Watching the detectives

March 27, 2010 //

Today, I got pulled over for speeding. Well it was a strange road, and I wasn’t a) paying attention to my speed and b) had no clue what the limit should have been. So when I saw the WPC waving me in to the side of the road, I knew I was in for one of two things – 3 points and a 60 binners fine, or a good talking to.

I got the talking to. I nodded in all the right places, told the truth about my lack of attention to the speed limits, looked aghast at the new revelation that I’m likely to kill someone at 40 and only maim them at 30 (seriously, if I hit someone and they are IN THE ROAD, isn’t that darwinian?), shook my head like a pantomime villain when asked if I wanted three points on my license (do turkeys vote for christmas?) and then I glimpsed redemption in something she said and decided to play the obsequious buffoon card, which seemed to satisfy her, and she said I was free to go. Yes, she said I was free to go. Oh, come on – I hadn’t been arrested, I was always free to go.

So no raised insurance premiums, and no real damage other than to my psyche. I do so hate having to play the Uriah Heep role, but it is a given that if you pander to someone in alleged authority, you get a more favourable result than if you challenge them. Dale Carnegie had a whole chapter on it in his “How to win friends and influence people”…
Besides, I was in a hurry, which was obviously my undoing, so there is a bit of yin and yang going on there.
On the remainder of the journey, I started pondering how badly wrong things could have gone for me had I decided to go for wit over sensibility. So I have compiled my top six alternative opening lines that may well have led to an alternative outcome….viz, the fine, or possibly worse – and let me tell you, as someone who has recently watched Midnight Express again, I have no wish to do time.

1. Crumbs, you don’t look bad for a copper. What are you doing later?
2. Oh come on, what now? I’m in a ‘kin hurry…
3. I’ve just come from a burglary. Where were you?
4. Oh that hi-viz jerkin is sooo last year. And the hat…well, Daaahlink…
5. I’ve got a couple of lezzers next door, do you know them?
6. Nice ankles, love.

Categories Humour, Obsequiousness, Police, Speeding

Virtual Insanity

February 21, 2010 //

Apologies to Jay Kay for nicking one of his song titles. I needed to build a virtual linux box to run Joomla so that I could get up to speed with it. The last time I had anything to do with this, it was called Mambo, and wasn’t half bad as a CMS.

So I settled down with a copy of ubuntu (I’d like to say I have a favourite linux distro but it strikes me as like joining a club that likes only yellow cars – linux is linux, really) and installed it together with xampp and after a few hours I had my Joomla server up and running. Nothing wrong there – a perfectly acceptable overhead, a morning’s work – but it wasn’t until I started trawling the net for some Joomla templates to modify that I came across these people:

Jumpbox

They do pre-configured virtual machines, with the software that you need to run on top of it already loaded. So, in effect, you can download a Joomla appliance that you fire up in vmware and configure, and then you are good to go. Excuse me while I flagellate myself for using an american-ism there, I meant “Ready to go”, of course. 5 minutes – compare and contrast that with the effort and configuration to get my linux VM up and running.

Some of these appliances are free to download – Joomla, sugarCRM, Drupal and TikiWiki, others, like OrangeHRM and WordPress are available on a subscription basis. What is interesting is that you have an option to launch software in the cloud, so assuming you have an Amazon EC2 account, you can launch the software on a PAYG basis. Which is very very cool. So if you need to architect solutions using a bunch of discrete boxes, this is a very quick and interesting way of putting together rough sandboxes.

Yes yes, the usual disclaimers apply, I’m not employed by these people, nor do I recommend them in any professional capacity. It just struck me as a useful weapon to have around to save time if you have to build environments….

Categories joomla appliance, Jumpbox, Technology, virtualisation, vmware

Moonlighting

February 19, 2010 //

A long, long drive today – and to pass the time, I found myself concentrating on the song lyrics of whatever was on. This does pass the time quite nicely as the miles go by, and there is always the chance of some humour to be had in the form of the odd Mondegreen. However, today, there was more than that for me. That golden-throated seventies pierriot Leo Sayer’s ‘Moonlighting’ came on and I got to thinking…

This is a song about two young people running away to Gretna Green to get married. That much is quite easily understood by the time that you have listened to the song, complete with the daft vocal inflections he puts in (“My mother would have lost her mind”, for example) but it raised some interesting questions for me. There is mention of the van he has had resprayed, because he figures the disguise is worth it – “when they go missing they’re going to look for the van first”. Isn’t this just a little over the top for 1974? Does he expect police helicopters chasing him up the M6 to Gretna? Or did they indeed in days of old, have roadblocks to prevent the randy sassenach from marrying in their fine country?

If we assume then, that these two are between 16 and 18 – are they ‘moonlighting’ to get married or are they running away together to start a new life together in – er, Scotland? I’m confused and frustrated by what the song is telling me – “They’re losing everything, but it means they’ll stay toooo-gether” – are they actually coming home again as man and wife (Is it too cynical of me to say that they are indeed losing everything by marrying that young anyway?) – are they going to be shunned by everyone (“They’re losing all their friends”)? The deep dissatisfaction I have felt after listening to this song is that he does convey the minutae of doing a runner quite well (her bag is bursting at the seams) but never actually saying why they have to do it in the first place? Is she pregnant? I don’t recall it being that difficult in 1974 to shack up with your boyfriend aged 16+ if that is what you wanted to do?

Well, that much was enough to ignite my curiosity of Mr Sayer and his somewhat erratic songwriting abilities (after all , he wrote most of Roger Daltrey’s first solo album which wasn’t – er- that bad) so I thought I’d youtube the daft clown. Yep, I was right, he wore a clown’s outfit on TOTP in 1974 performing “I won’t let the show go on”. But it wasn’t all bad – surely, he is ripe for rehabilitation as a performer and artist, no? I mean, “When I need you” got me all gropy-teenager’d at the disco in the 70’s, and “Long Tall Glasses” was a bit of a bopper, no? Leo, come back into the fold. Sit down, and tell us all about that nasty Adam Faith who made you do all those idiotic things in the name of fame. Leo – do we need a comeback album?

Then, just as I was warming to the idea…..I saw this:

I’ve always been an advocate of ‘one good bellylaugh a day’ being the best medicine you can wish for, and here, I appear to have stumbled on a week’s supply. The very idea that Linda Ronstadt would appear on his TV show in the first place is quite amusing, and then to sing the first line of her version of Tumbling Dice – “People tryin’ to rape me” is quite courageous in the context of the less-than-PC 1970’s [1], but look at the way she looks at him! She can’t quite believe that she has come all this way, leaving behind her buddies in LA (this is a woman who can boast the Eagles as her backing band at one point in her career) to find herself on some third rate TV show with someone she has clearly never heard of. She looks like she has been joined on stage by the class idiot on speed who now wants to Dad-dance [2] with the best looking woman in the room, whilst forgetting that he is choreographically challenged, not to mention six inches shorter than her and has two left feet into the bargain. Clearly, he doesn’t make her feel like dancing and frankly who can blame her? Watch the whole clip; it is the dancing that is the utter cringer. He kisses her hand….

Leo mate, I know we can forgive some things from the 70’s but that was wrong on too many levels. Hunt down Terry Jacks and David Dundas and, I don’t know – do an album or something.

[1] And Linda, while we’re at it, what on earth possessed you to try to out-misogynise Mr Jagger and Mr Richards by changing the first line to “People tryin’ to rape me, always think I’m crazy”? What on earth was wrong with singing the original ? Rape, fer chrissakes? Were you throwing a stalker party or something?
[2] Did someone tell him to dance to the beat of a “Different Drum”, perhaps. Thank you….here all week, laydeesangennelmen, here all week.

Categories 70's Linda Ronstadt, Leo Sayer

Hotel on Mayfair for Mr Tesco, please

February 16, 2010 //

Why do we kick the living sh*t out of our monopoly suppliers (BT and the various water companies) to the point where they can’t fart without some “OFBOLOX” investigation, yet we continue to allow Asda and Tesco to steal with alacrity from people’s shopping baskets ?

This story (link) detailing the manipulation of prices by the (big?) two in the run-up to christmas shows that the end-game in competition results in an absolute limitation of choice for the consumer and a situation that is almost identical to a cartel.

As someone who delights in buying eggs [1] from the market (33% saving at the very least) and fruit and veg from the same market (and the only difference is that you don’t have the pesky cellophane wrapping to contend with – saving 40%) I like to think I’m doing my bit to support the ONLY alternative left to the supermarkets.

But back to my original point. Broadband (I nearly said telephone there, but I can’t recall the last time I used a landline) – there are a single pair of wires entering your premises that BT own. I can’t get Talk Talk to own those wires, can I? I can’t persuade Talk Talk or PlusNet to provide me with FTTC, can I? There is a single water pipe entering your premises that the water company own. It isn’t as if I have any choice other than Anglian water or Severn Trent. I think that if you were to move the people that run OFCOM and OFWAT and set these watchdogs on the supermarkets, then ASDA and Tesco might think twice before abusing their customers.

[1] Eggs – Half a dozen large free range eggs from the market =£1, from [insert robberbaron store name in here]= £1.50

Categories Monopoly, Prices, Supermarkets

Snow Days

February 11, 2010 //

I write this with a heavy heart, knowing that it will be seen as an attack on the teaching profession (and I use the word ‘profession’ advisedly) who do a quite amazing job educating our children – when they are there. I refer of course to the concept of a snow day.

I’d like to know this : why are teachers and people in education the only people who get ‘snow days’? I’ve seen all the arguments from the teaching establishment during the latest spate of bad weather, and I understand all the arguments about “if police say only make emergency journeys then I can’t make my staff risk coming in” and “ice and snow on the premises can make it difficult to comply with health and safety regulations” but they always lead to the same conclusion – closed schools, and hugely inconvenienced parents.

I don’t know of another ‘profession’ that would close my place of business because of bad weather and tell me not to come in lest I endanger my life getting to work. Teachers choose to live where they live, the same as the rest of us do, and if that involves a commute, then that is their choice, surely? The LEA didn’t decree that they should live within walking distance of the school, so it is the teacher’s own choice that they live that far away from the school. So, I don’t think that argument holds water. Or ice. Or snow. The teacher, of their own free will, holds the commuting risk of their own volition.

Secondly, why can’t the teacher – like they used to do – turn up at their local school and effectively be a supply teacher? The excuse used here is that you can’t have complete strangers turning up at school purporting to be a teacher. I cannot believe that this is valid – surely an LEA has a register of teachers that are local to each school? A simple list that a headteacher will have that says “Mrs Jones attends this school in case of bad weather”. Teachers have identity cards already?

For years, teachers have been complaining that they aren’t taken as ‘professionals’ any more. Try showing, as a body of people, some commitment to the children you purport to educate on the days that you are required to attend school.

And for pity’s sake, stop demeaning yourself and the rest of your ‘trade’ by not making the same effort as the rest of society to cope with bad weather. Spend some of your winter holiday in Canada. And learn.

Categories Canada, Education, Teachers, Weather

Right on the target but wide of the mark

February 8, 2010 //

Forgive the use of Mr Fry’s lyrics, but the hardest part of this lark is finding a suitably witty title. I am struck by the rabble-rousing angry mob tactics of the media and the politicians lately with regard to bankers, and more expressly their bonuses, and how desperately wide of the mark they are. It is a fact of life – it has been for some time – that performance related pay is an easy way for banks and other financial services institutions to reward the staff that do well and to carrot-and-stick those that don’t perform. Let’s call this a ‘bonus’, shall we? It is part of every employees remuneration package and it is earned, one way or another.

Why then, does the frankly nasty, tawdry old man in front of me in the queue at the bank the other day decide to score points off the poor girl by berating her for her ‘bonus’ and the link he has – erroneously – made between her bonus and his lack of a pension increase? Did he arrive at that conclusion himself? No. He read it in the paper, or is dim enough to believe a politician.

It is the same at every election time. This time it is the banker. Previous candidates for pillorying have been, variously, Fat Cats, Benefit Cheats, Captains of Industry, Football Hooligans – every election brings a new villain to the table.

Please, by all means, banker bash all you want, but please use some intelligence when having a pop at bank clerks. They weren’t trading in sub-prime securitisations, they were just counting your money.

Categories Banking, Manners

Are you ready children? We’re going to learn a new word…

February 7, 2010 //

Hello children. Today, we are going to look at how the English language evolves. Now, as we all know, there is no English equivalent for the german word “shadenfreude”, so we have adopted it into our mother tongue – this is called a “loanword”. There is a branch of irony (ask a grown-up what that means – although do avoid asking an American grown-up or anyone called Alanis) that I feel deserves it’s own word, so today, boys and girls, I am creating the word Ironfreude, the joy at finding that someone who has been slighted by someone getting their own back in an ironic way.

Now for an example of this, we are going to look at that nice Mr Branson’s desire to acquire a high street presence and look a little closer at his right hand person, Jayne-Anne Gadhia’s background. Jayne-Anne used to work for Virgin Direct, and then moved to the RBS to do – oh, to run mortgage stuff, I think. It is said that RBS, being a dour and unprogressive bunch didn’t care much for an English person telling them how to lend money and so, Jayne-Anne moved back to Virgin. Then she and that nice Mr Branson attempted to acquire the Northern Rock when it got into it’s troubles [*] but they failed to persuade the government to let them have it. Nasty Government. So, having failed to acquire the Northern Rock, and having bought ^h^h^h^h^h established their own banking license, they are now looking for a high street distribution method. That is a bit like having your own sweetshop in every town. What fun!

Ironfreude, then, is the humour found in the discovery that the RBS is being forced to sell 316 branches under EU competition law, and finding that Jayne-Anne/Virgin Money is stepping forward to try to buy them.

It isn’t very often that I find banks funny, but I do love the idea that the most aggressive and acquisitive upstart in the UK banking sector, the RBS (who I have been with since the year dot – the Hotel California of the banking world – when they were Williams and Glyns and they used to send me cheques back with my statements every month. Proper customer service, that was) finally have to sell off some branches to someone they decided to….part company with.

And that, children, is how we get new words in this language of ours. Geoffrey, Bungle? Shall we go and meet Zippy at the gay bar?

[*] Am I alone in blaming that Peston fool for creating the run on that bank? Where is responsible journalism when you need it? In the pub with the same policeman that is never around when you need him either, I expect. Perhaps the teacher joins them every time it snows, I don’t know….

Categories Banking, Language, schadenfreude

Odds and Sods….

January 27, 2010 //

I know, I know. I am a boring old f*rt, but I’ve long been convinced that the early 70’s were the creative hotbed that gave rise to everything we listen to and enjoy now, and yet so much is overlooked these days. Here are a few of my favourite oft-overlooked tracks fron the early 70’s – so thoughtfully upped onto youtube by people with more time than I have. Enjoy.

Stay With Me – The Faces

This was my first proper single, and it had a deep influence on me. Note that in these days, Rod Stewart was ‘just’ the vocalist, not the lycra-panted disco diva of later years. And it was OK and a bit cool to like the Faces in the early 70’s.

I never really went for the heavy end of the rock spectrum (hell, we didn’t even know that heavy rock existed then, only later did the name tags and genres come) but I remember liking the sound of the guitar. And I’ve stuck with Ronnie Wood as my favourite guitarist through all these years simply for that slide guitar sound. And in later years, for being a role model for growing old disgracefully. Anyone who can claim to have persuaded Keith Richards to climb a tree that he subsequently fell out of is OK in my book….

Water – The Who

The ‘Oo were the soundtrack to my early teens, and Charlton in 1976 was probably responsible for my slight hearing issues today. This song, an outtake from Who’s Next, eventually made it onto the B-side of 5:15, which is how it is a favourite…

In the Street – Big Star

This is probably better known as a cover version by Cheap Trick and used as the theme to “That seventies show”. I never felt I was swimming against the tide with my taste in music, but I could never understand why Big Star weren’t bigger than they were. But then again, I suppose you can say that about so many bands through the years – perhaps they fell behind with the payola payments.

Get Down and Get With it – Slade

(The version on Slade Alive Volume 1). If anyone ever questions what was so great about Slade, play them this track – loud. If they don’t smile, they aren’t human. Don’t try this with pets, obviously, as they aren’t. And small children, whilst human, will be frightened at Noddy’s vocal equivalent of an air-raid.

So much has been written about Sir Noddy, nothing I can say can add to the man’s vocal genius. I want him knighted.

Bless The Weather – John Martyn

Sadly, John is no longer with us. This is the finest legacy anyone could leave behind. A true pathfinder – which is a polite way of saying he was way ahead of his time. I quite often think when I listen to guitar work that I could have a go at playing it, but John’s work just issues me with a ‘cease and desist’ order from the first bar; I just enjoy listening to it instead. So should more people. For further listening, try the album ‘Bless the weather’ and maybe ‘Solid Air’.

Please Stay – Marvin Gaye.

Another dead star, here at the absolute peak of his prowess. I grew up with my Mum’s copy of this album (which is a bit freaky, thinking about this – either I had a right-on parent, or she didn’t listen closely to the lyrics…) and I never got to dismiss the beauty of the arrangements as cheesy like so many other songs of the genre. It also provided me with two things: the first is a lifelong love of soul music, and the second was the basis for every shag tape I ever made. Hmmmm – a separate blog I feel.

Halleluhwah – Can

Hmmm, Happy Mondays in 1971. Well, perhaps Sean’s mind altering intake turned him into a time traveller? It does get a bit Interstellar Overdrive after a bit, but persevere with it.

Superstar – The Carpenters

There is a version of this by Sonic Youth, and much as I am a fan of the dissembling noodle-fest of Kim and Thurston (first name terms there for irony, OK?), this song reminds me of my first pair of flares and learning to walk on my first pair of platforms without looking like a complete dork. Tough call, and more praise should be due to those who mastered it. I believe that as a sop to parental concern about the damage to my feet, they were from Clark’s and were a 4 inch heel, a 1 inch sole and had uppers of ox-blood, black and burnt ochre. Hardly peacock colouration, but subtle enough to get away with them for school. The song is a perfect piece of pop orchestration, and is still evocative of the era today, which is a powerful attribute. You couldn’t say that about Peters and Lee or Vicky Leandros, could you now?

The Bewlay Brothers – David Bowie

I think this was the first time I listened to a song and was impressed with the wordplay in the lyrics. My desk lid at school had this tatooed/inscribed into it in turquoise ink. Took me months and then I had to move classrooms. Gah…

That Lady – The Isley Brothers

This song has the dirtiest fuzz guitar sound going. I’ve never found it anywhere else. Anyway, another parental record, I think I’m trying to endow them with good taste, but really you should see the rest of the collection. This track then – a bit of vocals between one of the longest guitar solos I have ever heard. A toss up between this and Summer Breeze really, but this is the road less travelled I think. An interesting point is that in 1981 I furnished my old Russian Bouquet bandmate Roy with a tape with this on, and some years later, he gave us a pastiche of the solo in ‘Miss You Blind’…two Ern’s don’t make Hay while the sun shines. Or something like that….

Hypnotised – Fleetwood Mac

It might be just me, but the early seventies Fleetwood Mac seemed directionless – not blues, or rock, yet not pop. Small wonder then that there was an ‘alternative’ Fleetwood Mac put together and almost sent out to tour by their management. This track, from 1973, shows that it wasn’t just the arrival of Buckingham and Nicks that sent Fleetwood Mac scampering for the FM market, that was the direction they seemed to be experimenting with on this track.

So, before they disappeared in a flurry of cocaine and divorce lawyers, this track (and ‘Come a little bit closer’ from a later album) showed their eventual direction years before they took it.

Roxette – Dr Feelgood

As a one time resident of a tributary of what is now fondly called the Canvey Delta by idiots who never properly understood, and also mispronounced Sarfenonsea, I was never allowed – yessss, too young – into the pubs that Mickey Jupp and his ilk were playing in – even with the platforms. I remember being ejected from one (The Jellicoe? Or the Grand?) after me and a few chums attempted to watch Dr Feelgood (who were so loud we just stood outside and listened). Roxette was my first introduction to stripped bare R&B. God bless, Lee.

Categories 70's, Music

Marketing Consultant FAIL

January 10, 2010 //

My favourite picture of last year. I know it isn’t a term widely used over here, but most us know what a Diaper in America is?

I wonder if this is the start of a new line in meat products?

Pamper’s Pork?

Dr Whites’ Duck?

Huggy’s Pull-up Lamb?

Anyway, I laughed until I stopped. And now I am sharing it with you. Wave at the van if you see it out and about in East Anglia.

Categories Humour

Whither the violin in Rock?

January 7, 2010 //

Where has the electric (and acoustic) violin gone in rock? And why has it disappeared?

The 70’s were a hotbed of experimental sounds and saw the violin accepted into the fray – largely, I suspect as a result of John Cale’s viola noodlings on the early Velvet Underground LPs. Jim Lea of Slade achieved a number 1 with “Cos I Luv You” with a jaunty violin lead, whilst at around the same time, Daryl Way was spicing up Curved Air’s prog-tastic offerings (note to self – no crude Sonja Kristina gags, or indeed references to Stewart Copeland’s brief sojourn as the drummer), and the very kings of glam rock, Roxy Music were rarely seen live without Eddie Jobson on the violin (“Out Of The Blue” on “Country Life” is a great example). Cockney Rebel’s Judy Teen was based around a pizzicato violin and as for ELO – well, let’s not, shall we?

It seemed that every 70’s band had a solo violin (or viola) – Caravan, UK, The Who, Zappa, King Crimson, Hawkwind – until Kevin Rowland did his Celtic nonsense in the early 80’s and then nothing. Why? Should we blame Kevin for the demise of the violin (although they were ‘fiddling’ in a folk style more than using it in a rock context), but is there another reason, perhaps?

Well, I blame the rise and subsequent dominance of the synthesiser. Suddenly, every note that needed infinite sustain was available at the tweak of a knob and the flick of a switch. It is odd really, that the violin didn’t really continue it’s journey in rock – an instrument easily learnt and widely taught in schools should really have achieved greater prominence.

Did the association with prog-rock dinosaurs stick it in a coffin as punk dawned? Did Mr Rowland carry it to the church? Did Billy Currie of Ultravox lower it into the ground on “Vienna”?

I miss it.

Categories Uncategorized