Posts from — January 2008

The wine is only there for perspective to show that I made truly monster loaves. Click the picture. CLICK it.

Last Tuesday, Scaryduck (who took his first webfooted steps into video blogging yesterday) put up a post asking his readers to compete in The Duck of Death’s Celebrity Death Pool featuring the Duke of Edinburgh Memorial Gold Cup

The rules were thus:

1. Choose THREE celebrities who you think may cark it in the next twelve months. Ten points.
2. Choose one additional TRAGEDY PICK – a celebrity less than fifty years of age who you think may shuffle off this mortal coil before the end of 2008. Twenty points.

I went for:

Doris Day
Fidel Castro
Elizabeth Taylor
Tragedy: Claire from Steps (AND double points for irony)

Nice and safe choices, ending with a comedy number. Thank you and goodnight. 

But someone else called John went with a somewhat edgy this:

Menzies Cambpell
Honor Blackman
Mickey Rooney
DOE to DIE on 11 November 2008
Tragic Pick: Heath Ledger
(I dreamt about this one).
John

Now of course, the competition takes a nasty twist, because less than a week later, we learn that Heath Ledger is dead.

I know this looks insentive given Sunday’s post, but death happens. It’s sad and it does. But when your blogging peers ask for predictions, then get them from the dreams of thier readers, then something’s going on.

If Rooney, Blackman and Cambell die on 11 November, there should be an inquest. Although I would pay good money to hear the words ”ming with honour” said on Newsnight.

Regular readers will know I’m a fan of the magnificently funny A Little Bit Of Wisdom In Every Box, which is blogging’s answer to light entertainment. I will of course stop liking it when everyone discovers the infectiously good-natured Sam, a 23 year old student union president and blogger par excellence, but until that happens, I will rave like a loon.

He’s now treading the murky waters of video posts with this first one.

This would have been good enough, but he followed it up with a director’s commentary version version, which is even funnier.

Honour him with your patronage, Thislings.

Seriously, just enjoy. Just hit F5 and look at the straplines on the nav bar.

bad grammar makes me [sic]

ma vie en blog

because beggars CAN be choosers…

Honour him.

Allow me this one for a tribute. Mutual friends stop by here sometimes and today there’s occasion for glasses raised over bowed heads, because today is fifteen years since since my friend Luke died. Time is proving true my suspicion that we’ll never meet his like again. Cheers, pal.

Update – 11 pm
I wanted to say thanks to everyone for coming through with stuff. Lindsay put some video of Luke and us here. You can navigate between the two films by pressing “Movie 1″ and “Movie 2″ at the top of the page. (You’ll need quicktime to watch them.)

We’ve got some photos here and here and some artwork that I’d never seen before, a letter, even some MP3s, but most importantly your thoughts.

Guy, that’s a beautiful comment. Kirsty, too. Everyone else, thanks for stopping by and that other friend, thanks for the email – and yes, I don’t doubt for a second he would. Here’s one of my own from a couple of years ago today.

What we came up with today wasn’t volumes, not by today’s standards, but it means more to think that fifteen years on we have still held on to this stuff in more ways than one and that at a couple of days’ notice, you’ve gone to the trouble to share it and we took the time. When you consider that Luke died before the digital age started (he worked in a video store, for crying out loud!) it shows the effort you made is a testament to the effect he had on people.

We’re online now. We’ve gone digital and wireless, we have social networks and websites but we still get drawn back. But we’re not living in the past, we’re living in Luke’s future. The way to honour that is to walk on, count the blessings and never forget what we mean to each other.

Colleague (singing): Why don’t we do it in the road?

Me: Because it’s not safe and it’s unhygenic.

Colleague (looks at me in silence)

Me: And I’m just not gay. Sorry.
—
Do you like nice conversations?
Bored
Conversation
Conversation
Conversation
Conversation 
Conversation 1
Conversation 2
Wrong
Conversation This Week, Part 2
Conversation This Week, Part 1
Talking Like A Superhero At Work
What Are You Saying?

A part of moving is letting go, not trying to rein stuff in too much. The mind like water thing. I’m not saying I can do it, but I get it. Doing it’s another thing.

Here’s one from Pearl Jam, who can do both anthemic self-affacing.

What do we want?
We’re more interested in what YOU think we want.

It’s been a busy week here on the site. I didn’t expect to post every day, but that’s how it turned out, because I didn’t have to. Funny, yeah. Maybe THAT’S letting go. Like a dark mood in winter, where it’s that you don’t realise you’re dwelling on it until you stop. Maybe you’re gripping the leash so tight you can’t feel it after a while.

I am fuel, you are friends
and we’ve got the means to make amends.
I am lost, I’m no guide
but I’m by your side.

Listen: Leash

—
Related pages
Weekend Song archive

We were playing Animal Facts at work. You know, a shrimp has its heart in its head, elephants are the only quadropods with knees that bend the same way. Animal Facts.

A colleague said that a cow can walk upstairs backwards.

Me: “See, I don’t think that’s right.”

A cow can’t walk downstairs, I explained, because they would fall forwards. They are top-heavy with weak knees, but they can walk upstairs.

Him: “And upstairs backwards. That is a cow fact.”

Me: “I think its wrong. Because if they were walking upstairs backwards, they still be pointing downstairs and they’d topple forwards for the same reason they can’t walk upstairs.”

Him: “But you’re not hearing me. They’re walking upstairs BACKWARDS.”

We got the weekend song tomorrow, trying not to stay attached to these winter blues.

Have a good weekend all. It’s good to be back. Slightly embarrassing that I was gone about two and a half weeks for a break, although I’ve managed to post every day here, but good to be back all the same.

Did you know Barack Obama was black?

Honestly, he is. Although you wouldn’t know it because it doesn’t matter.

Let me tell you something. It matters.

The suits he wears matter. The people standing behind him when he talks matter. The height of the podium matters. The car he pulls up in before he gives the speech matters. Is it an American car, or a Japanese car? That matters. Is it an SUV? That really matters.

It matters what he smoked in university. It matters what people think of his religion, whether he is or isn’t a Muslim. It matters that he is confident. It matters if his family fought in any wars and on whose side. It matters than he has no facial hair. Abe Lincoln would never get elected now.

It matters that he is not disabled. Franklin Roosevelt couldn’t walk, but there are only two pictures of him in a wheelchair. He had to be propped up before he could be photographed or make speeches and he had different sets of leg braces to match the colour socks he wore. Because it mattered.

Theodore Roosevelt was shot in 1913 while walking up to give a speech. He worked the shooting into the opening joke, delivered the whole address and the bullet stayed in his body for the rest of his otherwise natural life. But people know about the incident because that mattered.

And those were back then. The scrutiny is much greater now.

If you’re trying to become the most powerful head of state in the world, it all matters. Obama Barack is black and it matters, just like his teeth and his accent matters. It’s not a political issue, sure, but people say it didn’t matter than John Kennedy was a Catholic. I wonder how many people voted for him because it didn’t matter.

Get over ourselves.

As tagged by Meg earlier this month, I have just got around to posting it, and the stuff relates to the week between Christmas and New Year. So here is Me Meeja Meme.

What I read 
I subscribe to National Geographic magazine – I read articles on the albatros, memory and cowboys.

Sunday Times Culture section is the first thing I reach for from the weekend’s papers. AA Gil’s review is a sometimes guilty pleasure.

The Week is the best news magazine ever made and it’s always bang on the money without taking itself too seriously. The back page article consistently the best feature of the week, and the letters section is brilliant. It does it all.

I didn’t read any newspapers because I don’t really, but I did the quiz of the year in The Times.

I read Lorelei’s Secret by Carolyn Parkhurst  - a novel which was a recommendation from Wendy, and one I wouldn’t have picked myself because the premise was kind of weird and it could have gone either way. But it didn’t and while the theme was very sentimental, it dealt with real issues of grief and cruelty with a dignity I very much doubt would ever carry me through such trials.

What I watched
I watched the film Gettysburg, which is the four-hour epic screen adaptation of Killer Angels, which was the best book I read last year, and the finest account of battle have read, and I’ve read lots of books about war. This was a birthday present from my dad and stepmum – cracking present, both.

I saw a cheesy Sandra Bullock film where she works as a train ticket seller in Chicago. It was all right. Until five years ago, I had never seen a film with her in, and now I can’t avoid them.

Jules Holland’s Hootenany and the news for the fireworks. I watched the Transformers movie and I went to see Everton play Arsenal and then saw the highlights on Match Of The Day back in the hotel and the cold light of day (we lost).

Flight Of The Conchords – one of the funniest shows of the year. Murray…. -present.

Riding Giants – No, stop that, it’s a documentary about big wave riders who live and love to surf. Just watching it was breathtaking.

Lead Balloon – Jack Dee at his deadpan funniest.

What I surfed 
AOL UK (present employer), BBC News (future employer), newswires, photo archives, Facebook, The New Yorker, blogs (from my Bloglines RSS reader, in no particular order, and I can’t remember if they all posted, but I would have read them if they had and the list is): It’s A Life, troubled diva, So?, rivierawriter, little red boat, writer’s moll, Everything Is Electric, Sad Sweet Songs & Crazy Rhythms, Jonny B’s Private Secret Diary, This Is The Goo I’ve Got, Scaryduck, A little bit of wisdom in every box, Fleet Street 2.0, The World of Jill Twiss, Goin’ To The John, A few words from Rob Mansfield, Adventures in Kathrynland, Zen Habits, Journalism.co.uk, The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss, McSweeney’s, newsroomnext, meish dot org, I am livid, Justin’s ramble, better than fine, agenda365, The Daily Telegraph’s Bits.

Riviera Writer, my dad, made his final blog post in that week, which is a shame, but you can enjoy the archives and I will plug his book again, as he’s giving up to work on his second one.

What I listened to
Newton Faulkner’s Handbuilt By Robots CD – really enjoyable, heartfelt, soulful and funny songs by this energetic and sensitive acoustic guitarist with an earnest but not schmaltzy voice.

Magic by Bruce Springsteen

On the road trip to the match, I listened to Radio 2 - Mark Lamarr on the way up, and Clive Anderson on the way down.

A spoken word CD – Lake Wobegon Days: Original Radio 4 Broadcast (see below)

Podcasts – Prairie Home Companion’s News From Lake Wobegon – This is irresistible and if you haven’t heard it yet then it give it a try. It never fails to brighten my darkest week. Garrison Keillor writes adorably. Also NPR’s Writer’s Almanac – another Garrison Keillor show which looks at literary landmarks on that day in history, followed by a poem.

And Mr Angry’s inaugural podcast – very funny if you get the chance.

I am tagging Writer’s Moll, Kathryn, Mr Angry, Pete and Scaryduck.

You know you’ve been blogging too much when you get on the bus and sit next to someone you’ve never spoken  to before and you get out a book and he says:

“No laptop today, then?”

I laughed and said: “Taking a break. Too much work. Resolutions.”

It seemed I’d also given up using proper sentences and instead was talking like incapacitated superheroes used to in comics right before they opened a can of whoop-ass.

They don’t do that now – superheroes are much more eloquent. I miss the whole thing of: “… MUST FIGHT… BUT … TOO …- STUPID…”

Now it’s: “I SUMMON THE POWER OF FLAMOID TO DESTORY THE EVIL SOUSAPHONE WARLORDS.”

They probably turn their noses up now at canned whoop-ass, too. In all likelihood they get their whoop-ass flown in and have it prepared in a wrap with porcini mushrooms and raspberry coulis.

Meanwhile, back on the bus… 

“Start as you mean to go on, I say,” he said, which was obvious because I had finished talking, such as it was.

I went back to my book, which I’ll tell you about another time, because we’re all out of Tuesday. Tomorrow I’ll do the My Week In Media meme that Meg tagged me with. It’s from the first week of New Year, so, it’s somewhat backdated, but if I’d have been posting it’s what I would have written.

Also – Facebook friends: Please stop trying to get me to add funwall, video galleries, happy cams, widget heaven, etc. If you want to send me something, send me an email. It doesn’t get any better than the sneezing panda, and that was 2006, OK?