When I woke up this morning, I had the most brilliant idea for a TV show whizzing round my head. It’s a Buffy spin-off. Called something like Slayer Juniors Instead of a group of teenagers who go round fighting the evil undead, this will feature a group of pre-teens who go round fighting the evil… Continue reading Slayers
Seaside Special
Interesting article in the Guardian today about the Great British Seaside Resort. Well, interesting to those of us (like me) who grew up in such a place. It seems that far from dying off quietly as everyone thought they doing, these towns have been enjoying a quiet resurgence over the last few years. In fact… Continue reading Seaside Special
Poi?
So this “Poi” thing that everyone seems to be talking about. What’s that then? Seems to me to be like juggling for people who can’t juggle. Or am I missing something?
Busking
Busking has always been illegal on the tube. Until recently London Underground hav taken a very dim view of people playing music in their stations. It’s only a few years since they ran a poster campaign that portrayed buskers as sinister criminals who should be avoided at all costs. But all that has changed. They’ve… Continue reading Busking
Unbiased Reporting
Today the Daily Mail announces the result of its “national referendum” on holding a referendum about the new EU constitution. Almost 90% of the votes were in favour of a referendum. Given that the vast majority of the votes would have come from Daily Mail readers this can hardly be surprising. More interesting is the… Continue reading Unbiased Reporting
Phantom Jobs
This job has appeared on the UK job site JobServe like clockwork every two weeks for about the last two months. The description is always the same and it’s always the same agent (Mani Suri at Aston Carter). The job spec says “You will provide general development and testing using Perl, T-SQL and Unix Shell… Continue reading Phantom Jobs
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Massive embarassment on Saturday night. We were at a party in Birmingham. About 11:30pm I wandered outside to where people were sitting round the remains of the barbeque. Someone had brought a guitar and people were playing and singing. Most of them were people who I didn’t know. Someone I did know said “Oh, Dave… Continue reading While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Devil Gate Drive
I was flicking randomly through some music channels this morning when I came across what I suppose is the video to Sinead Quinn’s new single. In my opinion Quinn is one of a very small number (maybe two!) people to emerge from the recent plague of reality TV music shows with any kind of credibility.… Continue reading Devil Gate Drive
Electoral Observers
The Guardian sent a group of electoral observers to monitor how well the Daily Mail‘s “referendum” was being conducted. [one of the observers] said: “I think the phrase ‘totally flawed’ comes to mind.” I asked him if he had ever pronounced an election “totally flawed” before. “Only one,” he said. “The 2001 Kyrgyzstan presidential elections.”… Continue reading Electoral Observers
Little Englanders
Excuse me why my blood boils for a minute. The Daily Mail is (as I’ve discussed before) the newspaper that panders to the “little englander” mentality in the UK. It’s read by people who are intensely xenophobic. These people are extremely distressed by the possibility that the UK could at some point replace sterling with… Continue reading Little Englanders