Dag 607: bloody and blunt

As I type this I can hear a lone dog barking outside.
The TV is switched on and, on it, two men are talking.
One of them is called Jonathan Woss so I'd better leave my lone dog story for later, because now its time for the Weekly Woss Weport.

I've been doing this for some time now and my readership has almost reached 5 and contains a number of key demographics so I think we can safely say it is a resounding success as far as things on the internet go.

OK - first up was Jade. She has already leaft and I was prepared to write nothing about her as I was (and still am) not a fan of big brother in anyway so I thought she would be rubbish. However she came over much better than I thought she would - although lets not get carried away here. I thought it was pretty cool that she thought the Mona Lisa was painted by Pistachio. I could go one of two ways now, so lets briefly explore them:
1) It was really painted by Brazil.
2) This isn't as bad an answer as you may think as many people believed the artist to be nuts.
As this is the internet complete with full virtual reality you can choose which of the answers you would rather have.
The final note for this part of the show was that Jonathan (pronounced Yonathan of course) ended it saying he may well pay Jade a visit at her Salon, but of course you and I know that there is more chance of Jade coming round here for a coffee than there is of Jonathan going round for a quick blow dry.

Next up was some guy - I didn't catch his name, I didn't recognise him from anything and I wasn't paying attention to him because I was typing up my jade bit, so as Steven Fry is now on I think we'll leave it at that.

Steven Fry - now of course he is the presenter of the great show QI so he has a lot of QDOS. Last week alan Davies was on and he played the side kick of a show also called QI, but I must say the ome that Mr Fry presents is slightly better.
They are talking a bot about the books what he has wrote, and I have to admit that I haven't ready a single one of them (or any other number). I like reading books by Henning Mankell, Lisa Marklund, Ian Rankin and Karin Fossum.
They are now talking about crossword puzzles, but I prefer a good sudoku, and by "good" of course I mean "samurai". DJ prints one out for me most weeks and I do them on the plane. I have been to Spain by plane 3 times now, and it hasn't rained once during the flight.
My that Stephen Fry certainly knows a lot about stuff - he is able to show up old Wossy without even breaking into a sweat (just like me at the gym).
Now they are showing a clip of university challenge. When I used to watch this in my youth I thought that the desk of one team was in fact above the other team and they had to climb up a little ladder like the ones you get with bunk beds.
Mr Fry has no left and it can only be time for some music to round off the show.

This week the group have called themselves the magic numbers and are playing and singing a song. One of them has got an orange amplifier. I once went to see Magna Carta play in Hampswaite Village Hall and they had orange amplifiers too.
I have decided that I am not going to bother buying a cd of these guys. The groupe seem to be made up of long hair and beards (apart from the girl who hasn't got a beard). The bass playet hasn't got one either. As the end credits roll accross the screen from right to left like some wierd cunic script it is time to leave you again and muse upon something profound.

Car toon

It's a strange thing. Usually I have inspiration after an event for a post which contains a bit of humour. This is mainly based on the fact that I find life funny, in a good old Scottish, dark kind of way. This time, however, I'm struggling. It was a straightforward holiday, very enjoyable and all that, but I'm almost having to put together a tour guide.
Right, let's get on with it.
We flew to Belfast first - this was due to the much cheapness of EasyJet, which flies from there to Palma. We were going to Majorca, so that was quite handy. We hung about there for a few hours and met my good friend and partners mum and brother, who live over there, for lunch. It was an easy little jaunt down to the balearic island paradise.
My mum, dad and niece were flying direct from Glasgow, since they'd booked a year in advance, and were landing within 5 minutes of our flight in Palma. This worked perfectly and we met at the airport and all went together to get the hire car. In this particular case I'd hired a 7 seater, it was an Espace although the word 'space' should have been missed out. It was, in it's defense, a big car, and did, indeed seat 7. The bit that was missing was that this left no room at all for anything bigger than a box of matches. We did manage to squeeze everything in though, very precarious, and we only had six passengers (which you'd know if you'd been keeping up).
I jumped into the driver's seat, then jumped back out and round to the other side, which was the real driver' seat and inserted the card. Yup. Card. A slot where the ashtray would be with a button next to it saying 'Start/Stop'. I searched in vain for the handbrake and decided to try starting the engine anyway. I put my foot on the footbrake, just in case, and pressed the button. The engine roared into life and the car didn't shoot forward into the wall. All was going very well so far then. I tried to go into first gear, but the thing wouldn't move. I realised quickly that I hadn't pressed the clutch. It's wierd how you forget how to drive when these little things jump out at you. Anyway, finally got moving, the handbrake light went out and all was well. A pretty uneventful trip later and found the apartment and reverse parked. I say this because I had Dad out guiding me in, but couldn't hear him because of this incessant beeping which had started. It kept getting shorter between beeps until finally it was constant. Yes, it turns out that it's a 'Woman's Parker' which tells you how close to the kerb you are when reversing in. Found out a couple of days later that it was a bus stop I'd parked at, but I'm not giving them 60 euros, so there.
The rest of the week was pool and beach stuff mainly, with a trip to some caves, which were nice.
Only other story was on the way back when Belfast security refused to let the wee man's water guns on board. Big purple and yellow plastic things they were, but the guys were adamant. Of course I did have to say "What am I going to do, break into the cabin and say 'Take me to Cuba or I'll soak you?'", which the junior security guy laughed at, even if the older one looked like he was wanting to shoot me with his real gun.

Dag 603: why?

Few things are more distressing to a well regulated mind than to see a boy, who ought to know better, disporting himself at improper moments.

In a sea of change the prime mover will always keep one eye on the main chance.

If you find a trumpet growing in your garden you should root it out.

A wise man will give you good advice soon.

Dag 602: wondering

As I sit and type the rain is falling outside.
The tree is bereft of bark and the dog has forgotten it's tale.
Three robins dance in formation on the lawn and the sky hangs ominously low.

All I can do is wait to see what dark mysteries this night has yet to lay at my door.

Jules and the Julian Calender

Now and again I sumplement the Weekly Woss Weport with a quick snippet about something else that has caught my attention in someway, and 9 times out of 10 this somthing is Later with Jules Holland.

I started off watching the beginning of Jaws 2 without any great expectations, but then I turned it over to BBC2 just as Uncle Jules was introducing Goldfrapp. The song instantly reminded me of Gary Numan circa Down In The Park (i.e before he went downhill with all his cars pish) and I thought it was really good. It was fairly simple and it got me thinking "I'm sure I could do something like that", but of course I couldn't (especially the singing).

Up to now I didn't think it qualified for a snickerty snippet, but then Bert Backarach and orchestra played some song about shakespere. Those, that know me well will know that anything that includes shakespere in the title has lost 250 jungle points straight away, but this song was fantastic, so I thought to myllef "Ise just gots to blogs this ones" and so I did.

As a small foornote I should add that whenever I see Jules Holland on TV I am reminded of Jules Vilarrubi. This is partly because they share the same name, but mainly because of Julian's almost fanatical devotion to Squeeze in his youth. In fact some people might say it was more than fanatical, but I'll just leave it at that.

Dag 600: I got a gift of butter.....

.....but there isn't time for me or Robin Williamson to discuss the relative merits of butter as a present, because it's time for the Weekly Woss Weport.

Tonight we have Alan Davies, an actress, Des Lynam and Robbie Williams - so a bit of a mixed bunch really.

First up is Alan Davies. He is really great due to his Jonathan Creek fame. I have got all of the Jonathan Creek episodes on DVD and every monday night I watch one with my chicken fried rice and absolute vodka with sprite (and plenty of ice). But to make things even better, in addition to Jonathan Creek being my favourite Jonathan Creek style program QI is also my favourite QI style program so I really enjoyed this bit of the show. In fact I predict that the rest of the show won't be as good as this bit.

Next was the actress - I didn't catch her name, but I think it is quite complicated. She was in the english patient and they showed a clip of it. This film is so rubbish that I chose never to watch it. Then they showed a clip of 4 weddings and a funeral - I also don't like films like this, so we aren't doing very well here. It was while she was being interviewed that I got my computer out from under the bed and booted it up and began typing this so I miseed the rest of he interview.

By the time we get to this sentance Des Lynam is already being interviewed and it has just been revealed that he will be the new presenter of block busters - I mean countdown. When he came on the gay singers same the bit that goes der der der der der der der der poo, so I guess that was a clue to him presenting countdown. They are now talking a bit about sport and boxing. I have never been very keen on sport as I have always preferred music. As a child, my theory was that you either liked sport or music, so it was a bit of a let down that you had to do sport every wednesday afternoon - I think they should give you a choice of sport or music. By the time I was in the 6th form we could choose what sport we wanted to do, from a limited choice, and I always chose squash, because there were only 2 squash courts and loads of people wanted to play it, so if I handled it correctly I managed to get away with 5 minutes in the squash court and the rest of the afternoon chatting to my friends, which is much more fun than sport.

Now we have Mr Robbie Williams and he is being spoken to at the moment rather than just coming on and playing like the musical act usually does. I don't really like his music, but he seems to be coming accross quite well and saying a few funny things. He just said "I am so loving it" so he has gone back down in my estimation again.
Now he is going to sing a couple of songs - let's see what they are like shall we?
song number 1:
This is called triffin (or something). It has just started and I thought it started a bit reggaeish. It doesn't look as thought one of his ear things is in properly. So far I am not thinking this is one of his best songs. The only song of his that I have liked so far is one were he was riding on a horse in the snow in a forest somewhere - it was good, but I can't remember what it is called.
song number 2:
He hasn't finished song number 1 yet so I'm just sitting quietly and waiting just now.
OK he is now ending the song and he is singing some reggae lyrics so it looked like I was on typically good form with my opening comment on that one.
Now song 2 has started. It already sounds better than song 1 to me. He sang "modern thinking made me miserable" and I thought that was quite a good lyric, especially for a Robbie Williams song.

I feel I need to add a footnote at this point. Each week, earlier in the evening, before I write my Weekly Woss Weport I try and think how I am going to open it. Some weeks I think of a good opener, but when it comes to he time to write it I have forgotten what I was going to put and have to make something else up (which happened last week). This week, however, I had remembered what I was going to open with and had already typed it before the guests were announced. So imagine my surprise when I find out that Robbie Williams is on after I have just written a bit about Robin Willamson.

What are the chances of that happening?

Dag 593: The return of the Useless Napkin Bandits

Are you sitting comfortably? - I hope so because its time to put out that fag and read the Weekly Woss Weport.

First up it is an actress. She is called Emma Thompson and she is in a film where she has a rubber nose on and a big false tooth in the middle. I have seen quite a few clips of this film and everytime the nanny looks like Emma Thompson with false bits to make her look older. The interview involved lots of innuendo and also some bits that sounded a bit rude, but without being blatant about it. JR revealed that he doesn't like people other than his wife giving him massages.

Next up is Mr Rob Brydon. Me and Al saw him at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004 and as we sat on the front row we were right in the firing line for getting spoken to by him. He picked on me twice as I had a bright yellow t-shirt with 'swe' written in bright blue which stood out quite abit, but there was a bloke with a 'jesus wants me for a sunbeam' t-shirt on a couple of seats away from me and, obviously, he got picked on over 10 times.
Rob just mentioned that his latest program had a cgi bird in it, that means that the bird was a script (probably written in perl) that was executed when a certain link was clicked on. Those of you that work in compters will, of course, already know that.

We just saw a picture of mr brydon in a sauna with some people out of little britain being topless women.

Now the Wosster is talking about pompei and various rude messages that have been found carved in the rock. Such messages as "my other sheep is a goat" and "don't touch my thingy with your penis".

The final guests are Jordan and Peter Andre. Jorden is Swedish for "the earth" and is pronounced "Yorden". So if we wanted to say "the earth is round" we would say "Jorden är runt". This is just yet another example of why Sweden is such a good place to live. On the other hand, I have no desire to ever meet Jorden and/or Peter Andre. This means I have to sit here enduring them talking about bald badgers and tits while I wait for the band to come on and play, so I can complete my weport. Now they are discussing fame and the fact that they are on the Zed list. They may be on the Zed list, but they keep showing clips of Rob and Emma in the back room and Emma Thompson is lying on the sofa and she looks a bit drunk in the same way as Gerard Depardu also looked a bit drunk, but Mr Woss went on national TV to stress that he wasn't drunk.

While we are waiting for the band to start up I may as well let you know that my latest 2 CDs that I ordered from amazon arrived today. They are Early by Scritti Politti and The Colour of Spring by Talk Talk - I wonder which one I will listen to first.

The earth and Mr Andre have just left so now we can listen to Cash Machine by Hard 5 (or at least that is what their name sounded like to me).
The song opened with someone playing a hohner. I used to have a green one of these when I was younger. It was exactly the same as the one that new order used, but I had mine years before I had ever heard fo new order.
The song isn't too bad, but "cash machine" is a crap name for a song. If I had written it I would have called it something like "the endless task of the fathomless enigma".
They have now started singing "There is a hole in my pocket" over annd over again and I realise I have heard this song before. The hole in my pocket bit is, in my opinion, the best bit of the song.

So Wossy has ended for another week and you wont be able to read this until I hit the "publish post" button, so here goes nothing........

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Dag 590: Life is what you make it

When you have had a few drinks and have gone to bed with your laptop in order to write up a Woss Weport for a very Critical Mass it is very difficult not to waste a load of money buying a load of stuff off iTunes, some of which you will never ever listen to.

This lunchtime I hadn't had any drinks but I bought a couple of cds from hmv.
The first, and most important, purchase was spirit of eden by talk talk. Ever since mentioning talk talk in my recent posting I realised that I needed to buy this agaion and laughing stock. Neither of them were on iTunes. They were both on amazon, but with a week or so lead time. So I went into sunny livingston this lunchtime to see if I could find them there. They didn't have laughing stock, so I will probably resort to amazon for that.
I originally bought spirit of eden on vinyl and it was probably the last vinyl I bought as I moved to cd round about that time. I was initially slightly disappointed with it, as it was so different from their previous release the colour of spring and that is a really strong album. However I gave a few plays and gradually I began to realise how good it was. I'm on my third play of it since purchasing it again this lunchtime and I must say that it is just the best music to be listening to when creating a large number of veritas volumes and filesystems. From now on this music will always go through my head whenever I run vxassist or mkfs.

I also bought () by Sigur Rós which I needed to add to my collection as we will be going to see them next month (10/11/2005) at the edinburgh corn exchange and I like to swat up before going to a concert.

Happy Birthday Andrew. (...and to Paolo for last Friday).

Kill or Cure

I wanted to use this opportunity to share some thoughts. It's quite common for me to brain dump, as my IT brethern know very well, but I'm feeling my yin and yang in perfect balance and feel I can share knowledge and wisdom rather than rant aimlessly as I am prone to do.
The NHS is pish, I know this due to numerous episodes whereby their assistance has been required over the last number of years, but let me recount this experience for your perusal. You should also understand that towards the end, some advice is given, so it's not just an excuse for a moan, honest.
I had a sore shoulder. No big deal in itself, but it lasted a few days, then I couldn't move on Saturday morning, constant pain and all that. So, cue trip to casualty and usual lack of interest, waiting and eventual dismissal as a muscular strain which would take about a week to go away. Under duress, the Doc finally made good with the drugs, so diathamole, or something like that was dispensed; but the 'piss off unless there's something hanging by the last sinew to your badly maimed body' attitude makes me really annoyed.
Anyway, to the interesting bit. I was then taken to a Chinese medical practice (you know, one of those health shops) and the 'Doctor' agreed to see me immediately. The wee chinese guy could speak two words of Engrish - 'O.K.' and 'Betta?'. He took me into a room and I lay on my good side. Some straps were wrapped and secured around my right arm in three equidistant places, wrist to shoulder and then plugged into the electrical control panel. I was a little concerned at this point. He then brought out some sort of microphone shaped object, with a shiny head. I was a little more concerned at this point. As he touched my shoulder with the mic, it send a shock through my body, tensing the muscles in my shoulder and arm. He then proceeded to work on me for 20 minutes with this instrument. It would pulse these electrical shocks for half a second every 3 seconds or so, which varied between causing a reasonable clench of muscle and some pretty serious pain. I must admit to being close to telling him to stop a few times, and I did admit to the Kennedy shooting.
After all this was fnished, he went for the acupuncture approach and stuck some needles into various places, including my shins. This is all about 'meridian' points all over the body. I've had quite a bit of acupuncture before, so this wasn't too bad.
So, another 20 minutes later I was done. I wish I could say I was ready to give up the Robocop impersonator career, but not quite yet. I was, however, only stiff instead of sore, and had a bit of movement back too.
The 'doctor' then gave me a bottle of black balls (pills), I was to take 8(!) of these 3 times a day. He also gave me a little bottle of (Tree Oil) oil, which I was to rub in to the sore area before bed - "Only three drops, no more", and a packet of plasters, with chinese writing on them. £65 the lot, treatment included.
Ah well, it was worth a try, and I'm sure he'll enjoy the money.
I did take the pellets, then had the oil rubbed in before bed and took one of the plasters and stuck it over the sore area. I noted the plasters did have a bit of a smell, which probably made them worth the £5. After a couple of minutes it all went hot, and stayed hot for the rest of the night.
I woke in the morning to find that most of the pain had gone, almost full movement returned and a spring in my step.
So, as morals are the way forward for these stories, here's the one from this.
Shove yer NHS right up yer bahookie.
update
Wood Lock Oil

Dag 588: Seasons they change...

...and so do some groups.

I have mentioned a few groups in recent times that have started off really good, but then following some change of direction have become rubbish. The becoming rubbish is usually accompanied by massive increases in record sales and popularity amongst the general masses.

Here are some of the groups that fit into this category:
Vice versa/ABC: Vice versa were a really good synth band who suddenly changed their name to ABC and started doing some really bad things.
The Human League: I don't blame Phil Oakley for this, but the human league started off really good, but following the tour that went with thier second album 2 of the blokes left and they got a couple of girls in to replace them. Then they recorded "don't you want me baby", which is the worst ever song in the whole wide world and the rest is history.
Scritti Politti: I've mentioned these guys already, but basically they record some tip top self financed stuff, then they do a change of direction complete with rubbish songs and they start doing well in the charts.
New Order: They started off along the lines that Joy division left off, but then they recorded the second worst song in the whole world "blue monday" and went down hill from there onwards (apart from a few good songs that I can't remember the names of).
Genesis: They were really good and then Peter Gabriel left, but they carried on being really good and then Steve Hackett left, and then they were bad......

This change is often referred to as selling out, but very occassionaly a really bad band will do the opposite and "sell in" (or should that be "buy in"?).

One such group that fits in to this category is Talk Talk.
When they began they were full of altruistic dreams,
but their songs were absolutely rubbish. So much so that they got boo'ed of when they supported the genesis reunion that went by the name of six of the best.
But then they released an album called "the colour of spring". This albyum was incredibly good - so good hat it would not be possible to do anything better, but then they record 2 more albums that were even better which mean't that they are 2 of the best albums ever recorded ever. I tried to buy these last 2 albums (spirit of eden and laughing stock) off iTunes last night, but they only had their early stuff (in much the same way that they only has the later stuff of scritti politti.

I think there is a moral to this story and I don't think it needs spelling out here.

Dag 586: Who's that behind scritlocks door?

Why its Jonathan Woss and that means its time for my weekly Woss Weport.

First up tonight it's Sharon Osbourne which is not good news because I hate X fuctor with a vengeance - so much so that I can't even bring myself to type it correctly. The music that results from an X twatktor series is all about making money and that is not what music should be about. Also people who don't happen to fit in with what the judges are looking for should not have to go through the humiliation that they are put through. I can't sing very well, but it doesn't stop me from singing on the songs I record and I would never dream of putting myself forward for such tripe as this. I may not have made it as a musician, but that isn't down to the fact that I can't sing very well. There are a huge number of people who can't sing who have made it, yet they too would have been laughed off X Craptor - however they were sensible not to go on it in the first place.

Next guest was some bloke out of a boy band - didn't notice which one, but it doesn't matter as boy bands are just the sort of rubbish that the X Blumptor produces.

Next up was Bob Hoskins - he came over pretty well and it was the first bit of the show I took any notice of.

Finally it is Miss Dynamite who is singing as I speak. Not my cup of tea I'm afraid. Reminds me of UB40 who I was never fond of listening too. So all in all once we take everything into account this has been the worst Jonathan Ross show since I started reviewing them professionally.

And that's it just finished. So what am I going to watch now?

In other news, I need to mention Scritti Politti.
This is a group that appears in Adrian's top 10 list of groups that are good enough to appear in his top 10 list of groups (and Adrian, this wording actually gets around your dilemma that there could be more than 10 groups good enough to be in your top 10 list).
Anyway, back to Scritti Politti. Firstly, this is a group that I thoroughly approve of. They started by funding their own records and had the novel idea of packing their self financed records in sleeves that simply listed how much each part of the recording/production/packaging process cost. They would never have appeared on X Feltcher.

One of the singles I had of theirs (the one I liked the best) was called Scritlocks Door. I tried to find it on iTunes yesterday, but only their later stuff was on their and that reminded me that I don't like their later stuff. After producing their initial self financed singles the singer got ill and there was a gap. When he got better he changed his music and I no linger liked it (another group that did this was vice versa - I really like them, but they changed their name to ABC and started producing crap). So, the long and the short of it is that although I agreed with Adrian that Scritti Politti were really good it was the early Scritti Politti I liked, not the later version. I was a bit mortified, because I thought there would be no way I would ever get the songs I wanted due to the fact they were only produced in limited quantities on self financed vinyll. I began to wish I had never sold my old Scritti Politti records. However, I then had a look on amazon.co.uk and what did I find - a Scritti Politti CD entitled "early" that contained their early songs - the exact same ones that I used to like. So I added it to my basket and it should be winging its merry way to me next week (when I get around to going to the checkout, because its still just sitting in my basket because I didn't want to just order it on its own and I can't think what else to order - any suggestions?).

While typing this I turned over the TV to BBC2 and watched a song featuring Van Morrison. There is a fairly large band and they all have top of the range microphones similar to (but not exactly the same as) the one I had ordered and was waiting fro me when I got home tonight. I ripped open the packaging in double quick time so I could hold it in my hands. It is a thing of great beauty - the only surprise with it was that it was smaller than I expected it to be. If you are interested it is an AT 4033.