If you get bored of dismal re-run Christmas television and Only Fools And Horses TV Specials, then you should go check out the highlights of iamcal.com – a repository of good weblogging content. [Note for the punter who e-mailed me: “repository” does not mean something you insert anally in order to alleviate disease. That word is suppository.]
I can’t think of a single thing to say.
A week with my family…
Well, tomorrow I depart fair London for cold Norfolk, where I plan to spend a week with my family. This will be the longest I have spent with them for about three or four years, so it may end in complete disaster, acrimony and arguments. I have to confess I’m slightly nervous. Still, I’m looking forward to seeing my little brother (now approaching six feet tall aged sixteen) and going to see Lord of the Rings with him. If you wish to buy me a Christmas present, you can – but of course Secret Santa has taken the pressure off you a bit, so don’t feel obliged in the slightest.
The horror of my work ethic…
On the shock of discovering a work-ethic, and the horror of realising that this is why you’ve never made any money: When payment seems in excess of workload, typically I have increased workload to compensate rather than saying “Thank you very much”. I don’t honestly know what’s wrong with me…
IE5 for Macs vs. IE6 for PCs…
A recurrent theme at EMAP in recent weeks has been the battle between Cal and I about whether or not Mac Internet Explorer 5 is a good or a bad browser. Seriously. This is the kind of thing that keeps us busy all day. Cal maintains that a browser that doesn’t conform to standards is a bad browser. I maintain that IE5 is not substantially worse than IE6 for PCs, and that although it has its problems, it has been lauded as one of the best browsers on the market.
Well now I’m prepared to throw the towel in. Who, in effect, gives a …. when IE 5.1 is out. I’ll let you know what I think of it when I get a moment…
Another victim of the doc.com disaster…
Sigh. Another victim of the dot.com disaster – and one that you’d think would be the last to fail. How is it possible that a site that did nothing but show other people’s TV adverts free could go under? You’d think that multi-national corporations would be delighted by the free publicity, and by people watching and rewatching the promotion of their products. The campaign starts here to encourage Gap and all the other regular TV advertisers to pay to maintain the site – as they should have been doing so all along…
Introducing Trabaca…
Trabaca is a beautifully designed, touching site by a young, intelligent and in-the-process-of-telling-everyone-he’s-a-poof young man. It’s bloody great, and if you don’t read it I’ll smack you around the face with an articulated truck.
On great big nasty right-wing facists…
Never before did I fully understand the horrible difficulties of being a great big nasty right-wing facist. And when you get bored of that, there’s a new quiz at TCN.
I'm off to a Chanukah party!
Right, that’s enough bollocks for one day. I’m off to a Chanukah party.
Musical Juxtapositions…
Putting all your favourite songs onto an iPod throws up a few interesting juxtapositions. You’re happily wandering through Clerkenwell listening to The Sisters of Mercy in a kind of retro-bohemian, Berlin goth style and you’re feeling quite self-satisfied in a homo superior “doesn’t get enough sun” kind of way, and then Randy Crawford explodes into your ears with a heavy dose of Street Life. I’m just saying it’s strange, is all. Not bad.
Strange songs on my iPod:
- Im Nin ‘Alu, by Ofra Haza
One of those bizarre songs that you listen to on “Now That’s What I Call Fucking Bizarre Pop Music” when you’re twelve, but don’t realise that it’s not normal pop music like Duran Duran, and so you get all excited by it and listen to it over and over and over. - Voyage Voyage, by Desireless.
As above – another weird ‘turned up on a tape I bought when I was fourteen’ song. This one sticks in my head particularly because Nicky Campbell said something really rude about them on Top of the Pops in 1986. I think he was suggesting that the lead singer wasn’t very attractive or something. It was around this period that he said of Lisa Stansfield’s “All Around the World”, that the poor singer still couldn’t find her child despite an extensive global search. How I laughed. - Housequake, by Prince.
They’re like relics, these songs. Crusty, freakish and old. - Ghostbusters, by Ray Parker Junior.
I can play this on the piano. By which I mean that I can play the bit that everyone can sing in their heads, not the bridge bits that no one really cares about. Typically, my piano teacher made me learn to play endless dull tunes with names like “Marjuka Number 5” when I was a kid, despite the fact that I kept asking if there was any piano music for the theme tune to “Murder She Wrote”. I learnt to play “Ghostbusters” when she wasn’t looking, and then I showed her that I could play it, and she made everything more difficult from that point on. Plus, when I got a note wrong, she’d sweep her hands under my arms and moan “No, No!” until I wanted to cave her head in with a brick. - You Spin Me Round, by Dope rather than Dead and Alive.
From the soundtrack to American Psycho. God only knows why I have this. It’s like Nine Inch Nails shagged 80s Europop by an alien radiation emitter and gave birth to some kind hideous hybrid pop-dance-rock monster of tacky proportions. “You spin me right round baby, round, round, like a record, baby, right round”. For some reason this reminds me of a short-term piece of contract work as a temp in an defence contractor in Norfolk.
Get thee to Limewire, my friends, and build your own screwed-up music collective of the weird taste of Tom. For without these songs bouncing around your psyche, you can’t hope to understand the depths to which I’ve plunged…