: not tied to a specific genre.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure what to make of this to be honest: I think on the whole I think it is a good move as programmes, and books, like these should be the start and not the end of imagination...and I like the fact that it's become so mainstream...but...<br />
<br />
...I do wonder if the market isn't being saturated now...we're on the fifth re-boot of Batman, the third of Spider-man...every major studio seems to be creating it's own "universe" and if you want to see the new Avengers film then you have to have seen the last three Captain America ones...channels like Netflix are producing their own shows and as for Game Of Thrones well...you can hardly feel a breeze without someone saying "winter's coming" in a heavy northern accent<br />
<br />
My fear I guess is that the films are running into the same problems that the comic books did: the "where do you go now" problem where in order to give bigger and better thrills you have to tell bigger and bigger stories<br />
<br />
Those in the know will know, of course, that the dying world of comics was at least partially saved back in the 90s by the works of Alan Moore and his like that have gone on to influence the films - but every trend and fashion comes and goes just as swiftly so I hope that the companies have something else in their back pockets for when the fans grow up and put their costumes away.<br />
<br />
I couldn't go to a convention now, of course, I'd stand out a mile and wouldn't have a clue what anyone there was supposed to be: maybe that's the way it should be. After all: not all of us can be Kerr Avon at a Star Trek convention now, can we?<br />
<br />
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Kerr Avon: a cold-hearted, logical and increasingly paranoid rebel and outlaw fighting against the evil and corrupt Federation...Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-68807618631035675412017-07-07T07:36:00.000-07:002017-07-07T07:51:21.708-07:00Mr P.C."So what did you do last night, get up to anything much?"<br />
<br />
I smile and savour the moment: this must be the fifth or sixth person I've said this too, but I'm still looking forward to the reaction, "Oh nothing much," I say, "just watched a naked pensioner performing a head-stand"<br />
<br />
As, apparently, you do.<br />
<br />
I'd say it had been over 12 months since I'd even thought about doing any art: I don't know why - the muse had just gone elsewhere...besides I had long ago run out of wall space and unsuspecting friends and family members to foist my "art" onto<br />
<br />
And then, one long Bank Holiday weekend when I had nowhere to go and nowhere to go there with, I had delved into my folder for the pack that'd I'd bought two years previously that showed you how to create a pastel-pencil drawing of a fox (contents: 1x book, 10-12 pastel pencils, grid) and switched Spotify over to play Leonard Cohen on shuffle...and two days later (give or take the odd break for food, sleep, conversation and mind-numbing television) I had a rather nice drawing<br />
<br />
And, in one of those odd twists of fate that sometimes occur, a day or so later I received an email from my occasional art teacher Mad Penguin Lady. I can't remember, I feel sure I must have mentioned her before but a brief recap: about four-foot nothing, always wearing pink corduroys, from somewhere in the Netherlands and having once painted a giant depiction of two penguins under a palm tree ("a sort of allegory for Adam and Eve")<br />
<br />
The email was advertising her latest session of life drawing sessions on weekday evenings: a night of the week that, until recently, had been No Good For Me as I was often working in London :but now found me free.<br />
<br />
I was surprised and pleased to receive said invitation: having seen that she had moved to another area and having assumed this would mean no more sessions in the swealtering heat of the studio crowded with 14 clothed people stood with frowns of concentration and 1 decidedly naked one just let them ogle them without a word of complaint.<br />
<br />
I have to say: a 60 year old man standing naked on his head for five minutes is not something you see every day - apparently he is known for his unusal poses...at what point during the evening is appropriate, for instance, to say "Hey, I think I have a drawing of you on my wall..."<br />
<br />
In the many years that I've been going (on and off since 2003) to the classes I've only managed to create two drawings that were worth framing and keeping, spending most of my time getting angry and frustrated with myself for something that looked like a jelly tot that has been left too close to the fire - but this time I was determined to just relax and enjoy myself and see if I couldn't learn a thing or two.<br />
<br />
As it was: in the final session I did produce a picture that I was happy with, although I doubt it will end up on a wall and this time around I did manage to stop myself getting annoyed - so a result of sorts. Whether I improved at all or not: the jury is still out.<br />
<br />
At this time I was still scouting around after my success on the Jazz course for a local group or orchestra I could try out with: determined that the only way I could now improve my playing would be to play with others....<br />
<br />
About a year previously I had been approached by Herself's father with a proposition. He had been rather drunk at the time and I naturally assumed it was the Real Ale talking when he asked if I would be interested in performing a saxophone recital at the church where he plays organ and had, with foolhardy abandon, agreed to do - now it was rapidly approaching and I was practicing my pieces 2-3 times a week to knock the final corners off them<br />
<br />
In the end the performance went very well: there were a couple of fluffed notes (though oddly I got the most complex piece completely right - an achievement I haven't managed to reproduce since) but no one other than me seemed to notice or care.<br />
<br />
It wasn't just me performing - my sax was interspersed with some fairly serious and complicated organ pieces and a singer who was accompanied by her piano-playing husband. It was from these two that I finally got a lead to a local orchestra...who met on the same night as my Life Drawing Class...(ah you see now, the link is not as tenuous as you thought)<br />
<br />
I left some contact details and eventually got to speak to someone about attending and, sure enough, a few weeks later I turned up and...duly sat there all night not coping.<br />
<br />
A lot of sight reading was needed with a horrible Disney medley that changed pace several times and I just couldn't keep up with...and the first two weeks there was no music available for me to take home and practice<br />
<br />
So after a week's break and having finally got hold of half the music I went back again...and of course they played the other half that I didn't have...and I was suddenly given different copies of the ones I had...<br />
<br />
It was one of those nights that, by the end of it, I wanted to throw my saxophone out of the window into a nearby river and I'm afraid that when the conductor asked me how it had gone I was a little brusque (I later emailed and apologized and he was fine)<br />
<br />
This was Monday evening and since then I haven't had much chance to look at the music and practice and I'm not sure if I'm going back or not (if you'd asked me on the night I would have been VERY sure)<br />
<br />
This is the downside of the creative process: it can be bliss when it's going well. You can lose an afternoon doing nothing but blending two colours to form a third, or sketching out an outline - or you can spend it throwing endless pieces of paper in the bin. The same tune played two days running can be frustrating and then perfect: I've had more than the occasional saxophone lesson where I've wanted to give up...I guess you have to take the pain with the pleasure<br />
<br />
But then there was Wednesday<br />
<br />
I'd found out recently that there was a pub nearby that had a resident 5 piece Jazz band (guitar, keyboard, drums, bass and trumpet) with whom you could join in if you were willing to bring your instrument of choice - myself and Argent had actually initially thought about going two weeks previously but it had been in the middle of the first real heat of the year and neither of us had fancied it - and then the previous week we had gone along just to size up the opposition<br />
<br />
The applicable word would be: intimidating. <br />
<br />
Blimey Charlie but the band were good - able to play tightly along with newcomers, playing to a very high level. We went home that night wondering if we were mad to even consider going and joining in...but then the individual members had all been very friendly and you only live once - besides: what was the worst that could happen? No one there would know us and if we stunk up the room we could just never go back.<br />
<br />
And so we went, horns held at our side, and hid in a corner where we thought maybe the singer/host might not see us if we decided to chicken out...<br />
<br />
and again the band were top notch<br />
<br />
The first half of the evening - from about 2030-2130 is just the band with a singer/host for the evening and then a 20 minute break during which hapless fools can fall on their sword, approach the host, and volunteer.<br />
<br />
And so I got out my sax and started quietly warming it up, playing slowly through a John Coltraine piece I'd learned on the course called Mr P.C. (we'd done it slower than he does) - at which point the keyboard player passes me, hears what I'm playing and excitedly says, "hey, Mr P.C. you playing that tonight? Let's go for it"<br />
<br />
It would have been like kicking a teddy-bear to have said no.<br />
<br />
The break ends and the singer says "Pixie or Argent - do you want to join us?" and like the coward I am I practically shove Argent off her chair to go first...only it turns out that the band are dead set on playing some Coltraine - and so we swap places<br />
<br />
For those of you who don't know, and i didn't until recently - one standard trope of Jazz is you play the tune twice at the start to give people an idea what you are doing, then each member of the band solos over the top in turn, and then you play the tune twice more to remind people where you'd started off<br />
<br />
I ask the keyboard player for an A so I can tune and beg the drummer not to play it at full speed and he agrees. The resident trumpet player asks me if I want her to play alongside and I say that it's probably a good idea<br />
<br />
And then we launch into it<br />
<br />
At close-to-top speed<br />
<br />
Gits<br />
<br />
And somehow or other: I knock the ball out of the park. Not a single note wrong, my solo flying away under my fingers so that I have no memory of what, or if, I played and then all I have to do is stand there and wait whilst everyone else has their own solo before we return to the tune at the end<br />
<br />
And then it's over and I'm shaking hands with some of the band and returning to my seat, head slightly buzzing.<br />
<br />
It was just what I needed: a big success to bounce me back from the previous fail. A shot in the arm to get me going again<br />
<br />
And of course, the next day at work:<br />
<br />
"So what did you do last night then?" they ask me, "naked pensioners again?"<br />
<br />
"No," I reply with a grin that won't fade till at least Friday, "Even better"<br />
<br />
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<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-60113187510647886702017-03-28T14:10:00.003-07:002017-03-28T14:10:57.684-07:00The Song Remains The SameQ: How do you get a Jazz musician to earn a million dollars?<br />
A: You give them two million...<br />
<br />
Ah the life of the itinerant musician: never an easy profession. The endless driving home on darkened and empty motorways, at four am wedged into the back of the van behind the snare drum and the bass player's right armpit whilst the singer and the lead guitarist get all the girls. Propped up on Prozac, never sure which city you're playing in...playing in half-empty bars to a half-listening audience (if you're lucky)<br />
<br />
Most musicians start out this way: playing small pubs, open mike nights in cities where the locals didn't know there was going to be music on and are far more interested in the match on the satellite TV than listening to a band going through the motions of a bad Dire Straits cover version.<br />
<br />
Or the wedding gig: where the well-meaning bride and groom hired them in to play their favourite music: failing to recognise that what the guests really want to do is quietly chat about Auntie Enid's historectomy whilst raising old family grudges and silently re-writing their wills, and are sufficiently less interested in the back-catalogue of Michael Jackson and Dexy's Midnight Runners<br />
<br />
OK: so far I've been deliberately painting the less attractive side of the world of musicianship.<br />
<br />
Take my life, as of recent.<br />
<br />
Last year my brother came home from a day trip away to the centre of cosmopolitan England which, it turns out, is also the centre of the British Jazz movement (who knew? Not me. Not the concrete cows that used to be visible in a field from the train station and are now safely secured in the shopping centre. Not the locals either as far as I can tell). He came back with a leaflet for a venue that as well as evening concerts provides day courses in a variety of different styles: from Cajon drums to Mandolin, from Blues Guitar to home recording...and Jazz improvisation.<br />
<br />
Let me say this right at the start: I'm a bit of a hypocrite here. Present me with a CD wherein Dave Gilmore of Pink Floyd noodles away on his Fender Stratocaster (or whatever he's playing these days) for the eight minute solo on Comfortably Numb and I will cheerfully listen....give me some of this endless, self-indulgent Jazz wibbling and I'll happily cut my ears of in preference for giving it the time of day.<br />
<br />
It's been the bane of my saxophone lessons for the last 7 years (I know! And I still haven't learned the damn thing!) as pretty much every session ends with 10 minutes improvisation...<br />
<br />
It's usually around the two-and-a-half minute point that I run out of ideas and start looking at my watch.<br />
<br />
I think the difference is: structure. When you have a blues solo, or Messr Gilmore, Clapton, Hendrix, King et al step up the solo is a part of a wider story - fitting in between the words to flesh out the song, whereas in Jazz and improv the solo is often the whole of the thing.<br />
<br />
And also: I never really have any feeling for it, or particularly understand why said thing that I did was good or bad when the teacher tells me so. <br />
<br />
But because mucking about and making stuff up is such a big part of playing sax I decided that maybe what I really needed was to go on one of the courses on offer at the venue and initially took a one day course with my old friend Argent (remember her? She's doing ok out there, not blogging but keeping me company in many musical adventures) in Jazz Improvisation hoping that maybe doing it in another environment, with a different teacher and different musicians something would finally click<br />
<br />
And it sort of did: because what we did was learn a piece of music first - Milestones by Miles Davis was one, I forget the other (could have been All Blues, but with my memory...) - and then play the tune before taking it in turn to do a smaller improvisation section before playing the tune again (which is, apparently The Thing You Do when Jazzercising)<br />
<br />
And actually: it helped. Putting it in context of a larger and more coherent thing was so rewarding that I immediately signed up for a follow on course over six weeks from January - March: The Jazz Experience.<br />
<br />
The plan was simple: learn a couple of "jazz standards", play them as a group (actually several groups: one large 20 piece orchestra and three smaller groups) and, on the final week, foist them upon the unsuspecting public, largely comprised of friends and family from the relative safety of the main stage of the venue.<br />
<br />
This resulted in 6 Sundays in the middle of winter driving 50 miles down the motorway and back at ungodly hours, trying to remember the pieces by heart and not forget the weekly amendments and still try and have some kind of life outside....no bass player's armpits were harmed in the process.<br />
<br />
The concert itself passed in a blur, it was only an hour and it felt like we'd barely started when we finished. I made a few mistakes (which I was largely able to cover up) but was generally pleased with the solos I played: my main regret being that the venue was so far away, thus limiting the option of taking things further.<br />
<br />
What did I actually learn: well, that bit's quite hard to define, but it gave me more of an idea of where I am down the long road towards achievement...particularly towards the end of the course when I was having a conversation with the teacher who had led our group.<br />
<br />
Teacher: (looking at my saxophone reeds): "You should consider getting some better quality reeds more suited to an intermediate player like you..."<br />
<br />
It was at this point that I laughed and retorted, "ooh, intermediate eh? Air's getting a bit rarified up here...after all this time I've finally climbed the dizzy heights to being average"<br />
<br />
Actually - I never said it half as cleverly as that but we both laughed and joked and found it funny (it still amuses me)<br />
<br />
Intermediate is a good place to be, and I'd say it was about right: there were some players in the group who had been playing two or three times longer than me but whom I could happily play the socks off, whilst there were rank beginners who were already showing signs of catching me up. In the road to becoming good at something you never really reach the end: you just climb the next hill and see where it takes you<br />
<br />
The important thing is to keep climbing<br />
<br />
<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-61945835657562759712017-02-03T03:31:00.000-08:002017-02-03T03:31:20.641-08:00Your Latest TrickLet's be honest: right now, if you are approaching a till in a shop with the intention of paying with your smart watch there's a high probability that the person behind you thinks that you are a pretentious idiot.<br />
<br />
I've had this happen to me a few times now, where I've been standing in a queue with my ever-so-last-century coinage in my hand, ready to take out a small payday loan so that I can afford to pay the extortionate amount being asked for in exchange for a cup of coffee, only to be delayed as someone in front of me insists on pushing back their sleeve, twisting their arm (thus spilling half the drink) and holding their wrist at the correct distance from the scanner for the signal to be transmitted and paying without the arguably quicker but less flashy alternative of getting their debit card out of their wallet.<br />
<br />
I must admit to being a little bit guilty here myself because after some initial grumbling about not seeing how it can make transactions any safer I now regularly pay via contact less with my bank card, thus saving me having to input my PIN and probably shaving 20 seconds off what would have otherwise been a more lengthy purchase interaction.<br />
<br />
Now I know this is going to sound out of fashion and like an old man grumbling but the basic, single purpose I wear a watch for is because I want it to tell me the time.<br />
<br />
Back at school when I was a kid I experimented with digital watches. Most of them had two or three buttons and a read out based on an 8888 square in poor LEDs. One or two even had alarms. As a kid I was even banned from wearing a watch at school - the culprit being a clockwork Mickey Mouse watch from disneyland that ticked so loudly it disrupted the class.<br />
<br />
Eventually i returned to a simple watch with hands - I've probably had my current one for 15-20 years with only the occasional change of strap or battery and am in no immediate rush to upgrade.<br />
<br />
But the thing is with the smart watch is that I can't help but feel that people are jumping the gun a bit.<br />
<br />
Take the mobile phone, When these first came out in the 1980s they were exclusively used by Wall Street types and came with big battery packs, antenna and a transmission distance only slightly better than standing at the other side of a room and yelling at the person you wanted to talk to. <br />
<br />
Nowadays of course you have phones that can control drones, book you a table at a restaurant, organise your fitness regime and take prize winning photographs - but the problem is the rate at which the technology is changing.<br />
<br />
Apple and their contenders seem to be releasing new, improved iphones every six months ago that via a tiny improvement or change immediately render your previous phone as obsolete as a penny farthing bicycle - I've personally resisted buying a new games console since the Playstation 2 largely because I got tired of having to buy a new one every year or so because the new version wouldn't play my old games (and because of the price of the games themselves)<br />
<br />
And I'm not convinced by the 3D systems going around at the moment - they seem clunky and gimmicky<br />
<br />
Personally my suggestion is to hang on for a while and see what comes next - meanwhile in the short term if your watch is still telling you the time then surely that's good enough?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-7909739126509054572017-01-13T01:33:00.001-08:002017-01-13T01:37:17.117-08:00Live It UpI'm now officially old.<br />
<br />
To be fair - I think I was born 60 and it got worse as time went on, but there are several things that have led me to the conclusion that the top of the hill is now behind me.<br />
<br />
The first thing that tells you that your dotage is upon you is the way that women (usually Grand mothers and young mothers) refer to you, particularly when they are pointing you out to a young child that is in their care.<br />
<br />
It starts well with, "do you see that boy there" and moves on to "that young man" before the inevitable "that Gentleman" and finally, of course, "that old man" (by which they are trying to warn their kid "keep away, he could collapse at any second")<br />
<br />
The second thing is, of course, new technology. (Author) Douglas Adams famously once wrote that "anything invented before you were born is in the Natural Order Of Things, anything between then and around 35 years is a New And Exciting Gadget and that anything invented much after your 40th year is Against God And Must Be Stopped.<br />
<br />
I was actually having a conversation around the second point at work the other day with a girl half my age who was saying things like "oh I can eat whatever I like and never put on any weight" and "I can't ever see myself not understanding new tech the way my grandmother does" - and yet even she, spring chicken that she comparatively was, admitted that there were elements of social media, such as Twitter, which she didn't really follow (Twitter is beyond me I'm afraid: please explain where the joy is in reading half a stranger's text message). My personal gripe is 3D movies - if the story wasn't good in the first place then some actor waving to the screen and arrows flying out at you isn't going to make it any better (I studiously avoid them and will only go to 2D screenings)<br />
<br />
Thirdly, of course, my pop culture references regularly go over the heads of people working in shops. Just recently we went to a hobby shop to buy some glue, pens and other craft materials (we're very fond of gluing pens together in our house...) and whilst Herself was rummaging through her cavernous purse I joked to the assistant that "this is what happened to Lord Lucan and Shergar, you know: they got put in her bag for safe keeping"<br />
<br />
Now I'm aware that anyone in the US may not get the reference to the disgraced 60s Lord whose clothes were found abandoned on the beach in the wake of the Police wanting to speak to him in relation to a murder, or to the Grand National winning horse that rumour has it may have been stolen by the IRA with intentions of ransoming it before they realised how hard a thoroughbred is to look after - but both are familiar names in the UK: or at least they should be.<br />
<br />
However: even after a brief summary of the Lord Lucan affair (which, incidentally, happened before my time as well) the expression on the girl's face remained polite-yet-liable-to-call-security-at-any-moment.<br />
<br />
Fourthly - and I just became aware that this post, although not originally intended to, is slowly turning into a list-o-fives post - I'm hopelessly out of touch with New And Upcoming Musical Artistes. This is something I actually regret - we used to have a 1/2 hour music show here called Top Of The Pops which showed you the top 40 selling singles in the chart and if that were still on today then I would be fully versed because a half-hour music show is about the right length for me and I can't be bothered with all these 1 hour music video shows you get on the digital channels<br />
<br />
The most up-and-coming music act that I recently discovered was Gregory Porter: who it has to be said has a great voice and some wonderful tunes - but he's only a small amount younger than me and he sings Jazz - so it hardly qualifies me to announce that I am "down with the kids" (slang for hip - and by god does using the word "hip" make me sound even older)<br />
<br />
Fifth - all of a sudden I find young people deeply annoying.<br />
<br />
Actually that's not true: all my life I've found them deeply annoying, but it's got worse. Particularly on public transports<br />
<br />
There's this nice old image of the traditional Brit who sits in his shed all day, quietly stoking and smoking a pipe whilst he ponders over a tricky crossword, who never complains despite being kept waiting at the station for 5 hours (other than the occasional sigh or tut) and who absolutely DOES NOT spend the entire 2 hour train journey having a loud and vacuous phone conversation about their sex life whilst playing BubbleSaga or Angry Birds on their tablet<br />
<br />
I have to admit to being a bit of a hypocrite here because as a child I used to insist on carrying around a small case of magic tricks and "entertaining" fellow passengers when the train broke down (which was a frequent occurrence back then) - quite frankly: if I met myself as a child now I would cheerfully stab myself to save anyone else the pain - but to be fair I was a hell of a lot quieter. I don't know whether it's a thing of getting older or what, but it seems that anyone below the age of 17 is unable to speak at any volume lower than a bellow that would start an avalanche<br />
<br />
Finally, of course, I have recently discovered the local Folk Club Scene.<br />
<br />
For those of you who don't know Folk Clubs are still quite common in the UK and they usually have one or many of the following attributes:<br />
* Real Ale drinkers - people who insist that beer has to be made Traditionally and by some bloke using his bath tub - to be the real thing<br />
* Acoustic instruments - they're still bitter about Dylan going electric<br />
* songs written over a 100 years ago, usually about how grim it was being a miner/weaver/peasant, containing "fol-de-rol"s or heavy innuendo<br />
* people old enough to have heard the songs the first time around<br />
* and, to be fair, a really friendly and informal atmosphere that is a hell of a lot of fun<br />
<br />
But what they don't have: is young people - and this is a thing I've heard and seen a lot of recently. On the stand-up course I did the teacher bemoaned the fact that the audience watching him now were the same people as 10-15 years ago and that no new audience was coming through - and it's the same in the Folk Clubs - I may be getting on a bit, but the large proportion of people there are 15-20 years older than me and I wasn't aware of anyone younger<br />
<br />
Which is a bit of a shame - I'd hate these clubs to go out of business and to vanish like so many things because they clung onto a forgotten ideal of what the world was like<br />
<br />
Which brings me to the final thing about getting old - becoming afraid of change. It's very easy to complain about things changing (as I've just proven) and history is full of people moaning that INSERT NEW FANGLED THING HERE is wrecking our society and changing things irretrievably but hey - change will happen regardless. <br />
<br />
Better to accept it and move on: maybe therein lies the secret of eternal youth?<br />
<br />
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<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-82487676284912669372016-12-09T12:09:00.003-08:002016-12-09T15:48:21.932-08:00What's So Funny About Peace, Love And Understanding?I narrowly missed meeting Elvis Costello today. Although I'm not a big fan it would have been interesting to see him, maybe remind him of the jingle his dad wrote to advertise lemonade - or ask him if he ever changed his mind and decided he DID want to go to Chelsea.<br />
<br />
As it was I was in London for two days to do a bit of work, see a friend who had come over from France to do some work and maybe take another friend to lunch. It was here, at the second meeting, that I narrowly missed Mr Costello: as I was making my lunch appointment outside BBC Broadcasting House: a landmark one can't fail to miss (and nor should you) once you come up from Oxford Street Tube Station and locate the road in which you can see the church spire (it's just beyond that)<br />
<br />
All of this is, by a long way round, in order to draw you, dear reader, underground into the dark pit that is London Underground. Permanently overcrowded, constantly hot even in December and with minimal access for the disabled it is, nonetheless, a melting pot of humanity as commuters tut at the inconvenience of having to wait a whole two minutes for the next tube (they should try life in "the sticks" where missing a bus means...well, they may find your body eventually I guess...)<br />
<br />
Oxford Circus is pretty much at the centre of London: the shops are still open and full to overflowing at 8 or 9 in the evening where little towns and cities like the one I live in have long since closed and gone to bed and, if asked to sell someone something would probably grunt before producing some kind of blunt weapon with nails in it: the kind that would, if it 'twere used, would really hurt.<br />
<br />
Out in "the sticks" society tends to be more circumspect: there are still corners of this fair isle where the correct response to unusual behaviour is to purse ones lips, suck in air and tut loudly. One is expected to conform, don't you know. <br />
<br />
Not like in London. Where you get all sorts.<br />
<br />
Take for instance last night<br />
<br />
I had finished my meal with my friend from France and we had parted - her with my gift of a painting clutched under her arm (the only way I get to paint these days is if I can find some poor unsuspecting soul to inflict one on as a "gift") - and me to get on the tube at Oxford Circus to my hotel. It's a journey of about 7-8 stops and I usually stay at the same place: just far enough out to be a bit cheaper (in London anywhere you don't have to take out a mortgage to buy a packet of sweets is considered "cheap") <br />
<br />
At the second stop this bloke got on. I didn't take much notice of him at first: just your usual heavy metal fan, I guessed: with his long black hair in a pony tail, black jacket, black t-shirt, black leggings, black Doctor Martin boots: he had clearly taken The Stones's instruction to "paint it black" very seriously indeed.<br />
<br />
And so I drifted off into thought and forgot him for a station or two, but as he was sitting opposite me it was inevitable that, from time to time, I would glance in his direction.<br />
<br />
And it was on one of these glances that I realised that what I had taken for leggings were, in fact, thick black ladies tights.<br />
<br />
And that above these he was wearing a pair of very girlish hot pants.<br />
<br />
As you can imagine: by now I was kinda intrigued.<br />
<br />
And it was around the time that I noticed that his t-shirt was not, as I had originally surmised, bearing the logo of Death Monsters From Hell (or insert heavy rock artiste of choice) but contained a glammed up picture of Carrie Fisher circa Star Wars (the original) that he pulled a pink makeup bag out of his satchel and began applying foundation.<br />
<br />
Now you may be wondering at this point: why am I telling you this? I mean, he was just a guy out living his life doing the thing he wanted to do to make him happy and not hurting anyone else in the process, so where's the story bub?<br />
<br />
Well: it's precisely that. It's because being in London nobody, and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOBODY, gave a s*&t. No one shot him a dirty look, no one tutted: nothing. He just put on his make-up, got off at his stop and walked off, completely confident in his lifestyle choice.<br />
<br />
And I have to say: I kinda envied him. Not for the make-up: it really wasn't my shade...and the hot pants would have looked ridiculous below my sadly expanding gut (I am, of course, exaggerating here for comic effect. About the only time I ever wore makeup was during a brief career as an amateur actor when I was a weasel in wind in the willows): it was his confidence in doing all of the above in a crowded underground train.<br />
<br />
I'm a big music fan (you may have noticed) and was around to see the tail end of Punk. I can still remember all the punks hanging around our city centre with their bright red, spiky hair and staples through their lips, belly buttons and assorted body parts. But I would never have made it as one: I wouldn't have got two streets before dying of embarrassment, curling up into a ball and wanting the earth to swallow me: I'm much happier shrinking into the background.<br />
<br />
And let's face it: 2016 has been a pretty shitty one for showing understanding and compassion. We here in the UK were doing a pretty good job of being the stupidest country in the world at the start of the year until Donald Trump....but I won't go there other than to say that I recently met up with a devout Christian friend and, over dinner, said that he at least must be pleased: because surely everything that was happening was signs of the coming rapture (fortunately he has a good sense of humour)<br />
<br />
And there was a part of me that, as this chap got off the train, wanted to chase after him, introduce myself and say: "Good show old bean. Life's too short to be living according to what other people expect of you" - but, of course being a natural coward I did nothing of the above and now shall never know the fuller story.<br />
<br />
As it was I found myself in front of New Broadcasting House the next day explaining all of the above to my friend over coffee and we came to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, a world where this kind of freedom could still exist may not be so bad after all. After all: what's so funny about peace, love and understanding?????<br />
<br />
Take it away Elvis...<br />
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<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-68053585894146150902016-11-04T08:19:00.006-07:002016-11-04T08:21:58.866-07:00Where The Streets Have No NameI'm on a secondment for the next six months. Great because it's closer to home, so less travel, but not so great because the work dried up almost as soon as I joined...<br />
<br />
<br />
The train journey is about 35 minutes as opposed to 1hr 30 so I'm there and home a lot quicker. It's getting colder and darker though, so I'm often coming and going after the sun has gone down<br />
<br />
<br />
In the morning it's cold, the frost hanging on my breath, the ice growing stubbornly on my windscreen. It's a half-mile walk from the station to my work: you come out, go down in the lift, cross the road at the lights, turn right up the hill and then first left under the flyover and you're there.<br />
<br />
<br />
No distance at all. No distance at all<br />
<br />
<br />
Yet in the 10 minutes or so it takes me to walk it I see anywhere between 2 and 6 homeless people.<br />
<br />
<br />
Most of them are usually asleep in the doorway of a closed down lap-dancing club, covered in an array of duvets that have seen better days, barely visible beneath the thin layers. Some of them sit outside the coffee shop, or the small supermarket. Sometimes they lie under the underpass or sit in the walk-in entrance to the car park.<br />
<br />
<br />
One or two will call out for help: just a bit of change please. I give them what I can: not every day and not much. I used to really worry about giving homeless people money: what if they use it for buying drugs? what about the next person and the next and the next? Then I realised: what they spend it on is their choice. Sometimes I buy them a coffee instead, once I took someone to lunch (a Big Issue (magazine sold by homeless people) seller that I have become friends with) - it's not much and I guess it doesn't make much difference, but it's better than nothing.<br />
<br />
<br />
Most of them didn't choose to be there: some just had a run of bad luck, some are running from something or someone, others may have mental health issues. Mostly they are just trying to survive as best as they can.<br />
<br />
<br />
And every day I think the same thing. Every time I give a few coins, or when I don't, I think: how can we allow this?<br />
<br />
<br />
How can it be that in a first world country, where most of us carry £600-£800 worth of smart phones in our pocket, where second homes sit empty and properties are allowed to fall into disrepair - how can we allow people to fall through the cracks of society and be left to rot?<br />
<br />
<br />
So I do what I can, not always but sometimes. It's not enough, it doesn't change a thing - but maybe it's a start<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-37702951776957937582016-07-09T02:22:00.001-07:002016-07-09T02:22:21.783-07:00Stand Up, Comedy (Part 2)About a week before my <a href="http://hungrypixies.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/stand-up-comedy.html">Stand Up Comedy day course last year</a> Herself suddenly turned to me and said, "Well, you could have asked me if I wanted to come as well"<br />
<br />
This, it should be said, despite the fact that I had told her all about the course repeatedly and she'd had ample chance to jump on board. I pointed this out and said, "well, the tickets are still on sale - would you like to go?"<br />
<br />
As it happened she wasn't really feeling up to it, so decided to pass - but we did agree that we would both go on the longer version of the course from April - July that also included the chance to take part in a showcase at a local Arts Centre<br />
<br />
Now the first problem with the course was that it was on a Monday night - and Monday's are traditionally difficult in my job as it's the day I am needed in the office for our main meeting (a meeting that could equally be held entirely remotely via the internet if it weren't for the large number of Dinosaurs that work with me) - so I had to get permission to work from a different office that was much (100 miles) closer to the course. Having agreed this with my colleague and immediate boss you can imagine my surprise when, having paid for the course, my boss upped and left the company without telling his boss what had been agreed.<br />
<br />
Fortunately I was able to argue that I could offer support just as easily from a remote location and could therefore complete the course.<br />
<br />
A lot of the material was the same and many of the exercises were ones that I had already done but the structure was different - in the first hour we did group exercises, whilst in the second there was a "show and tell" section for the class members to try out the routines they were working on and get feedback from the others and the teacher.<br />
<br />
The honest truth is that you can't really teach comedy as there is no right and wrong - but you can learn about different styles of comedy, where ideas can come from and get useful feedback.<br />
<br />
Excercises included:<br />
<br />
Taking a household chore and assigning one of the seven deadly sins to it - so how would your attitude to washing up be affected if you were Slothful or Envious etc<br />
<br />
Anthrophormorphisation (probably spelt wrong) - assigning a character trait to an inanimate object. How might a tin of tuna feel about never being used etc<br />
<br />
Another thing we talked about was the economy of language - often taking the shortest route to a joke is the best so that people can keep track without speeding ahead<br />
<br />
Pretty early on I started writing my routine - it developed from a single joke about my hometown to an entire routine of 40 jokes (we had a five minute slot each in the showcase, which was open to the public), many of which were inspired by the location I lived for the past ten years<br />
<br />
I wrote and re-wrote, all the time telling Herself that maybe it would be a good idea to at least write something and that the deadline was looming increasingly closely on the horizon (she seems to thrive on waiting till the last minute)<br />
<br />
My main fear was my memory - I was so afraid of forgetting bits that I would constantly repeat the jokes in my head or out loud if no one was around hoping that they would stick - I did decide that I would have a sheet of paper with bullet points on and that I would finish on a song <br />
<br />
Now I've done a small amount of amateur theatre in the past and we are both members of a public speaking group - but the difference with acting is that there are other people on stage whose lines will help you to put a framework around your own - this time I would have only my memory: and each time I repeated them there would be a blank spot somewhere.<br />
<br />
The first time I tried the routine at class there was a deafening wall of silence - clearly it needed work and re-writing - the second time (a few weeks later) things were much better.<br />
<br />
The week of the showcase came around at last and for the first time Herself stood up and tried her routine in front of the class - total silence. Oh dear.<br />
<br />
The evening of the performance - I was on first, herself was third. I wasn't even slightly nervous whilst I listened to the teacher/compare do his warm up jokes, just trying to keep hold of the jokes in my head.<br />
<br />
I stood up, told my first joke, got a laugh - and went totally blank. It was like my brain stepped out of my head. It was probably only for a second but it felt like a lifetime. I turned to the piece of paper I had left on the desk and saw the next bullet point - from there on I was fine and, although I did leave out one or two jokes, I got plenty of laughs<br />
<br />
Fortunately Herself had rethought the way she approached her routine and she did really well, getting lots of laughs as well from a routine about how sign language can land you in trouble if you use the wrong sign (never confuse the sign for samosa with the one for vagina)<br />
<br />
All in all it was a good evening - but looking back I don't know how I really feel about it. Sometimes when you come off a good gig you feel like you could take on the world, and your head is buzzing with energy. Sometimes you can come away from a gig, even the best gig in the world, feeling terribly depressed because of something tiny that went wrong - I just came away feeling empty: not really knowing if I had achieved anything or not.<br />
<br />
I think it was good to challenge myself - recently at the public speaking group I've been aware that I am coasting and have lost interest - and am glad that I got plenty of laughs. But still...<br />
<br />
Anyway - here's a comedian talking about spices<br />
<br />
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<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-66029206755229993452016-05-13T06:18:00.001-07:002016-05-13T06:18:30.949-07:00Suedehead?Pretty much every year around about this time, and also just after the summer, we get the same old article in the newspapers or on TV<br />
<br />
Some kid, at a posh school somewhere, has been sent home. Usually because his/her hair is too short but also for any reason from skirt is the wrong shade of blue, were wearing trainers to had left their tie at home.<br />
<br />
And it's a big thing because the mother of said urchin is bemoaning that until such time as the hair has grown back or the remains of the missing tie has been retrieved from the cat litter tray their child has been sent home from school.<br />
<br />
And they are, of course, indignant: their child is being excluded from blah blah this and will miss out on blah blah that...<br />
<br />
As you can tell: by this time in the article I've usually lost interest - because all of these articles have one thing in common: the school/institute had a clearly publicized dress code and set of rules for appearance.<br />
<br />
I have to be honest here and say that I don't really hold with the whole idea of uniforms working, as I do, in the IT world where for the past 10 years or so my ability to perform my job has in no way hinged on the presence, or lack thereof, of a tie around my neck - but I do understand that part of the point of wearing a uniform at school is to teach us that there are certain areas of life where having a smart appearance and conforming are still expected and necessary.<br />
<br />
Not that this stopped anyone at our school: where boys wore their ties with the thin end showing and girls wore their underskirts so that the hem of the lace would show in line with the Fashion<br />
<br />
But then there was an article in the news yesterday about a woman who had been sent home from a temping agency without pay because she had not been wearing high heeled shoes.<br />
<br />
This may seem archaic and immensely sexist (and yes, actually, it is) but again the woman had signed an agreement that included a dress code that stipulated women wear heels - so part of me thinks that the time to mention that this requirement was out-moded was at the point she signed the agreement.<br />
<br />
Now it seems that there is a move to make it unlawful to enforce a particular form of footwear that may affect a particular sex - but part of me wonders if we shouldn't just be applying common sense.<br />
<br />
In the case of the child removed from school: ok so their hair is a bit short, but unless it looks like they are doing it to make a point or that it's somehow going to undermine their moral code then surely the teachers should consider the child's personality first and think "well it will grow back" if they're otherwise well behaved<br />
<br />
And in the case of the woman surely all that needs to happen is for the company to admit they've been a bit over the top and to amend the wording to "smart shoes" rather than stipulate a particular pythagorean angle of tilt?<br />
<br />
But then what is smart? Ask the average man if what they are wearing is smart and they will probably shrug and say "it'll do" as long as it hasn't been worn for so long that it can actually stand up unaided<br />
<br />
Having said all of the above I find myself thinking back to just over twelve months ago and the area I used to live, where people would regularly pop to the local corner shop wearing their Panda Onesie and can't help but feel that those people might have benefited from a lesson somewhere about social acceptability and self control<br />
<br />
I mean come on man, it's simply not British!<br />
<br />
<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-86553747900059055702016-05-02T01:13:00.004-07:002016-05-02T01:16:32.848-07:00The Van<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Memory is a funny thing, isn't it?<br />
<br />
My brain can store pages of random facts about old TV shows, will often flag up things that I did and said that I now wish I could do differently and, for some reason, retains the middle name of Captain Scott of the Antarctic (Robert Falcon Scott for those of you who are interested - although who knows where I gleaned that from) - but the name of the person you introduced me too five minutes ago: not a chance.<br />
<br />
I say this because my mum is currently clearing out her house: going through things that we don't use and downsizing it all and there's still a small wardrobe of stuff that is mine there so every Saturday when I visit her there's a new pile of stuff waiting for me to sort through. Most of it, to be honest, is junk: old magic tricks that I had as a kid (I used to do magic, and was even a member of the Junior Magic Circle but I lost interest when I realised that the local Senior club was really just an excuse for bitter old men who hated their wives to drink - as I suspect most of these clubs are), old demo tapes from when we thought we could be rich and famous pop stars (the tapes really were awful looking back) and various other dust-gathering paraphernalia.<br />
<br />
This week she gave me a folder of prints and negatives to look through, the pages most likely unturned in 30 years. I actually bought a slide and negative scanner recently that displays the pictures on your computer screen and allows you to save the ones you want.<br />
<br />
Most of the pictures there I have no memory of even taking, some negatives had been ruined because they stuck to the paper they were held in (sadly one of my grandfather blowing out candles was amongst these - although I do have a print of this I'm hoping to scan) and there are some that I'm convinced may be my father or brother's pictures - but the one that worried me the most was the one of the van.<br />
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<br />
<br />
It must have been a warm day. Everyone in the picture is in short sleeves or has their top off and we're all sucking on panda pops (a frozen tube of flavoured ice that probably had millions of e-numbers in it). It's the school van; made legend by the rust that was all that was holding it together.<br />
<br />
The worrying thing is that most of these faces mean nothing to me - and yet I must have known them because I'm one of them (though I'm not going to tell you which)<br />
<br />
The lad in the centre in the white shirt is Iain though I can't remember his surname and having looked at it again I think the boy on the far left may be James, but otherwise: nothing.<br />
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I knew these people for at least five years of my life. True; I wasn't always very fond of most of them, but their names and their voices are now gone from my life forever.<br />
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It makes me wonder what, if anything, I will remember in twenty years time of the people I know now.<br />
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<br />Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2094379750831310333.post-58267747819656378692016-04-07T06:38:00.001-07:002016-04-07T06:38:06.210-07:00Life Thru A LenzThe other day I walked into my living room, stared at the woman sitting there and said; "Who are you?"<div>
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Well, not quite - but I might as well have because it's got to the point that I don't recognize Herself unless her face is lit by the glow of cat videos screening on her mobile phone.</div>
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It's often the case that we will put on a film to watch and we might as well be in separate rooms. </div>
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I am only marginally better - switching on my portable computer pad maybe 3-4 times during a film and more if its a programme that is only just holding my interest.</div>
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Sometimes I wonder how we got from a world where a telephone was a big lump of plastic sitting in a booth three streets away to one where you can't walk down a street without having to jump out of the way of someone who is avidly reading something on their screen, where it's somehow ok to have a phone in your pocket that costs £800 plus whilst people starve and go without water.</div>
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I regularly travel for up to three-four hours a day to work, sat on a train with a bunch of other people. During my time i generally have a go at the free newspaper's crossword (that I only ever seem able to finish on a Thursday) and listen to music or a radio podcast on my phone. I rarely look at the screen itself unless to check a text.</div>
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But I am the odd one out - 90% of the rest of the train are glued to the latest game/episode of some programme/youtube video.</div>
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And it's not just on the street or on the train - it's everywhere. The people of the 21st century seem to have developed an almost insatiable need to be constantly entertained and it's a very real possibility that our attention span is suffering.</div>
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Just recently I went to a concert at a local venue. It was the first big concert i'd been to for nearly 3 years. Back when I first started going to gigs, before you needed a second mortgage to buy tickets, everyone was stopped and searched at the entrance and cameras taken away - something that is now impossible as everyone has a camera in their pockets.</div>
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And all through the gig there were people holding up their cameras; recording the gig, recording themselves - posting it on youtube or facebook...and it has to be said that the image and sound quality is amazing: almost professional standard and yet recorded on a phone.</div>
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But hang on a minute: there's a problem here. It seems that it's not enough to go to something and enjoy it - for it to actually have happened you have to record it, share it on social media and have your "friends" like it</div>
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But are we, I wonder, losing our ability to live in the moment; to enjoy what we are doing right here, right now.</div>
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Do yourself a favour: put your phone/tablet away the next time you go somewhere or watch something: try and enjoy the world for what it is</div>
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Unless there's a video of cats available, obviously!</div>
Don't Feed The Pixieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05380146661526476947noreply@blogger.com3