Curiosities of Worcester

I'm a member of a group on Facebook called Curiosities of Worcester which I sort of have a love/hate relationship with. It's a collection of photos of Worcester "personalities". I love it because we should celebrate individualism but hate it as well because some of the names are offensive as well as some of the comments (usually about body odour etc).

I thought it was pretty harmless although I could understand why some family members might be offended by it. But now it seems to have got out of control. One of the members of the group, James, was recently visited by the Police. Here's his statement

"Well, earlier today, while at work a police woman came in looking for me; she asked my manager if we could speak in private, where she pulled out a file filled with information on this very site. She proceeded to give me a verbal lambasting, and besides the fact I told her that all but two of my photos were completely with permission for this site, I was told I would have to take them down.I’m not the only person this lady of the law is after however, just one on the long list of those who have added to this politically incorrect yet extremely entertaining group. As much as it pains me to say this, it might be a good idea for those who have added pics on here to take them down, like I have had to do…"

A bit of an over-reaction. Why did the Police have to visit him at work? Surely a home visit would have been more appropriate?

Earthquake!

I was happily doing a mix tonight and my decks and monitor shook - it wasn't some bangin' tune I was playing but another earthquake! Thankfully not as bad as the 2002 one!

I did find this great website. It looks like the epicentre was somewhere around Lincoln - hope the Cathedral is not damaged.

Coincidences

I'm not a religious person so I don't see God's hand in them and I don't believe that events are pre-destined to happen in the exact manner of a prior plan or formula but I have two recent coincidences that have spooked me out. Some things seem coincidences when there not such as the odds that two people share a birthday, for example, reaches 50% with a group of just 22 but others I can't account for.

The first was on Sunday night when I was discussing the age of my landlady's dog and told her that her dog must be nearing her centenary in human years. The next day I got an email of her telling me that her dog was 100 exactly on the day before. I know little of dog/human years so had not done any calculations!

The second was a few months back. My then girlfriend had taken her son to school and I was at a loose end so got started reading a book, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E.Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) his account of the Arabia campaign in the Great War. When she came back we walked into town and passed the war memorial. Looking at it it said that it was unveiled by the Chief of Staff General Allenby. I commented that Allenby was Lawrence's superior officer during the Arabia campaign and that I had just read about him. I bought myself a Guardian and started reading it when I got home and inside there was a pullout of archive stories from throughout the Guardian's history. One of the stories was on the funeral of Lawrence and quoted Allenby's eulogy that he gave at the funeral. Spooky eh?

ChavWatch #1

Saw a chav today with his Nike Air hooded top, tracksuit bottoms, trainers and rosary beads around his neck!

Secret Vices #2: Homes Under The Hammer

I doubt many would have seen this unless they are unemployed, stuck on the sofa ill watching daytime TV or they're a budding property entrepreneur. This programme follows property developers who have bought properties at auction and finds out what they're going to do with it and then comes back some months later to find out how they've got on, whether they've stuck to the budget and then get some fly-by-night estate agents in to revalue the property.

Having lived in rented accommodation for most of my adult life, in the great scheme of things, landlords come just below murders and paedophiles so when a developer goes over budget and the property makes a loss I'm happy. Very occassionally there are developers I do empathise with like the couple who bought properties to renovate and then let to DSS claimants; their aim was to sell up in a couple of years and go and build schools in Africa.

Can't wait for the housing crash to see all these buy-to-let landlords lose it all!

Stupid?

Another gem overheard in the library yesterday between a chav and his mate; "How do you spell stupid?"

I had a good cackle to myself whilst admiring the irony!

More Tattoos!

Heard a great story from X at Film Nite last night - and apparently true! A rather large, chavtastic, not-the-best-looking woman went into a tattooist and wanted the names of all her 9 children tattooed on her back. When finished she went back upstairs. Thinking that she had left the tattooist shouted up “9 kids? Who’d f%&k that?!”. The receptionist was suitably embarrassed.

Everything Happens To Me

It's been a slow week on the blog front so I'll end the week with some lyrics that just about sum up my life at the moment!

Everything Happens To Me (Matt Dennis / Tom Adair)

Black cats creep across my path
Until I'm almost mad
I must have roused the devils wrath
cause all my luck is bad
I make a date for golf and you can bet your life it rains
I try to give a party and the guy upstairs complains
I guess I'll go thru life just catchin colds and missin trains

Everything happens to me
I never miss a thing
I've had the measels and the mumps
And every time I play an ace
My partner always trumps
Guess I'm just a fool who never looks before he jumps

Everything happens to me
At first my heart thought you could break this jinx for me
That love would turn the trick to end despair
But know I just cant fool this head that thinks for me
I've mortgaged all my castlesin the air
I've telegraphed and phoned
I send an airmail special too
Your answer was goodbye
And there was even postage due
I fell in love just once
And then it had to be with you

Britain's BPMs

Article on the Guardian's website today arguing that Britain is a country divided by it's taste in music and tries to explain why different towns fall for different sounds. I found the BPM (beats per minute) stats interesting;

John O'Groats - 190 bpm
Manchester & Liverpool - 150 bpm
Birmingham - 120 bpm
London - 90 bpm
West country - 80 bpm

My favourite website at the moment is....

My favourite website at the moment is http://www.pprune.org/forums/ (pprune is the acronym for The Professional Pilots Rumour Network).

Be warned! You may never want to fly again!

Secret Vices #1: Street Wars

The first in an occasional series of things I like but really shouldn't. Street Wars is on Sky 3 (and cousin of Road Wars) and it uses CCTV footage from town and city centres to show drunken louts of both sexes fighting each other. Some assaults are quite horrific (kicking someone when they're on the ground etc) and some just look like fools who can't hold their beer and let their drunken bravado get the better of them whilst a Sean Bean soundalike in his rough Sheffield tones precises the violence by saying "I bet they'll regret that in the morning, muppets" and such like.

Coupled with this CCTV footage is some fly on the wall, as it happens footage from a town, usually Guildford, where the presence of the camera crew only seems to make the situation worse. My favourite scene was of a homeless bloke spraying graffiti on various phone boxes etc fully in the knowledge that CCTV was watching him. A police van turns up with the camera crew only to find that his aerosol was hairspray.

Wasting Time

You would have thought I'd have wasted enough of my life on Brain Game (and Brain Game 2: Stress Management!) but I've found yet another game to waste time by. It's on my phone (and also available on the DS lite). It's called Zoo Keeper and the premise is quite simple like all the best games.

"Your objective is to erase the animal symbols that fill up the screen by aligning them three or more in a row or column, while trying for a high score by erasing them in a combo. The Level ends when each different animal symbol has been erased. Symbols are aligned by swapping one tile with one next to it. If this makes a line of three or more matching tiles with either of the swapped tiles, the tiles stay in this position and the line disappears. If no line of three or more matching tiles is formed, then the tiles swap back to their original position. Lines can be horizontal or vertical, and combinations can mean that many lines disappear at the same time."

I do have a number of ethical problems with it though! It seems you are not a very good zoo "keeper" but an excellent killer as the animals disappear as if blown up. It is a Japanese game and will all know that some of their attitudes to animals are questionable (especially whales!). The second issue is in relation to industrial relations - when you lose you are berated by your boss thrusting a phallic like cigar at you and yelling abuse such as "I'll get the cleaning lady to do your job"" or "You are definately fired!". I'd certainly join a union and complain if I was talked to like that!

See for yourself and play online here (it is in Japanese though!)

Even the wealthy feel poor

Grrrr there are sometimes when you read the newspaper you just want to throw something, anything, at the wall. It's not a frequent occurance with me but this article in the Indy got my blood boiling!

"Just what does it take to feel comfortably off in the Britain of 2008? An annual pay packet of at least £150,000, a second (or third) home and children at an expensive public school were among the lifestyle features deemed essential by the "working wealthy" in new research.
Nearly one in 10 British households are now classed as being well off, with the average working wealthy family earning £88,000 a year – nearly triple the average income across all households of £33,000, according to the insurance firm Hiscox.
The working wealthy take two foreign holidays a year, have more than £20,000 of annual disposable income and homes worth at least £390,000.
But despite this, 90 per cent of them do not feel wealthy. Instead, they say they would need to earn upwards of £150,000 a year, own more than one property and send their children to a private school before they felt rich.
The typical wealthy individual lives in the South-east and is a professional with an income of between £50,000 and £250,000. They say they are "no longer ordinary, but not yet extraordinary"."

Try living like the vast majority and then still have the gall to whinge.

Two Types of Music I Dislike - Country and Western!

As you can tell from the title I'm not a great fan of Country and Western - I can just about put up with Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash and that's about it. But perusing the Observer's Guide to Rock and Pop I found the following three gems that made me chuckle (please bear in mind I haven't actually listened to these records!).

‘Are You Drinkin’ With Me, Jesus?’ - Mojo Nixon

Should we take a cab home, Jesus? Aw man, we can hoof it from here… / I know you can walk on the water, but can you walk on this much beer?

Drop Kick Me, Jesus (Through the Goal Posts of Life) – Paul Charles Craft

Make me a piece of your master game plan / Free from the earthly temptations below / I’ve got the will, Lord, if you’ve got the toe

I Don’t Know Whether To Kill Myself Or Go Bowling – Thom Sharpe

Those are my options / It’s that or watch TV

Tattoos and tings

I've got two tattoos and I had both done after I'd been in love and realised that I was no longer in love (or whether I'd actually been in love at all). The first, a shimmering sun on my left shoulder, that I'm not too impressed with, was a spur of the moment thing whilst I was waiting for a mate to have his ex-fiance's name covered up and the second is the Plastikman logo on my right shoulder that I adore. Well I've been in and out of love for a third time so it's time for another tattoo - what it will be has still to be decided. Any suggestions? Nothing celtic-y though!

One thing I have learned about tattoos is that you need to go to a good tattooist. My ex had a celtic-y shoulder stamp (and bit like arse antlers and tramp stamps but further up the back). Having been given the cold shoulder so often after her shit fits I had ample time to study her tattoo and never had the courage to tell her that it wasn't symmetrical and looking like it had been tattooed by a prison inmate or a drunk.

On the same subject the best question I've been asked by a bouncer (at Sin, no less) was "Have you got any visible tattoos?"

Winding Up Hacks

Liverpool again showed it's distain for journalists at the City of Culture opening ceremony last week (something we should all follow!)

"As the audience took their seats, workers in hard hats and reflective jackets were still on stage banging and brushing. A tacky illuminated sign suspended above them gleamed Liverpool 08. The L started flashing, stopped and, with five other letters, went dim, leaving only "poo" alight.

A workman climbed up and attempted to tightrope, then crawl along the sign. Oh God, this is terrible, thought the hack in row AA. He's going to break his neck! Another capital of culture cock-up! A flash, a bang and the workman tumbled, his fall broken by a well-concealed safety harness. Much relief: it's a joke, a self-parodying merry prank. The hack felt stupid."

Story

The Aura of Love

The one major thing I have noticed since being single is they way I seem to be immediately discarded when I catch the eye of a girl; in the library, on the street or in a shop. When I was in my last relationship and walking around alone I would receive nice smiles, smiling eyes and interested looks and it's got me thinking as to whether there is some kind of "Love Aura" that women can spot (because, I can tell you, I am lot happier now than I was then and I don't have a rizla stuck to my forehead saying "single").

More Worcester Library - Likes/Dislikes

I'm having a bit of a Blog Block today so I've taken the easy route out and come up with some more likes/dislikes about Worcester Library

DISLIKE: People playing solitaire. You have the whole of the wonderous world wide web out there. Use it!

DISLIKE: The god-botherer (I've seen the sites they look at!) who will not touch the mouse or keyboard unless there is a tissue between it and their finger. Go the full hog and get some surgical gloves!

DISLIKE: Not being able to download zip files (whereas I can download rar files to my hearts content!).

Mmmm likes?

LIKES: Watching the aftermath of a chav getting arrested in the library. This week a bloke got arrested for allegedly assaulting a security guard in the Crowngate. I didn't see the bloke getting carted off but listening to a conversation between a copper and one of the bloke's mates;

Bloke's mate: "But he didn't do anything. The security guard bumped into him"
Copper: "So why don't you come forward as a witness, give us a statement and stand up in court and tell the court that"
Bloke's mate: (mumbles something unintelligable)
Copper: "It's all about choices. Life's like that."

Musicians Gone Bad

I bought the last New Order album "Waiting for the Siren's Call" at the weekend for a pound. What a crock of rubbish it was. I've been a New Order fan since before I was a teenager (my cousin was a huge Joy Division fan who got me into them and Joy Division) and the first ever 12" I bought was Blue Monday (it was a toss up between that and Genesis' Mama - I think I made the right choice!) and I've got every album and nearly every 12" (their period between Blue Monday in 1983 and Neworderengland in 1990 was unsurpassed in brilliance in my view). Being so disappointed with their last album (and Get Ready the one before) led me to think of other artists who have created brilliance and then lost it;

David Bowie - From the soul/funk of Young Americans (best track is the butt-wriggling Fascination), through Station to Station, the Berlin Trilogy (Low, Heroes and Lodger), Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) and the searing combination of Nile Rodgers and Stevie Ray Vaughan on Let's Dance, Bowie could do no wrong and in so many different musical styles. Then he lost it. Completely. Tonight, Never Let Me Down and the Tin Machine albums where aberrations on a glittering career. He knew that to get the best out of his own talent he needed like minded collaborators and through the 70's and early 80's he had Mick Ronson, Iggy Pop, Tony Visconti, Brian Eno, Carlos Alomar etc. Then the quality of collaborators fell dramatically (or people working willing to work with him) which might account for the downward trend his careers gone in.

Stevie Wonder - After arguing with Motown over creative control in early 70's Stevie went of and recorded two albums independently, Music of My Mind and Talking Book that were so good that Berry Gordy had to eat humble pie and agreed to release them. These soul classics were followed by other equally brilliant soul/funk classics; Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale, Songs in the Key of Life and Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. And then Hotter than July was released with Happy Birthday on it and it was down hill from there on. Shame.

Prince - After a couple of warm up albums Prince hit his stride and virtually every album from Dirty Mind in 1980 to the Batman soundtrack in 1989 (that's 9 albums in 9 years!) was worth listening and dancing to with some stonewall classics amongst them (1999, Around the World in a Day, Sign O' The Times and Lovesexy). Then dross for the last 18 years. Where did all his talent go? He couldn't have just lost it overnight, but that seems the case. Last seen giving his album away on the front of the Mail on Sunday - which shows the depths he's plummeted to.

Anyone else I've missed out?

“How To Do Just About Anything”

There’s always something nice about receiving a belated Christmas present especially when they are as interesting as the Collins “How To Do Just About Anything” book that I was given last night by film night buddy Rich (thank you Rich!). This fascinating book gives the reader 1001 tips on how to do anything from pressing flowers; to breaking up a fight between cats and dogs (for dogs grab them by the hind legs and pull them away as if they were a wheelbarrow) and to boil pasta correctly (one for my ex there who made pasta by doing the exact opposite of the instructions on the packet; then again obstinacy and pigheadedness where her specialist skills).

Interestingly the book is tied to the ehow website. Started in 1999 it managed to survive the dotcom boom and bust and looks a great site. I might even submit some "How to's" (and get paid!).

My skill levels on everything must surely rise! As I read more I’ll treat you to some more gems.

Hypnogogic Tunes

I love going to sleep listening to tunes. I don't know whether I gain anything extra from the music during the hypnogogic state but it sure sends me to sleep like a baby.

So I've been keeping a list. I might even update it weekly.

8.1 Untrue - Burial
9.1 Solo Piano - Phillip Glass
10.1 Steve McQueen - Prefab Sprout
11.1 Entroducing - DJ Shadow
12.1 Sketches of Spain - Miles Davis
13.1 Pole 2 - Pole
14.1 Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld - The Orb