UK Watercooler 32: Fall Into The Meaning Gap

Here is a picture of a helicopter, to get things started:

http://tourism.vic.gov.au/piecesofvictoria/july_2006/i/3075587.jpg

I have just sent out an email about the Rolling London Psychogeographical Society/Association walk so if you wanted one and didn't get one, let me know and I will forward.

Sunday, 16th May 1pm meet at St. Pancras Station. The second leg of the River Fleet walk, St. Pancras to Highgate.

HELICOPTERS!

I am in a bounce mood because I have to interview a certain rock chick. K8 would approve. Veil of discretion in place until it happens as is older, entitled, fractious rock chick.

And to reply to question posited before thread-snap, YES there is an erk mine eyes element to the fiction where a para or two provides enough fuel for 'I saw and it sucked'. Makes the NEL Library look like Proust...

I think braincells have committed hari-kiri rather than process it.

I have just eaten my first creme egg in years. (Yes, I know, it's still Lent, hush.) They're not really very nice, are they? Completely too sweet! Disgustingly sweet. Where did my sugartooth go?

creme eggs are for sugarTONGUE not tooth

I used to love them. I used to eat about 4 at a time and roll about the floor in a kind of daze. Now I find them revolting. I hate growing up.

:-(

I have just discovered the "indie rock boys with cats" group on Flickr! This is even better than catsinsinks.com! Two great tastes that go great together.

I used to eat about 4 at a time

Impossible! (French accent preferred)

I did! Well, one after another in about five minutes. I don't know why I don't have diabetes! I deserve to. But it was fun. Same reason I ate the carrot cake. It felt like being on drugs!

I imagine some kinda heavy-duty industrial cleaning machine, such as that used in the restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral, must have been needed on your teeth aftewards

Oh, the absinthe took care of that.

Supposedly the headhunter who got me this job tried to call me yesterday, but there was no missed calls on my phone.

So she emailed me today saying to call her and tell her how I was getting on. I'm kinda scared to, because I can't be positive about this job. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO. But at the same time, I am wary of killing the goose that lays golden eggs.

OH! YES!!!!

http://www.fluffhouse.org.uk/lynnette/stuff/mappe2.jpg

(linked because it is too big to post)

More Fleety goodness:

http://www.sub-urban.com/fleet/

You can get Cadbury's Caramel eggs now too. I'd bet they are much sweeter.

I used to eat those, too. One of those would probably kill me now.

So I take it the McFlurry remix now also out of the question?

I have successfully given up McDonalds completely.

I prefer kfc

I prefer Chicken Cottage.

I got this in today http://www.enemieslist.net/homerecordings/?page_id=6

Have a read at http://www.enemieslist.net/homerecordings/

http://www.enemieslist.net/homerecordings/?page_id=2

Every time I see or hear the words 'chicken cottage' in tandem I think of a public toilet full of teenaged rent boys. The chickens, doggie style logo does not exactly help here. I have said so before...

Death of Marat, the cover, isn't it?

Does not display for me, whatever it is.

Ohmigod, I actually managed to waste a whole hour cleaning out my inbox on OKCupid. I forgot I even had a profile.

It's http://www.enemieslist.net/cr.jpg
http://www.enemieslist.net/dccover.gif
HAVE A NICE LIFE - “Deathconsciousness”
el01 - 10$ + shipping (2.50$ US, 4.50 CAN, 9.00 Everywhere Else). Run of only 200.

“Contextually awe-inspiring…a lo-fi masterpiece.” - sputnikmusic

The debut double-record from Connecticut’s HAVE A NICE LIFE. Shoegaze, drone, and New Wave combine to create what has been already been called one of the best records of 2008. For fans of MY BLOODY VALENTINE, ALCEST, SWANS, THE CURE.

There's even a thread on them have a nice life -- who the fuck are these guys?

WHAT IS DEATHCONSCIOUSNESS?

Deathconsciousness refers to three things:

It refers to the debut double album from HAVE A NICE LIFE, featuring over 4 years and 2 hours worth of recorded material. All songs have been re-recorded, remixed, and remastered, including the songs from our demo release, Powers of Ten.

It refers to the short book of the same name that accompanies the record. Over 80 pages in length, written by a University of Massachusetts History professor, this book explores the deep religious symbology we used for inspiration while writing the record. The songs contain elaborate references to 12th century apostasies; the book will help those without a background in religious history to understand their meanings.

And, finally, Deathconsciousness is the concept that lies at the heart of the record itself: the overwhelming awareness, at all times, of death and it's proximity.

Yes, that sleeve's a bit meh

They sound like something I'd hate. It's actually got to the point where anyone who starts talking about how "shoegaze" they are... I don't like them. And I'm sick to the back teeth of metal.

Oh well I guess you wont be wanting a cdr of that then.

I'm sorry, I'm just really not in a mood to be listening to new music at the moment. I'm feeling pretty down on everything.

It's actually got to the point where anyone who starts talking about how "shoegaze" they are... I don't like them. And I'm sick to the back teeth of metal.

That's exactly what happened with "krautrock"... also metal = bollocks, for the most part

http://www.myspace.com/haveanicelife for anyone who wants a taster

I suppose this is what happens when a genre becomes a bit trendy. It's not even so much bandwaggon jumpers as people who just namedrop whatever's trendy.

Or else they listen to said genre, take whatever is most immediately obvious about whatever it is, and don't actually fulfill what it is that you actually like about the original genre in the first place.

Yep

I shoegaze trendy? I never got that memo.

You got it around the time you attended that Seven Dwarves gig! Were you not paying attention?

"I Shoegaze Trendy" - mind if I file that away in my 'possible album title' folder?

(The problem is, a lot of people seem to be either discovering shoegaze through, or thinking that shoegaze = the Brian Jonestown Massacre. A band who haven't been shoegaze in any sense since 1995.)

I was distracted by hot keyboardist from holy rollers.

It's an anagram of:

Heady Stereo Zing

xpost

Wrong gig! That was Freelovebabies! The Seven Dwarves were playing with Kontakte and I didn't think you find any of them hott!

Then you get old fans getting uppity about people discovering their music ;)

aha, I had driven from Belgium to be there and was a little spaced out.

j/k btw
xpost

Look, if people would discover and be "influenced by" stuff like Medicine, SeeFeel, the Pale Saints, Lush even... fine! But they go and listen to one Ride album and one MBV album and then go about making boring floppy music for boring floppy people. If I see one more picture of four white blokes standing in a field looking a bit moody I'm gonna hurl. Not to name names or anything, but a band a couple of my mates have been trying to get me to listen to, but then I go and look at their MySpace and there's a picture of this:

http://a632.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/82/l_228758998cc0d89c774d013d25e057d7.jpg

...and I just think... my god, how boring.

I mean, maybe just maybe I might give them a chance if any of them were hott. But no! Just boring looking.

Yeah, I know, you can't judge a book by its cover. But you CAN judge a band by their promo photos.

They want to be coldplay.

The have a nice life tracks i just listened to on the interweb are pretty tedious TBH. The vocals are somewhat vaguely pale-saints-ish I guess, but there were no good tunes, and they didn't rock. Baffled by the props this band are getting.

I'm going to see some youngish band at the Head of Steam, which Kate might remember, having played there, who bill themselves as "progressive rock"! We shall see...

The vocals are somewhat vaguely pale-saints-ish I guess

Ha ha, it's the hard sell. This quote must be used in their promo literature!

I remember the Head of Steam! That's where I first played the Prunes and Custard! That was a fun night.

I went and had loads of Dahi Puris last night. Oh god, the taste bombs. In the future, I am not going to bother ordering mains, I'm just going to order 3 courses of Dahi Puris and eat them all night.

Dahi Puris! without me! ;-)

Are we going to see Rocktor C on friday? want to get food beforehand?

One of the bands was great, and somewhat crimsonesque, one was, I guess "good at what they did" but not to my taste, somewhat like that vampire whatsisname band that there's a thread about on ilm. headline band was mostly great with a few sketchy bits here & theer. I bought their EPs! They're, uh, OK. They were all really good at playing, no shitty, slack drummers. They were all so young, though! It felt a bit uncomfortable, me & mark were probably twice as old as the next oldest people there. Downsides were that all the bands could learn the difference between singing and bellowing, and it was a bit male. The promoter was a young woman, all the band members were male. I guess Muse and The Mars Volta are to blame for this kind of band being out there & playing & all that.

Bah, there is no branch of my bank anywhere near work and I have a cheque to pay in.

Sorry! it was a girly conference or I would have invited you along. I got lots of good gossip about the psych/shoegaze scene. We can have Dahi Puris, um, soon. I don't know what I'm doing on Friday yet. Depends on how exhausted I am.

I don't understand that - female promoter, all male bands. But hey. Not saying women have a responsibility to promote other women, but you'd think they'd at least be aware of it or something.

There are no banks at all in Mitcham! People would rob them.

My brother just uploaded a whole bunch of family photos to his flickr. Wow. I'm very tempted to post some of the more... colourful ones. There's one ancient Gordon you would really like, Pash. She looks like an extra from a DW Griffiths film!

My great-grandfather. He may looks a bit disreputable, doesn't he?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3238/2327928589_56021c0785.jpg

I think I have settled on Nationwide as my new bak as they do have a branch in Mitchan, although the Morden one is slightly closer and there are a couple on high holborn.

Billy Child-ish!

I love this one! A strange maiden aunt. My cousin looks almost shockingly like her. (Except for the slave girl chains, natch.)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2363/2327926079_601ec5eb51.jpg

I'll save all the dour, dour looking Scots grannies and noncomformist ministers and miserable looking children in kilts.

Not Billy Childish! G30rg3 Gi11i1@nd - he helped run the Empire, you know. Not sure if he was the Rhodesian or the Indian branch.

Your great-grandfather is almost:

http://www.indiewire.com/biz/twbbSTILLtwoactors.jpg

Another for the mustache hall of fame. Malaysian branch of the family here...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3200/2327927493_57f00aa6cc.jpg

I have no idea what's going on here...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3062/2328746562_a0c837be7f.jpg

I'm sure The Empire is opressing the natives in the form of more aunties.

Oncle Ian, letting the mustache side down.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3253/2328747596_2a743797d2.jpg

Actually, it might have been an RAF thing, because another uncle from the Indian branch didn't have a mustache either. Maybe the mustaches weren't aerodynamic enough.

There's some funny pictures of my brother leading a party of Vietnam War vets through some mountains in Russia to meet some Afghan War vets. He looks quite disappointed that he has neither An Empire nor a mustache.

Think he is a marine paratrooper rather than RAF.

"Righty-Oh! Empire Administered! Natives Converted! Who has time for a spot of golf, then?"

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3090/2328745104_8bdf16e892.jpg

OK, enough of this. I shouldn't poke fun at my relatives. It's my DNA, too, I suppose. But people from THE PAST always look funny.

x-post you might be right. The RAF uncles had much jauntier hats I think.

At least one auntie, I discovered, got sent to Bletchley Park!

ahem.. Not wanting to start owt, but he does look like the one on the left in this pic:

http://83.166.160.167/images/uploads/main_images/Might-Boosh-Large-Web.jpg

Well, I probably imprinted in some way.

(Even though all of the people in the photos ... oh, except Oncle Ian... were all dead long before I was born!)

Shall we have some ladies with outrageous Edwardian hairdoes?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2112/2328746842_1ca146e447.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2124/2328746346_272417b3f8.jpg

WHOA where did you get these, Kate?

Have also been at the ancestry, tying up some loose ends after demise of dad. Grandmother's 'French' family came to NY in late C17. Greatx5 grandfather and his brother were serious Revolutionary War heroes before they decamped from NYC to found a county on the NY/PA border after the War. I did find a letter from George Washington to one of them!

Ed, Nationwide were *brilliant* when I got hosed by that ATM in America over Xmas; couldn't do a thing about getting hosed while in US but they'd grabbed it back for me w/in 3 days of my complaint once made here (it's supposed to take more than a week).

My brother has been posting them to his Flickr.

My personal favourite... I think this is a great, great, great grannie? (My great grandfather's mother?)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2177/2327927283_01e0ae5b2f.jpg

Don't those kids look terrified of her!

No! Great grandfather's GRANDMOTHER.

It's the EARS that always get me. How they managed to run the country with those ears. Or perhaps such superflaps provided some kind of evolutionary advantage.

barackobama.jpg

The pictures are all great! The one with granny and the three kids is the best one. She is almost archetypally "edwardian granny".

Yay! I has something to do today. At last.

...except while I've been on other projects, the developers have dropped the table I was working on! argh!

Probably not helpful to your lenten ways; but I have discovered that you can by south african pepermint crisps by the district line platforms at wimbledon.

You can sometimes buy them at London Bridge, too. I think when Lent is over, I shall go and indulge in a big bunch until my teeth turn lime green and fall out.

Oh, what have I just done? After saying I'm not going to do music journalism any more, Tzr just wrote and asked if I wanted to review Silver Apples... and I said yes without even thinking about it.

It's always like this, isn't it? "OK, one more time..."

you're so metal

>:-(

Silver Apples, though!

You will be listeninhg to Colonel Poo's grindcore compilations soon enough!
x-post

Yes, it may be Silver Apples but I'm suspicious of reunion shows. I have a funny feeling that one of them has actually died. Hard to compensate for when there were only ever two of them!

You will enjoy it regardless.

Maybe you will get sent to review Portishead.

Diamanda Galas is on the cover of the new terrorizer btw. Pash are you a fan? I always meant to check some of her stuff out but wouldn't know where to start.

And there's a review of Hawkwind in it too..

Kate is correct:

In 1999, their tour van was forced off the road by an unknown driver, breaking Simeon's neck. As of 2004, Simeon was much recovered, but he was unable to play his instrument in the way he used to. He never fully recovered his hand movements, so his keyboard work is much more simple and direct now.

Since the accident, Silver Apples' activity has diminished. Simeon spends his time making new music, recuperating, and boating on the Gulf of Mexico. Xian Hawkins has released three albums of solo material under the name Sybarite. Danny Taylor died on March 10, 2005 in Kingston, New York. In September 2007 Simeon went on tour for the first time in years, performing as a solo version of the Silver Apples to much acclaim.

From Wik:

I don't know if I'm even in the mood to review a gig. And I've not brought a notepad or anything.

I've been kind of down on music lately. It's hard to be objective about a gig - or even subjectively critical - when you're not really enjoying music fullstop.

x-post that's interesting and good to know in advance.

I remember Simeon's crash in a way: I was looking for a website for them, found it and was surprised that this had happened to no coverage in the NME etc. This was six months after the event. So I emailed the NME newsdesk with the link and a "isn't this the sort of news you should be covering" type message. 30 mins later, it was on the NME news page. So, yay me.

You will enjoy it regardless.

-- Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 12 March 2008 14:12 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Little_Miss_Bossy.jpg

w/r/t Diamanda, I had a few of her albums, she's good, but heavy going. Plenty of stuff on youtube. hugely powerful deep, rich singing voice, she can be very emotive, but you've REALLY got to be in the mood for it. I like her straight songs way better than the shrieky stuff. The straight songs, maybe you could compare her to Dagmar Krause or Pola Negri, but both are a stretch, the more freeform stuff, like nothing else on earth.

i dont think that hat would suit Kate.

We're missing an FP on this thread. Anyone seen him?

I know I haven't

http://www.mrbenn.co.uk/images/mrbenn.gif

Saw teo class 37s on either end of a track measurement train at wimbledon at lunch today.

Ooh, nice. I saw the track measurement HST between York and Thirsk the other weekend.

They have beeter kitchen facilities on the TMT than in my office.

It's really doing my head in, not having two monitors any more. I keep trying to move things over to the other monitor and realising it's not there any more.

Stupid IT department not giving me one. They said I could have a wheelie mouse, too, but do I have one? I should have taken my laser wheelie mouse from my last job. No one would have noticed.

Probably in mine too. We've just been stung with a 50% rise in tea-fund costs! I'm going to get a new job, I think.

(or maybe just opt out of the tea fund)

(xpost)

I use MS Virtual Desktop Manager at work to cope with Windows not having virtual desktops by default; I'm too used to having them at home on Linux. But it fucks up Excel (2003) and MSN.

Is it still stormy down south?

Don't know. All of my views out the window are of brick walls.

What should I do for supper tonight? I'm going to end up wasting all the money/food I bought this week, as I'll end up not having one single meal at home.

I don't even really want to go out tonight. I'm feeling distinctly otherwise and want to go home and do my laundry and get to bed early. Why am I doing this? Does anyone want to pretend to be me and review the show?

Think about the effect pedal you can buy with the money they pay you.

Pay me?

Has tissp abandoned us for good?

Don't know. I was listening to Elektrikometheorie (infinity) the other day.

I guess I'm eating dodgy tai cult food. I had Indian food yesterday and can't really deal with that again. Or maybe pizza. Actually, pizza sounds alright. I am talking to myself, about what I am going to have for supper, by myself. I am becoming one of those crazy old ladies who talks to cats, but instead of cats, I have the internets.

They're not paying you? Fuck that then.

(reminisces about the happy days when a 2 1/2 page review in "The Mix" (rip) would net 350 quid)

send tom d

in drag

2 1/2 pages? Dude, it's 200 words.

Would I feel happier about music journalism if I were getting paid? Dunno. Probably not. Well, if it were proper money, like £350, then maybe. But as it is, it's just something I keep doing because people keep asking me to do it, but not something I ever *wanted* to do, and not something I particularly *enjoy* doing.

The only point to carry on is to get free tickets to gigs. But I don't even enjoy going to gigs that much any more. I'm old and my back hurts if I stand up for too long.

And I didn't even bring my sketchbook. I suppose I could buy another at Paperchase because I'm about to run out of room in my current one soon.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dri000/i012/i01282zo58z.jpg The lost funkadelic album.

I suddenly realised the other night, I owe tissp a fiver from I think years back, for an EP I bought off him.

200 words I would expect to get at least 30 quid for, probably I'm out of date. I think a box-in I wrote for "sound on sound", hang on, the couple of paras I wrote at the end of this:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/sep95/rolandvp330.html

404 words sez M$ word, that netted me a oner. I really, really miss writing for these magazines, as you can imagine. I didn't realise how long ago it was either :-/

For free, it would have to be a band that I really liked, that I wanted to get more publicity.

Your own?

No, that would be unethical.

I don't think I've ever been paid...? I could be wrong on that, though. I have never done it for money, I guess is the point. I've written about bands because I care about the music, passionately... or because I was asked to. Mainly because, well, this is a horrible, stupid reason. Because I wanted to be part of something. It's not quite as simple as "all my friends were doing it." But I wanted to be a part of that group. And now I'm realising that was a totally false goal. First, because it's just peer pressure in sheep's clothing. And secondly because, well, trying and failing to be a part of a group (and I'm pathologically incapable of belonging) is actually more isolating and depressing.

When I wrote my first SoS article, I'd have probably done it for free, I was so thrilled at appearing in it. When the magazine hit the shelves though, I discovered that theyd hacked 1,000 words out of it, someone on the magazine I knew told me to make room for an advert. I was well pissed off, especially as the article was pretty incoherent as a result. The money made me feel a bit better, when I got the cheque. After that, I must admit it was always "for the money", though reviewing synthesisers and effect processors is obv. different to reviewing bands.

The absolute worst thing was "The Mix" - they dropped all contributors who were not "professionals within the audio industry" or something (so, naturally, I got the hoof) - unfortunately, most of these"professionals", the might have been goot at recording and mixing and all that, but they couldn't write for shit, the quality of the magazine dropped noticeably, and it folded in about a year. They (future) paid VERY well, so I was pissed off loads.

probably they were better at handing in copy without any typoes, though, eh?

Don't get a techie to do a writer's job. In that case, you need another writer to turn technie know-how into cogent English. It's amazing how many people don't seem to realise this.

I cannot find the bloody questions that go with the data for this db.

:-(

lol
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/160/4758680.jpg

Cogent? Do I mean coherent? I don't even know what I mean.

Sod it, I want pizza. Where is the nearest La Porcetta? In the EEZOHAD, I bet. :-(

the where?

Yup, it's in the EEZOHAD but if it makes you feel better I've been living deep in EEZOHAD territory for three months and NO SIGHTINGS. It might just be safe...

It's like a foreign language

this looks entertaining

Anyone think of any other fun making music on the bus type things?

A banjolele?

http://shinymedia.headshift.com/images/tech_digest/images/wasp_t12.JPG

*FOR JAPAN ONLY

wah!

£23 is not bad. Who's in Japan around here? Momus to thread!

That looks horrible! Nintendo music on the bus? Kill, kill, kill.

I hate bloody Corsica Studios, it's now official. I don't care if it's near my home, it's overcrowded and uncomfortable and the shows run on too late.

Silver Apples were (was?) very very good, but all on all it was such a horrible experience I wish I'd stayed at home.

I was going to say "I can't even remember" the last gig I went to, but I can...

It was at our local mall, outside, end of summer. Various bands, all playing in the big sandpit. Went on till quite late, kids enjoyed it, great time, lots of steps for the whole auidence to sit, roman amphitheatre style.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/sandpit.jpg

.. and, funnily enough, we had a bucket!

Looks like a Gong gig, circa 1972

Playing in a giant sandpit? What an awesome idea!

The Corsica Studios is just really badly set up. A long, narrow railway arch with a bottleneck right in the middle of it so everyone just gets trapped where they are. Utterly awful when there are too many people in the room.

I think maybe I should stop going to gigs, fullstop. I don't enjoy them unless I have a place to sit down. I was actually in physical agony before Silver Apples even came on, and I'd spent half the night sitting on the floor (hard concrete).

One of the support bands was point blank awful. The other guy was good, if a bit theatrical, but I really wasn't in the mood for him, he went on WAAAAAYYY too long, totally overstayed his welcome. And he was making the walls and floor shake with his sub-bass. There were times I physically felt like throwing up. In that situation, it was vastly unpleasant.

I am so sick of being asked to do impossible things at work. They want to filter on about a million things on one report, instead of having different reports for each thing. AFTER making me do a report which had subreports for each of the things that they are filtering by.

::beats head against desk::

But at least I am busy today, and I have brought music. So far no one has objected.

HA HA HA HA.

The nerve of them!

My former employer just rang me, telling me that I had a rate roll off due (erm, three months ago, actually!) and asking if I wanted to do review my mortgage with them.

I told them "Seeing as how Charcol made me redundant two weeks before Christmas, I am not interested in ever doing business with them again, thank you very much."

Bastards. Trying to make money off me!

Is Gmail down for anyone else?

Don't use Gmail.

I got some spam off Matt DC this morning! Or, rather, the head-hunting company he works for.

My head hurts this morning and I feeling quite tired coz I went to see Jesus and Mary Chain last night at the Roundhouse. Truly, truly great. We were quite near the front too, which is a first for me there...coming up from Oxford means the previous two gigs I've attended at the Roundhouse (Jarvis Cocker and Sonic Youth) I've been near the back - OK a circle can't have a back, but you know what I mean, near the perimeter of the circle & a long way from the stage!

Yesterday morning I went for an interview at a web hosting company in Abingdon. Have you ever been to Abingdon, Kate? I think you'd like it. It is one of the candidates for the oldest town in England. Funnily enough as I was leaving the company's offices, the sun was shining and I was feeling quite chipper about how it went and I was walking along past a babbling brook and thinking "I bet Kate would like this town" and then I looked up and the first building I saw was....the Quaker meeting house!

They have an excellent Morris Team. I think John Spiers learnt his melodeon chops in it.

had some really nice and inexpensive Thai food in the restaurant over the road from the Roundhouse too. and went to the Enterprise afterwards - a pub described by my mate Colin as "both seedy and scene-ey".

Abingdon Priory, amirite?

nothing much left of that now. even the gateway that appears to have survived was actually rebuilt from the rubble of the original, as a cursory examination of its patchwork stonework will reveal....

support last night for the JAMC came from a Dublin band called The Brothers Movement. No world beaters, which prolly means they'll be all over the telly in a coupla months time, and one of the guitarists had either a fake moustache or the fakest looking real moustache I've ever seen.

(he also looked too young to grow one)

Ha ha, The Brothers Movement = Mainline. The mustache is real. That would be Danda, he's s sweetie. Haven't seen them since the namechange/lineup.

Abingdon... I may have been there as a child on a walk with my Godfather. Perhaps we should make a rolling walk there soon! Sounds nice if it is historical.

I've never been to the Roundhouse. I'm glad to hear the Mary Chain are keeping up the good work - saw them last November, and it was brilliant, but didn't really feel the need to see them again.

Have just been to lunch with Emsk and am now full of curry.

bah to you and your fancy civilisation with its lunches.

How about curry in Sarf London next Wednesday? For dinner, obviously, as I shall be here during the day.

Depends on where exactly I am, I might be in Newbury.

Bah! Well, maybe another night, but depends on rehearsal. I just know that Wednesdays will never be a rehearsal night because our drummer goes to Samuri School (don't ask) on Wednesdays.

But anyway, good luck getting the new job, Mark! I think looking up and seeing the Quaker Meeting House was definitely a Sign.

our drummer goes to Samuri School (don't ask)

But I must, I must

good luck getting the new job

cheers. they just seemed so....nice.

going from an office of 250+ to an office of 8 would be weird tho.

It's a class where they teach you how to be a Samuri. Martial Arts, Swordplay and advanced Insulting Your Opponent's Honour. (You think I'm kidding about that last part, eh?)

If the people are nice, small offices are *so* much better.

and advanced Insulting Your Opponent's Honour

Zing Fu?

I think it's just kind of calling people names in Japanese. Japanese in a French accent is actually hilarious.

Oh. I just got that. Groan.

Oh, great. My boss has just fucked off on holiday AGAIN until next Tuesday. Has gone without answer the question I asked him. The developers have fucked the database again and the copy I grabbed before it went down is flawed.

I swear to god, this is the most frustrating assignment I've ever been on. I have no idea what I'm doing here, or how I'm supposed to get on with my job.

It's Friday. Is today going to be as long as every other day this week?

I have a sore throat and cramps.

Bouncy this morning, probably supplied by Dingers and a bacon sandwich.

What is the opposite of bouncey?

Three weeks left on this project, and they've only gone and changed the basic structure of the database. What on earth am I supposed to do?

I need to put on some bouncey music or something. I didn't have time to dry my hair and I feel miserable.

Coldplay?

as in: I feel very coldplay this morning.

sombre? cheerless? subdued? I fear, that there are no antonyms that do it a proper service in time and space. Deflated comes close but doesn't really cut it.

flat.

This is not cheering you up tho, is it?

I'm from Barcelona! That's what you need!

Gah! For a minute I thought you were suggesting that I *listen* to Coldplay, which would probably have me jumping off the roof just to get away from it.

But yes, that is a good adjective for how I feel. Coldplay. Bored and boring and grey and flat and bland and deflated.

Today I am mainly hoping that 1) my boss 2) the developers and 3) Crystal Reports sales team answer my emails so that I have something to get on with.

I have been watching the Nathan Barley DVD I got back from Emsk and I think it is making me hate humanity.

La Dusseldorf was doing it for me this morning. Kerr, you will be pleased that I now have an iPod cable and will be loading your comp this weekend.

I am now being cheered up by thinking about turbo-folk hating pacifist freegan bears.

I want to find out where this is:

http://home2.btconnect.com/smoke/Smoke11-334.jpg

I think this pic is great.

What pray is turbo folk? Does it involve Joseph Porter? If not, why not? (also interested in pacifist freegan bears, that sounds like some kind of kooky ultimate frisbee team)

Oh, I have that one! (Issue of Smoke.) It is indeed a great photo.

I sent an email to the developers, and it went all around the department, and finally came back from my boss - basically saying, sorry, the database is a work in progress, nothing is finalised, even the structure.

How can I build reports when the structure keeps changing?

This is like trying to paint the walls of a house when the foundations aren't even complete. We can talk about what colours they want to walls to be, but it's pointless to start painting until the walls are up and the studwork is on them.

And I'm supposed to be finished painting by the first week of April?

Ain't gonna happen.

And I HATE this job and don't want it to overrun. :-(

Ed -

Bears that are good and bears that are bad

have seen now. I have some turbo-folk, courtesy of ambrose, I will send over, not sure if you will like though. (A lot of it is ska-punk with lyrics like 'we go crazy, mental way' floating up through the unintelligible panoply of slavic shouting, I rather enjoy it, of course)

Please don't YSI, I have no way of picking anything up at the moment.

:-(

I don't like shouting, I was more liking the idea of pretty ladysinging.

That pic: Somewhere on the north circular road, isn't it? Close to hangar Lane, or so...

...and now I have a headache as well as a sore throat. I'm going to be sick this weekend, aren't I?

Eat more curry. Knock that crap out of the park.

Did we not walk past the Smoke place during the Southall Marathon?

I've just sent a long letter to my boss, basically saying "Dude, this is a 6-week contract, someone needs to pull their finger out."

This thing isn't even "going to go to QA" until the end of this month. When my contract ends on the 4th April.

I either need a completed, finalised database. Or else I need to be able to build queries to work around the datasets that keep shifting. I can't have the former, they won't give me permission to do the latter.

I can build a mockup in Access, but Access and Oracle handle certain data types (especialy Memo fields) in slightly different ways - so that any reports built off Access cannot just be hooked back up to Oracle - they will have to be rebuilt.

At this point, I don't even think it's gonna be a question of working 14 hour days in the beginning of April to get it all done (and have no time for testing.) It's just not going to happen within the time frame they've given me. And I don't want that on my head.

Oh, and I got a letter from the NG last night. I didn't get the job.

:-(

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/chris_hawkins/tracklisting.shtml

We got a play on BBC6 about 6.45 this morning (above) and a nice plug for tonight's gig. Anyone coming? Col Poo might be IIRC?

I'm not sure I like the sound of turbo-folk.

I am probably going to be there.

Bummer about the NG, however I have a sneakign suspicion that this contract is going to overrun, kate.

x-post Yay Ed!! Bring friends!

I don't *want* this contract to overrun. I hate it here. :-(

Being in this environment under these circumstances is making me really unhappy and emo. When I have nothing to do, my brain eats itself and goes emo. I cannot tolerate boredom.

I'm sorry, I feel too ill to go out tonight. I have a feeling tonight and tomorrow are going to be spent in bed.

Hi all, yes Doc I am coming tonight, I'll probably try and get there in time for I, Ludicrous - what time are they on again? They're one of those bands I've heard about for a long time and never heard.

That Smoke pics near the northbound entrance to Blackwall Tunnel - you can see the Dome behind teh gasometer.

Great! I, Lud are on at 8.45 ish. We're on 9.30ish.

OK, I just made an interesting discovery. Music on MySpace works on my headphones. I wonder if that means I can use YouTube...!

test it out with e.mily's dancing ray, it will make you smile.

Well, the first thing I can tell you is that lot up in the field who look like Coldplay, well, they sound like Ride. Which is not a bad thing, but, you know, there already was a Ride. Why would I want another band that sounds just like them?

I don't dislike them, I just don't see the point of them. If they insist on being a Ride tribute band, well... sorry, they're not as good looking as Ride, so why should I go and look at them? And if i'm not going to look at them play, I might as well stay home and listen to an actual Ride CD. Thanks.

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5596171492898905314&hl=en-GB

Wow, it works! But I better not sit here watching videos. I can at least listen to MySpace while I build mine own, totally futile Access version of the DB in which I am able to build and save all the Queries that I like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLqo77gQrxg

Go on, watch one^

Well, it is lunch...

Second awesome discovery of the day, is the health food/vegetarian shop that Emsk reccomended does 3 curries for a fiver and have given me SO MUCH NUMMY FOOD I don't know how I'm going to eat it all.

yes I do - same way I eat carrot cake. WITH EXTREME HAPPINESS.

Ohmigod, Pash, that Busby Berkeley thing is psychedelic and wonderful, but also... WAAARRGGGH OHMIGOD, STALKERTASTIC - I'd be scared of anyone who felt that way about me.

I can go back and listen to all these bands that have randomly friended me! Some of them are bound to be awesome... score, already!

http://www.myspace.com/gypsyrock2323

Spanish girls in the garage type stuff with a psychedelic flamenco twist.

Oh, I can listen to this band I seem to have accidentally joined, too.

I was going to burn you a copy of the DVD with all the routines on it, I thought they might appeal to you for some reason. This one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akET7aP01_8&feature=related

Has the best music ever, it's so rich and saucy-sounding. From the bit with the alarm clocks onwards, it's just incredible. All other music ever just seems a bit unambitious by comparison. The bit at 4.44 is the embodiment of early '30's pre-code rudeness. No nudity or any of that, but you watch it and you're like holy SHIT you've got to be kidding me, man.

(Not Autorotation, another completely random band - OK, not entirely random, they seem to know Milimetre, who I did some stuff with last year.)

x-post

been paid today, and work appears to have stuck a plus instead of a minus. I have been paid for 5 weeks instead of three, either that or I got a £20000 pay rise.

Also it occurs to me that new computer=being able to give you videos without making them into DVDs first. hmm,, what shall I burn you for sunday?

Aaahhh, too much to consume! What am I going to listen to/watch next?

I'm never going to do any work again! And never going to complain about having no work to do again, either!

Oh! I appear to have joined a Spacemen 3 tribute band. By accident. Awesome!

But I think I have to be Sonic. Can't I be Will? Ah well, I'm not going to complain.

Can't you form your own one and get will and Johnny to be Will and Johnny?

Maybe I should suggest this to this dude. (But they will all have to wear dresses.) Ha ha that would be hilarious.

You should all dress like margaret rutherford and wear mushrooms in your lapels.

Eh?

http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3360652.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=5C1929E78F851DD2C0913B42EB8BBBE7A55A1E4F32AD3138

I was thinking more:

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/MMPH/175169~Margaret-Rutherford-Posters.jpg

Ha ha, that's how I dress normally! Apart from the brooches.

Actually, I'm not sure they're a tribute band. The covers might be for tribute CDs and I think they're an original band.

Also, hrmmm, I need to borrow someone's house to have my birthday party in. I'd love to have it at mine, but it's just a bit small and cramped and I don't have enough chairs.

I would offer but fear I would have the same problem. Oh and be in Oxford.

What about a pub?

The Old Bull and Bush would be brilliant. I went to a wedding reception there which was aces.

1) pub must be free to hire
2) not hassle me about how many people I get down there

and, actually... hrmm, pub might be good if...

3) they let us play some music. As in, have people play, not just have DJs - I realise this probably requires some kind of license. But if it's going to be in an pub then I could at least have Will still play!

Downsides to pub:
Expensive bouze, no BYOB. I'd like to just bring a couple of bottles of rum and wine to a party rather than make everyone buy stuff.

Problem is, none of us have houses any bigger than yours.

This is true. :-(

Actually, I wonder if I could ask the pub across the road from me. I never actually go in there, except to complain about how noisy they are. But I might do them a deal - "I will never again complain about how noisy you are if I can have my birthday party here."

Emsk used to have a great house for throwing parties in, but she moved.

How about:

Dame Margaret rutherford and her astronautical rascals

for a name for this combo?

Madame Arcati and her Dronerock Totty?

there definitely ought to be more bands called x and his/her y rascals, this is the best i can find:

Borah Minnevitch & His Harmonica Rascals

Just stop it, you lot.

If it's gonna be anything, it's going to be Henrietta Leavitt and her Cepeid Variables.

Now be quiet, I'm trying to code and listen to the Asteroid Number 4.

I said Leavitt.

Hahaha, my friend just told me the other day that she went in to record a radio session and the secretary woman thought they were called 'Dawn and her Replicants'. Awesome name for a tribute act, at least.

Ooh I have some Dawn of the Replicants singles from back in the day. Is it terrible I can't remember their names?

I don't really know much of their stuff. My mate was in a slightly later incarnation of the band - I think after the press had stopped writing about them in a big way.

I get the feeling I shouldn't be here but hey, not many other excuses around to ramble about this, so... I always wanted to name a band or an EP or something after Annie Jump Cannon and was a little peeved on a googling a while ago that someone else got there first. Such an ace name though.

Why shouldn't you be here? You are perfectly welcome! (Unless of course you will get in trouble with work, etc. for mucking about on the interweb.)

So many of the good names are already taken. But, also, startling, so many of the clever names are not!

:D:D:D:D I have taken delivery of a box of Bo-Tan Rice Candy and Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese Dinners.

I really liked Dr C's guitar sound tonight - that Vox amp rocked!

I remember Dawn Of The Replicants. One of my mates had their 1st cd.

I also remember them, but my recollection includes them being a bit crap. This may be unfair, I don't think I listened to much of their stuff

In case you think your life is bad: I discovered today the US Inland Revenue has just frozen "all my assets" (such as they are, not even anywhere enough to buy a small apartment) in the US. Now I have to hire a lawyer and an accountant to figure out what the hell is going on, and hope that they don't want to throw me in jail like Wesley Snipes and that somehow I don't lose my job over this. :( :( :(

WTF?? I don't know your history mitya but why are they freezing your assets? Is this because you spent too long behind the Iron Curtain?

Anyone on MSN tonight? I'm bored!

Most ilxors use aim for some reason. fp, you and I are the only ones from here on msn since mitya,nath and g-kit never seem to come on anymore.

apart from the jaggers of course.

oh and I mustn't forget emil.y
Though shes never online much now

The Inalnd Revneue are being totally wack at the moment. I heard through the grapevine that they were chasing my former housemate for money they claim I owe from 1997 - even though I haven't lived in that house for 11 years, and haven't lived in the US for 10 years! I have no idea what tax they think wasn't paid unless they retroactively changed the short form tax returns. I suspect what they're actually after is my green card, because if I say that I wasn't in residence in the country then they can take that back. Fuck it, have it! Taxation without representation is illegal acccording to yr own War of Independence!

Anyway. I am sore today. The Upper Fleet kicked my arse. And I ate something that disagreed with me. I'm guessing something scarily pink.

Got home, went to bed with the OMM (and that has NOTHING to do with those pictures of J. Spaceman lying on the floor sucking his thumb, oh no, I'm not the slightest bit intersted in THAT) and fell asleep about 9pm.

I'm going to start taking bets on when (or if) my boss will ever turn up today, or if I'm going to spend the entire day mucking about on the interweb.

he HAS to turn up! I need to get my timesheets signed!

Hey, that's something I can do - I can set up my printers.

I slept like a baby that had eaten too much cake last night. Yeh, the fleet killed my legs. And my shoes. My socks from yesterday were full of fleety goodness and are currently sticking up my washing basket.

Yes, my left sock was still completely sodden and caked in mud when I got home. My boots are gonners. The River of Pestilence and Madness claims two more soles.

Every day I love the health food curry in a bun shop even more.

I really liked Dr C's guitar sound tonight - that Vox amp rocked!

Wow thanks! A great night on Friday - the place was pretty full and everything went according to plan. The albums were even ready on time!

Massive thanks to Ed and Colonel Poo for coming along :)

Today's happy MySpace discovery:

http://www.myspace.com/soundpool

Pretty swhirly girly shoegaze. Yum.

Oh no, oh no, YouTube heartbreaking buzzkiller. :-(

Found hott boy's band's video and they're nowhere near as good as I remembered them. Or maybe I just liked them live but didn't like them on record. Oh no.

An hour and a half to go...

This job is punnishment for every job I've ever had where I've wasted time mucking about on the interweb, isn't it? Now I have nothing to do BUT muck about on the interweb, I never want to see the interweb again.

Something to do! Something to do! I've just been given five more minutes stuffs to do!

here is a rook

http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/images/2006/03/27/randall_rook_450x356.jpg

and here is a crow

http://www.unitedwildlife.com/images/s_crow.jpg

That's so Raven!

Good morning Coolers.

Find some time, this guy's a must-see. He needs no bucket:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDg7kWgs5e0

Awaiting feedback.

Everything seems rubbish today. Bah.

I haven't mentioned this before, because I haven't been on ILX much lately, but we have a dull cloud hanging over us at work. The sort of dull cloud that makes people update their CVs. But. It's just hanging over us and not going anywhere. The storm won't break today. It might wait until tomorrow, it might be later. But until then, the cloud's still there.

In other news, last week I booked a camping trip to Wales just before the news started running stories about how cold wet and windy the Easter weekend is going to be. Bah.

Bah to dull clouds. Bah to wet and windy Easter camping breaks.

Bah to recession, bah to job cuts and redundancies, bah to job interviews, bah to not getting offered jobs, bah to unemployment, bah to getting up at 6.45, bah to getting home from work too exhausted to do anything for myself, bah to scratched DVDs, bah to wind and rain, bah bah bah bah bah!

/rainspotting.jpg ;-)

Funnily enough, I did book a campsite right next to a railway line. So trainspotting *and* rainspotting.

Although there won't exactly be many trains to spot, because it's not a busy line.

Well, at least I managed to reformat my Bigstick so I don't have to buy another one.

Ah, boss is actually in today. Wow. I can get my timesheets signed, even if nothing else.

bosses, bah

Swans in, says "yes, we should talk", I agree, then sit and wait. And wait. And wait. And adjust my profile on OKC and answer some emails. All men there of a suitable age seem to have children already.

Getting some money usually cheers me up. But it won't be until after Easter now. :-(

It's scary how many women around here, of my age, already have children.

Then again, I could probably have said that ten years ago.

Well, considering most of the men who are "suitable" are about 40, it's not really surprising. But still. I think those things tend to work if both people have children so they know what to expect, but probably wouldn't work if one person has children and the other doesn't.

Well, at least, I would find that weird.

I am trying to be open-minded about this. But the pool narrows and narrows and the chances seem smaller and smaller.

I just really went back there to take tests and figure out what kind of hat I am, or what kind of mythological creature I would be, and then men started writing me, so I thought it would be rude not to write back. I don't know. I'm not convinced of the sensibleness of even thinking about dating when my life is such a mess, but at least the horribleness of dating would take my mind of the horrible mess of the rest of my life.

That's not a very good attitude, is it?

My attitude would be: well, you never know, it might all turn out for the good with the man of your dreams etc etc.

There is no man of my dreams. If life has taught me one thing, it is that. And if there were, he certainly wouldn't be interested in me. You get what you are stuck with, and have to try to slog through and make it work. And even if *you* do, there is no guarantee that the other person will attempt to do the same.

And to distract me from such horribleness, here is a picture of Captain Anderson:

http://www.ket.org/pressroom/2006/44/MAST__003612TheEndsoftheEarth_1007.jpg

I still haven't managed to read the last two books in that trilogy.

!!!! Get reading now!

That said, there was a boy sitting next to me on the train, and I glanced at the book he was reading and got very excited that it might be TTEOTE due to springing of the mainmast, but it wasn't, it was one of those Aubrey/Maturin novels. Bah.

Tweedy JH:

http://thecia.com.au/reviews/n/images/notorious-bettie-page-3.jpg

I should get around to seeing this movie, but possibly not if it's, erm, rampant-making.

Now for some amazing sideburns...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/images/bank/programmes_tv/drama/shadow_in_the_north/300jared_harris.jpg

Kate, he looks like he's morphing into Robin Cook (rip) in that one.

He does! It's true.

Right eyes, right hair, wrong nose. And JH is all about the nose.

The hott boy from Youthmovies has the same nose. I think that explains the hottness.

You can see the nose here. It is very pointy:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2313/2106775508_7299ded05a.jpg

I wish I enjoyed their single as much as I enjoyed their live show.

In 20 minutes I will go and get some curry and that will be the high point of my day. And the dilemma of my day will be whether to get a mint crumble bar as well. And then I will spend the rest of the day wondering if my boss will ever come up with anything to do, and then I will go home, exhausted from doing nothing, read until I fall asleep and wake up to do it all over again. Unless I'm lucky and a satellite falls from the sky to crush me.

Yum. Lunch was delicious.

However, remind me never, ever to read 1) Drowned in Sound or 2) any interview with Anton BJM ever again. Sheesh. That's 10 minutes of my life I'd rather have spent staring at the screen pretending to work.

pash, are you around? are you the person who said Journey's "Stone in Love" is the best song ever? it IS!

I wasn't! (sorry) I'd put my money on either Dave Q or Scott S for that one. But, great anyway! I think I may have been repping for "Carry on Wayward Son" at some point fairly recently...

Today in Glasgow I saw some of these in the window of a music shop next to the record shop I go to
http://www.musicroom.com/images/catalogue/productpage/STE2018PK.jpg
Flying V Ukelele

http://www.forsyths.co.uk/ukuleles.htm
scroll down to the bottom

The ones in the shop in Glasgow were £25

Some dude on ebay occasionally sells an electric bouzouki with a pointy black-metal-style body and headstock.

I generally like oddball little stringed instruments, but ukes I draw the line at.

I can imagine Ed with one.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3212/2343501338_6f591f62de.jpg?v=0

Recent gear shot

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3226/2342668841_8dc4899412.jpg?v=0

With Miss Sylvia, my roadie.

It wouldnt be ilx without a cat!

That's what I thought :)

You should watch that film, Kate, despite the rampant-making possibilities. It's a good film (although apparently in real life Mr H's character never met the film's subject).

I will take TTEOTE on holiday with me at the weekend.

Is it out on video? Is it worth actually buying?

i.e. is there lots of shots of JH wandering around looking hott and tweedy, as opposed to lots of pics wandering around in bondage gear? (Which really doesn't do that much for me.)

BETTY PAGE in bondage gear does little for me. If it were JH is bondage gear, natch, I would probably explode.

It's on DVD - I bought it for my gf for Christmas, and it was under a tenner. There's not really much "bondage gear", but equally not *that* much JH.

Mrs. Dr. C just came in and said 'what the heck are you listening to!', then fled.

What am I listening to? (Clue: Think Tom D)

Deacon Blue?

Haha. No!

I don't do ukes, and I prefer my horns in the other direction

http://www.fatdawg.com/mandocellobig.jpg

Another day, another terminal expanse of existential boredom...

Morning!

Still clouds over the office, but it looks like the shape of said clouds is going to be made clear.

Hope that there are some nice parachute-shaped clouds, or, err, something.

What do you do when you wake up one morning and realise that you are, actually, a bad person?

(Sorry, those two statements are totally unlinked, did not mean to imply that they were by putting them in the same post.)

I do feel for you Kate, I remember one place didn't have t'int, so I spent a good couple days reading this: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51s7h3l3KLL._AA240_.jpg

I wonder what people would do if I took out my book and started reading it?

Well, I half expected people to come up and go "YOU GOT NOTHIN ELSE TO DO THEN?", actually people sympathised. Nice people, great place to work locationwise and peoplewise, just no sense of urgency.

These things were sent to try us...

Maybe this is some kind of test, sent to teach me Patience. Except I don't believe in that sort of thing.

I suppose, this morning while lying half awake and half asleep, I set myself a kind of impossible task to keep myself occupied. It probably won't turn out to be that impossible, but it will at least keep me occupied for... a while?

I should answer my mail on OKC, too, I suppose. I'm still just flabbergasted that I've got any at all. I kind of don't want to blow it by actually speaking to them when they're clearly deluded into thinking I'm attractive in some way, shape or form.

If you have discovered that you are a Bad Person, should you accept it, try to change it, or revel in it?

As I say, you always feel like with all that 'down' time, you could write songs surrepticiously, but doing it at work just feels wrong, like ringing people while on the bog or something.

People expect too much of you, and you feel like a bad person because you cannot live up to everyones expectations and they blame you for it.

They forget all the things you did for them, and remember that one time you couldn't.

x-post Try to change it, if it's really true.

I ought to read that Perrett book - how recent is it? What became of their comeback last year?

Oh, the bad person isn't on account of work stuff (though another rejection letter yesterday isn't helping matters).

It's personal life stuff, grudge-holding, jealousy, envy, etc.

Yeah, that's what I assumed.

These do not necessarily define you as a bad person, Kate. Everyone feels these things - the problem is when they make you behave in ways that upsets either you or other people, or get in the way of your happiness. Not always easy, I know.

I always believe that actions speak louder than words. So I will put this in another way. I think I am behaving in ways that are causing upset, to me, and I think other persons.

I don't know, it's hard to describe without getting into specifics.

I'm having a problem with another person. We have attempted to talk it out, and that has failed. I don't dislike this person, but we just don't get on, and this is causing friction in a larger group. My reaction to this, based on past experience, is to withdraw. This other person seems to be continually trying to re-establish contact. I don't want to go there; this kind of behaviour flags personal "argh, stalker" bells, again, based on previous experience.

The problem is how to disengage. I think I have lost the larger group, partly due to this, partly due to changing/shifting group dynamics and mine own interests. The jealousy/envy is due to this other person managing to maintain their position in the larger group, while I either cannot or will not.

I want to handle this better than I have in past similar situations. But I fear that I am not going to be able to. Hence, I am a bad person.

n.b. none of this has anything to do with anyone on ILX.

That doesn't mean you're being a bad person in the commonly-used "malicious" sense of the term, though.

killfile email, block telephone #?

That would be an overreaction. I tried unfriending this person on MySpace, and they freaked out and sent me this message going all "why did you unfriend me?" and another friend request, and I felt guilty and accepted it. But then felt blackmailed into doing it. And then felt bad about feeling blackmailed.

I'm a bad person because I can't do groups. :-(

I don't know what it is that I'm worried about. What the other people in the larger group think? Why they respond to this person in a way that they have never responded to me? Because this person makes all the right noises and goes through the motions about being a good and friendly group member? Clearly there is something wrong with me, that I am having a problem when no one else is.

And now I have accomplished my difficult thing that I set myself to do today, and have nothing to do for the rest of the day.

And no boss to talk to about what needs to be done next.

Yes, none of this is 'bad person' stuff, just because you are finding this rather tricky situation difficult to handle. It sounds like you have to decide whether you want to reestablish yourself in the larger group enough to want to confront this person about the situation - which I think you'll have to do, as it sounds like ignoring/tolerating wouldn't work. It depends what they want from you, and they clearly want something - hence trying to engage with you repeatedly.

Alternatively - is there someone in the larger group that you can confide in?

Ooh, apparently our MD is going to make An Announcement About Something later today...

(we all know the gist of what he's going to say, but we don't really know what the implications are going to be)

I don't actually even know if I want to continue in the larger group. But there is really no way to tell, because the friction is making it difficult.

The person in the larger group, who *was* my confidant... well, that's a difficult situation, as well. We were friends, now I'm not so sure. Again, actions speak louder than words - confidant was all "oh, we're still friends" but never manages to return my emails, either due to busy-ness or their own personal life or (paranoia) they are no longer as close to me as they once were. And there is past personal friction between former confidant and the person with whom I am having the problems - but my former confidant's tack was to go out of their way to be overly nice to the person they were having the problems with. Which only makes me feel more slighted and jealous/envious.

I can't even talk about this on my blog - this person reads it, and emails to complain.

I don't know what they want. They claim to want to be my friend, but doesn't behave in ways that I consider friendlike.

It's just awful, and the way of things is that I am going to end up losing the whole group. Which is a shame, but I don't really see another way to deal with this. I can only hope that it will all blow over.

Oh god, Tzr want me to do another review - Diamanda Galas. Yes, I would love to go to that show, but I don't want to do any more music criticism!

Well, it's not going to be an indie dive, right?

Indeed. The Southbank Centre - I would get to sit down and be civilised.

I'm never very sure how I feel about sit-down gigs - they remind me too much of classical concerts, which jars slightly.

The only gig we've got planned coming up is Low, at the Sage in Gateshead, and I suspect it may well be a sit-down gig too.

Diamanda Galas is practically classical music, albeit, well, modern composition.

I like sit-down gigs, but this is because I'm old and my back and knees give out if I have to stand up for too long.

Has that announcement been made yet, or will that be after lunch?

One of these days we'll get to the Sage for an actual concert. (do they do gigs? Prob not)

The Baltic, sage, sunday market, etc is one of my favourite places to be. Might well get there this weekend.

The announcement is still unmade and hanging...

I'm getting old enough to want to avoid tightly-packed standing crowds, myself. The last gig we went to, we lurked right at the back.

hey do you guys have a bank holiday weekend fr/mon? is it easter there already?

Yes times two...

Yes mitya, both days.

I saw van der graaf generator at the sage, it was very good, the acoustics in the small hall are excellent.

I'd probably have seen other bands, but promoting their gigs has never been one of the sage's strong points - the VdGG gig was 1/2 empty, all the other tour dates were sellouts, I only found out it was on about 2 days before. Hopeless!

Ooh good, Low are in the small hall.

We went along to buy our tickets directly, last month. We got to the front of the queue and asked about the Low gig, and the chap behind the counter said: "I thought you looked like you'd be wanting tickets to Low - I'm going to it myself!"

...typical. I said I'd do it, and now I don't hear back from him.

Ah, I've got an hour to start thinking about what I want to have for lunch. Sag paneer again, no doubt.

Hello, all, busy morning. I am growing slightly disgruntled with the job here, it is feeling like the old place a couple of years ago. The software I have to support is a dog's breakfast with 4 main code trunks, a number of actual products and a layer of branding over the top with is, to say the least, confused.

Recruiter who got me this job called me this morning, I asked him to call back later, I hope he is calling to see if I am settled and not to put evil thoughts in my head.

Do you think that other places in the same line of work would be the same - that it is a problem of the nature of the business? Or are these places both just badly run?

i.e. is it something that you could change - either through working things out at this job (learning from the past mistakes of the old one) or at getting another job - or is it just the nature of the beast, and something you'd have to put up with anywhere? (And therefore career change would be more necessary for being re-gruntled?)

I am eating Sag Paneer. Numness.

I think it is common to places that had a lot of money very quickly and spent it badly, of which there are many in my industry. Not sure if it is something I could change but I can try and influence

I am a little worried that, working in any VC backed company, the VCs may lose interest if returns aren't forthcoming. In addition I don't think that the CEO they parachuted in is doing enough to change entrenched ideas and practices. I worry that in these situations it tends to be last in, first out.

I talked about some of these issues at length with all three people who interviewed me, but they put a very good gloss on it.

Things are very serious today, let's have a picture of a mean looking cat:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2152/2345477432_b8ca7c8eea.jpg?v=0

I am happy, because I have accidentally discovered the best site on the interweb:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/

I was actually googling for "the nature of consciousness"* (because I was discussing it with one of the OKC suitors) and it had a link to an article there about neuron firing.

*He says on his page that he is interested in this. I certainly hope that he means in the scientific sense, because googling also lead to some um, rather philosophically unsound looking cultish sites, and articles about philosophy. I suppose this is a problem one can come at from many different angles. Scientific, religious, philosophical, sitting around really stoned going "wow, duuuuuude."

Oh dear.

That cat is saying "I wuz promised FLAT PANEL dude"

Cats don't like flat panels because they are not as warm and impossible to sleep on. My bandmates' cat is very fond of sleeping on top of their old iMac because the monitor fan makes it so warm and cosy.

My cat was very fond of sleeping on top of my old CRT monitor, too - until the day he apparently knocked it on the floor while I was out.

My cats sometimes lie on our laptop, which isn't very good as it's a piece of shit Dell that's prone to overheating at least 5 times a week.

Sorry, I'm lost in reading about DARK MATTERS and GIANT COSMIC VOIDS!!!

A giant gaping hole in the universe, how great is that?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070823164846.htm

Are cats just better/more popular than science?

:-(

Harmonia are playing Glasgow in July. and supposedly Cluster will be playing later in the year too.

It'll be Kluster next

Then Lilienthal

Are you coming up for it?

They're playing here first, of course, these provincials *sigh*

Your ma might wanna go

Well they did that big announcement - but the details are still cloudy. The biggest division of our company is being sold off - but for the immediate future, the new owners have signed a services contract with the rest of the company. So, my job carries on as before, except that I might be called upon to be exceptionally anal about which office I am doing jobs for at any particular moment. For now, at any rate.

So no change then?

Well, at least your position is safe.

That's the main thing. Were you worried FP?

I was a bit worried - we knew a sale was ongoing, but not the details. This does mean that if there's a risk of me losing my job, I should get at least 3 months notice of it.

And a whopping great redundancy payment?

Get that in writing!

Sigh. Turns out my boss is actually in today, but shows no sign that he is ever going to meet with me. What should I do? remind him? Or would that be hassling him?

If it's been all day and you've not spoken to him, remind him!

I have only got 45 minutes left in this dump. I'm not going to risk it.

He has gone now. Tomorrow, I will remind him. I am seriously counting down the days until this assignment ends.

Come on, mood, shift shift back to good again.

This strange gig I'm playing on Monday gets less and less organised and more and more strange. I wonder, at this point, if it will actually happen at all.

When is the Diamanda Galas gig? I wonder if I would like her.

I'm supposed to go tonight. I have no idea, I can't tell what you'd like at all.

Today looks to be even more shit than the rest of the week - forgot to buy a travelcard this morning. I'd been intending to get a daily one for today and not buy another one until next Tuesday, to save money - but then got stung at St. Pancras and if you don't just renew the weekly one, they whack a fine on you which works out to more than a weekly travelcard would cost. :-(

Oh, good old Carruthers, he always makes me laugh.

What has he done now?

We have been arguing about the giant hole in space.

Oh, I have a headache and tea has not made it go away.

As predicted in Quark Strangeness and charm.

Mr. Carruthers has all three in abundance. Ha ha.

When are you off for Eostre?

tomorrow, afternoon.

Dear Customer,

We thought that you might like to know that PETE DOHERTY has been confirmed as support for THE SONICS date at The Forum in London this Sunday:

LONDON The Forum - Sun 23 March 2008

Damn, can I swap my Friday ticket for a Sunday one?

Surely you mean can I swap my Sunday ticket for a Friday one?

I daresay there's proba a few Sonics fans wanting to swap for a support band that's anyone but PETE DOHERTY in capitals. Looks like a solo gig.

Well, yes. Oh never mind.

Yes, I'd pay to avoid Doherty.

This headache is getting worse. I might have to go to Boots and get some aspirin or something.

Have a good time in France. Be sure to bring back some good cheeeese.

Come on, mood, shift shift back to good again. Come on, be a friend.

When are you off for Eostre?

The :zoviet*france: album? I've got that!

No, no, the bastardised pagan fertility Equinox festival thinly dressed up as a Christian holiday, which is responsible for our 4-day weekend coming up, oh, tomorrow! Hurrah!

Morning!

when I saw Doherty, as part of Babyshambles at the Primavera Sound Festival in 2006, he was not late, not outrageous, not really good or bad - just, well, boring. And that was the day after the "tourniquet on Easyjet" incident. But one of my friends had the nous to break the tedium by suggesting "Let's go and see what's going on on the other stage?" and because of that, we were introduced to the fun and entertaining I'm from Barcelona.

But, anyway, surely the good Colonel can just spend longer in TEH PUB beforehand???

I joined freecycle yesterday! It's great! I've already unloaded my un-used computer desk on casters to a middle-aged Chinese molecular medicine expert, and that was just after Johnny B turned up to collect my beanbag lounger (it was fun squeezing it into the back of his housemate's car, I just hope he was able to get it out again).

Freecycle means I get to read emails like THIS:

Hi there,
I am offering a supply of fresh natural manure from my 2 lovely horses.
The paddock is just outside of didcot but i cannot deliver it. If
interested please email me!
Thanks
Amy

There's a Monty Python sketch about that

lol I'm going on Friday so I don't need to avoid Doherty! TBH I have no idea who the support is on Friday. It's being put on by some mod festival weekend thingy.

I saw I'm From Barcelona last year (missus is a big fan) they were loads of fun, chucking balloons around and stuff. It was all horribly twee of course :)

xpost

must...read...posts...properly.

I overslept today! well, either I slept through the alarm or I turned the alarm off and went back to sleep. I have no idea which! This is of course in no way related to the fact that I broke my alcohol fast with krupnik (Polish honey liqueur) and Polish cherry flavoured vodka while listening to the Dukes of Stratsphear and Los Camposinos. I have prolly misspelt the names of both those bands.

I am waiting for Kate to get back so I can ask her what her favourite track is on Chips from the Chocolate Fireball. Mine is What in the World at the moment but it keeps changing!

Um, back from what? I'm reading, I just don't have much to say.

I like the whole of the first EP - it's just all wonderful. 25 O'Clock, Your Gold Dress, all of it!

Mine's 'Vanishing Girl' or the one that sounds like The Byrds 'So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star'. Somewhere there was a thread in which people speculated which 60's band each track was most like. Or did I imagine such a thread?

no Dr C it really existed.

I am being interviewed for a THIRD time for that job tonight. Well, the agency said "they've got a couple more questions for you" but that's a couple in the "down the pub for a couple of pints" sense I'm sure.

On the phone from New York again at 7 o'clock!

I don't know anyone who's been for a third interview that wasn't offered the job.

More evidence that I'm a bad person - I'm unemployable.

One of my colleagues has just handed in her notice cos she's got a job at Microsoft - she had EIGHT interviews (3 over the phone, but still, wtf)

That doesn't invalidate my assertion. She does have the job.

"Well you're a good man Albert Brown
And you was wounded in the war
And though you shot some people down
You're still a good man Albert Brown!"

i was interviewed 3 times for a job once before and didn't get it. and that was one phone interview and two face to face. on that occasion I went home to wait for a phone call from New York and waited...and waited...and waited. No-one rang but next morning I found out why on the news - a massive power black-out had denied electricity to the whole of the eastern seaboard of the US!

I don't count phone interviews, really. But that could be to do with the fact that I associate them with headhunters, who, as we know, are worse than rubbish.

Actually, I can give you an answer - my favourite DoS song is Bike Ride To The Moon.

Microsoft are notorious for multiple interviews.

DOS for a while was "Pale and Precious", but I reckon now it's "Jackie". Or maybe "albertBrown". oh, maybe "your gold dress". Yeah. That one.

OK, I give up, I'm going to have to go to Boots and get something for this headache.

Had to be done:

Psonic Pollspot! It's the DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR POLL with your atom bomb!

Nice one. You're My Drug is the Byrds one that I was trying to remember. The Lennonish Collidascope is also good.

what could they ask me in this third interview then eh? Suggestions pls.

What your favourite Dukes of Stratosphear track is

Mole from the Ministry, i think, although I don't remember Psonic Psunspot enough to say for sure.

The only third interview I ever had, it was mainly me asking them questions, and getting to meet all the people that I would be working with, in order to ascertain whether I got on with them, and could work with them or not.

The problem was, even though the answer was a resounding yes - within a year they were all sacked, made redundant or left.

Just remember that you are interviewing them as much as they are you.

My headache hasn't gone, and now I have a stomach ache from the ibuprofen. Can't win. :-(

Is this what my life has come to? I'm temping at a job I can't stand, for a boss who ignores me, and wasting my entire day on a messageboard where I'm almost universally reviled because I have nothing else to do and nowhere else to go and no one else to talk to.

Apart from the temping bit, that sounds almost like me!

Is this what my life has come to? I'm temping at a job I can't stand, for a boss who ignores me, and wasting my entire day on a messageboard where I'm almost universally reviled because I have nothing else to do and nowhere else to go and no one else to talk to.

fixed

Sorry, Mark H, outside of this thread, I pretty much am.

I understand why, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with when you're feeling down.

Two more weeks. I have just been hearing the woman who sits next to me on the phone, and she sounds frustrated. She's here for a year, which would make me slit my wrists.

I've now got a plus one for Diamanda, and no one to take.

Anyone? Obviously this would have been a perfect occasion for Kerr to check her out, if he lived anywhere near London. Ah well.

I thought Tom D might've been a fan. I really need to hear some of her stuff.

Never heard her. Seems a bit ooh-look-at-me-I'm-spooky for my taste.

I'm still unsure of your taste. What the hell do you like? hehe

There is no such thing as taste!

Whoops, sorry, went a bit Maggie Thatcher there for a moment.

Now that is someone who is universally reviled.

If ever you're feeling down just say to yourself "thank fuck I'm not maggie thatcher"

She is far from "universally reviled"

...and even she could get a freakin' date for the opera. :-(

I like Diamanda Galas. Unfortunately I am not in London.

Well, I finally have something to do. But it's like pulling teeth to get it around here. :-(

Information only seems to come out in dribs and drabs - it would have been so much more helpful if everything had been told to me, in total, at the beginning of this wretched assignment.

lots of people being laid off or whatever in mysterious circumstances here - inc someone in the Marketing section of our division and I wasn't even told!!! When i asked why the reply was "Don't ask".

Hello, new world economic collapse that is going to make the Great Depression look like a tiny recession. :-(

We're all fucked, let's dance on the backs of the unemployed. Oh wait, that's me in two weeks. Even more fucked. Pointless, pointless, pointless.

I'm sorry, I don't know what's got into me today.

Well, I do know. But I shouldn't take it out on this thead. :-(

My head's gone to pieces and my concentration is gone. I can't think how to do any of the things I need to do.

I am stupid, I should know by now, a headache with no reason that doesn't respond to any of the usual things is a sign that a vicious depression is in the post. :-(

And then the simplest things become impossible. Except I don't have to do simple things, I have to do quite complex caluculations that require holding several concepts in the head simultaneously, and my mind has turned to cream of wheat.

This is the catch 22 of depression - when you are most depressed, and feel most isolated, it's when you need other people the most. But it's when you are most depressed that you are at your most scary, and down-dragging, and other people are most nervous of being around you. Which only reinforces the isolation, and therefore the depression in a horrible cyclical spiral.

This is just awful.

going through exactly the same thing at the moment, my friend asked me to go around their's tomorrow night to cheer me up but I've had to decline because what's the point I'll just be mopey scary downey monster, and nobody needs that on a friday night.

feel y pain kate, heads up.

Awww dude, it'll be okay. If you can't do any more today then just go home and relax, it's not like they're clock-counting.

Thanks, Ste. It's still nice to be asked, though, isn't it? Right now I feel like a used car salesman trying to pawn off faulty goods if I even ask anyone to be around me.

It's not like I get to go home anyway. I have to go and review this show which I now wish I hadn't agreed to. But at least Diamanda Galas is angry shouting mad woman of angst and stuff so I don't have to be all "yay, life" and can sit and brood if I fancy.

Being reviled by the rest of ILX outside this thread, it is entirely possible, is a very good sign.

There is nothing like real problems in life to give you a bit of perspective on depression. But then again, Lost hasn't gone on hiatus yet.

There is nothing like real problems in life to give you a bit of perspective on depression.

Not necessarily true. "Real problems" can actually reinforce and deepen depression.

Though I suppose I'll find out if when this job ends, if I don't find another one, and my house gets reposessed and I end up a homeless bag lady on the street.

Well, at least I managed to turn my mind from cream of wheat into a finely tuned mathematical machine long enough to do one extremely complicated thing. Now I think I'm done for the day.

Have a good long weekend, everybody.

And you!

I've done mine own helicopter for my band:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2002/2360955330_f8decb90d7.jpg

How was everyone over Easter? Did you enjoy all that snow?

I spend the whole weekend sick in bed with the flu. :-(

Morning all, sorry to hear about the flu, I have learnt a valuable lesson about not trying to go drink for drink with my cousin and his wife.

Pls to produce stickers of the band logo, I want one for my laptop.

They are French, non? That way madness lies.

I spent most of the weekend in bed, watching videos. I watched Elizabeth, Chariots of Fire and, erm, Shaun of the Dead. Someone left out the wonderfully salient fact that my ex was not just playing a zombie but A HOMELESS STREET PERSON ZOMBIE!!! Ah, there is a god...

x-post, we are doing badges first, but I've got it as my wallpaper, against a 50% grey background, so it looks like it is flying.

No they are scousers.

I've started a thread about Chariots of Fire. Will I regret this?

What date did we say for next walking? I should get planning.

Also What to do in Oslo/Drammen when you are there.

12th April. The Saturday after my birthday.

Ask FMM for what to do in Oslo, she goes there a lot and knows lots of good stuff.

...or maybe not! Maybe no one remembers it.

Jazzmaster frenzy (sort of):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFz79SBnuk8

(dutch-indonesian beat group from 1963 play the theme to "the third man" on multiple jazzmasters! Great!)

Maybe not one fort his walk as a bit close to london and I think we wanted further into the chilterns but we should visit the Royal Standard of England, Britain's oldest pub, in Beaconsfield at some point.

I think I was reading about that last night - was it in the Thames book?

Multiple Jazzmasters... ooh...

That was a zither, not a jag! You mean this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNeUuQegG5Y&feature=related

OOPS!! Yes.

Hello! I spent my Easter shivering in a tent in Snowdonia - although there wasn't actually much snow, not at our altitude.

No, we got all the snow in London. One minute sun, the next minute HAIL!!! It was almost biblical at times. Proper old blizzard for a while yesterday.

We had hail, and rain, and sleet; but nothing that settled on the ground.

I have heard gossip from the Dream Machine already!

Pash, if you're here, please can you change Ian Liddell to Eric Liddell on the Chariots of Fire poll? Conflating actors and their characters again, duh. Thanks.

Poll text can't be changed, unfortunately, Kate. Sorry!

Damn. That will teach me to start polls before I've had my tea.

Oh! I did know, I had just forgotten. I can't believe I put off seeing that film for so long for such a stupid reason.

Hmm, I am circling in on Kings sutton for birthday walking. Disused railway, castle, canal, river swere, Spacerock harvesters.

Spacerock harvesters? Not in Rugby?

http://www.multimap.com/maps/?hloc=GB|Beaconsfield#t=l&map=52.00251,-1.35666|15|8&loc=GB:51.76301:-0.74134:14|wendover|Wendover,

copy paste that, I think.

Ah, I did actually just googlemap it, and it looks acceptable. Near Northampton, so we might get the NH1 crew down.

I should do some work. Boss just came over and asked me how it was going, apparently I've got to start training someone else to use it tomorrow. I very nearly laughed at him. Um. I'm going to train someone to use a non-existent report which hasn't been finished because everyone else around here has been dragging their feet about giving me the information I require? Oh do fuck off. I'd much rather google pictures of Chariots of Fire.

...but first some more tea.

Would it be ridiculous to go off to Oxford on Thursday to see the Carruthers? Oxford peoples, what do you think?

I am trying to persuade him that he should volunteer to be an astronaut for the European Union Space Programme, since they are recruiting at the moment. Spacerock in outer space, it is clearly the way forward.

Because there was no mint cake, I had to have carrot cake at the whole food curry in a bun place. Just FYI, whole food healthy good for you organic carrot cake is, um, not really very nice.

whoa, love that helicopter pic kate.

Yeh, good helicopter, almost an Eschercopter!

The carrot cake may not be as nice as real cake, but at least it won't give you a sugar come-down later . . . or will it?

Thank you! Looks like the band like it, too.

I have still got sugar comedown from cake. Or perhaps that is the killer cold coming back to tell me to lie down again. The cure for this, as always, is more tea.

OK, I'm going to delete the full-length photo from OKC. Now I've got creepy French dudes sending me strange messages about my "curves". HALP.

Oh, today is awful. Sigh. I feel really unwell, plus my boss just sent me an email telling me that everyone could hear my music and to turn it down. You need to send me an email to say that? Weirdo.

I am counting down the days until I am out of this place.

I'm talking to myself, too. This place makes me bonkers, it's official. 4 days at home, even in bed sick, and I started to turn back into a human being. 6 hours here and I'm ready to beat my head against the desk.

Hey all. Last Fm seems to be broken.

My top artists has gone all weird http://www.last.fm/user/trailofgybe/
Anyone else have the same problem?

Yet another shameless attempt to get us to look at your Last.fm profile!

Not at all, it's broke! (Have look anyway though ;)

It's not very Kate friendly atm though

I did! There's nothing wrong with it!

The Top artists is completely different. Some bands have lost 300 plays!!
(while fp still has B&S at the top of his)

Infact the great majority of my top 50 artists are no longer there!

And how would anyone but you be able to tell that by looking?

FP would notice

OK, now ex-spacemen are hunting me down and friending me on MySpace! Weird! I'M NOT THE BOOM YOU WANT!!!! I'M THAT OTHER BOOM!!! heh heh.

Um, maybe I should go home, I'm getting delerious. I'm trying to answer the emails of lads on OKC and not making any sense. I'm finding it all very strange that anyone would even approach/respond to me in the first place!

I'm supposed to be "training" someone today. Let's see if they ever turn up.

You know what this thread needs? A wild 1920s style jazz party.

like this:

http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/1920sdance.jpg

http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/heldteaser.jpg

Does this mean that jazz is seeping into you from the 20s up? have you got to Cab Calloway and Count Basie yet?

Precisely like that! In fact, I declare today 1920s wild jazz party day on the Watercooler.

Lindy hopping optional.

fo di o do.

http://bp3.blogger.com/_bdtuKKCTCf4/RZjGbKEZZQI/AAAAAAAAAo0/eWZe8mOsrw8/s1600-h/WBG+-+Still.jpg

Actually, I think that's from that film that Pash was talking about last year! "Why Be Good" or something.

Bah! It is a lady who has been exhausted by THE WILD JAZZ lying down and being, um, made love to by an oily looking gentleman.

Definitely some of this...

http://www.ilstu.edu/~lmerri/uhigh/1920

It's the shimmy shimuras!

Shimuras go jazz? I don't think so!

Maybe I'll have a flapper stage! Except no, I'd have to cut all my hair off into that dreary bob that every indie girl on earth has.

You need more than a badly cut bob from Mr. Toppers to do flapper chic. It also helps to look like this:

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/norma_shearer___leading_lady_of_metro_goldwyn_mayer.jpg

The bob can always be brylcreamed back into a 20s mannish style.

I once had an Eton Crop, back in my mod stage. But it's too much hard work to keep it going, especially in such a damp climate.

The flapper look has been done to death. I'll stick with the pre-Raphaelite birdsnest. But more pictures of Flappers and the Flaming Youth, please!

That's Colleen Moore, yes! No sign of "Why be Good" & "Synthetic Sin" on DVD yet :(

'20's Jazz party I don't have, '20's high-budget vaudeville show in colour! might do instead, though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfomcfVGqCQ

From 5.00 on it gets pretty amazing!

Damn, I had to watch it with the sound off because I've been shouted at, but that was awesome! I loved the body popping policemen at the end. Just marvellous. And more flappers than you can shake a (gold-topped) stick at! Hurrah!

Colleen was No1 flapper girl!

http://www.doctormacro.info/Images/Moore,%20Colleen/Annex/Annex%20-%20Moore,%20Colleen_05.jpg

I've been looking for pictures of the real life Lord Lindsay, but keep getting pictures of bloody Elizabethan era Cecils and Burghleys. Dammit. He was supposed to be a posh hottie - I found one picture that proved this, but it wasn't linkable. :-(

Ah well, this will have to do:

http://www.olympic.org/upload/heroes/top/87810_TOP.JPG

He turned rather lizardine in old age, though, as all posh tottie eventually does.

x-post, she looks like my friend Danny!

Ah well, the thumbnail is linkable. You have to use your imagination for the pointed nose and chistled cheekbones.

http://www.topfoto.co.uk/gallery/olympics/1932%20Los%20Angeles/images/thumbs/0086772.jpg

Colleen was in "Flaming Youth", which is like one of the top ten lost silent films, and supposedly defined the jazz age, flappers etc. She is one of my favourites, & is like Pola Negri and Clara Bow in that she's way way sexier in motion than she is in stills. She was the biggest movie star in the world for a couple of years in the late '20's. She seems to have been a really switched on, smart & likeable person, which is kind of rare when you read about silent movie stars , most of them were pretty seriously messed up.

Wikipedia is so great for links to links to links. (Oh, and also the fact that she had one blue eye and one brown eye which is pretty darn cool!) So, apparently she and her husband held parties (I'm trying very hard not to imagine Wild Jazz Parties) for competitors at the 1932 Olympics in LA... at which, guess who competed?

Yes, here we go...

http://multimedia.olympic.org/pic/burghley_gal_l_03.jpg

No wonder conspiracy nuts love the web. The world is linkee-linkee.

Now I'm googling for lighthouses. Great. The depths that boredom brings me to.

And how about a wild 1920s jazz party on top of a Scottish lighthouse, featuring the entire UK Track and Field team of 1924? Or has this just turned into a Belle and Sebastian lyric?

Did you decide on going to visit your brother?

greetings from Gdansk. Easter has been really great this year. Cross country skiing on Saturday and Sunday, followed by a walk on the beach on Monday. Coming back to England later today....

Oh, I didn't mention going to visit my brother to him, so it's probably too late now.

I actually had to do some work! This poor young man came over and asked me to explain him Crystal so, well, I did, and I rather fear I've made his head spin a bit.

Gdansk! I am jealous of the x-country skiing. I haven't done that in years and miss it.

Sag Paneer is spicey today! The lady at the whole foods shop now recognises me when I come in. Tee hee.

funny, I never think about how Crystal works, I just use it and I'm usually quite impressed! the reports come out really fast, tho i think that is to do with the good architecture of the database that feeds it rather than Crystal itself. Unlike the interface design of said database, which is lousy!

we were skiing in this forest which is managed by the Polish equivalent of the Forestry Commission, which, if I understood Asia correctly, is quite a corrupt organisation, not averes to felling & selling perfectly healthy trees to make a few readies rather than, y'know, looking after the things.

I am still not used to seeing środa, 26 marzec appearing next to my online name.

Were you designing reports in Crystal, or just running them?

Crystal should run quite fast if it's set up well, but the databases I work with are, quite predictably, usually monsters. I think they're set up either for ease of use or ease of reporting, but not both.

I think the poor lad was expecting something, well, less programmy.

just running them admittedly - I think I wouldn't be much use if I was *building* them and still didn't understand how they worked!

Why does all of Northampton seem to think I'm a scientist? I'm a MATHEMATICIAN. Not quite the same thing. I blame that Carruthers. He's been going around spreading malicious lies about me.

You wouldn't be the first to build Crystal Reports without knowing how they worked, though, Mark!

I shall retaliate by sending him into SPACE:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/22/spaceexploration.spacetechnology

Yawn.

That was my entire excitement for the day. Now everyone is back to ignoring me. I wonder if I can sneak out early to go to rehearsal.

I think you can
s/rehearsal/dental appointment

My turn to go for a job interview this week. Everybody seems to be changing jobs.

Is yours by accident or design?

How early is the next question. I'm going to try for 5pm! Shocking!

4.30

No, someone would definitely notice.

Is yours by accident or design?

Accident. In the sense that I wasn't really looking very hard and somebody emailed me about it. Or is that design? Unintelligent design? Their website is a total mess that I could merrily spend ages licking into shape, they have content coming out of their ears, more than they know where to put... unfortunately, marketing is mentioned, and I phear the marketing

Well, I would call it an accident if you were made redundant and/or sacked from your last role, and you *have* to look for a new job. Or design if you decided to go do so. I think. I don't know. My head has just been rearranged.

Ummm. Could someone please try to explain or comment:

http://www.nigelhaversalliance.com

I can't figure out what on earth it's on about, but it is making me LOL rather suspiciously.

Is it a satire of Conservative websites? A fan site? I'm very confused. But still lolling.

OK, now someone else wants to come over and be learned Crystal. OK...

Ha! Re-reading the job description for this position, I realise that what's actually being described is three different jobs! Typical.

Well, I'd rather have three jobs at once to do, than absolutely nothing at all, and be reduced to reading spoof websites.

Which reminds me, the Connaught Square Squirrel Hunt should be announcing its meet card for 2008 soon!

won't you need to borrow a dog?

No, everyone is allowed to chase Dillon/Dylan.

Ah, so FreeLoveBabies are playing at the Cellar tomorrow. I want to goooo. But I cannot get back to London in time to get a decent night's sleep to be at work on Friday.

Employement sucks. :-(

Oh how did Diamanda Galas go?

... let me guess:

WAHHHHHHHHHHHH.... tinkle-bonk.... SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... plink plink.... AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE

I knew of the nigel havers site. I saw him asked about it on terry wogan on uk gold. The guys a bit of a fruitcake apparentlynot Nigel Havers)

btw Boris have a website now.
http://www.myspace.com/borisdronevil

Bastards are touring with Growing but no Scotland date. I wanna see Growing!

No, Diamanda was really good. Very emotionally intense, and perfect for the state that I was in.

Ha ha, I thought at first you were trying to say Boris Johnson had a MySpace. I've gone right off him since he started opening his mouth.

Why has ILX gone all weird revival today?

Usually they wait til bored fridays

What other messageboards are there on the web. That are, you know, multi-interest, not just about music?

I think it's time for me to find one. OK, wait, no, it was time for me to find one about 4 years ago. But better late than never.

argh, the deluge has come, and me without my umbrella

Is it deluging down South? Oh no. I have an umbrella, but I also have a bass which does not fit under said umbrella.

very much deluging in CR4

Which means it will be at SW16 in about 20 minutes.

Wait, I'm not going straight home! I'm going to Surrey Quays.

Also... I have finally, after only, oh, 5 weeks here, discovered what my job is supposed to be!

If only I'd been talking to the techie all along instead of the useless admin type boss.

I'm sure theres millions of multi-interest message boards, but also millions of wankers on them far worse than ilx.
Only other boards i post on regularly are Doomed Forever(used to be Southern Lord til Greg pulled the plug) and VLV.
I do sometimes post on stonerrock.com and I Hate Music.
I dont think i could post on another general interest board. I ignored ILE for like 4/5 years when i 1st read ILM in 1999/2000.

Does Ned still post on the cooler? I've hardly seen him post these past few months compared to usual.

And where's Mitya ,emil.y, FP ,onimo , mark c and ailsa and anyone else I left out?

After this morning's events, I have just sent this letter to my agent:

Hi ::Kate's Agent::-

Just to let you know, my boss has rescinded use of the internet for all purposes, so if you need to contact me for the next week, please do so by phone on XXXXXXXXXXX rather than on email.

I have to say that I am rather relieved that this project is coming to an end. This is one of the most poorly managed projects I've worked on in my life. I've been left for days without any kind of adequate direction, let alone supervision. Attempts to get any kind of basic information about the project have been passed from department to department, and when I try to follow up my requests, I get told not to "pressure" people.

Despite all this, I have managed to come up with some workarounds and got the project done to the best of my abilities. (This is nothing short of a miracle, considering that I've developped some kind of reporting before the developers have actually even finalised the basic dataset of the database. I explained this to my supervisor as like trying to paint the walls of a house which has not been built yet.)

My manager has been absent for days or even weeks at a time, at crucial stages of the development. I've been left for days at a time, with no answers to requests, trying to stretch 20 minutes of work a day into eight hours - and then, to add insult to injury, criticised for accessing my personal email during that downtime. Information has been so lacking that it is only now, in week 5 of a 6 week project, that I've actually been given the full, relevent background to the project.

I realise that this email sounds like one long complaint. I can only compare this project to others I have worked on, and indeed, the project I worked on and completed in the course of being "lent" to another department within this agency.

I just wish to say that I have done as much as I can within a difficult situation.

Please tell me this wasn't a really stupid idea, but after weeks of complaining about having nothing to do, they've just told me I can't use the internet. I asked, directly "what am I supposed to do, read a book?" Which I am now going to do. Talk to you at lunchtime, I guess.

Sounds like fair comment to me

This is definitely not a stupid idea. (s)he is your agent, and if you can't tell this to them, who can you? They are meant to work for you. If the client has issues with your work and complains to the agent, they have some immediate comeback/defence that they can use in your defence. And in their defence too, as they will be defending the commission they earned by placing you. Naturally, if the client does not 'complain', the agent is not going to go in guns blazing as they will be more interested in keeping the door open for them to place more people (including yourself, your not wanting to go back notwithstanding...)

So, yeah.

I just had a job interview! But don't ask me how it went, because I always think interviews go well, even when they haven't.

I have just been offered a job! It's all go!

I was googled! I don't like that. No.

Sounds fair to me, Kate, and Mark G very much OTM.

Congrats GG.

I am starting to be capable of being busy at this job, which is pleasing.

this pm I find out whether my 12 week notice period here is negotiable or not.

12 weeks!!!!!! WTF how is anyone ever meant to leave? Although if they are shedding people then maybe they will let you go sooner.

It's usually negotiable.

I thought that was what mine was at my last job, but... well. It wasn't. It also protects you and guarantees you a big payout if they decide to make you redundant.

Congratulations on being offered the job, Mark, and congrats on a good interview, Tom!

Despite all that, it still took my boss over an hour to provide the materials needed for me to get on with my job. And then we had a fire drill. Tra la la.

I mainly sent the email to cover my arse if this client complains about me, and specify exactly *why* this project is running over. (Even though it isn't running over currently, all of my end has been done due to my workarounds.) It's also just insulting for them to insinuate that I'm somehow wasting *their* time when it's been obvious from Day 1 who is wasting time around here.

Anyway, I'm now doing my documentation. Well, actually, I'm not, I'm eating delicious adzuki bean curry and checking my email, obviously. I cannot wait for this job to end.

Oh! Oxford people, go and see FreeLoveBabies tonight, because I cannot:

Show Time: 27 Mar 2008 - 21:00
Venue: the cellar
Address: 3 George St
City: oxford
County: Midlands
Country: UK
Post Code: ox1 2at

Or maybe I will, just to spite my job, and call in sick tomorrow. Grrr.

Oh, and here's the final finished version of that guitar I designed the last time I was in Northampton:

http://photos-a.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sctm/v216/225/64/778760598/n778760598_2591976_711.jpg

I got a genuine 1920's flapper film in the post on DVD, this:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018673/usercomments

Wow, what a blast - a cheap exploitation movie from 1928! (it's full of lingering shots of the flapper girl's bare back and bare legs, and at times appears to have been shot by a shoe fetishist!) It goes from being fluffy and frivolous to suddenly quite serious in the middle, when the flapper girl's straight-laced sister (who is always running her down) dumps her husband and runs off with another guy, and flapper girl tears into her, calling her a "cheap hypocrite". The end, a crazy scene on a burning rollercoaster (!) is beyond belief. The title cards are all in '20's jazz-speak. Oh man

Aw, that sounds great!

Bloody recruiters... for the first time I was quite happy to get a very obvious call from a headhunter while in the office, so I went off in the bathroom and took it. Don't give me access to email, then the headhunters ring me. That's what happens.

But he said he would email me specifications of this role, and of course, hasn't. Bah!

My agent is supposed to call me at 6. I don't know whether to hang around here to take the call or rush off somewhere else. I don't want to rock the boat if the client hasn't complained, but I do want to register my unhappiness if there's any hint of problems.

I have now completed 10 pages of documentation in the course of the afternoon, so they can't complain too much. Sent it back to them and told them to get on with reading it, then get back to me.

So the ball is back in their court now.

It is not good to have such an adversarial atmosphere between client and consultant. :-( For either me, the client, or the project. This makes me very unhappy.
:-((((

Oh, sod it. Or maybe on both:

http://www.portrait.gov.au/exhibit/cecil/_lib/img/large/exhib_8.jpg

Friday. At last.

Pub tonight, anyone?

It's finally NOT LENT and no one wants to go to the pub with me. I'm going to do a cry. Boo hoo hoo. I'll just go home and watch Chariots of Fire. By myself. Again. Wah, etc.

Tzr just asked me to do ANOTHER review. A lead this time. WTF?

And why do I keep saying yes?

Because they love you?

The flapper girl from the film:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3185/2366656471_ebb47ed14e.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2358/2366657559_5a78448b79.jpg?v=0

i would happily go to the pub with you kate but they'd be closed by the time the plane lands :(

Flapper girl is excellent!

But with the time difference, surely it would work, Mitya? The russian pubs would be closing, but the Russian Bar in Shoreditch would just be getting started!

Not that I'd uh, want to go there.

Guess it's going home and making stir fry and watching CoF again. Unless I stop at a shop and buy some new films. I got my timesheets signed, but keep forgetting to turn them in. They owe me a couple of thousand pounds by now.

I'd come to the pub with you , but I live a million miles away.

I have four films on my HD, one of which I shall watch tonight. Should I watch:

Midnight Cowboy
Chinatown
Repo Man
Election

Repo Man! Plate of shrimp!

I thought I had that, but apparently I don't. Maybe I'm thinking of the soundtrack.

Where can I videos on TCR? That are not of a dodgy variety. I suppose I better walk down to the Zavvvvy or whatever it's called.

I would doubt that zavvvvvvvy has tapes either. The only place that seems to have them are small coprner shops with greying copies of when harry met sally and robocop.

I'll give Repo Man a go then. I hope it's not rubbish.

I like Repo Man. It helps if you're into early 80s So-Cal punk though.

Sorry, geez, I'm turning into an old lady. By videos I mean DVDs, natch. I can't stick videotape in my powerbook, oh no!

No, Repo Man is just funny, fullstop. It helps if you're into crazy conspiracy theories and like laughing at punks and scientologists and the government alike.

There is a great place on charing cross road, corner of old compton st, run by the grumpiest human in existance, that sells dvd's of silent films, old musicals, vintage comedies, black and white melodramas etc.

Off to norway, not through LOLT5, fortunately.

Repo Man is certainly not rubbish! It's very funny & weird.

Zavvi is a terrible shop. I'm amazed it's kept going TBH.

That sounds like a great place, Ed. I must take a look next time I'm in London.

I wonder if I can get down to Compton St. in my lunch hour. Probably not, and I bet if it's run by a grumpy dude, it will be closed by the time I get out of work.

All I really want is Brideshead, Bright Young Things and maybe another season of Bab 5. I've got to get through my upcoming unemployment somehow!

I am being forced to take a lunchbreak due to the developers doing updates on the DB. Lord knows what will be missing again when they are done. Sigh.

I have a strange craving for a bagel (probably due to dreaming about eating bagels) but I know there's nowhere around here I can get a decent one. Sigh.

You had a dream about eating bagels?

I had a dream about making toast once. It wasn't very good.

The toast or the dream? Or both?

Well, there was more to the dream than that. I went to visit my brother, at my parents' old house. And for some reason the Olympic Equestrian Team moved in to the farm next door. We had bagels for lunch, but I planted the carrots in the garden so we had no veggies.

HA HA HA. Tzr just asked if I wanted to go to a METAL FESTIVAL in Portugal later this month.

When are they going to figure out I don't actually listen to metal?

Nu-shoegaze gets lumped in with metal, doesn't it?

My dream consiste dof me getting up in the middle of the night to make some toast, but when I got downstairs there was no bread so I had to go back to bed. And I know it was a dream because I got some bread out of the freezer that evening. It was possibly the dullest dream anyone's ever had tho.

You definately should go to a portugese metal festival.

Should definitely go to Portugal, skip the festival, then do all the research you need on Portugese metallers by hanging out in Camden Market at the weekend

Think of all the lovely port.

I'd love to go to Portugal. But 1) expenses are not included, so you have to find your own place to crash and 2) the bands are REALLY terrible. It's not even nu-gaze metal or doom metal or drone metal. It's proper MEH-UL!!! and I'm quite, quite terrified of it.

Get Kerr to do you a 12 hour compilation

Maybe Kerr should go to the festival and pretend to be me!

Not if it's that kind of metal.

btw what band is the lead review on?

A Silver Mount Zion And Tra La La band.

I probably shouldn't be leaking all this to you, should I?

Ha ha ha, I have just turned my bandmates on to STEAM PUNK and they have fallen in love with it. Singer just asked me "Would you mind dressing as a Victorian scientist for our next photo shoot?" To which mine only response can be "Mind? MIND? Try and stop me!"

Oh no, I'm f*cked:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7315656.stm

That's a GYBE spin off. New album is pretty rock though. It's def not metal though so i think you should do it (as long as you give it a good review)

Im about to walk down the town to buy the new Terrorizer actually.
Look who is on the cover
http://www.terrorizer.com/images/issues/bigt169.jpg

Nadja are in it too in a Roadburn(psychedelic/stoner/spacerock/doom/drone fest) Special! A load of my online mates are off to that.
Hawkwind played it last year and Nik Turner the year before.
http://www.roadburn.com/frames.html <------- Next Weeks Line-Up
Unfortunately Electric Wizard and Grails pulled out of this years.

Terrorizer really is becoming KateMusic™ these days.

5ive are in it too. That's a great spacerock album!

OK, that SUCKS and I am now cross. Because I was originally supposed to do the artwork for the cover of that one. :-(

I would definitely have done a better cover than that. Grrrrr.

I am never going to get to do illustrations for anyone! They lure you in with this "oh yeah, you can do illos" and then you get stuck doing reviews for the rest of your life.

I am quitting after this one. I really am. :-(

You gotta bid your time til the chance comes. You're getting a lead review now. Stick in!

THEY offered it to ME. I had to tell them about doing it in post production and all that. And then they go and get someone else to do it. I'm going to email Stannard and go BAH to his face. Or at least his email. :-(

Database still isn't back up. But at least I have coffee now.

OK, he said it was the photog who wanted to use a mate of theirs, and therefore not his fault.

But still. BAH!

You will get another chance. Im now back with said magazine. And in the mail came a free copy of the zine a guy on DFFD does. He's an awesome cartoonist and I'm looking forward to reading this.

Things are a bit weird at work at the mo. One of our colleagues was killed in a motorcycle accident yesterday morning, it's really sad, he was always really friendly and happy and had a wife and 2 kids. No-one's talking about it at all, just getting on with it. Not that there's any other way of dealing with it.

That sucks. :-(

But still, something that probably has to be dealt with after a drink, not in the office.

I've just looked at the line-up that the Windmill have scheduled for the day that I would have had my now-cancelled birthday party... and I haven't heard of ANY of those bands!

What a load of nonsense.

Yeah you're right, I don't think it's really sunk in yet anyway. xpost

re: Windmill - are they actually under new management or have the old management just gone a bit psycho for no apparent reason?

Kate have a read at http://www.foreverdoomed.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1389&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=NAGAWIKA

What festival in Portugal is it btw?
Mark im sorry to hear about your colleague :(

hahaha
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h108/NAGAWIKA666/bobmacabreSmall.jpg

I don't know what's going on at the Windmill. It's still Tim running it. I think he just doesn't trust *me* to promote a show any more.

:-(

I don't understand the jokes in those comics?

This is my alltime fave by him
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v675/shatteredsounds/KelticfrostLarge.jpg