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?

Cat's foot iron claw

Hello, happy new year and all that bollocks. I suppose I'd better start easing my way back into this blogging thing.
I'm back working shifts at work for the next few months and I'm trying not to get back addicted to the internet. Over Christmas I went for five days without switching on the PC, which was quite a liberating experience. I only switched it on after five days to check email and download some music. Mind you, having said all that I'll probably end up posting three times a day, or something ridiculous.

Anyway, telly over Christmas was largely crap. I happened to see the Christmas Day Doctor Who. Oh dear, that's an hour of my life I won't get back. I'm tried with Doctor Who, I really have, but that'll probably be the last time I intentionally watch it. And those Wallace and Gromit Christmas idents on BBC1 started way too early and went on for way too long.
Some highlights:
The Peter Serafinowicz Show - I recall blogging about his 2007 series being slightly disappointing. The special over Christmas was a joy though, every sketch a winner. Especially the David Attenborough spoof that had a spider that made it's web from tinsel and had a bumble bee on its way to a Christmas party trapped in it. Oh, and a stoned Terry Wogan doing Points of View.
The Generation Game 1973 Christmas Special - very funny, but not just in a 'ooh look at the haircuts!' kind of way. Forsyth at the top of his game. And you can't argue with a show that features Frankie Howerd pulling his pants out of his arse crack and saying 'Let me get myself comfy', that horrid old witch Fanny Craddock and a fella who does the old tablecloth trick. Top prizes too - weighing scales for a lady, a drill for a man, an electric toothbrush for a winning finalist and a Trinitron portable telly it took two blokes to carry out (the screen was a bout 14" but the cabinet was a cumbersome mahogany affair).

And I have to say that I've enjoyed BBC4's short Prog Rock this last weekend. What a refreshing change it made to see a serious non-sneary or tongue-in-cheek documentary on the subject. I know it's not the easiest music in the world to love and I also know it sometimes took itself way too seriously, but it deserves recognition. Three minor quibbles with it: 1) I think they should have got Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp to be talking heads. Isn't it funny how Fripp allowed himself to be interviewed by GMTV when his missus was on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! but not when someone wants to ask him about music? 2) Too much about ELP. A dreadful band, even though Lake and Emerson's previous bands were shit hot. Old roadies' adage: "There are three things you don't need on tour - earache, toothache and Greg Lake" 3) All the previous Music Britannia docos have bought come right up to date. Watching that you'd be forgiven for thinking it ended in 1976 - wither Radiohead, Muse, Porcupine Tree, Pure Reason Revolution, Diagonal etc?

Genuinely scary: