Last day of work this year

So here it is etc etc. I'm heading home to Cardiff tomorrow morning, on a 6 a.m. train so that I can travel by £9 ticket (it was either that or pay £50!). I'm really looking forward to spending a few days with my family, as it's been several months since I was last at home. I have firm plans to get a good number of hours in on the new Wii with my brothers (Dom has an HDTV, as well), and to watch as much quality comedy as possible. I'm also nearing that time when I'll need to start job hunting quite heavily again, so will have to make a few applications while I'm at home.

The last few weeks have been interesting. I'm now properly settled in to my new flat, and for once I've nearly put everything away tidily. Naomi's pretty pleased that I have a decent kitchen of my own, which means that she can cook the way she'd like to when she comes over to see me. When I'm on my own, I generally tend not to do anything too complex - pizza's on the menu once or twice a week, let's put it that way. I have my record player and my old Aiwa hi-fi* hooked up on top of a chest of drawers, much like I did throughout my time as a student, funnily enough, and so I listen to my records quite often while cooking or while sitting at my breakfast bar. In the last couple of days I've been enjoying Music for Egon Schiele by Rachel's. It was a Science of Yabra LP before that.

*this hi-fi occupies an almost-talismanic position in my life. I may get rid of it at some point, but I've now owned it for over 10 years. It was something I looked at longingly before buying it, being the most powerful all-in-one hi-fi you could buy at that time (400 wpc RMS). The way I found to buy it was to purchase it on interest-free credit under my mum's name, and then go in an make payments every few weeks with the money that I was earning by waiting tables at Harry Ramsden's in Cardiff Bay. I hated that waiting job that much that the purchase of this hi-fi came to signify more than the item itself. It's what I have to show for doing that job, and therefore I suppose quite valuable as a life lesson, as well as being a piece of kit that I've enjoyed owning and has served me well. Read into that what you will.

Back to the present - I haven't forgotten about the acrimonious transition out of my old flat, but I'm not really in a frame of mind to write about that right now. Since then (the last three weeks or so) I've been playing the fantastic Nintendo Wii - new games as well as downloading a few of the classic Virtual Console titles I've never before experienced, like Mario64 (N64) and Donkey Kong Country (SNES). This little white box has certainly lived up to the hype so far. I just hope they have a string of strong new releases over the next few months.

Last weekend was eventful. After playing a set of Cursive covers for Punk Rock Stars in Their Eyes in High Wycombe, I slept over on the sofa at Luigi's house. I was woken up at 5:30 a.m. by Adam who was on one of the other sofas in their lounge, who'd slit his wrists, and had to make my first ever 999 call. The ambulance took so long to arrive that if he'd cut an artery he certainly would have been dead by their arrival. I'm hoping that I get to see him tonight to have a chat about things - he's had a hell of a time over the last few months so needs friends to reign him in, even if it's not in his nature. I hope he doesn't mind me writing this up, but it's been a fairly significant event in my December.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Headbanging

The last few days have been pretty tough - I moved flat on Saturday (which took us from 10:30am until 10:30pm), then went to church, then work, then Naomi's house, all on Sunday, then work until lunchtime followed by checkout of my old flat then off to London last night to help out at the CCF Southwark Snowball. The culmination of all of this was that I had 4hrs sleep last night, then had to appear at work at 7:30 this morning for perhaps the most important day of my job at the council so far.

I know that I cram too much into my life, but I always justify it by the fact that I'm still in my twenties, and before long I'll have a whole set of different responsibilities. Living fast (sic) while I'm still young ranks quite high among my priorities, actually.

Anyway, the move (and the aftermath) were the most stressful part. I will go into this is some detail once things are properly resolved. For now, it suffices to say that all has not been well in the state of Denmark, and my prejudices have been reinforced. Naomi was a saint throughout the move and helped me a great deal, but other players in the process were less helpful than they might have been (oh boy is this an understatement - as I say, more later).

Apart from the dislocation of moving in the last few days, everything's going okay. I've been working pretty hard in general recently, but will have to get a move on with finding something else really quite soon.

For tonight, I'm not thinking about that. I'm going to play some Gamecube instead. This Friday, I'm getting a Nintendo Wii as my birthday/Christmas present from Naomi. Get in.

Grit your teeth

Sitting in a train stuck outside Basingjoke opposite a dimwit listening to high-BPM moronic dance music which leaks from his headphones like a swarm of hi-hat-obsessed insects is not a recipe for good mental health late on a Sunday evening.

Vinyl acquistions

Make Believe LP,
originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

The observant among you may have noticed that, as well as changing the template of my blog, I've also added a LastFM 'recently played' graphic under my links list (bottom right). Well, obviously this only reflects my mp3/AAC listening on the computer (and misses out the iPod, though I may work on a hack for that), but I just thought I'd blog a list of some of the awesome records I've acquired recently or are about to drop through my door in the next few days.

'Of Course' by Make Believe (12"). This arrived today. Can't wait to hear more of this mentaloid intelligent indie rock.
'Orchestrated and Conducted by' Clikitat Ikatowi (12"). This also arrived today. If it's anything like their other music it'll be chaotic hardcore. I'm also eager to get my ears around it.



UPDATE - I'm delighted to say that I also picked up these vinyl gems during November (some of which I already had on CD)

The Wow / Querelle - Split 12"
This Aint Vegas - The Black Lung Captain 12"
This Aint Vegas - The Night Don Benito Saved My Life 12"
Itch - Well, Well, Well, Three Holes In The Ground 12" (had these last 3 on CD, but wanted vinyl versions as well)
Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies / Redjetson - split 12"
Bullet Union - s/t 7"
Candy Sniper - s/t 7"
Chillerton - s/t 7"
Kill Yourself - Euro tour 7"
The Oedipus / Reynolds - Split 7"
Foals - Try This on Your Piano 7"
Tired Irie - Like Gentle Men 7"

Comedy, welcome home! pt II

Naomi has recently revealed to me that she doesn't find my conversational obsession with British TV comedy to be all that interesting. Undeterred by this ingratitude, I thought I'd share with you some thoughts about some of my favourite comedies over the last few years. In some cases they're shows that I have grown to love by virtue of having watched them along with my two brothers - and I can certainly think of a few other friends who I've discussed this with who have also got into a given comedy by laughing at them with their siblings. I'm sure that as I write this someone is doing a postgraduate degree in the application of functional anthropology to televised comedy in the British family. Probably at a world reknowned establishment such as Staffordshire University.

Anyway, here's my run-down (in no particular order) of the comedies I've really enjoyed over the last few years. If you aren't familiar with them, maybe I can suggest that you head over to UK Nova, where you'd be able to download those that don't exist as commercial DVDs.

1. The creations of Chris Morris - Jam, Nathan Barley, Brass Eye. These are essential. I prefer Brass Eye to his other Newsnight-style series, The Day Today. Jam felt like it was pushing a lot of boundaries of taste when it aired, so is certainly for the more open-minded, and if you're really loving his style of comedy, you should also seek out the DVD of his 'My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117' short film, which is quite good.

2. Where would we be without Steve Coogan? Alan Partridge was pure gold (particularly series one of I'm Alan Partridge). Possibly my number one comedy series ever. Other less-well-known things you really should seek out if you like AP would include Cruise of the Gods, a really funny film he did for the BBC with Rob Brydon and David Walliams before either of them had really hit the limelight. You can get this on BBC DVD and I'd recommend that you do so. In addition, the Steve Coogan Live DVD (called 'The Man Who Thinks He's It') was way ahead of its time and has some fantastic content of other Coogan creations such as Paul Calf.

3. Armando Ianucci. Massively influential on most of the comedy in the list here, and as you know, I'm a huge fan of Time Trumpet, his most recent series. Watching Time Trumpet made me seek out The Thick of It - filmed in a similar way (ad-libbed then edited)to I'm Alan Partridge this is like a wonderful modern-day take on Yes Minister, where you watch the main character stumble from one political faux pas to another, through no fault of his own. The presence of a horrible spin doctor creates some fantastic moments in this. Apparently the BBC had fronted up funding for a further 10 episodes, but unfortunately Chris Langham has been the focus of recent court cases which means that there's going to be a significant change of tack if the series is to carry on. See The Thick Of It on Wikipedia for more info. It would be a great shame if there wasn't more of this series. If you like TTOI and TT you may also wish to check out the Armando Ianucci show. You can probably still get these on UK Nova.

4. Lee and Herring - in quite separate comedy category were this duo who put out series such as Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Fantastic in a puerile and sarcastic way (a bit like the Mary Whitehouse Experience), I've been reliving my late teens by watching the complete Fist of Fun in the last few days. You can get an ISO of the complete Fist of Fun from UK Nova at the moment.

5. Victor Lewis-Smith - The one comedy I haven't seen for years that I'm dying to watch is TV Offal by VL-S. It's a very underrated show from the late 90s which centred around his obsessions with different aspects of TV, and it had some amazing moments (such as Assassination of the Week, The Gay Daleks, prank phone calls to Michael Winner, and clips of really bad regional television from past archives). I would really like to see this gem of a show again. Not on UK Nova though, sadly.

Anyway, that's my comedy round-up for now. I expect there'll be other things to follow, but I do hope that this will encourage you to investigate some of these shows that you haven't heard of. Oh, and if you have a video iPod or a reasonably modern computer, I've encoded quite a number of them for mp4, so do let me know if you'd like me to send you a DVD of the ones I have in that form.

What a waster

Last night I met up with Martin - who used to also be a Hermitage resident - at the Railway. We watched a bunch of acoustic acts of varying quality, including that Carl feller who used to be in the Libertines, and Mr Newkie Brown Ale came for a visit. I'm now really quite hung over.

What I've been saying about Winchester

So, I move here and Winchester becomes the best place to live in the UK.

Thanks, Channel 4, that's reduced the chances of us ever being able to buy a property here!

They forgot to say on the programme (very boring, although that Sofie was reasonably easy on the eye) was that Southampton is better for punk rock. Maybe that wasn't on their criteria...

USB product placement

Last night I received an email invitation to my friend Ben Finn's Christmas Party. Ben, as you may know, recently sold his musical notation software company, Sibelius, to Avid, and is now looking forward to a life of leisure!

One of Ben's other guests, Simon, sent out a 'reply to all' saying that he's also celebrating, having just launched his new invention, USB Cell. Despite the slightly cheeky viral promotion going on here (which I'm now participating in, of course), I have to say that this is a very convenient product, and I'm certainly going to order a pair out of curiosity. It's the kind of thing I can imagine my parents finding useful for their TV remotes as well.

One thing that was also in his email was a link comparing the interest in his product with other well-established battery brands, at Alexaholic.com, which is a really useful site that produces graphs of one site's traffic against another (or several others), so I just thought I'd flag this up here for any webmasters who might find it worthwhile.

The USB battery idea reminds me of one aspect of my 1998-1999 stint in PC World. Intel had launched USB as a connection specification in November 1997, but it really wasn't catching on by the point at which I started working at PC World in mid-1998. There were hardly any products being retailed that used the interface, the few that were available had patchy support from Windows 98, and customers weren't aware of any advantages the peripheral standard offered them. The only product that we actually had to offer customers was a Hewlett-Packard USB scanner, which cost about twice as much for the USB version as for its parallel-port equivalent. Not a rosy picture for USB, then.

This all changed when Apple introduced its USB-only iMac. PC World had at this point stopped stocking Macs altogether, in the latter days of Gil Amelio's leadership of the company. When Jobs came back and introduced the iMac, a fast (relatively) affordable Mac specifically for home use, suddenly all of the local retailers were all over it like a rash. Tesco were shifting them by the bucketload, and PC World was missing out on the sales the iMac was drawing. Eventually someone at head office decided we were to start selling them as well. The release of the iMac pushed Epson into releasing a decent mid-range USB printer (the SC740), which we started to get shipped to us, as well as various popular solutions to the lack of a floppy drive in the iMac (such as the Imation Superdisk 120 and an Iomega USB Zip drive). Initially these products were still a fair bir more expensive than their parallel, and even SCSI, counterparts; which was fairly ridiculous. Still, once on the shelves they moved quickly, and turned USB into a more popular standard that people became familiar with, both for Macs and PCs. Soon all of the PCs we sold started to ship with internal USB ports, not just the capability of supporting it on their motherboards. Fast forward 8 years or so, and USB is everywhere. For it to move from being a theoretically advantageous standard with little foothold in the market, to being available to power and connect things as diverse as sound desks and missile launchers (thanks, Frank) is really quite a noteworthy transformation. I actually have more of a leaning toward Firewire peripherals for many of the things people try to do with USB, but it's still proven to be an incredibly useful addition to modern life, and I'm always intrigued to see where it appears next.

Man and his formats

I sometimes it funny to think of the format arguments we create for ourselves in this (largely-) digital age, in the sense of there being an A versus B argument between one platform and another, and the semi-ethical, semi-philosophical positions that we take up as a result of an affinity with a particular technology.

The first obvious example of this is the modern desktop computer. Most people know of my very deep, almost obsessive interest in all things Apple-related. I guess you could say I'm a zealot for the Mac, but this started out from a time when the Mac was simply vastly superior to the competing technologies vying for space on our desks. The obvious point of comparison is to Windows, which took a very long time to catch up with some of the basic DTP functionality (What You See Is What You Get, anyone?) that the Mac has offered from day 1, and Windows still leaves a lot to be desired on so many levels that I don't have the patience to go into it now. I'm getting frustrated - do you see - because, from my own reasonably extensive experience, I know that there is a better alternative than what most people use, because most people, for largely historical reasons, have chosen an alternative technology. Actually, the reasons for the Mac's qualitative superiority were also largely historical, and quite beautifully accidental. If you read 'iCon', the Steve Jobs biography, you'll find out all sorts of wierd little details, like the fact that the onscreen fonts were made to correspond to their printed equivalents at the insistence of Jobs, as he'd earlier worked at a typesetting company. Had this obsessive character not been behind the Macintosh (and luckily for us Mac users, still is), the end result would probably have been quite different for users of all desktop computers today. Now there's a legacy.

But back to my point - the first computer I owned was a Commodore Amiga 500. It was a good machine for gaming, but the sense of it being a real computer where you would store files and generally get things done was held back by the market price the machine was being pitched at. Without a hard disk, the Amiga was never going to catch on in any sort of serious office environment (apart from on Neighbours, where, strangely, Paul Robinson seemed to run his office with one for many years after Commodore had effectively folded). Twenty or so years later, you could say that Microsoft has won the war on the desktop. Nevertheless, to the day I die, I will still be a Mac user. Do you see what I'm saying about this almost irrational attachment to a device once you realise that despite the market it offers something that you would not be able to enjoy form a competing product.

Now, you may be wondering where I'm going with this. You may think I'm going to talk about Betamax. Well, only briefly - I actually had to buy a Beta player for my uncle a year or two ago so that he could play back some Beta tapes of a television broadcast featuring the cathedral choir (that I sang in, and my Dad conducts) from teh early eighties. I'm pleased to say that those tapes were still perfectly intact, and thanks to eBay we were able to find a perfectly servicable player to play them back. It may have cost a fair bit - you're going to see this happen more in the future, as formats move faster and recorded (visual, audio, textual) outputs look in danger of being left behind by the march of technology - but it was well worth buying and worked perfectly well, despite the absence of SCART and so on.

Where I'm actually going with this is to CDs, DVDs and their successors and predecessors. After purchasing a few cassette singles in my earliest years, the main audio format of my lifetime has been the CD. Children of the Walkman generation like me rarely bought records, but the CD offered us a compelling new format, full of sound and convenience improvements. It's interesting that they didn't complete the really high-res format they had set out to achieve (settling instead on Red Book because they were rushing to complete a superior product that would suck the bottom out of home-taping and the differential between 16-bit digital sound and the 24-bit holy grail probably wasn't economically expedient. We've seen some higher quality formats appear since then, like SACD, but they haven't made much of a dent outside of the classical market.

What's most fascinating to me is where we've now arrived in terms of music formats. As well as the CD, the most popular retail music format, most of us also have sizeable collections of mp3s/AACs. The advantage of portability has been enough to persuade most people to give up the highest resolution digital format (CD) in favour of a good approximation of CD. And of course the mp3 has liberated music distribution from physical media altogether, if you ignore the fact that you will probably need to clone your data to a new hard disk every five years or so to secure its integrity. I buy albums from iTunes when it's the best option - for example, in the past year I've bought iTunes albums by Faraquet, Cursive, The Appleseed Cast, Les Savy Fav, and even Nine Inch Nails. Sometimes there are albums that are out of print or relatively hard to find (like '3/5' by Les Savy Fav) which you can still get on iTunes, and that's incredibly valuable. Being as we have no independent record shop in Winchester, it's also handy being able to get albums like the Faraquet one, and to get them without having to wait to receive them through the mail. There's not a hugely discernable loss in quality from the CD version with well-encoded AACs like these (even if the bitrate could probably do with being a bit higher) of these kinds of bands, but I wouldn't go buying a lot of classical music this way (because of the frequency variation, which is where mp3/AAC makes some of its space savings), nor would I buy something of the musical/production complexity of an album by The Mars Volta, which I think you'd need to listen to on vinyl or CD to properly appreciate. In fact, I'm hoping to buy 'Amputechture' on vinyl, once I can find it at an affordable price.

So, now I come to the point of this post (in a way). Records are having a bit of a renaissance in my life, since I put on a This Aint Vegas single that I have had lying around for a couple of years but not been able to play due to not having a record player. Listening to this vinyl single, taken from an album that I also have on CD, made me remember just how different vinyl sounds to the digital formats. Beyond the obvious technical differences between an analogue and a digital carrier format, there're are a whole lot of subjective differences, and even putting my relatively inexpensive new Pro-Ject Debut III through my old modest all-in-one hi-fi, I've found myself falling in love with home listening all over again. There's particularly something about how a drum kit sits in the mix of a typical rock band recording that just sounds much more convincing and faithful to how things really sound when you hear them live. And all of this is just looking at vinyl as a playback medium - there's a whole separate, interesting argument as to the preservation of analogue recording methods for archival and sonic reasons (see Steve Albini lecture).

I think I'll leave it there for now, but I hope this post makes you reconsider any skepticism or prejudice you may hold for either old or new formats for enjoying entertainment. Truth be told, there's a some kind of advantageous property in most of them (apart from using Windows over the Macintosh - I still scratch my head in bafflement over that one).

If you're interested in reading any more about the vinyl side of things, I highly recommend you head over to read The Vinyl Anachronist. What that site lacks in graphical flair, it more than makes up for with good, opinionated content.

Edit - I also found this rather amusing site with listing frivolous and over-expensive products for the audiophile market today. Well worth a look.

One door closes, another door ... oh.

This post should really be all about the interesting stuff we did in Mexico, but that'll have to wait until my next spate of blogging. I was informed by my landlady this morning that I'll have to move out of my room, as she says she can make the money she charges me in a month (£550, specifically) from bed and breakfast customers in a weekend. So I now have two months of notice. I could really do without this, as I'll be looking for a new job shortly after Christmas, and will then be stuck in a new minimum term rental contract wherever I move to, which might not necessarily be conveniently located for that new job.

Why do things always have to be in a state of flux? I really don't like all this change.

EDIT -- here's the website advertising the house as guest house accommodation, if you're interested:
http://www.winchesterhermitage.co.uk/

A Whip In One Hand And Gold In The Other

Well, feels like it's been a while since I've written anything here. Sorry 'bout that.

Since my last finger-to-blog, I've been interviewed for a job which I didn't get, and have also found out that I'm likely to have a few more months in this one, since the lady whose job I'm doing is going to take some more maternity leave. This has allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief, and also to pay the rent! I was getting particularly worried seeing as I'm off to Mexico next week, and didn't want to arrive back and then have a couple of weeks' work, then 'unemployment beard strikes again'.

Anyway, applying for this job as a communications officer, which I wanted quite a lot, has made me realise that I want to pursue something that gives me a measure of creativity. I want the opportunity to develop my writing, and even statutory sector publications would give me a level of editorial and copywriting experience. I'm also thinking of looking for design training of some sort, as I've dabbled in this side of things for too long without any formal instruction. So I'm probably going to enrol in something soonish to get a better understanding of how to use the Adobe CS apps successfully, and to learn the ropes of good design. I figure that'll give me a good all-round basis for some sort of career that will actually draw on my eye for catching mistakes as well as giving me a creative influence. So, I'm finally arriving at some idea of what I might actually like to do with my (working) life, which is certainly a good, if overdue, development.

Happy Hollow

This week saw the release of the first new Cursive album in a few years. As many of you will know, they're one of my favourite bands of all time (top 3, along with Mineral and At the Drive-In, I'd say). I also went to watch them this Monday as well, on the release date. It was a good show overall, they played quite a few old classics as well as stuff off the new album, and encored with The Martyr. During the encore set, I waited for a that lull of silence that you sometimes get, then shouted at the top of my lungs "Tides Rush In". They didn't play it, but it embarrassed the rest of Action and Action who were with me, and caused Cursive to give one another wry smiles. Find me a band that likes to play its own early songs if you can. I don't know any.

Back to the new album. I like it, musically - it has quite a lot of the jauntiness of the Ugly Organ about it. However, I'm not confortable with some of the approaches that Tim Kasher takes, lyrically. There has long been an element of his writing that's used religious imagery in a fairly agnostic way, sometimes quite cleverly. What's changed with this album is that he's taken a turn to be so anti-religious and specifically anti-clerical that I find it a bit wearing to listen to. It's almost too much of an easy target. Young people who listen to bands like this already have a pretty negative view of religion, so cranking up your critique of Christianity really isn't all that constructive (and though there are exceptions within this album, it's largely against Christianity because noone likes to take on a religion like Islam where its adherents might actually have something to say or do to you for attacking their beliefs). It's not even really because I'm a Catholic that it bothers me, but there's something so overwhelmingly negative about the portrayal of priests (among the rest of the cast of ever more sordid characters) that feels draining. Isn't it about time rock bands found someone else to attack?

Notwithstanding that there are lots of men and women throughout history, and out there right now, who have dedicated themselves selflessly to the religious life - which has led to a huge amount of humanitarian work, incidentally - doesn't it feel as if we played out these arguments long ago during the so-called-Enlightenment? The anti-Creationist rhetoric gets boring, and literalist, and starts to detract from the music. Maybe this is how Nebraskans see their religion, but it's not an accurate reflection of modern Christianity as experienced by most of us.

I hope I can get past this lyrical straightjacket, because I don't want it to ruin my future enjoyment of one of my favourite bands.

Tin Robot

Last night I met up for a drink with Freddy (drummer from Second Monday) who promotes gigs under the guise of Tin Robot Promotions. He's been looking for someone to help out with the shows, and the fact that I found out that Chris Simpson from Mineral/The Gloria Record was looking for a tour date down this way (and put Freddy onto it) has sort of led me into being involved in helping out with the promotions side of things on a trial basis. It's something I've often thought I'd like to do, but it really isn't something you can do on your own, so having an existing vehicle for promoting makes this all the more appealing.

I'm sure it's going to be hard work. Unforunately it transpires that I'll be in Mexico on the date on which we're booking Chris Simpson (who now plays solo under the name of The Zookeeper), which means that I'll both miss the gig and won't be able to play at it myself. Nevertheless, the opportunity to be involved in doing what I can to ensure that more people are exposed to really good music is impossible to pass up. I suspect I may get a taste for this. I've already compiled a list of UK bands that I'd want to book at some point, and that's not even considering the wealth of amazing underground talent that seems to be coming over from the US at the moment (like the Florida band, Tubers, who we played with a month or two back). I'm quite excited by the prospect of bringing slightly more unusual bands to Winchester, as well. I'll write more here as things unfold.

Comedy, welcome home!

Time Trumpet
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

Last night was the occasion of the triumphant first episode of Armando Ianucci's new series, Time Trumpet. Funnily enough it was Naomi's idea to watch it (now, bear in mind that she can't stand anything remotely associated with Steve Coogan, and AI was one of the Alan Partridge writers), after we watched some episodes of the Armando Ianucci Show together that I'd found on UKNova a few months back.

It was tremendous. Time Trumpet is the best comedy I've watched in ages. Highlight's of last night's episode were pundits from the future (including a grey-haired Stuart Lee!) discussing the Top of the Pops 2 intro credits as a major event in British history, laughing at the very idea of petrol, and referring back to Camilla Parker-Bowles actually having been a TV prank artist who'd been playing a joke on Prince Charles for 60 years. Truly inspired stuff. I suggest you head over to the site and enjoy some of the clips, as I don't think I can do it justice in words yet. Dale Winton suicide bomb, anyone?

An honorable mention must also go to Annually Retentive, the recent Rob Brydon vehicle. I've been enjoying Brydon's comedy since the much-underrated Steve Coogan collaboration in Cruise of the Gods, then through his wonderful solo turn in Marion and Geoff. Now, don't get me wrong, I think that Alan Partridge was actually a work of genius, and right up there with the very finest recent sit-comedy (it preceded The Office, after all), but it seems that where Coogan is now re-using comedic ideas, and Saxondale isn't quite as good as I'd hoped for, Brydon is going from strength to strength bringing forward interesting comedy concepts. Annually retentive is brilliant in the same way that Ricky Gervais' Extras is brilliant, by taking public perception of celebrities (albeit of lesser fame) and messing with it, in this case in a show that parodies Have I Got News For You. The funny parts of the show are not the actual panel faux-game-show, but the production team meetings, where Brydon voices bluntly critical views of all the guests he doesn't want to have on his show, but inevitably have to be booked to appear.

Oyster Paranoia

Long-term readers may remember my concern about Oyster cards expressed in previous posts.

Well, in a development that seems more than a little Orwellian, a letter was sent from the police to my friends Richard and Philippa last weekend, informing Richard that usage of his Oyster showed he had been in the vicinity of a recent murder. The libertarian in me finds this concerning, even if it's going to be used for crime-fighting purposes.

Comfortable disembodiment

About 10 days ago was the occasion of the annual barbecue put on by Naomi's law firm, which takes place at a rather nice pub in a rather nice part of Winchester (called Hyde).

I've been meaning, since then, to write briefly about a few moments that I had to myself, while I sat at a picnic table in the beer garden and Naomi was going round her assembled colleagues, saying 'good night' to them while I finished off a pint.

All around me there were different conversations taking place, and as my brain struggled to allow all of them into my consciousness I quietly noticed my own feelings of wellbeing. I couldn't quite follow all of what was going on around me properly, but for a few seconds while I was held for ransom by my own senses of sight and hearing, I felt a peace that made me wonder if this is what the afterlife is like. Not being fully there, but not being concerned about it at all.

In the role of this errant observer, I found myself looking up at a man with a beard and glasses at nearby table and started singing/mumbling to myself (to the tune of Dude Looks Like a Lady) "Dude lookslike Harold Shipman".

It's a good job I don't take drugs, isn't it.

Musical Meme

I've been meme-tagged by FirstApostle (Andrew). I don't usually believe in these chainletter things (gawd knows, enough of them go round Myspace, which I ignore), but between 'proper' blogs, it seems to have slightly more point to it. I'll probably come back to this blog post at some point to put in links from the song titles to their locations on the iTunes Music Store so that you could buy them if you feel so inclined, but I'm at work now, so iTunes, along with most other internet technologies, has been disabled.

(If I tag you, please copy the instructions below and then list your songs)

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 6 other people to see what they're listening to"

Here are the first seven I could think of, in no particular order of preference:

1. "Fishing the Sky" The Appleseed Cast
2. "Ghosts" Shellac
3. "Us" Regina Spektor
4. "Here Comes the Rumour Mill" The Young Knives
5. "Fire Back About Your New Baby's Sex" Don Caballero
6. "Little Sparkee" Q and Not U
7. "Small Apartment Party Epiphany" Make Believe

Now, for my meme tags, I choose. I'm afraid I can't muster 6 other bloggers who haven't already been tagged. Sorry and all that:

The Chocolate Monkey
Milkybar Monkey
Frogspots

Pig musicology part 1

Hotly on the tail of my last post, I've remembered that I've been meaning to write more posts about one of my great loves: music.

There really are a great many topics to cover here, but for the first foray, I thought I'd write about bands and their influences. I'm always intrigued where I can hear a music figure that sounds like its player (and in the case of most bands that'll actually be the person who has written at least some of the music - quite the converse of 'classical' composition) has taken on board something else that they've listened to.

This can end up with the musical idea (or the sound/s used to execute that idea - think of guitarists playing specific guitar/pickup/amplifier/speaker combinations to achieve a certain sound) either drawing on and reinterpreting a certain style - which is where a great many of the developments of Western music have come from, versus slavishly following an existing template in a way which fails to surpass the original in any sense.

When I get excited by bands, it's usually because they fit that classic realm of sound which is *just* familiar enough to be slightly accessible, but different enough to maintain my interest in what they're doing. Sometimes this can take the form of being able to hear their influences, and how they've decided to rework them to fashion something new. You can take a band like Biffy Clyro and examine their first album, which their press info at the time said was influenced by Far and Mineral. Yes, I can hear both of those bands, but the resultant songwriting is also something reasonably individual. Fast forward to the point at which they recorded The Vertigo of Bliss and you have a far superior beast, as it's a band that's reworked itself and pushed its own development down certain lines, becoming substantially more than the sum of its parts.

There's another band called Sucioperro who hail from the same parts of Scotland as BC. We played on a lineup with them last Summer and I also watched them supporting Dive Dive quite recently at the Railway, Winchester. Try as I might, they're not a band I can enjoy, because their sound and their songwriting is pretty much identical to BC. There are whole choruses where you can overlay BC vocal lines, and that's no good if your ear is looking for something to interest you based on the music being a little different, a little familiar. I can't listen to what they're doing and enjoy it because I've heard the original and it sounds better. The same goes for a band we played with a couple of times called Cats & Cats & Cats. They were okay, but I couldn't really get into what they were doing with any enthusiasm because the songs were close to being carbon copies of Explosions in the Sky welded to Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies. So much so, that while I was listening to them with the rest of the band, we'd get to a new section and all be saying to each other "oh, now the Explosions bit...". Both of these bands are considerably more popular than my band, so what do I know, anyway.

Coming to that, I guess I could be accused of being in a band that's fairly indebted to several other bands, but I genuinely believe that the longer we're playing together, the less we sound directly comparable to other bands that we like. I guess that, stylistically, we're within a certain bracket, but the idiosyncracies we've picked up along the way (and sometimes it'll be just one or two of us in the band that start to get into something that the rest of the band then doesn't really ever hear - take me an Dave listening to Faraquet and taking on a little of that jazziness, for instance) are what keeps it fresh and interesting to be involved with. I suppose as long as it keeps evolving off on its own little tangent, I'll still want to be making music this way.

Manners maketh man

I wrote a blog post some months ago about frequently misused phrases that I notice creeping into English usage in the UK. I thought I'd revisit this in a slightly different way and point out my annoyance at a couple of phrases that seem to have arrived over the past two years or so (or at least that's when I've noticed them).

1. "Can I get a ....". This one's arisen for people who are ordering a round of drinks, or food at a restaurant. The customer now asks "Can I get a pint of San Miguel" rather than saying "Can I have...", "I'd like..." or better "May I have...".

What's the effect of this? Well, I see it as part of the removal of manners from our everyday social transactions. Each time you say to a bartender "Can I get a...", you're fundamentally bypassing their involvement as the person who's responsible for serving you. Using the word 'get' implies to me that the customer is going to walk around the bar and serve himself a drink, as if to say "your service is rubbish and I don't feel like you're doing anything to make my experience in this pub more pleasant". I think that this reduction of etiquette may subliminally reduce the politeness between the two partners to the transaction, resulting in everyone feeling a little less satisfied at the manners contained within the exchange (and therefore the sense of mututal respect between the customer and the employee). Think about this next time you're about to use the word 'get' in that situation, and think about whether you've actually always said 'get', or whether, like me, your ears have picked this up as a new development in language usage.

2. "I want you to give me 110%". I'm absolutely fed up of hearing idiots on television saying this. Whether it's some kind of fitness trainer, or some obnoxious chef, there always seems to be someone demanding one hundred and *ten* per cent of the people under them. I'm interested in this on two levels. Firstly, who taught these people maths? When you're talking about human capacity there is a finite limit of ability to do something. That's called one hundred per cent effort. Anything more than one hundred per cent would therefore have to be the work of more than one person. Try telling that to the logic masters we watch nightly on our TVs. They're always saying that the person needs to make more effort, and the cliche figure they put on this is always "110%". So, the second thing that intrigues me is where this figure of 110% came from. Seeing as the demands are impossible to meet (remember, we have a maximum capacity of 100% here), why not just ask for two hundred or three hundred per cent. Those figures are no less absurd, when you look at it in these terms. But somewhere along the line, some exaggerator decided that 110% was a suitable figure.

People are daft.

... and mosquito, natural enemies

It's bedtime at the Clark household, and I'm lying in bed, exhausted after the heat of the day (it's been stupidly hot today and for the last few days) and the fact that I've had quite a heavy summer cold over the last 4 days or so.

Naomi has left the window in this room open for me, and arranged the net curtain in such a way as to let some air flow in, but hopefully not too many of our insect brethren. My main concern is mosquitos, which are attracted to my blood to an alarming degree (confirmed by my blood-poisoned foot covered in 30 individual bites when I was in the caribbean a few years back). Naomi's parents are kind enough to burn citronella oil whenever we eat on the patio in their garden because they know just how troubled I am by biting insects.

I do hope I don't get bitten tonight.

The other notable result of the heatwave over the past few days has been that my Sony Ericsson k750i has malfunctioned. The screen stays white permanently. I went to the vodafone shop to see if i could get it serviced (it's under one year old), and the somewhat arrogant staff member pulled the battery out of the phone, pointed to a pink strip of plastic on the battery and told me that it'd become water damaged. I explained that it'd been nowhere near any water, which leaves the only explanation being that my body heat and any sweat in my pocket over the past few days has been enough to compromise the phone, and I now find out, my hardware guarantee. Pretty poor build quality, I'd say, however good the features. I'd love to know what operating conditions they do guarantee for this phone, because even within Europe the weather would generally be pretty hot in a number of countries, and phones are generally taken to be stored in trouser pockets as a matter of course.

Anyway, Naomi's given me her k700i to tide me over, but I'll miss some of the features of the k750i.

Vitamins

For some reason, when I got back from playing a gig in Uxbridge last night I started to worry about my health. It was about 1:30 and I couldn't sleep (and I know I'm going to have a big night tonight since my buddy James is coming down from Cardiff - much beer+whiskey and little sleep will ensue).

So I decided that I needed some vitamins. As luck would have it, I'd bought these tubes of soluble orange-flavoured vitamins at Tesco last week, so I decided to take some vitamin C with zinc. Rather than be bothered to go out to the shared kitchen and find a glass, I decided to drop one of the soluble tablets into a new 2-litre bottle of Sainsbury's water I had in my room. Then I started to think to myself that dissolving that much vitamic C into that much water would have no effects beneficial to my health, so I dissolved another one in there. And another. Well, I drank about a quarter of the bottle, and decided to bring the rest of it with me to work today and was drinking it on my way down Stockbridge Road.

What suddenly dawned on me as I was walking along, listening to Don Cabellero on my iPod, was that it actually looked like I was drinking a 2-litre bottle of urine. Good job I'm not self-conscious.

I want to be welcome, not just tolerated

As I continue to walk to the tightrope of alienating people who read my blog, I feel that I should move to feelings of being welcome or otherwise.

I'm not sure if this is something that preoccupies me more than other people (and, I suspect that if it does, this might have some grounding in my relatively uncomfortable experience of the 6th form at school), but I often worry about how people perceive me and whether or not I fit in in a given situation.

I've often thought about the dislocation between how we are and how we seem. You only need to see a video of yourself to feel self-conscious (an interesting phrase, when you think about it) and to gain an awareness that your thoughts may be translated into your facial expressions with unexpected results. I remember seeing a video of myself that had been taken on Christmas day a couple of years ago. I was in the front room of my grandparents' house in Cardiff, and was probably in a pretty good mood, surrounded by people I love. But as I looked at my face on that screen, I realised just how bloody moody I must look to other people. I don't want my face to convey this when I'm in repose, as it almost certainly isn't the case. Nervous, maybe, moody, no.

From this thought I move to thinking about how people close to me interpret these things, my face and my body's gestures. I am often a bit uncomfortable in my body. I don't quite know what to do with it sometimes, where should I put my hands?!. What if the person that people know and like or dislike isn't me at all. There's a 'me' beneath these layers, but what if the translation isn't working; what if the accidents and the substance don't match? What if people love me not for who I am but for who they think I am? I write this without irony or self-regard, I hasten to add.

There was a party at Luigi's house on Saturday. I felt a mixture of nervousness and acceptance. New people there, who I didn't know, put me on edge. Nevertheless, having a decent number of friends together (as if I can actually prove either way that they're my friends - I suppose this is where faith comes in!) gave me a very significant feeling of acceptance and wellbeing. It felt good to be there. I probably could have enjoyed the party just as much without the cushion of tequila, and that's important. People taking or leaving you on your own merits (even *if* they're a second-hand interpretation) is a novelty and a luxury I just didn't have until I left school.

Feeling 'at home' is an incredibly important part of this existence, and I aim to learn to recognise it as much as I recognise its opposite.

Thursday night optimism

I went out with Naomi last night to see the Da Vinci Code - in brief:

1. It was more fast-paced than the book. They did well to cover the whole story within the medium of a 2hr film, but the first fifteen minutes actually felt very rushed, and the Langdon character was able to make mental connections at a quite unrealistic pace.

2. It was no less saccharine than the book. The major holes in history, theology and basic logic were glaring, and leapt out of Teabing's dialogue to accompany the plasma screen scene. The problem is that a lot of people will take this stuff as gospel (hehe), and don't actually have a background that allows them to make proper criticism of convenient glossing to support the narrative. I can't be bothered to go into it at length now, but some of it was very far-fetched.

3. Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard. This is flat-out ridiculous for anyone who's been to university (and don't forget, that's supposed to be 50-60% of us now, New Labour kids!!). I suppose Harvard has a whole faculty of 'religious symbologists' for Langdon to preside over as well, does it?

If you want to read more (prolly not, eh?), the New Statesman review isn't too bad, save for its squealing "most people will need a lot more convincing before they start denying evolution and insist that female reproductive organs are public property" rubbish.

Anyway, what brought me to write a blog post here was not Dan Brown's successful leveraging of about £15 for a book and cinema ticket, out of my (and everyone else's) pockets (and against the odds, now I think about it...), but a conversation I overheard in the pub before I went to see the film.

There was a bloke a little bit older than me talking to a middle-aged feller about a visit to a museum he'd recently made on holiday. I didn't catch the beginning of the conversation, but I got the impression it was probably a French museum somewhere. He was saying how it had only cost him 6 Euros, "that's only about four quid isn't it", and what good value for money he felt he'd had. He went on to tell the older man how he would happily pay this to go to museums in the UK, which were of a much higher quality still, in his opinion. The older man agreed. Their conversation moved on to other things, and they left the pub.

Listening to them, I realised just how reasonable they both were. Both men who, from their brief exchange that I'd overheard, put a value in things that are edifying. I realised that, however reasonable their feelings towards paying for a valuable heritage service, these views were isolated in a vacuum of ignorance of the motives and dogmas of modern politics. These men were probably a little too old and a little too Middle England to be aware of the creed of 'access' that now drives our taxpayer's pound. I'm sure museum curators the country over are only too aware of the problems this brings.

Anyone visiting museums in London would see that the chief beneficiaries of New Labour's free museums policy (admittedly, conceived with a good will) have been foreign tourists who no longer pay admission. But they still bring the same wear and tear to the buildings, and now the museums are funded less than they were when they were able to charge. This is a classic case of the unintended consequences of an 'access' policy. In the headlong rush to be seen to address the interests of the UK's welfare/low income or minority ethnic populations, a very different beneficiary group comes out the other side of the equation. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that the two museum-goers in the pub are actually not the demographic the politicians want to go to museums, and are actually quite different again from those who stand to gain from wrong-headed 'access' policies.

The Heat of the Blade

I can’t help but feel that part of the purpose of writing a blog is to let people into who you are and what you think about a little more than on a cursory level. Very often I find myself wanting to write things that might be construed as critical or maybe quizzical of a situation, but hold back from doing so in case this could impact on some future job, or something like that. God knows, I have strong enough opinions on enough topics.

The alternative, which is anonymous blogging, wouldn’t be for me either. I see little point in writing something that will probably never be read by anyone. But I don’t want to always write simple lists of ‘likes’ and ‘don’t-likes’ and to do something that’s intellectually lightweight. And then I don’t want writing a blog to become a vanity exercise either. Much like my career, I’m far better at knowing what I don’t want to do than what I do.

So, returning to my first point, about letting people into who you are. I thought that I’d address some of the strange things in my character that other people wouldn’t necessarily be aware of. One that has been uppermost in my mind recently is a mild case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that I seem to have with regard to shaving. So far in my life I’ve been quite lucky to have worked or studied in environments where I could get away without shaving (actually I’ve also found myself in environments where I could dress as I please, over the most recent years). No more. I now have a relatively straightforward job, where I wear a shirt and tie to work, and am expected to meet certain standards of appearance. I have no beef with this, apart from the fact that I get to wear my favourite clothes less often, and that I now have to shave, every day.

This has led to the growth of the aforementioned neurosis associated with shaving. For some reason I have a very powerful memory for a few things. Useless bits of trivia, things people have said that I’ve been surprised by, faces (I almost never forget a face – even of people I’ve only shared a train with – I’m hoping I can help Crimewatch one day); that sort of thing. I also have a good memory for things my parents say. My Dad may say something to me when I’m at home at Christmas, and then repeat it (unknowingly) when I’m at home at Easter. So, several years ago, my Dad was telling me about how over many years of shaving, he’s concluded that the heat of the blade is the most important factor. This was repeated again at some point, unwittingly, and it’s now completely lodged in my brain.

Lodged to a frightening extent. Now, when I go to have a shave, I turn the tap on, until it’s hot, then leave the razor under it, in the sink. All the while, this voice runs through my head, saying “theheatofthebladetheheatofthebladetheheatoftheblade”. It’s worrying me. I know this must all sound very David Beckham, but seriously, I hope I can shake it soon.

When I was at school, my mate Carthy used to have an obsession whereby if he didn’t write out his words properly, someone would die. This resulted in him inking over words until he tore through the paper, and it carried on until he got shouted at by a teacher to stop. He never did it again.

But I don’t have anyone to stop me. Theheatofthebladetheheatofthebladetheheatoftheblade. Argh.

Observations on the Winch'

Winchester et al
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

So, as promised, this blog post turns to my new city of residence (for the next year, at least), Winchester.

I've now been here for a few weeks, and feel that I've mostly settled-in, although I have spent an inordinate amount of time sitting on trains between here and various places (London, Portsmouth, Littlehampton), due to rehearsal or gig commitments, so I still haven't spent *that* much time in my new flat. Don't worry though, I have been at least a bit productive in the time that I have had at home - I completed Batman Begins on the Gamecube the other night whilst eating my way through a big bag of monkey nuts.

The building I'm living in is pretty spectacular (pictured above) and I have a spacious studio flat within it, which has a fair whack of storage to accommodate all of my equipment and boxes full of stuff I've not sorted through for a few years. Something tells me that when we get married, I'm going to have to lose a lot of my old copies of Sound on Sound.

The time I have had so far in Winchester has been pretty good. I like the city a lot, and I work right in the city centre, which means that Naomi and I are able to meet for lunch most days of the week, which breaks up the working day pleasingly. On top of that, I am within 15-minute walking distance of work in the mornings, which is really convenient, and gives me the excuse for a brief exercise each morning and evening. The road that I walk down to work has two notable features. One is that it ends at the Rail Station and the Railway Inn (Winchester's most notable live music venue). I've not yet been to the Railway for a gig because the majority of bands they have put on while I've been here appear to have been of a pretty unremarkable standard (I'm judging this, by the collection of truly horrendous band names I've seen advertised). but I do intend to head down as soon as I see something decent chalked-up on their blackboard. The second thing I've noticed about Stockbridge Road is that there are loads of unsecured wireless networks. It's a Wardriver's dream. However, now I no longer have a laptop (I took a refund after PC World failed to bother to fix my iBook over a 10-week period!), I guess it's not so important for me. But still cool. I'm very much of the belief that people should share out their broadband, as long as noone is abusing it.

The tourist season in Winchester is just starting to take off, and they've been running this big Da Vinci Code cash-in exhibition at the Cathedral, so I can see there's going to be a lot of people traffic in and out of the centre this Summer. Today won't be quite so busy, because it's freezing and has been raining cats and dogs, but that's not been the norm. Actually, getting outside for an hour or so each day in the sunlight has been pretty welcomed over the last four weeks; it really helps to keep my concentration going through the working day.

The new job is going reasonably well. I'm a little nervous that there won't be anything for me to do once the real incumbent of my post returns from her maternity leave, but as always I think that'll be in the lap of the gods. While I'm here I'll do my damndest to make a good impression, anyway.

Observations on the 'Hill

allypally.JPG
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

I've had a week in Winchester now, and Jack moves into my old room in Methuen Park today, so I thought I'd mark the occasion with a blog post about the 'Hill.

Muswell Hill
In short, the 'Hill was a swell place to live for the last 10 months, and certainly the nicest place in London that I got to live, and at by far the best price. There's something about that part of London that's generally very pleasant, with a sense of being self-contained and slightly villagey. During my time living there, we became quite attached to drinking at the Maid of Muswell (particularly during its short-lived spell of opening until Midnight), and at the Gatehouse in Highgate. Nice pubs make a hell of a difference to what you get out of your surrounding area, I always find.

Other things that I'll remember fondly include the pizza delivery service that Frank and I would use to get 18" beasts, delivered from somewhere in Tottenham (they had a two-mile delivery radius and every time we'd get a delivery, the receipt would show something like 1.98 miles, so we were just inside their catchment area. I suspect that this is a tradition that Frank and Jack will keep up. Boshed.

In terms of other culinary delights, I was pleased to see an Observer article a few weeks ago about Toff's by Maureen Lipman. Toff's is this great fish and chip restaurant in Muswell Hill that's run by a Greek family, led by the comic/menacing Costa. When we went there for my birthday, he was so insistent that Nohawk Dave's girlfriend, Sara, should eat fish, when she actually just wanted a pie, that it became quite embarassing. Still entertaining, though, and really very good fish, with unlimited top-ups of chips, which can't be a bad thing.

Other things I enjoyed about living in Muswell Hill were the views you could get over the rest of London. From Alexandra Palace (pictured), just around the corner from our house, or from the back window of Starbucks, you can get a really good vantage point, and make all sorts of visual connections between one area and another that central London's closed-in geography (and the fact that Londonders are all understandably pretty Underground-map-minded) wouldn't allow. The view from Ally Pally at night is particularly spectacular - you can see Canary Wharf and all sorts of other landmarks lit up.

Obviously I'll miss the old house as well. I feel privileged to have lived there, as their first tenant, and although living in an old building had its challenges (mice invasions, being full of someone else's possessions, fluctuating temperatures etc), in general I had an amazing time living there. David Liddell (the organist who comes to the house to play the organ-in-situ most days) became a good friend, and I feel that I owe him a lot, in terms of his hospitality, good nature, and patience at accommodating new people in a house that had a lot of history for him. David's guide dogs were always good fun too, having never been spent much time near large pets like that before. Campbell, the first dog, was very gentle and loveable, and Doge, the second dog while I was there, was a bit young and over-enthusiastic, which was always good for a laugh when he went for Frank's crotch.

I'm going to miss sharing a flat with Frank as well, and I guess I probably won't ever get to share living space with a close friend again, until the point at which Naomi and I get married and move in together. This might all sound a bit overly-nostalgic, but I thought I'd write it anyway, as these are the sorts of things that really matter to me. We had more than our fair share of stupid jokes in that house, and I'm really pleased that Jackie's going to be taking over the tenancy, which I hope will mean me revisiting fairly frequently.

In the next installment, I'll write about my "new" life, in Winchester.

"Normal is great"

Those of you in the UK may have seen the current slick ad campaign of the online bank More Than, which spotlights their insurance products.

Its tagline is "Normal is great", and I've had this in-mind this week as I've battled with an excruciating toothache. Well, two trips back to Cardiff later - no, I haven't registered with a London NHS dentist; we do live in the real world here, after all - I'm back to 'normal' and actually really happy as a result.

This reminds me of one of my favourite passages of Schopenhauer's 'On the Suffering of the World' where he describes suffering as being a noticeable, and therefore positive, event, which breaks with our 'normal' state of happiness. Suffering is the -1 to our natural state of 0, if you like, and this is why it's our lot in this world to remember the pangs of unhappiness more easily than a distant memory of happiness. I agree with this (and most other things I've read by him), but I must say in the short term after an uncomfortable event, the sense of relief and euphoria are wonderful.

A triumvirate of annoyances

Mindful of how easily blogs can turn into whinge-fests, I think I will get a few things off my chest from the past couple of days.

1) At Waterloo Station yesterday I went to buy a coffee to one of the numerous stands that sells hot drinks, greasy pasties etc. I handed the guy a £1 coin, a 50p coin and a 20p coin for a coffee costing £1.60. His hands went behind the till with my money as I awaited his colleague preparing the coffee and he went on to take another customer's order. About 10 seconds later, rather than giving me my 10p change, his hands came up showing me two 20p pieces and saying that it was £1.60 for the coffee and that I needed to give him another 20p. I pointed out that I'd just given him £1.70, he pointed to the 2 20p pieces in his hand. I stupidly handed over an additional 20p, there being no way that I could prove the change I'd given him. This guy obviously thinks he's a latter-day Svengali, and was probably really pleased with himself, having just conned me out of 30p.

What he hasn't reckoned with is just how much it irks me when I get ripped-off. I am probably going to go back there, order the same thing and see what happens when I hand him the same change. What will happen at that point remains to be seen, but I can tell you now that I will not be letting him have his way a second time.

2) I've been in Winchester over the last day, to look at a potential flat that Naomi has found for me, in a nursing home that's been converted into rental studio flats. When we went to see it last night, I must say that it did strike me as a lovely place, and somewhere I'd be happy to live for the next year or so. The landlady seemed nice enough, and the agent showed us around. However, the rental values that the landlady is hoping for are practically at central London levels, so I decided that I would opt to offer a bit below the asking price and see what happens.

The property is being dealt with by an agency called Lindesay's. Click the link and marvel at their unbelievably tasteless use of intro music to their site.

So after lunch today, I went into their office to speak to Kirsty, the girl who'd shown us around yesterday. She wasn't there, so instead I was directed to speak to another girl behind one of the three forward-facing desks with people at them. She looked at me like I was a piece of dirt, she didn't ask me if I'd like to sit down, and she sure as eggs is eggs didn't go out of her way to be courteous in answering my questions. And all of this before I'd suggested offering the landlady £530 per month for the room rather than £550. Bear in mind also that this agency intends to charge me £125 for administration in connecting me with the landlord, and then take a month's rent + £100 as deposit (no doubt they intend to try and con me out of that when the rent expires, by dubious charges for cleaning that they will probably never actually pay for). I don't understand how salespeople (and that is all they are) think they can be so lacking in courtesy, and it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

3) I also wanted to get some work done this afternoon, after speaking to the agents. I'd borrowed Naomi's Powerbook, and once I'd exhausted its battery, was left trying to find a way to get some power to it. Cafe Nero doesn't have any power sockets, Costa Coffee doesn't have any power sockets, and there's no Starbucks in Winchester centre. These places do offer wireless internet access, however, which seems like a wierd service on its own if you're not going to provide the means for people to use it for any sensible length of time. The next port of call, you'd think, would be the county's libraries. Maybe I've been spoiled being able to go and use the libraries in Oxford (either College or University) and then those in London, where power for laptops is always readily available. Well, when I asked if it were possible in the County Reference Library (where you'd expect that this sort of thing'd be important for those engaged in serious study), I was met with bemusement and asked to repeat my question (I really love it when people do this to me), then told no.


Gah.

50

DSC00316.JPG
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

I find that I spend an inordinate amount of my time complaining about things, in a geriatric-inspired way. There are actually lots of things to complain about, if you look around you!

Yesterday, for instance, I was complaining about having to pay £1.80 for tie dry-cleaning. You may point out that if I were able to eat without food falling out of my mouth, then maybe I'd be able to get away without having to have 3 of my ties dry cleaned in the last week. You would be right.

When I mentioned paying £1.80 per tie at the pub last night, it prompted Jack to claim that his dad went somewhere where you could get ties cleaned for 50p each. Frank and I greeted this with no small amount of skepticism. So we started challenging Jackie about where you would get this done. He proceeded to state that not only could you get ties dry-cleaned for 50p, but that his dad has no fewer than 50 ties.

Not content with one exaggeration, he'd chosen to try and confound us by reusing the same number! The photo above was taken while Jack tried to tell us this was the truth.

Slightly more believable among last night's conversations was that Jack is the owner of 24 ties.

More wierd news soon, readers.

Result

Boy oh boy, it's been nearly a month since I've posted something here. I wouldn't blame people if they'd completely stopped checking back here to see what I'm up to .... but to you, my stalwart friends who are reading this now, here are my updates.

Most importantly, I found out yesterday that I've secured a job in Winchester. This is fantastic news and allows me to get on with planning the rest of my life. I haven't yet received the offer letter, but the post will be for 6 months, working as a project officer for Special Educational Needs in Hampshire County Council as maternity cover. Fingers crossed that will then lead me into other things there. For the time being, I have a database project to complete for the Foundation over the next few weeks, so I'm actually back in the office, and will be helping with their move to new premises at the end of this month.

Apart from the obvious advantages of having gainful employment, most importantly of all, it will stop Frank from calling me "an unemployed". From a man I have known for over 6 years who has yet to take up a full time job, there has been no small amount of irony in these exchanges.

Let me see, what else have I been doing? Oh yes, trying to make arrangements for the wedding, which is all still at quite an early stage. I've been down in Winchester a fair bit, looking at hotels and that sort of thing for the reception, and considering our options as far as churches are concerned.

The less pleasant backdrop to all of this is that I'm rather poor at the minute. Scratch that, I'm "laughably poor" as Frank would have it. I got paid too little for the freelance work I've done over the last month, and am right at the limit of my overdraft, which is causing me some concern, seeing as I've just had payday! Oh well, hopefully things will work out soon enough.

No real band developments on the horizon at the mo. We've been trying to figure out a way of recording some new songs for a proposed mini-album (and maybe a single of some sort). Unfortunately we're constrained by drummer Chris' holidays (which are school holidays seeing as he's a teaching assistant now). It'd be great if we were able to record something before I leave for Winch, but we'll see what happens, I suppose. We have been writing some pretty interesting cut-and-paste music recently, and I'm actually really keen to get it recorded.

Promise I'll write again soon, now that my employment worries are over (touch wood).

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edit: Frank now tells me that I've caught the degenerative disease known as employment. The laughter never ends.

Action on the Radio

Check it out, yeah? Our first brush with the BBC!

You have about 24 hours to listen to it, I think.....

Strait

So I'm in the final strait at work, with two and a half working days to go. You may notice my blog updates since Christmas have been occasional, at best. This is actually intentional. I'm quite concerned about writing honest appraisals of the different interviews and meetings with employment agencies that I've had, because a negative remark might not look all that appealing to a prospective employer that has the foresight or the inclination to google my name, or variations on my name. I've just sent an email reply to a school friend's email about this. Do you notice just how circular this situation is becoming? I can't write anything in case it looks unfavourable, so I write here that I can't write anything in case it looks unfavourable. Which in itself might imply that I was going to have something unfavourable to write and therefore a prospective employer might be wary anyway. Oh hell.

I'm going to have to spend this weekend clearing up my desk and all the correspondence I've never quite got round to, and then hopefully leave things in a good order for my successor, Zaheer, to take over.

Then, my plan for next week is to sign up to some temping agencies and to investigate computer qualifications I could do in a short time period. As ever, so much to do!

Oh yes, yesterday I discovered that there are some pretty cool photos of an Action and Action gig we did at the Wheatsheaf in Oxford last month that you can see at this page.

Anyway, just bear with me until I secure stable employment before I actually write down my thoughts on the topic. If you care.

Dolly Mixtures

My feelings recently have been pretty mixed.

On the one hand, I'm really looking forward to living in Winchester, so that I can see Naomi much more often - this is going to be wonderful - but a part of me is also going to miss being in London, where I have quite a few friends, and where it's relatively easy to meet up with people. I don't actually know anyone at all from Winchester apart from Naomi and her family. I guess starting the second band I've had in my head for some time (and it's developed far enough as an idea that I actually have a bunch of potential names for it already) might be the answer to that. I certainly intend to keep coming back to Uxbridge for Action and Action stuff at weekends, but then I still need to make sure that I have something to interest me during the week as well.

The other reason I'm a bit nervy at the mo is that I don't yet have a job to go to in Winchester, and time is running out before I leave this one. I also have a great desire to achieve some things I've always wanted to do whilst in this post, and I don't exactly have loads of time to do those things either. I have an interview this week, so we'll see if anything comes of that, I suppose. Wish me luck.

And then there are things I've seen and heard in other people's lives recently that have upset me somewhat. A friend of mine who probably doesn't read this blog has recently seen the end of his marriage, which I happened to blunder onto in conversation, unknowingly. I know I can't fully grasp how he's feeling, but I have still been pretty down for the last week or so, having seen the terrible effect on him. It always upsets me when I'm told about friends' relationships ending, and I do believe that people are better off together than single, but I felt that this was particularly a awful case and I can truly feel a small part of that hurt on his behalf. Also, a workmate of mine is being put through the mill at the moment for other reasons. It's harrowing, and there's not a great deal anyone can do about it for now.

It's horrible feeling powerless.

Engagement

Engagement
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

I have some rather exciting news. On New Year's Day, at about 10:00pm Florida-time, I asked Naomi to marry me.

The photo above is about an hour later that evening.

(People keep asking me if she said "yes", which apart from being mildly insulting, is a bit of a daft question! Maybe I should start replying "no, she refused because she hates me. That's why I'm relating the story to you, because I like to embarass myself". I probably won't end up saying this to anyone because, let's face it, I've not been sarcastic enough to pull this sort of thing off since I left my teens)

It'd be a massive understatement to say that I'm pretty bloody pleased we're getting married (planned for Summer 2007) and it's probably about the most important thing I've written about in this blog. I've toyed with the idea of writing the evening out in full, but I think it's something too sacred to cover here, so I'm going to move on to the rest of the holiday.

Amber and Andrew's wedding, the reason we were in Florida in the first place, was a wonderful occasion. Andrew has succeeded in being the first one of our group of friends at Oxford to get married, which is some achievement seeing as he wasn't even going out with anyone at Christmas 2004. He's managed to meet a wonderful woman, moved fast, and their happiness is evident to everyone who's seen them together. I'm so glad that we were able to be there for the wedding, and very grateful to Andrew's parents for kindly covering our accommodation.

Wierdly enough, Orlando was also the setting for getting a decent number of Magdalen friends together in one place, finally. Because obviously we couldn't manage that in the UK. Most of the time Jack, Naomi and I hung out together, and Jack very kindly did all of the driving, in his beloved hired Trans Am. The weather was pretty much perfect (and warm enough that we were able to spend a day basking on Cocoa Beach, near Cape Canaveral). We didn't go to Gatorland this year (nor did we go to the slightly-freakish Holy Land Experience) but the week was a blast nonetheless, quite apart from getting engaged. It was great to see Thurston and his wife, Jamie, and we went with him to Park Avenue Records, possibly the best record shop I've ever been to. Oh yes, and a few days earlier we got upgraded to business class on the flight out. 3 course meal, 3 glasses of champagne, corvoisier. Get in.

Anyway, I'm back at work now until 13th February. That gives me a month and a day from today to find myself a job. I'll write more about this soon enough.

Over and out, for now.