Tuesday 3 November 2009

Reasons to be cheerful


Sorry I've not been posting for a while but I've not had much to post about, and a strange melancholia has engulfed me somewhat. I don't think Mum's death has hit me properly yet, and something big's about to go off at work, from which, fingers-crossed, I'll emerge from the other side unscathed. Hopefully.

Anyway, I don't do self pity on this blog (I do that on my other blog http://www.boohoomyhamstersjustcroaked.blogspot.com/) so I thought I'd let you know what I've been using to cheer myself:
  • James May making giant Airfix kits.

  • Danny Baker on the Word podcast talking about working in record shops owned by Elton John in the early 70s, King Crimson, the myth surrounding punk and its origins, working at the NME in the late 70s, Earth Wind and Fire.

  • This record. I gather it's not everyone's cup o' meat but I like it.

  • Mark Ellen guesting on Mark Radcliffe's show; two mates talking about nothing much but being funny and listener-inclusive.

  • Seeing Adrian Edmondson and the Bad Shepherds. A good night out if you like to hear Kraftwerk's The Model played on mandolin, violin, double bass and uilleann pipes.

  • Series six of Peep Show. Just keeps getting better.

  • Listening to my eighteen year-old nephew order alcoholic drinks at a bar, ice creams and fish 'n' chips while on a weekend away with the bloody family. What a dork. But a funny dork.

  • Armstrong and Miller.

  • Reading about Sting and Trudie Styler's tantric sex-powered helicopter in the latest Viz.
  • Reminding myself about when I went to a roller disco in 1982 after being served by a girl in Marks and Spencer's who was there. She fell and dropped Polo mints all over the floor for other roller discoites to grind into the wooden gymnasium floor with their wheels. That set me off, but what got me even more was the thought of me at a roller disco. Regular readers will know that I'm the world's most un-roller disco person. What was I thinking?

5 comments:

Jon Peake said...

Is that you in the pic hiding behind the King Crimson album?

I like that Paolo song too, though I'm not mad about the person behind it. He seems cocky to me.

Sounds like you've got lots to think about so at least that's something.

Clair said...

Welcome back. I always find myself strangely cheered by watching people falling over in the street; clearly you are a better man than I, Gunga Din.

Must find that Word podcast with Baker on it, I appear to have missed it.

Bright Ambassador said...

FC - That isn't me hiding behind In the Court of the Crimson King - An Observation by King Crimson. I wish that I was as thin as that, and had I hope I have better taste in curtains.
I think Paolo's a bit of an arse but there's just something about that song. The muted trumpet maybe? Or perhaps 'food for my belly and a licence for my telly', what else could a man want?

Clair - I like to see people falling over too (but not little old ladies on a Saturday morning carrying heavy shopping who watch in horror as a pound of oranges go rolling down the street, land on their potted meat and an ambulance is required), but I haven't seen anyone do it lately. Booo!
An old colleague of mine did once see an old lady's wig fly off in a storm. I'd pay money to see that.

Louis Barfe said...

"Food in my belly and a licence for my telly" is the line that gets me too. It's just so cosy and responsible. Rock and roll rebellion, my arse. What time's Take the High Road on? Yes, almost certainly a terrible arse and responsible for a host of fuck-awful records, but that's not one of them, and it's enough to earn Paolo internal exile. The first time I heard it was on Radcliffe and Maconie, and I think it might have been the first time Maconie had heard it too, as he was momentarily speechless at the end of it.

Bright Ambassador said...

Heh-heh, I heard that on R&M too. I think Maconie's reaction was "What the hell's that? The trad jazz revival starts here, kids!" I love it when they both fall out over music, as Radcliffe clearly loves it.