Euroquirk

Back refreshed from a lovely yuletide excursion with the wife, I cannot report much quirkieness in continental europe, much to my (and no doubt your) intense frustration. However, whilst always at pains to sample local fayre, I must say the following two culinary delights caused great mirth and merriment in the Quirkie household.

First, on the train from Malmo to Copenhagen (across Europe's longest bridge no less), I had a very enjoyable Plopp (1).



Not to be outdone, on the return leg, specifically on the overnight train from Hamburg to Brussels, I ate some Spunk (2).



Ahem.

(1) Plopp is a curiously flavoured Swedish choco-biscuit with caramel.
(2) Spunk is a deliciously salty licorish pastille from Germany.


Technorati tags:
spunk, plopp

Pressed Down

Could there be a bleaker artistic existence than to be a band member of the Ordinary Boys right now ? They might have been grateful for being saved a trip to Brighton's JobCentrePlus by singer Preston's successful turn on Celebrity Big Brother. They might have been uneasy at the gradual shift away from their vaguely mod-ish roots to appease their new teenybopper audience. But surely they've hit rock bottom as they find themselves in the ignominious position of being relegated to backing band in their new moniker - Preston & The Ordinary Boys.

It's not 100% official yet. I first heard the new name on Capital Radio as their latest execrable effort "I Luv U" was being aired. On the website they've snuck it into a few very recent news releases but as of yet it's not up in lights. But I guess it's been decided that it's necessary to signpost that yes it is "Preston and his band" to the gormless numbties seduced by the tediously contrived Preston and Chantelle love story.

Anyway, anonymous members of The Ordinary Boys, you surely know it's just a deferred stay of execution for you. The music's shitter than ever and in the artistic veer towards the mainstream who needs a full-time band ? I predict by August we'll be seeing the debut of Preston & Chantelle. And what better vehicle than the Children in Need 2007 charity single ?

Blogmarch got it all sussed.

Technorati tags:
Ordinary Boys, Preston

Arsenal 2 Everton 2

If Highbury was the library then the Emirates is... whatever's even quieter than a library. At least Highbury as a ground had presence, heritage, an aura. But this... it's the ultimate symbol of football's Faustian pact with the capitalist forces of globalisation.

Fair enough in money terms it was a no-brainer. For as long as Wenger's Arsenal have been the most pleasing on the eye Premiership team by a mile, they've had 20,000 fans-worth of unrealised income just sat there on a waiting list whilst Man U have been steadily expanding away to a fat 70,000+.

In architectural terms, the Emirates is an impressive site. Its undulating 3rd tier gives it a character and unique signature that any number of identical Premiership modern stadia can't match. But it's in the vast hypermart of a club shop "The Gunnery" when you know that football has gone to hell in a handcart.

Writ large on a wall beside an astonishing 17 separate checkouts (including 2 express lanes for the 5 items or less) is the kind of testimonial that you'd expect a bank or an estate agent to have to plaster in lights. Which makes sense because someone has to spell out why we would ever happen to like them. But when it gets to this - when they feel the obligation to somehow spell out the virtues of Gooner "fandom" as a former Canadian colleague of mine used to term English football culture, then I'm afraid all is lost.






Technorati tags:
Arsenal, Emirates Stadium

Wikipedia Death Row

I am currently complicit in the pending execution of a self-important, unremarkable and wholly unnotable music artist who has penned his own inflated Wikipedia biography. With a bit of luck and a prevailing wind, this pretentious turd's tragic B&W photo of himself in a crude film noir pose complete with wistfully held cigarette will be no longer come Boxing Day.

I can't tell you who it is because I don't want to get rumbled by said artist himself but as compensation here is the full list of Wikipedia entries awaiting vaporisation.


Technorati tags:
Wikipedia Deletion, film noir

Shit Things

Being an occasional series where Blogmarch vents gastrically on our underperforming world.

Number One

"X just got Y", where X is a consumer product (here including tv companies, celebs and even days of the week, as "Friday night just got...") and Y is a comparative adjective: bigger, sexier, annoying-er.

Oh it did, did it? Just this moment? And I missed it? Thanks for the 'heads up'. I'll have to make sure to pay closer attention to these developments in the future. I'd hate to find out about the incremental progress of your product at a rate slower than almost immediate. Thanks for keeping me in the 'loop'. I owe you one, piece of marketing.

But how did it happen? So, X just got Y-er did it? Was noone else involved? Was it truly, as you seem to imply, somehow inherent in X all along? Whichever way, one thing is for sure - nothing will ever be the same again. The world just got crappier.

Technorati tags:
Shit Thing, just got

Salt Lake Samba

RSL. In the UK it stands most commonly for Radio Station Licence. In the fringe sports arena that is US Soccer RSL means one of the newest Major League Soccer franchises to sprout from dust, Utah's Real Salt Lake who play at the amusingly mundane sounding Rice-Eccles Stadium. Yes, stung by accusations that blogmarch is becoming a navel gazing muso's retreat, we is talking sport.

The only reason I'm aware of RSL's existence is the earth-shattering news that the Washington DC's teenage hotshot sensation Freddy Adu, once dubbed the "new Pelé", America's first (Ghana-born) soccer superstar is on the move.

Having made a sensational debut at the age of 14, complete with million dollar Nike sponsorship deal in pocket, Adu burst onto the MLS scene in 2004 and achieved an underwhelming 11 goals in 87 appearances. Last month, Adu completed a two-week training stint at Manchester United with not even a polite hint of a potential interest in taking up the offer from S'rAlex. The only feedback we have is that old red nose felt he had a "suspect temperament" but let's suggest that's a smart bit of Nike-managed hearsay.

Because by overtly telling the truth ie "I didn't sign him because he was crap" would have burst any remaining pretence that Freddie Adu is anything but the new Cherno Samba. Such was the hype around Samba's potential when still turning out for the England Schoolboys, the far-sighted Championship Manager chaps had him as a first choice Liverpool striker with 10 England caps and 2 goals to his name. In reality, Samba left the dizzy heights of Malaga B to make his English league debut at the age of 21 as a 78th minute substitute for Plymouth Argle.

Late to Market

I hadn't really grasped the astonishing wonderment of iTunes Music store until a couple of recent 79p song purchases. Of course, from the start it allowed me to indulge in my love of outstanding pop anthems which I wouldn't have otherwise had in my discreet possession. The embarassment of going into any half-decent record store to hand over cash for Rachel Stevens' Sweet Dreams my LA Ex is, I suspect akin to trying to buy a copy of Razzle Razzle in a crowded WHSmiths. I would stress I have done neither. Which reminds me of an unnamed friend who used to tell me that his favourite place to buy jazz mags was always small newsagents staffed by a wizened old Asian lady that he felt able to dominate. But I digress quite significantly.

I have also purchased on my pop tour Britney Spears' finest musical moment, the superb Toxic and the unquestionably brilliant Crazy in Love by Beyonce. But these are obvious choices. The more impressive are those tunes which I would never had otherwise been able or bothered to buy. In olden days I would simply have forgotten them until the next time I heard them by chance some five years later.

And so I find myself, in a matter of 5 clicks, barely 5 minutes after I first heard it, in possession of Altered Images' wonderful Don't Talk To Me About Love. Despite the incredulity of others, I'd never heard it before and only a random watching of TOTP2 enlightened me to its existence. Barely days later, Magic FM of all the stations in the all the world, reacquainted me with the utterly sublime "Duel" by bonkers German 80s arthouse synth band Propaganda. 79p worth of heaven, finally mine after many years of vaguely trying to remember looking for it the next time I'm in town..

Technorati tags:
Propaganda, Altered Images, Razzle

The Currency We've Spent

Blogmarch's more disco-enhanced readers may already be familiar with the work of West End Girls, the pair of Swedish teenagers who cover Pet Shop Boys with a suitable lack of gusto. They are great, partly cos the taller one is 'Chris', and the shorter one is 'Neil'. That is to say, they aren't doing an impression, but performing 'after' the PSB: they employ dogs, builders hats and dayglo miserablism, but leave it at that. This gives them room to be thrillingly different, while bringing a lovely dumbness to the songs. And the singer has that clogged up, Eurobeat voice so associated with crackers Scando-pop. It just pushes the Pet Shop Boys' careful balance of disco and songwriterliness hard over towards the spangly side. The effect is vapid and disposable in a way you imagine Neil and Chris really enjoying. Well, Chris at least. Make sure you hear the version of Suburbia recorded for The Sims (the Booglurbia mix) by the way. Yer Marshall Mcluhan would get into a frenzy about it all.

Compare and contrast with Devo 2.0. Coneheaded motorik freaks par excellence, the original outfit (below) spent two decades producing some of the weirdest sarky pop and rock ever made. Now Disney have assembled a team of fresh-faced apple pielets (above) to gonk along to a bowdlerised selection of the old tunes, with the original band's full participation. The band's wikipedia entry notes that 'Jerkin' back and forth' has now become 'a perky song about dancing'. Although all this might provoke an immediate revulsion, on reflection it does seem very, well, Devo.

Technorati tags:
West End Girls, Devo 2.0, gonks, Mcluhan

Top 10 (non-sexual) Small Pleasures

in no particular order

1. Vindication on the Bus or Walk option

The smug self-satisfaction of a gamble that's paid off. Legs stretched thanks to a brisk walk and no bus passed you by. I AM A WINNER! I AM A WINNER! Meanwhile the losers at the bus stop are still standing there and even when the bus comes it's going to be so cramped that they probably won't get on.

2. An Expense Form completed

Weeks of guilt as receipts swell your wallet to virtual implosion. You're heading towards your overdraft limit and there's all this virtual money just asking to be redeemed. Every day you're burning with the sense of injustice at the interest-free loan you're giving the company. So you knuckle down. Dust down the diary. Invent the specious reason for that unexplainable taxi receipt. Watch the numbers tot up. Sign off the claim with a flourish and skip gaily down to the accounts department. Closure... and the wonderful knowledge that cashback is on the way.

Convenience Store Goes Dirrrrty

One of my favourite named stores in South London. Granted it is on a corner but I can't think why they added the extra N except as a subtle homage to the Christina Aguileira track. No sign of counter staff in leather chaps last time I looked which would be faithful to the video of course.

Dr Quirkie's World of Quirk (2)

I was contemplating my next world of quirk entry last night, whilst cradling a pint of Badger's Blansford Fly in a pub in Thames Ditton. Somewhat distracted by the entrance of Adrian Mills, he of Esther Rantzen's "That's Life" fame (along with Gavin and Doc Cox), and living embodiment of Alan Partridge in looks and 'attitood', I rested my pint on this incredible beer mat.



This time I didn't find the world of quirk, the world of quirk found me. Life's like that.

The shame of it

Went to Hoxton's trendy Hoxton to see avant soundscape mutterers Jackie-O Motherfucker. They were splendid, particularly their rickety take on Public Enemy's open-goal satire on US TV, 'She watch channel zero'.

They are the sort of hairy band (or perhaps 'collective') who grant the viewer much visual pleasure, though they may well disdain from such antiquated notions as 'putting on a show'. It was fun to spot extra members crouched at the back of Cargo's miniscule stage, honking or battering away at niche instruments. The harder you looked, the more there seemed to be.

However, I seem to be haunted by goons spilling their lousy opinions all over the music. I don't gain from hearing some high-collared Hackett expressing his view that a 25-minute choppy, abstract interpretation of an old American folk song is 'sprawling' or 'indulgent'. Similarly, I got to see the miraculous jazz-pensioner Jimmy Scott a few weeks ago, to have half his set blended with unflattering comments about his idiosyncratic voice. What did you expect? Or more importantly, what did I expect? If you don't want to hear the hell that is other people's opinions, stay home with your boxed sets.

Incidentally, I proved my peccable jazz credentials by gobbing on the next day about Jimmy's moving performance to all and sundry, dropping googlefacts such as 'he was Billie Holiday's favourite singer you know... Oh you haven't heard of him?' I was halfway through this routine to a taxi driver, who said 'so he's got the same name as the tennis player?' I had been lauding the hair-on-back-of-neck-erecting powers of Mr Big Racket himself, Jimmy Connors. You can't delete that sort of retrospective shame. When word gets out I may well be barred from jazz, and possibly tennis, for that.

Technorati tags:
Jackie-O Motherfucker, Hoxton, Jimmy Scott, shame

Banish Unwanted Plaque

If ever there was a story that symbolised the murky tabloid exploitation of an impressionable, grief-stricken individual, it's the Sally-Anne Bowman murder. There's something distasteful about the manner in which this story has been kept alive with "exclusive" new photos of Sally-Anne's amateur modelling career trailed on the front page in managed phases.

And it seems that egged on by a media all too happy to encourage Mrs Bowman's public exhibition of grief and give them another excuse to print a photo of the "next Kate Moss", she has become rather obsessed with the installation of a permanent plaque in the road where she was murdered.

Understandably the residents of Blenheim Crescent aren't particularly happy with the notion of their street becoming a haven for ghouls and grief tourists. Anyway, thankfully Croydon Council have rejected her application, leading to Mrs Bowman predictably lashing out at the blameless residents by accusing them of "gloating and look at the whole situation like we've lost, but they don't know the full story."

Well thank funk for Croydon Council but I wouldn't put it past the NOTW launching a campaign to "honour Sally-Anne" because of course it's what she would have wanted. As for the precedent this would set I can only shudder at the thought of 12 separate memorial plaques outside the unfortunate former house of Fred West.

Technorati tags:
Croydon Council, Sally-Anne Bowman, tabloid

Back In The DWP (nee DHSS)

Doesn't work now does it ?

A random Guardian article recently referenced what is, on reflection, my all-time favourite Half Man Half Biscuit track title - Tending The Wrong Grave For 23 Years.

Fittingly it was from their most recent EP release in 2003, Saucy Haulage Ballads. I've no idea how it sounds but as the owner of just the one HMHB album - the seminal Back in The DHSS I think I can make a pretty good guess.

Why is it funny ? Well it's best not to over-analyse these things but there is a perfection in the "23" of the 23 years. Citing this as the best of the bunch is no mean praise. A quick glance at their exhaustive discography reveals an Aladdin's Cave of wonderful song titles through the years starting with the likes of Fuckin' Ell It's Fred Titmus, the seminal I Hate Nerys Hughes(that's her below), Outbreak of Vitas Gerulaitis, Christian Rock Concert and Yips (My Baby Got The).



They weren't all great. The more obvious puns (Paintball's Coming Home, 24 Hour Garage People) tended to fall flat. But there's always a stand out title just around the corner. Right down to the most recent album Achtung Bono they were still churning them out - Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo to name just one.

I am doing Half Man Half Biscuit a great injustice by referring only to the titles of their tracks. Despite the instant laffs, their lyrics had a stinging poetic brilliance often underpinned by supremely infectious choruses. The Wikipedia profile covers this in far greater detail.

Thinking small

If a tree falls in a forest, but no-one writes about it on their blog, did it really happen? THINK ABOUT IT.

I read a story somewhere (on paper, I know that much) about a step forward in nanotechnology. At least I think I did. Apparently they have found a way of making the teeniest, tiniest cups that have ever been made. They measure a fentilitre. Or possibly a femalitre. I can't remember. Anyway, the excellent thing is that these new cups are designed to be inkpots for nanobots. If you share Blogmarch's admiration for the very small, you will enjoy the image of a pensive micro-machine licking the end of its tiny quill before dipping into an even more diminutive receptacle of small ink.

However. As a serious journalist, I attempted to confirm my sources before writing this piece. But my searches using all the terms mentioned have drawn a blank. I have a feeling it might have been in Private Eye, but I left that on the tube. And maybe it was satire – I can never never quite tell when they are joking, those clever types.

I once wrote an essay about a Saxon burial trove in Sussex that contained a chest that had been traded and pillaged all the way from (what is now) northern India, bearing marks of the cultures it had passed through. This demonstrated the active trading routes of the so-called dark ages, and the fact that those people were not as culturally distinct from each other as we used to assume. My tutor liked my essay, but wondered where I had read about this particular object. I thought she had told us about it in her most recent seminar, complete with slides. It seems I had fallen asleep and dreamt it.

I still don't entirely believe that the chest doesn't exist. As for the nanobot inkpots, they may be there already, just too small to see.

Technorati tags:
nanobot, Private Eye, inkpot

5am start - Business Day Trip in Euroland

Bond Double Header

On a weekend when blogmarch was more than pleasantly surprised by the quality of Casino Royale, a less impressive interpretation of the Bond genre was being executed elsewhere. Execrable is a word I try to use more often than I currently do, and the BBC newsreaders' Bond sketch for Children in Need, plumbed depths that had already been well established in previous years' performances.

Go see for yourself. I defy you not to cringe at least 10 times. And for those who claim it's for a good cause - piss off.

James Bond
Casino Royale
Children in Need
newsreaders
BBC

YouBruv

It started on Tuesday May 23, 2003. 3 years and 6 months later, it ended. I have changed jobs, spawned children, moved house twice. And now, the prize is in my hands. A £50 cheque from YouGov for my faultless participation in 83 online surveys over that time. The system tried to dominate me but it's me who perservered and came through when others fell aside.

It began slowly, just 7 surveys in 2003 at 50p a time. And I despaired at my paltry fund of £4.50 including £1 joining fee. Just 7 again in 2004 had bumped me up to the pointless sum of £12. 2005 was the breakthrough year. 23 surveys including a halycon month in June when I completed 8 surveys in 17 days.

The sudden upturn in my fortunes came about because YouGov launched something called the BrandIndex survey. This involved regularly asking the same monotonous questions about the same brands every bloody time. Had I heard either good or bad about this list of detergents ? What about perfumes ? What about hi-fis? And now what about these food brands? But in between the bread and butter of BrandIndex, there would be the occasional frisson of excitement when the 75p and £1 surveys came in. For the extra cash I'd take my time to be diligent and insightful in my mouse clicks.

I was ruthlessly efficient. You have to be. One friend quit after 3 surveys because he said they took too long. In trying to give his answers he had spent over 20 minutes completing one particularly survey about mortgage providers. Five minutes is the golden rule. Be fast, but be consistent. Practise your mouse navigation skills so you can seamlessly glide through the survey.

Towards that £50 mark the surveys began to dry up and I started to panic. Don't tell me they could play this dirty. Suddenly taking me off the map just because I was close to the moment of payout. But then in one final joyful week - 3 surveys including one 75p beauty pushed me over the line to nirvana.

But now I've made it I don't know what to do. I have to buy something which reflects the sweat and tears I have committed to the cause. Please help.

YouGov
BrandIndex

Bonnet in Need

I'm sitting here hyperventilating with excitement for the big event of the Children in Needathon. I think you know what I'm talking about. The usual suspects will be there - Kaplinsky, Raworth, Jezza Bowen, the slightly creepy Dermot Murnaghan and all-round good egg and "middle aged Tintin" Bill thingy from BBC Breakfast. This year it's a Bond theme. Clever eh ?

But for once my voyeuristic thrill at watching Fiona Bruce reveal a naughty glimpse of thigh is slightly sullied by the presence of Rob Bonnet.

It's barely a year since this po-faced sports presenter for BBC Breakfast disappeared from our terrestrial screens. So what's he doing front of stage on bass guitar, posing John Deacon-like in his usual stiff manner. He doesn't really play the bass guitar - so what's he doing there ?

He was rightly replaced by a younger, fresher model in the form of over eager pup Chris Hollins. The absolute antithesis of Bonnet, Hollins likes nothing other than getting kitted up to go rucking and mauling down with the professionals, mugging for the camera as he bungee jumps off Lambeth Bridge to the guffaws back in the studio. Hollins has risen so quickly that he's even got a Come Ice Dancing type sketch on Children in Need tonight all to himself.



Bonnet never demeaned himself like the current lot. He just stuck to his job. He reported sport. Of course with the noble exception of that one night a year, when he more than happy to show he was game as the rest of them.

His farewell sports report was memorably (to me)tinged with an undertone of bitterness. He tersely confirmed that he "wasn't disappearing completely from your screens" but could be found on the graveyard of News 24 doing "special reports". Of course, before he left he got his greatest hits montage. But it was made even more tragic by the sheer uneventfulness of his key moments. Here's Rob reporting from outside a stadium in Calgary. Here's Rob reporting inside a stadium somewhere.

Rob, the king is gone but clearly within the high ranking personnel at Children in Need, he's not forgotten.

Children in Need
Rob Bonnet
Promotion

Give them a big hand

As tonight is Children in Need, I thought I'd put together a collection of a few of my fave whacky stunts that the Great British Public are pulling this year, all in the name of raising a few pennies for Auntie Beeb and Pudsey the bear.

I don't mean the stuff that gets all the big press - brilliant as that always is - but the local heroes who are actually getting off their a***s and do some crazy stuff, all in the name of a great cause.

First, let's give a big hand to Newcastle-Under-Lyme and Keele University Conservative Future. Last year the right-leaning funsters put their heads together and dyed their hair blue (the traditional colour associated with Britain's Conservative Party).

This year, chairman Owen Meredith will be going one step further and having his leg hair shaved off on the big day. "Although I am somewhat concerned about losing my leg hair," the twenty year old marketing and politics student admitted, "my worries are nothing compared to what thousands of children and their carers face every day."

But the fundraising frivolities aren't restricted to the potty Potteries. Workers at ACT Training in Cardiff have been holding lizards all week - all in the name of raising some much needed cash. The creepy crawlies have been leant by the big-hearted crew at Fangtastic in Caerphilly.

And the list of unknowns pulling off crazy stunts in the name of a good cause doesn't end there. Mulleted upsetter and 'comic' novelist Bruce Dickinson will be flying members of the public in his personal jet for money. Did you know he has a pilot's licence? We can presume he does.

Terry Wogan will be kicking off coverage of this year's event at 7pm (GMT) on BBC1, with human avatar Natasha Kaplinsky and Fearne Cotton, Jo Whiley's little sister. Nothing has leaked about what they will be getting up to, but Wogan has promised "no-holds barred fundraising". So get your credit cards ready - my money's on Kaplinsky with an eye-gouge.


charity
Keele
Bruce Dickinson
gouge