Fatboy Slim, Moby and Radiohead

Oh well.

Moldy Peaches

Wednesday 21/09/11

09.40am - Went into jobcentre for interview. Woman commented that I had been signed on a while. I said yes indeed. She asked me about community project X. I told her a long endless story of picking litter in church yards and cleaning toilets until she gave in and enrolled my details with a catering course. I feel this was a moderate success.

11.30am - Read about conscientious objectors on wiki. A bad move? I suppose I see my move out of teaching and into cookery as a little bit like being a tiny conscientious objector taking a big lunge for freedom. There's only so much a little worker ant can do in a colony of army ants that have been fed too many e numbers.

17.11pm - Time for executive decision: belly dancing or dinner party?

Festivals (In General) and Jimmy Reed

A while back when I was a little bit younger I told someone about something amazing. I wasn't claiming by the way that this thing was actually amazing, just that it felt amazing to me so the amazingness was real in~as~much~as it left a lingering impression on me, even if no one else present particularly cared or even noticed. The person to whom I was speaking looked at me and said, "When you get older that feeling will lessen," as if I was a crazy person inflicted with some kind of brain disease that produces disproportionately excitable reactions to mundane stimuli. I admit that I do on occasion do just that, but.............. you've got to get excited over something even if it's just once a day about toast, and jam.

I don't want to ever get to a point in my life where I can't get excited about stuff. It's amazing how quickly the monumental becomes run of the mill though. (See, as long as I can get excited about how things cease to be exciting I'll be alright). I suppose I should be upset by it, but it just merely proves that despite mankind's overriding fear of the unknown which seems to dominate every single decision that we make in our waking lives from what brand of margarine to buy to what shall we do with our lives and who should we spend it with, we still get used to the idea of new stuff abnormally quickly to the point where it becomes disposable and replaceable almost immediately. Is this normal? Are we normal?

Real excitement -- as in the real juicy lemon in life's pancake -- doesn't come from exciting things at all. It comes from odd coincidences, surprise meetings and clashing cardigans (if you're a girl that is, if you're a boy you'll have to think of some macho equivalent for clashing cardigans). Why when we make new friends do we refrain from contacting them after 10pm for fear of 'disturbing' them? You don't have to be on 24hour call to be a good friend to someone, but if someone close calls at midnight needing reassurance that their life isn't meaningless and you get out of bed and look for the kettle, that's probably the best neighbourhood watch scheme going, and it's the real thing; it's the lemon and sugar in your dry lifeless pancake. So next time you're watching the news and you get the fear about gangs and pillagers, try tapping on your neighbour's window and asking for some sugar. I'm sure he'll happily give you some, and he might even smile at you too. Goodnight.

Moriarty

Female vocals are to folk as bunsen burners are to year 9 chemistry experiments - indispensable and surprisingly appealing even on a high setting. Okay so my use of comparison and euphemism is poor, but I never claimed to be an expert. I have a way with words - and when I say that I mean that some of the things I come out with are liable to lead to riots of world war three proportion just by using badly chosen words in all the wrong places.

It's not as if I don't have a grasp of the gravity of words, it's just that I have this problem whereby words bumble around in my brain looking for an escape route of which unfortunately there is only one. Words go from being well contained secrets to atomic bomb style clangers and I don't mean the little cute mouse things that whistle.

I suppose it's why goths love me -- all that tortured soul unable to express ones true feelings stuff -- and why I'm hopeless in job interviews.

It's so bad that my body has developed natural self defence mechanisms designed to prevent me from making said literary blunders ever again. I'll be talking to somebody; it could be anyone like a window cleaner or the next door neighbour and suddenly I'll just completely lose my train of thought and won't even remember why I'm talking or what is that I'm talking about and I'll become overwhelmed with the idea that I am just saying all that stuff for the sake of it and it's not really what I care about at all and then I think about all the people talking to each other all over the world and wonder if any of them are actually saying what they really want to say or whether it's all just meaningless words to stop us from realising that ultimately we are all completely alone in a vast sea of emptiness like that xkcd cartoon http://xkcd.com/866/

--That wasn't actually the one I meant but the meaning wasn't entirely lost.

So then I'll get this distracted kind of look and the other person assumes that I don't like them, or that they have offended me in some way when in fact the awkwardness has arisen from my painstakingly weighing up the merits of using a particular word in particular sentence versus the employment of a convenient lie as a means to steer safely to less treacherous areas of conversation.

Bono

I couldn't believe my ears. U2 were a post punk band from the seventies? Their 90s stuff makes me weep; not out of compassion mind, more from anticipation of nausea. And yet as I dragged a few tracks off their first album Boy – released 1980 – onto my playlist I found myself admiring their well crafted intros and sympathising with their heartfelt lyrics. I guess all rock stars stood for something at some point.

I'm not totally adverse to the 80s. I'm probably one of the few to hold the opinion that much of the ground in electronic and industrial music was broken somewhere in the mid 80s when Trent Reznor first realised that synthesized clapping can sound cool if blended with syncopated high hat. In many ways I feel for the 80s. There was little to do for entertainment except prod the keys of a cheap Yamaha. If you didn't find anyone willing to join your band you just had to make do with your own dark room and some illicitly acquired recording equipment.

Not much has changed. Except now, at least, recording artists have more opportunity to communicate with each other, find other musicians, research and refine their work and perform. Could the music industry benefit from recession and depression? Yes to recession no to depression: having nothing makes you stronger, as long as you don't dwell on it.

Finneyerkes

Moloch. Just when you thought it was safe it waits in the darkness. Staring out over the sugar cubes. Men like gnawing rodents. Sparrows peck your eyes. Cycles. Women collect feathers and fly towards the light.

Magna. A chilli metal cathedral.

Jesca Hoop

She's pretty good.

Last night I dreamt of people dancing in front of stone walls. Was it granite or millstone?

Polar Bear

It's on Spotify listen to it.

Polar bears are the world's largest carnivores and also the world's largest bear. They live in the Arctic Circle (the bit above us, not below.) Their favourite place to sit is where the ice meets the water because then they can snooze on snow floats while eyeing up passing seals.

Should you meet a fretful polar bear, you should reign in your huskies while singing this soft incantation:

Sleep now my friend so weary with strife

This trust you'll have for all your life

The morning clear shall return again

as a ship sails in with captain and friends

Full of might this crew anchors close to you

To dine the eve on a hearty stew

On days like these we forget pain

Our skin feels the air as grass feels the rain

DJ QB

http://soundcloud.com/djqb/yuri-lima-dj-qb-who-s-dirty#

This is what I'm listening to.

Heligoland

Too bohemian.

Camel (Mirage)

It's been pretty cold. I've been thinking about the universe. I have no answers. It's all potential and unspoken futures. Stars outshining stars outshining stars. Will all the projects come to fruition? You know the ones about carbon footprints and retail parks? Probably.

Lemon Jelly

From my bedroom window I see a church and the light of the moon.

Things to write on CV

I know an awful lot about strawberries.

Would really like a job because my garden is neither big enough nor south facing.

Round and Round (It Won't be Long)

Friendship is atoms moving together. I've been watching too much Doctor Who.

Pram - The Silk Road

http://www.myspace.com/pushthepram/music