Gay Ring About It

G1, Southwark's baddest utter barista elect, has alerted me to a pretty unsettling discrepancy in the North London borough of Haring-. Well that's it really. To quote directly from his frenzied email:

"The station which I passed through twice yesterday describes itself as Haringay. The schools inspectorate thinks an area called South Harringay exists (two rs) and the council insists it is spelt Haringey (see www.haringey.gov.uk)."

Actually it's very simple. Harringay is an vaguely defined area within the London Borough of Haringey. A bit like Battersea. And that business at the station - well it's more shocking evidence that this country's going to hell in a handcart.

Peepo!

Yeah so I've been away some while, roaming the land, writing and a musing but now I'm in a Blogmarch state of mind again so frenz..the experiment resumes.

And whilst I was having a late night shower (because I still don't understand those wait until morning to rid themselves of the day's sweat and grime) the Beatles' Hard Day's Night was going round in my head. And I was struck by the innocence of the lyrics , wonderfully reflected in the children's story Peepo!, which centres around a little non-verbal baby observing the micro world around him. It's all outdoor toilets, coal scuttles, tin baths and Dad donning army fatigues in the evening.

And it's a complete outrage because there I was thinking this was one of those timeless childrens' book passed down countless generations since those simplistic post-war years to find that it's written by a bearded hippy and his wife Janet and Allan Alhlberg in the early 90s. Well he looks like a hippy in the self-portrait and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that but it's not the author painstakingly drawing on his papyrus under the paraffin lamp that I'd nostalgically envisaged in my head.

But I digress severely. A Hard Day's Night, one of those lines you just accept until many years later when you wonder what it's actually referring to. If taken in isolation and written in longhand as "A Hard Day Is Night" I quite like that. I'm assuming it's a commentary on the comparative severity of the nightshift. It makes sense put in context of their gruelling Berlin clubhouse era performing 5 concerts a day or whatever it was.

But that's wrong because he says (John I think.Definitely NOT Ringo who has an album of greatest hits being hawked on the GMTV ad breaks right now. Who buys Ringo albums but the most obsessive Fab Four completist and sympathetic relatives ?) "It's been a hard day's night" so the apostrophe is intact.

So I was marvelling at the mysterious subtetly and multi-layered complexity of this single throwaway line in contrast to the sledgehammer directness of today's pop lyricists. And the best polar opposite I could immediately think of was the double breasted Fergie of Black Eyed Peas singing about "my humps. my humps. my lovely little lumps".

But you know the strangest thing is that there's something quite subversive about this lyric. Because Humps and Lumps don't exactly summon up images of great sexual promise but more speed control measures and cancerous tumours. And maybe that's what she was trying to say. They are just that. Shapes resembling other shapes with the propensity for malignant intent.

The Dregs Beneath the Dregs

Continuing on my fatalistic hell in a handcart agenda comes the revelation that Jade Goody has an entourage of fans who follow her around to various mundane events. The story itself is interesting for its relative favourability for someone supposedly still doing penance for her Celebrity Big Brother turn.

It's from today's Sun. So Jade Goody has finally passed her driving test (although chances are she'll lose her licence for having driven so long on a provisional). The test took place in Ongar, Essex and the article describes how:

She gave the thumbs-up to waiting fans — including Josie Sheehan, 48, who gave her a bottle of champagne.

Jade pecked her on the cheek and said: “I can’t open it now or I’ll get done for drink-driving.”

Better than Newsnight

MES on very good form and looking incredibly youthful.

A life sentence

Already feeling pretty under the weather following a Moment of Madness which saw me gobbling down a Chicken Fillet Burger from my local Kensy Lick’n Chick’n, my mood has been significantly worsened by the sight of that tedious expondent of the “life’s like that” school of quirkiness known as Zoe Williams.

This writer, whose role on the Guardian is to bore people senseless with the inanities of her “sideways look at life” when they’ve got some column inches to fill on a quiet news day has only somehow got pregnant. Which means that for the next 18 fucking years we’re going to be exposed to her banal observations on pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood.

Been thinking about it for a while, but this depressing development suggests that it's time to leave this country for good.

T9 bizarro world

Bizarro World is the alternative parallel universe referred to in Seinfeld where a set spookily similar but not quite counterparts to George, Kramer and Jerry briefly tempt Elaine to the bizarro world.

Anyway, it occured to me that the Nokia T9 English dictionary has similar bizarro properties, especially when you decide to leave the predictive dictionary's first guess as it is despite your original intentions. It's already spawned, according to Stephen Fry on Radio 4, a "yoot" slang for cool - book. I've yet to hear it on the upper decks of my bus commute to date.

Got my best T9 bizarro to date this morning as I mass texted all my closest 100 acolytes to canvass support for my campaign to mark the tragic destruction of the Cutty Sark with a 9 minute silence this Friday only to get "Butty Park" instead. I was so struck by the seemingly rude sexchat slang that I'd inadvertently stumbled upon that I abandoned my campaign and instead rushed to register the key domain name registrations for Butty Park before someone else beat me to it.

Aye, there's the rub...ber band

The act of leaning over to pick up something from the street is a radical act.

The Situationists used to employ fancy dress and performance to juggle the social order. The Medieval traditions of carnival and misrule threw the governing order into momentary disorder (to the effect of their final strengthening, the Marxists would say).

The person stooping to pick up a discarded rubber band mimics the action of the chaotic living outsider. It can be a disturbing action to perform, gleaning bands while the straight citizen looks on.

In taking these bands (two today, New North Road, near the Regents Canal) I am both cleaning up litter and touching the untouchables. Both by running my fingers over the materials that the normal members of society consider out of reach (probably pissed on) and by opting to feel the looks of disgust usually given to those people who stoop for other's fag butts.

By refashioning the scattered, discarded rubber bands into single object(s) of interior design desire, I turn an irritation of the streets into a game. The universality of the rubber band as a token of urban experience means that, in constructing the rubber band balls, I communicate with urban Brits who have come to know these bits of rubber as discarded, scattered things. If I am right, and the rubber band ball is a thing of admiration, then it is the most brutally effective of reconfigurations.

My ball is still very bouncy. At this stage is growing very quickly. There may well be an equation to explain at what point its girth will take lots of bands to make even slightly bigger.

Bandwidth

News reaches Blogmarch from our contacts in the postal service that debate is currently heated in the industry. Not so much about the slow death of the Post Office and next day delivery, but in a much more pressing issue - what to do with those red rubber bands you use to collect letters for the same house together. Several solutions have been put forward by those men and women on the frontline, but by far the most popular is, apparently, DROPPING THE SODDING THINGS OUTSIDE MY FRONT DOOR.

As longterm readers of Blogmarch will know, we here subscribe to the belief that if God gives you nothing but gators, make some gatorade. Always a fan of the rubber band ball, Blogmarch has decided to construct a ball from nothing but red rubber bands. Most of the bands in the ball above come from the streets of south London, but sitings have also been made in the Lake District, and on the Uffington to Avebury section of the Ridgeway.

The ball is surprisingly bouncy. To this tester, anyway. Who may well be a particular naive tester, given that the ball is made of rubber, and was always going to be quite bouncy.

Check back soon to see the latest red-rubber-band updates.

Worthless shit in your attic

I never much liked the Senseless Things. I thought they smelt. In fact, one of my proudest teenage achievements was that I also stubbornly resisted the other must-likes of my era like the Wonder Stuff and The Cure were obligatory elements of yer 14 year old indie kids’ tape collection. Admittedly, I did tragically succumb to Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine and their silly sub-Jesus Jones guitar-drum machine sound and crusty cycling hats. But luckily I never actually bought anything. Me, I listened discreetly to Queen’s The Works (Radio Gaga, Hammer to Fall – I could go on) and also found myself getting drawn into The Fall thanks to their seminal Extricate album.

Now everything’s gone to MP3 and there’s a redundant set of classics sitting in every mid 30 something’s indie kid’s attic and surely some big money to be made. Yeah well, don’t bother. Whether it’s ebay or Amazon Marketplace no-one wants the stuff. Check out the price for The Senseless Thing’s fairly well know single “Christine Keeler”, 19 pence. In terms of the time taken to list the thing and then package it and send it off, unless you really have nothing of importance to do with your life it doesn’t add up. You’re effectively paying yourself for £1 an hour at best.

Try something a bit more special – like a white album, white vinyl copy of Birdland’s Lazy album. Starting price on ebay ? £1.99. Or something seriously mainstream, like a Huey Lewis and the News picture disc of The Power of Love. I own two of these I was possessed of such foresight. Yours for £2.99 Buy it Now from Terry’s Picture Discs on ebay.

RIP Wiz.

Haters Non Pasaran

In the first of an occasional series, here is an actual admonishment to the more cynical section of the community, those miseryguts popularly described as 'haters', as found on internet March 2007. Authentic submissions are welcomed.

1] Don't be drinkin' Haterade.

The Bitterest Pilates

As a keen patron of the expensive, fashionable and only anecdotally efficacious health solution, Blogmarch is a regular feature at some of London's most exclusive pilates salons. And it has done lots of good to what was once a sadly neglected spine (as for what were described by one pilates instructress as 'bum pads', no more shall be spoken).

But an incident at the end of today's frenetic 90 minutes of imperceptible squeezing and arguably imaginary internal spasming brought an aspect of the art, as it is practised today, into sharp focus.

Central to the philosophy of pilates is the low ratio of instructor to athlete. Although the idea is to give the practitioner confidence and knowledge enough to manage their own routine, the result is that he or she is very much in thrall to the expertise of the teacher, and to the way they interpret the art. 'Where's my one?' I often find myself thinking, having completed my latest set of unprovable clenches.

Later, on my way out of the salon, I noticed an exchange between my teacher/expert/advisor/one and a member of the public. Said MoP had wandered in off the street, and was after a leaflet to take home to her husband. 'Now, here is the leaflet' said my one. 'Now, sit there and just calm down.' She didn't say 'calm down' in response to a particularly jittery manner on the part of the MoP. The one fluttered her fingers as she said it, as if to make clear that she was simply dispensing some free lifestyle advice, as well as leaflets. The MoP seemed a little confused, as if she was thinking 'is this part of it?'

And therein lies a problem with one-on-only-a-few exercise techniques. In surrendering your body over to an expert for a course of pilates you potentially open yourself up to a whole kitbag of your particular one's other philosophies, many of which with little to do with the beliefs or practices of Mr Joseph Pilates. Because your knowledge of pilates is less than the one's, you have no choice but to entertain (however briefly) concepts that owe more to the heterogenous belief system sometimes known as 'all that other shit'.

It starts with Orinoco Flow on the studio stereo and before you know it you are on to mystical breathing, reiki, third eyes, ear candles, auras, chakras, bioresonance, ionic bracelets, Bosnian pyramids, sonopuncture, the Michigan dogman, morphogenetic fields, breatharianism, kotekas.

It can be relatively boring but benign. An old one of mine used her authority to pronounce on the relative values of various sorts of jogging bottoms. As far as it related to Pilates, fair enough. But this one's obsession with American Apparel (or appar-ay as she knew it) went far beyond. It was an abuse of power.

Breaking Free from the Man

So the great All Saints comeback ends after barely two singles. They've "parted" with Parlophone after new album Studio 1 peaked at number 41 in its first week. This despite acres of high profile magazine cover features where through gritted teeth they were repeatedly compelled to insist on they were great friends again.

It's Melanie Blatt I feel sorry for. The two Appletons will always be ok with their two Liams. Shaznay seems like the sensible sort who saved her money and anyway, she always earnt more as the principal songwriter. But Mel was the one who got pregnant, married the sometime bassist from Jamiroquai, Stuart Zender (bet he plays a Fender) and openly admits to being a bit short these days. The Endemols of the world await vulture-like to absorb her into the bosom of reality TV.

The comeback single, Rock Steady was rather good. That daft bint Cheryl Tweedy of Girls Aloud claimed that All Saints were copying THEIR sound which is predictably absurd. The Girls Aloud sound apes the girls singing on the bus together style of Bananarama, all unison notes and rotating lead vocals. All Saints do harmonies. Beautiful, shimmery, honey-voiced combinations that reach their peak of perfection on the William Orbit masterpiece that is Pure Shores.

Anyway - true to form. The follow up single Chick Fit and death-knell for the comeback was embarassingly bad. Accompanied by a video that is painfully ill-judged. I can't watch more than a minute because in its goosebump inducing dreadfulness it has the power to summon up long repressed personal memories of teenage humiliation.

No, let's play the blame game

It has come to Blogmarch's attention that in criticising Zoe Williams for her lame, predictable opinions, a previous story on this site has created a philosophical conundrum of a potentially disastrous kind. That point of view, you see, is itself a lame, predictable opinion, of the sort expressed by... Oh no, circularity alert!

Closed off from the world by a skein of logic, this siamese twin of an idea has no choice but to swill its liquor of rank mediocrity back and forth till it coalesces into a mechanism of the darkest energy. Only then does it rise and set off in search of the crazed, cruel mind that gave it birth. This is how we invented the cylons, people.

Is there

A better example of narrowcasting than writing a rap to perform (ahem 'throw down') at a Macdonalds drive in with you and your pal's meal deal request?

The Inside Story

Blogmarch's veterinerarian correspondent brings news of events that are sending shockwaves through the pet cremation business. Incinerating animals is costed on strictly per-carcass basis, you see. It seems that certain crafty animal quacks have been caught trying to present the hollowed out corpse of a great dane, stuffed with the bodies of smaller animals. It's Hugh Fearnley Whittingtall filtered through Six Feet Under.

Now that is news. Perhaps the esteemed editor of the Manchester Guardian could squeeze in a few stories of animal-stuffing scams and the like, at the expense at the much derided, much shit Zoe Williams? Having rinsed out the tatties of her previous USP - 'I work at home' - she has now moved onto the thrilling, as yet uncharted, territory of 'I use a bicycle'. Today, she brings insights such as 1] Avoid Oxford Street, better to cycle along one of the roads that run parallel to it; 2] When cycling west to east in south London, you can avoid Elephant and the Bricklayers' Arms; 3] Your bike is relatively likely to get nicked if you leave it outside Paddington station. Gah. The question is, how many spirit- sapping, self-obsessed, ignorant, opinionated ninnies could you fit into Zoe Williams, then render into ashes? Theoretically? And no, smarty pants, Blogmarch would not fit inside this particular cadaver.


Technorati tags:
Great Dane
cremation
Zoe Williams

Silverton crushed by Romana

BBC Breakfast's Kaplinsky clone, Kate Silverton produced an abysmal performance on the red carpet at this year's Oscars. A shame really because she's far more likeable than the ruthlessly ambitious automaton Kaplinsky, despite the scandal of the Philip Hayton on-air walkout. The normally bespectacled pretender looked liked she'd actually lost her glasses in the melee as she struggled to maintain a semblance of control in the red carpet scrum.

Given the open goal of a generous 3-4 minutes with the newly Oscar-ed Helen Mirren she couldn't seem to ask any other question than a variation of the most banal question of them all - "what was going through your mind as they announced the winner". That was followed by "and what were you thinking as you walked to the stage".

I can only assume she must have panicked. This interview had clearly been negotiated well in advance and I can't believe she didn't have a better set of questions prepared. The rest of her time was spent looking more and more uncomfortable with each feeble attempt to shout for the various big names going past, admitting "it's not very dignified is it ?"



By contrast, GMTV's feisty resident LA correspondent Carla Romano was far more at ease. Years of working the red carpet have sharpened her tactics for lassoo-ing the ones that count and even when she fails it's not the personal tragedy that Silverton clearly felt.

So where now for Silverton ? Not quite ready for that big leap into Saturday evening television, a nice daytime quiz show might be a short-term solution. Rob Curling gained a cult following in his time for the under-rated Turnabout and it could be time for a celebrity version 2.0 Still, someone at the BBC is clearly intent on fast-tracking her as she also fronted a pointless Panorama "expose" of some IVF doctor which created barely a ripple of media interest.



Technorati tags:
Kate Silverton, Helen Mirren, HBBC Breakfast, Carla Romano

On a roll

Certain things in life demand to be preserved for eternal online posterity. And this, a birthday cake made up of a beautiful formation of home made sausage rolls, is one of them. Weary from a forgettable trip once more to Euroland that necessitated a 4am start on my birthday itself, this miraculous Homer Simpson-like fantasy made reality instantly dissolved my black mood.

Thanks to all who made this happen. For those who know me, sausage rolls have long been an Achilles heel of mine. An appetite destroyer that triggers a genetically implanted Pavlovian response, I only have to be a few minutes early at Victoria Station on the way home, and the West Cornwall Pasty Co comes a calling.

Of course, for £1.20 I know I'm probably necking a concoction of 25% at best mechanically recovered meat so imagine the liberation I felt as I gorged on multiple sausage rolls made with high class pure meat from the posh butchers.

It's barely three days past and I can only wish there were still some waiting for me to snack on with my morning cup of tea.In the meantime, I have the photo to remember this special occasion by.

Where's The Mincemeat?

At times of strain, recently, I've found myself quietly singing "Where's the mincemeat, Alan Rough, Alan Rough, Alan Rough? It's in your pocket" to the tune of 'London Bridge is Falling Down'. It seems to comfort me.

Now, as Blogmarch's more football-astute readers will be aware, Alan Rough was a goalkeeper who made his name playing for Partick Thistle and Scotland in the 70s and 80s. As a Scottish goalkeeper, he was always a figure of fun for the unfunny, who would employ the term 'Scottish goalkeeper' instead of a joke, with the understanding that they were famously rubbish. Of course, as Blogmarch's more Scottish-football-astute readers will know, Rough got even more stick because he played for Partick Thistle, the butt of gags a plenty from Rangers and Celtic fans. Which was unfair because the seventies Thistle were a miraculous success, but was better than being the butt of butts a plenty from the same.

Anyway. The song relates to when Alan Rough did a Richard Madely, walking out of a shop without paying for an item of paltry value, in this case mincemeat. Hence a weekly serenading from opposing fans.

It's quite funny, in a disposable sort of way. But I'm not sure why it works so well to sooth my squalling brain. Perhaps because it takes me to late seventies football. Now, I'm only vaguely interested in the weekly goings on in the Premiership. But football has been around me all my life. Nowadays, I find myself boning up on the results before going home to see my parents. But the era of Steve Heighway, Pat Rice, Jim Cannon and Jock Stein, and Alan Rough, holds a deep imaginative allure for me.

In 1978 I supported Scotland during the World Cup in Argentina. 'England cannae do it cuz they didnae qualify', as the song of the time ran, after all. And so, partisan issues of my Scottish mum and English dad were temporarily postponed.

I suppose I feel the safety and certainty of childhood in the song, now with an adult, sarcastic twist that would have quite passed me by at the time. The faces of players of that era are so burnt into my psyche that I feel I can imagine the expression of mild annoyance flickering across Rough's face under a sustained barrage of phlegmy heckles.

There is something perfect about the stolen item in question, as well. The mince 'n tatties Scotsman may be as much of a stereotype as the jellied eel troughing cockney, but the idea of a Scottish crowd singing 'Where's the mincemeat?' just brings me a smile. And where's the harm in that, I asks yer?

Technorati tags:
Alan Rough
mincemeat
squall

A true patriot

Dayne Gilbey. Step forward the UK's first martyr in the campaign for enforced sterilisation. A man who endured 5 hours of pain to have the Great British breakfast fry-up permanently tattooed on his head. Explaining his decision, Gilbey said: "My friends and family keep asking me why I'm doing this. For me it's just something different which has never been done before."

I guess the thing is he can always grow hair over it and all. But when it starts receding. Whoa!

Dr Quirky, BSc, PhD, MSc Napoli

Whilst attending a quirky wedding in Dorset last weekend, I took an early evening stroll along the Sidmouth waterfront. Quite without warning I actually entered a moment of history.

There on the stormy horizon lay the slumbering hulk of the MSc Napoli (I didn't realise ships could receive academic honours), a tragic sight that captivated the hearts of the Great British Public this January. Despite its atmospheric, emotional mood, this photo is not by a professional but by my very own hand.



I would be lying if I said I wasn't moved. And a distinct lack of memorial or book of condolence was quite frankly a slap in the face. I hope this publication will serve to fill that gap for the time being.

If

David Koresh had been christened Ian, would his sect have been called the Branch Ianian?

Savoury Saveur

If you were to assemble a full evening meal using nothing but crisps, how would you do it?

For me, the key is to stick as close as possible to the classic menu of crisps. It seems unreasonable to respond to such a challenge with johnny-come-lately gastro-chips. These are, of course, muchly and reasonably derided elsewhere. My satire battery is not full enough to retread this territory. Just imagine Punt and Dennis talking about it with their trademark imaginative and surprising humour.

So. Prawn Cocktail for starters? I think I might opt for the Skips, the maize snack variant. Not just because of a long held fondness for Giant Haystacks (BTW did anyone reading this tell me that they knew the women who used to clean his wrestling costume? And it had more skidmarks than a Croydon carpark? If so, well done.) No, but I think the gentler flavour of the Skip would spark the appetite better than the harsher Walkers PC, say.

When stepping into the main course, and considering options, one notices for the first time what crisps, actually, are. They seem to mimic the bits on the edge of the plate. Salt and vinegar. Cheese and onion. Even tomato sauce. So, for the main dish, the choice comes down to Frazzles/ smoky bacon crisps, or Roast Beef flavour Monster Munch. If you would suggest brown hula hoops here, consider yourself banned from these pages. We don't need your sort.

Now the glory days of the Munch are long gone, of course. But for those not lucky enough to try the roast beef variety, it had the oppressive fleshiness of pedigree chum kept in the toe of a wellington boot. Great days. Perhaps I would get one of my five-a-day with a pickled onion monster munch or to. Or, for those on a budget, a handful of 10p Transformasnacks.

The dessert is a quandry. And an ironic quandry at that. For many packed lunches, it is the crisps that serve as afters. Unless you had a yoghurt. But you will struggle to find a decent sweet crisp. Plantain fritters are about as close as you are going to get, and that isn't close. So, swiftly on to the cheese board. A classic Golden Wonder cheese and onion, Cheesy Wotsits and Quavers. Just about ready for a good cigar. Hey now there's an idea - tobacco flavour crisps...

Technorati tags:
crisps, Monster Munch, Hula Hoops, Giant Haystacks

The Touch of Death

Fiona Phillips is the embodiment of car-crash daytime television. Crass, ill-informed and fundamentally moronic, no-one escapes from an encounter with the haggard sunbed disaster untainted. Not even Billy Bragg. I had switched over to GMTV just as Fiona was in the middle of a live two-way interview with Billy from Hive Beach, one of the beaches affected by the oil slick from the damaged SS Napoli.

Billy was wearing a semi-Barbour jacket and has clearly been on the pies, so it took me quite a while to be certain that this man who was appealling for local residents to come and help with the clean-up of the beach at the weekend was the same angry political firebrand of past.

So the interview comes to an end and it goes something like this:

FP: Well, thanks Billy for coming on the show and good luck with the clean-up. In fact I've been humming one of your songs all morning. Shipbuilding.

BB: (looks embarassed.)

FP (to co-host Andrew Castle): such a good song

BB: it was Elvis Costello

FP: (aghast) oh gosh. Sorry my researcher told me it was one of your songs.

BB: (embarassed) I wish it was. It's a great song.

FP: Oh well thanks Billy anyway.

FP: (to AC) so what are Billy's most famous tunes ?

AC: (looks flustered)

FP: Never mind. Anyway. This morning you could be winning £20,000.....


Technorati tags:
GMTV, Fiona Phillips, Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello

Great London Writing

Like much of the best graffiti, this piece found near Old Street tube is both confounding and amusing.

A simple bawdy gag ('Sit on Myspace') gains a satirical power from being scrawled on the blank, silent walls of a 'Private Shop'. The necessarily euphemistic name of the shop adds further gusto, in comparison, to the writing. Even better, there is an inexpicable word ('fortress') in the window.

As an imprecation it doesn't quite work. It's difficult to work out the point the writer is making about the shop, Myspace, or his/her relationship with the world at large. And thus, it takes its place in the great London tradition of nonsense graffiti.

Technorati tags:
Graffiti, Bad Science, London, Myspace

A dirty threesome

Dr Quirky goes serious, in conversation with Blogmarch

Yesterday, the Independent does this big full page splash about Blue Monday.

Using “mathematical equations”, Dr Cliff Arnall, psychologist and former tutor at Cardiff University, has worked out that January 22nd is officially the most depressing day of the year.

This bloke does the same thing every year, and still gets it in the bloody papers. Last year it was revealed that he was simply producing some 'boffin' thing for a travel company to get publicity for cheap holidays at this time of year. This year it’s the RAC taking advantage of a lazy newspaper looking for some light-hearted filler.

As for that Edmund King cnut from the RAC. What the funk is he talking about here?? "We hope motorists will rise to the challenge of 'beat blue Monday' day and find ways of beating the commuting blues," said the foundation's chief executive Edmund King."Travelling smarter rather than longer is part of the answer, while putting a great song on the stereo is a proven mood-lifter."

How can you swap longer for smarter in a traffic jam?!?!

Anyway, Dr Cliff Arnall has previous on this as exposed by the Ben Goldacre’s brilliant Bad Science column. He’s one of a number of "whackydemics" happy to perpetuate the caricature of scientific boffins using “mathematical equations” to measure daft things. Check out the amusing clarification by Cardiff University which they clearly insisted on.


Technorati tags:
Dr Cliff Arnall, Bad Science, Blue Monday, boffin

What I Don't Want

I really don't want a FLAME WAR, you know. Not a bar of it. Just in case you were wondering. You might have come to the conclusion that cyber conflict was right up there at the top of my ambitions for Jan/Feb 07. I'm not sure what would have given you that impression. You are wrong, anyway, so wrong. You see, I just don't want to get involved in such a thing.

I don't see things changing in the near future, either. I think I'm unlikely to develop a yen for a FLAME WAR. It is of no appeal.

If I haven't made myself clear, I'm not looking for any sort of computer-based exchange of rhetorical hostility. It's the last thing I want to do. Hate the idea. Hate it. Far too many other things going on in my life at the moment.

And don't think you can tempt me in with your coquettish games. You see, if I had the time to get fully greased up up in a FLAME WAR I'd do it in style. I would display the awesome technical nous and withering array of slapdowns that has become my FLAME WAR hallmark. Or it would have done, if I were interested in FLAME WARS. Which I'm not.

Soviet Bus Stops

Look at these. They're amazing.

Link found via the wonderful Things magazine site.


Technorati tags:
Soviet bus stops

Making World History

Result! I have officially complained to OFCOM about Big Brother. I’m one of the record breaking 21,000 complainants and I’ve got the email to prove it. I think it’s up there in my Top 3 alongside queuing overnight to sign the Diana book of condolence and taking part in last year’s UK’s biggest Flash Mob event in Trafalgar Square. In fact, it was one of the easier ones. They’ve even got a shortcut on the homepage which takes you straight to the application form.

If you want to do the same don't forget to save a printed copy of the application for the scrapbook. To be honest, it was quite hard working out what to say as I don’t actually watch Big Brother but I wanted to sound authentic. Some of my friends have secured tickets for the eviction event this Friday and I’m very jealous. I think it will be historic and they’ve spent all week working on getting the placards right so they get a really good spot in front of the barriers and maybe even talk to Davina.


Technorati tags:
OFCOM, Big Brother, Shilpa, Racialism

Dead Christmas Trees. A Series.

Technorati tags:
Dead Christmas Trees,

Function vs Form - Ultimate Smackdown

Due to standard IT restrictions on the downloading of software, I’ve been stuck with MSN Messenger version 1.0 for a very long time. It’s deprived me of a more sophisticated repertoire of animated emoticons like the barfing Pacman, the chance to see your funny ID photo and enigmatic applications such as Chalkboard.

So the day our IT administrator came to install some XP updates and then left to go and attend to a minor Blackberry crisis, I seized the moment and starting feverishly downloading all manner of updates.

5 minutes later I had a brand new shiny Windows Live Messenger and 5 minutes later I had spat it out of my PC. Because if Microsoft are consciously trying to be the absolute inverse of beautiful Apple user simplicity (which seems to be quite popular these days), then Windows Live Messenger is the glorious apotheosis of their master project.

It’s the ultimate intrusive Cillit Bang headfuck. The wonderfully discreet and minimalist Messenger 1.0 box that subtly nestled in the corner is over. Microsoft have clearly decided that WLM is the ONLY thing you’ll ever need your computer for. So you now have two windows open automatically which obscure the entire screen. And the menu on your left features all manner of branded links to websites they deem you would like to have, ads flash along the bottom in scrolling text, and the dialogue box is twice the size of its predecessor.

I’ve always disliked the smug anti-Microsoft tribalism of the Maclifers but I feel, like in Graham Greene’s brilliant novel The Quiet American, “sooner or later, one has to take sides”. On one side, maximised functionality that steamrollers any consideration of aesthetics or actually starting from the point of meeting a consumer need. On the other, a responsive, design led philosophy that seems to make our lives easier, simpler and just that little bit more classy.



And now of course we have the iPhone. Don't expect the first iteration to be that great. New Apple products and Operating Systems are notoriously glitch heavy first time round and that's a worry for them. We can manage without our iPod for a couple of weeks whilst it's down the garage but people have basic assumptions of cast iron reliability with their mobile phones. Maybe the prohibitively high price is designed to attract only the most evangelical Mac addicts who won't rock the boat. Blogmarch respectfully suggests you wait for the third mini iPod equivalent version cos by then they'll have it cracked.

Technorati tags:
iPhone, Windows Messenger, Graham Greene, Quiet American

My Tourette Shame

OK, so no posts for ten days, then a Celebrity Big Brother one. Whatever happened to the great ideals of the publication? People have been to prison for sentiments expressed therein, refusing to be silenced by the censorious spirit of Power.

When I say 'therein', I mean the whole 'writing things down' genre, you understand. Not Blogmarch specifically.

In recent days the downtime has been taken up, in bursts of a few minutes at a time, with observing the work of Mr Donny Tourette and his 'band', the Towers of London.

I know, I know. But take a look. And another. And for the full Spinal monty, watch them react to a lukewarm review in the NME.

Points that should be made. Forget the risible debate about whether Donny comes from Squatney or Buckinghamshire. Reflect on this. Doesn't he look like Paul Kaye aka Dennis Pennis? [Include timewasting theoretical interlude here, comparing Tourette 'singer' and Pennis 'interviewer', and their parasitical 'meta' relationship to their host industry. Pause to wipe self off.]

Also, this 'punk' thing. To me, they sound like they are ripping off The Damned more than the Pistols, while their look derives from Motley Crue/Dogs D'Amour, not punk. I wish I'd been a Punk Rocker with Elnette in my hair. The whole thing is, in fact,like something from that wonderful subgenre, 'punks created by TV executives' (see Sid Snot, and plenty of drama school boys playing the bad boyfriend in late seventies Brit sitcoms).

[The following paragraph features a false memory. Although Bolan and The Damned were fans of each other, there is no footage of The Damned being interviewed by Bolan. This must be a conflation of Bolan's own comments at the time about punk, and the fact that The Damned supported Bolan on tour at the time. Please excuse Blogmarch's ignorance and consider the following paragraph in the light of this. And thanks to vigilant truth defender, Mr Gavin Ross (I presume Gavin Ross, editor of A Thousand Mark Feld Charms, which looks ace), for pointing this out]

Ever seen the footage of Marc Bolan interviewing The Damned in 1977? Somehow the jeepster is transformed into the Vic Reeves trouser-rubbing man, his gaze lingering on these rough boys with their rough rock'n roll. Grr. Weirdly, Donny seems to be both The Damned and Marc Bolan at this lowpoint of both their careers. Or, at least, a cartoon of said artistes made with shitty twig by a drunk salmon.

Technorati tags:
Donny Tourette, Sid Snot, drunk salmon

Here's a Thing

While waiting at Moorgate station for an eastbound circle line tube the other day, I found myself reflecting on the magical distortions of time underground. One street level minute will take sixty, recognisably long, seconds. But take the short trip to beneath your feet and, as all Londoners will tell you, things cease to be so simple. A London Underground minute is worth anything up to four or five normal ones.

Which got me to thinking about the term "cotton-pickin'". You are most likely to hear it in the term "Now wait just one cotton-pickin' minute..." The sentence would seem to require an adjective that emphasises the shortness of the minute in question - it is 'just' the one, not worth refusing the request to wait. But of all the professions that make the time whizz by, I would have thought cotton picking is rather low on the list.

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Moorgate, time