Mr. Nokia goes to Ludlow

What the Nokia made of the trip up the Malverns..

So, the December pay day cd...

Here's how it turned out...

And the playlist?

Obviously just a personal view, and open to criticism. Adele? Well yeah, I haven't got the album but you've got to admit that she's got a cracking voice. It's good to hear someone belting out a tune but not in an x-factor "get as many notes into 3 minutes as you can" mariah carey type emote-athon. And the lyrics to this particular tune? "never mind I'll find someone like you"? Raw stuff. And to stand in the middle of the 02 with just yourself and a piano and sing like this deserves props. Whatever they are.

Anyway. Here is the first in an annual cd best of the year compilation entry. Same time next year? 

The last year of a Christmas tradition (an R.E.M. 'look what came in the post' special)...

Now, I don't know where you'll stand on this one. It is pretty sad case activity, and if you are easily offended by geeky behaviour you had better look away now...

Every year the R.E.M. fan club sends out a fan club only Christmas package. It used to contain a ltd edition 7" vinyl as part of the package but recently its been CDs. Some times they'll go to town and record  some sort of novelty cover version just for the release. Other times they just stick on some live versions of their tunes that haven't been released before. Well, anyway, I joined the fan club back in the nineties (it was acceptable in the nineties, it was acceptable at the time) and have kept up the membership since. It's pretty darn cheap (about 6 quid a year) and for all that they send you it must actually be something the band have to subsidise themselves as everything is posted out from their home town of Athens, Georgia. Due to R.E.M not actually existing anymore, this is the last year of the Christmas package. So here goes with some amateur step by step photography in the traditional style. Regardez......

Ltd. Edition 3510. It's got a nice ring to it, eh? (It's a CD of live tunes, by the way).

You're not my boss. I am your boss.

A winter stroll up to British Camp, Malvern Hills.

More clearing out..

Here is another blatant archiving of guff that I found at home. Here are a selection of programmes from when I used to go along to watch the local team play in the Hampshire league. Usually in a relegation dog fight. There's a vaguely entertaining story to be told of the time I went to see them play an away game on the Isle of Wight, but that's for another time. Here is a typical team sheet. The goalie (Stuart Binfield) lived in our road and I used to play with his brother when I was little. My sister went to school with Karly Cleeve's sister. Dave Stanbrook was the son of the school librarian. Him and Danny Pidduck were tricky wingers if I remember correctly. Pirelli General is a typical team name for this division- lots of the teams were work teams for local factories. I only went to 10 or so games a season, usually when Saints played away from home, back in the day when I used to go to every Saints home game. The ground was 15 mins from where I lived. None of this is of any interest to you. But I have now kicked this photo into the cyberspace cloud and can safely bin the actual programmes. What was I thinking, hanging onto them for so long?

I think this drainpipe may have a leak.

What the...?

In the Hereford Cathedral Close they have these edging stones around the lawns with dates for various events that took place in Hereford. Strolling around there this morning me and ADLP noticed some events THAT HAVEN'T EVEN HAPPENED YET....

The banks are in crisis again. A shot from the Nokia earlier this afternoon...

Espresso and Q.

Nostalgia for those Tiaki days..

Some of these are a little cheesy but....

http://thingsweforget.blogspot.com/

....I quite like a few of them.

December Pay Day CD. Best of the year.

So what's the plan?

11 songs. Released this year. One song per artist. Either individual track greatness or one track picked from a great album. No reissues. No best ofs. No deliberate esoterica- pop is allowed as long as its good.

All compiled, burnt and in the drawer by December pay day? Game on.

Plain helvetica..

Excellent cd sticker-ing by The Black Keys..

Saw this board game in WHSmith the other day. Social stigma around mental health problems you say? Tasteful bit of family fun? Hmm..

Call yourself an Elbow fan?

One of the albums of the year, right? [right, Prycer?]

You've bought the cd, it's crossed over into that meal time listening/pile of cd's by the kitchen stereo, where do you go from there? 

Well, you go and see them play what you feel to be one of the gigs of the year. That's what you do..

Then what? From the merch stall you might buy an arty book/tour souvenir? One step ahead of you, chum..

But... Prycer has taken it onto a new Elbow appreciating level....

Boom! How d'ya like them hops?

Oh yeah, you like that don't you

Boomchickawaawaa..

The full reveal...

Many thanks to Prycer. A generous gent.

Going through a Ben Folds phase..

Ben Folds - Brick (Radio Mix)

Latte and a magazine in the Map Centre Cafe...

Flat White and a NZD 20 note. A brief bit of kiwiana at Costa this morning..

Salad, yeah? Stalky stalky bits.

If you ever need cheering up, watch this...




You're welcome.

R.E.M. Galveston

I've been looking for this for ages. I saw this once (and once only) when the tv programme first came out. I had never heard this tune before but just hearing this 30 seconds of it made me seek out the original on vinyl...

[File under 'rampant unchecked nostalgia']

What is a blog?

What is a blog? I am not really sure. Different things to different people. For me, it is something that I don't really think about as something for other people to see. It's primarily a collection of things that interest me, odd things and things that i want to remember. Like a diary i suppose. I was thinking about this the other day. When we moved to NZ I used to keep a journal/diary thing. It wasn't so much written down stuff as it was a blank book that I stuck ticket stubs and photos in to remind me of the things we did.

Clearing out some stuff from home (see earlier blog about football programmes) turned up a few similar items to the things I used to put in the NZ journal. Why have I kept this stuff so long? There's no value to it.    It's not even things that I dwell on for that long when I actually come across them again.

If this blog is just a way of me recording things primarily for my own benefit then wouldn't it make sense to blog these artefacts, and kick them up into the 'cloud'? That way I could chuck out what are actually meaningless bits of paper, but could still retain that brief blast of nostalgia when I come across the photos of the items on old posts from the blog.

And when I get older (if I am still putting random photos on a blog) I can look back on a few decades of random thoughts and random photos of random pictures of random bits of paper. And, providing that Google doesn't go bust and junk all the info from their particular bit of the cloud then these digitised memories will carry on somewhere...forever? 

So for purely selfish nostalgia and for zero interest to anyone else...

Here is, with no particular meaning or relevance...

The contract for my first job, for the local supermarket. £2.20 an hour? Sharks.

Some ticket stubs from when we started to go to the cinema at Basingstoke on a regular basis. 1994. A golden age of cinema. Ace Ventura, Cool Runnings, The Mask. I saw them all. Yes, these can definitely go in the bin now. 17yrs i've had these. [why?] Still, nice depth of field shenanigans going on here..

More to follow..

Well and truly in the Apple cult..

"If I hadn't seen such riches i could live with being poor". Who said that then? James, I think.

Alternatively..

'If I hadn't ever used a macbook i could live with windows vista'. There. I said it. I am a fully paid up Apple cult member. Ah well. 

I received a one off bespoke furniture commission on Saturday. "Do you think you could put up a shelf to fit that gap today?" "What, today, as in 'finish it today'?" "Yup" "What, the day before C's party when we'll be in a stress about getting things ready?" "Yes, it'll be easy!" "Errrm"

So I went away and researched the piece, sent some samples back to the customer and came up with a design. Or rather i measured the space and scribbled the details on a scrap of paper that i scrumpled up and stuffed in my back pocket and off to B&Q I duly went.  Bit of wood bought and cut. Support bits cut and tapered and drilled. Bit of varnishing done... 

Here is the varnished bit compared to an unvarnished bit..

And here is the main plank thing....

And I'd love to say 'bish bosh bash' it is now up on the wall and rocking some paperbacks and photo frames...but...it's not. [And I probably wouldn't say 'bish bosh bash' in any case.]

More updates soon on how it's going... (I know this isn't that interesting but Prycer asked me to put some pictures of the shelf up on the blog)

This is so good.. Agree?

Last minute football

Today, 14.30 and we decide to make a last minute decision to take in a bit of FA cup first round action. Hereford vs Yeovil. 16.50 and it ends 3-0 to Yeovil. Pretty poor display from Hereford. Anyway, here is what the Nokia made of it.. 

Recent purchases..

I picked these chaps up when I was home recently. There's a really good off-licence down there that specialises in world beers. I often look out for any NZ beers they might have in. The holy grail I haven't yet come across since we came back to the UK? Mac's special reserve. If you see some let me know...

Prycer lobs a vinyl cat in amongst THE RULES pidgeons..

Look what Prycer had up his sleeve on monday (they were big sleeves)...

The vinyl edition of Dan 'roi des regles' Michaelson's recent release. It came in one of those bags that they give you if you buy the Guardian at a music festival. A tote bag? Maybe that's it. Tote is also a type of socks and gloves you can get in petrol stations, no?

But wait, here comes the pay off..

Ltd edition of 50! Sacred blue. That trumps my ltd ed of 100. Good work Al.

A trip home..