Ah well, don’t say you weren’t warned.
Seems the trouble is just beginning for those nice chaps at Google.
Less than a week after its UK launch, the complaints started rolling in.
Allegedly, they were forced to remove images of a man standing outside a sex shop in Soho and a man giving it the big boak in Shoreditch (expect they call it puke down there).
Google claim the number of images they have been asked to remove is "less than expected" but surely if they expected to have to remove images, they should have avoided using them in the first place.
Anyway, as I was saying last week, it’s not the stuff you can see that is the problem, it’s the stuff you can’t.
The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), which is an independent foundation type thingy for researching into policies about information, published a report (ah yes, may old favourite, recent studies and independent reports raises its scabby head again).
This was aptly titled the Database State.
In a press statement, they identified 46 government databases that were "fundamentally flawed and almost certainly illegal". If used in conjunction with each other, it is claimed that these could have a "serious impact on citizens’ privacy".
Never mind though, at least it’s nice to know that those funsters in Whitehall have got national security under wraps even though Big Brother really is watching and knows everything about you, me and the grubby looking dude in the flats who gets all those weird looking visitors at odd hours.
Pardon me for being as paranoid as a baboon’s arse in a dildo factory but isn’t this getting a little too close to a chip in the back of the neck?
The systems questioned by FIPR are so invasive that they are almost certainly in contravention of European Law and the European Convention of Human Rights.
The trouble is that the information is so readily available and we gladly pass it on to almost anyone just as readily as we part with our cash.
We all have a National Insurance number; almost every one of us has either a passport or a driving licence. Most of us, with the exception of a few eccentric old grannies with very thick mattresses, have a bank account and the really lucky ones who still have a job, pay tax.
Who handles all of this stuff?
Ah yes, that would be the government.
Add to that all the electronically encrypted cards, chip and pin, CCTV, telephone, e-mail, chat rooms and internet shopping.
It all adds up to a not so very tidy little pack that tells Big Brother exactly what you’ve been up to.
It’s only when you actually use this assimilation of data that there starts to be a problem.
For instance, there may some of us who like a bit of adventure in our lives. Maybe go play with Mischa the bear in the taiga or do a bit of backpacking in Northern Africa. Bit of trekking in the Himalayas or maybe head off to Pakistan or the Persian Gulf for a holiday, get friendly with some of the locals and get snapped on a shooting range. Maybe go to see Mickey Mouse another time, get a speeding ticket on I 95 heading north from Fort Lauderdale. We might even know what happens when you combine fertilizer and old engine oil then introduce it to an ignition source or perhaps we have a nice job in a chemical factory. Some of us might be of Russian or German extraction or maybe of Asian ethnicity.
I guess you can see where this is going – before long, the extradition papers are drawn up and it’s off to Cuba for an extended holiday dressed like Tangoman.
No executive class transfer.
No inflight movie.
No drinks at the bar and definitely no cigar.
Because everything is now electronic, all this information is not just there, it's readily available at the touch of a keypad. When it is used without consent there has to be a pretty damn good reason for it and that reason has to be legally justifiable, necessary and proportionate.
I’m sure all those nice civil servants in their crisp black suits and bowler hats are doing the decent thing and leaving all this stuff well alone but remember the secret terrorist documents left on a train; remember the data stick with everyone’s tax details found in a pub carpark; remember the child benefit records containing recipients banking details that became lost in the post.
Doesn’t exactly inspire faith in the system does it?
Never mind though, we’ve got the good old National Identity Register to look forward to. Once that kicks in, everything else will be irrelevant. It will stand there, like a big overgrown mutant version of one of those washing whirlies, festooned with everyone’s dirty laundry, hanging there, for all to see, tagged OPEN ACCESS.
The big question now is if, like the National DNA database which allowed the police to hold DNA of everyone, charged or otherwise, that they ever took into custody, this all turns out to be one enormous great woolly mammoth of the albino variety, deemed illegal by our lords and masters in the European Court, what happens to the data, the software and the hardware that they can’t use.
The only safe and sensible, decent and honest course of action is to purge and destroy all the data that has no relevance.
Can you really see that happening?
No, thought not, but who really owns the data?
You and I!
Who is it that pays the salaries of the government and the police?
You and I of course!
Who paid for all the sophisticated technology and computer hardware to hold all this stuff?
Yep. That would be you and I also!
So, quite naturally, who has to pay for putting the whole manky affair in order?
You got it. You and I, the taxpayer!
Ian McNabb – Northwest Coast
http://www.sendspace.com/file/899i75
Ian McLagan – Never Say Never
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jdw3rh
Ally Kerr
http://www.sendspace.com/file/65zklt
John Cooper Clark – Ou est la Maison du Fromage
http://www.sendspace.com/file/u8mk7d
Ross Ainslie & Jarlath Henderson
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8g0m2m
The Blue Nile – Peace At Last
http://www.sendspace.com/file/y8edkv
Big Country – Rarities IV
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sx3tvn
Chris Difford – Last Temptation of Chris
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1qfg4a
Roddy Frame – 40 days of rain
http://www.sendspace.com/file/izkt73
All Time Quarterback – All Time Quarterback
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kpwlu6
Blackie & the Rodeo Kings - Bark
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ypk7i4
Bryan Ferry – BBC Session
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7c291p
Enjoy
Hooli
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Sunday, 22 March 2009
...judge not lest ye be judged...
Now, although I may be a grumpy old git and like to get on my old soap-box from time to time, I’m not mean spirited. I don’t bear any grudge or ill will towards anyone – criminals and war mongers excluded – and I always at least try not to judge people solely on my opinions but lately I’ve found myself veering off the path of righteousness, finding a darkness in my soul that I thought didn’t exist.
It’s easy to see that with the correct motivation, a few misplaced remarks and someone pushing the wrong buttons, the step over to the dark side is a mere flick of the light sabre away.
Idly skipping around the web the other day, one of my colleagues asked for my postcode. Thinking nothing of it I duly gave it to him but, intrigued, I wheeled round to his desk to see what he was doing. To my amazement he was looking in my daughter’s bedroom window.
No, not in that way but what’s to say someone else hasn’t?
Google Earth and Google Maps are nothing new to me and I find them a great help when trying to find anywhere more than a couple streets away but the whole, dragging the wee yellow geezer into the street, business is just a little too 1984 for my liking.
I could actually see everything that was on the windowsill.
Now I’m sure good old Mr & Mrs Google have got this all covered and are doing something very sensible to protect the general public but if this is what we know about, imagine all the things we don’t know about.
Imagine all the images stored on secret government or military databases.
Anyway, getting to my point or one of them, in a roundabout sort of way, looking more closely at the view of my house, I could see that it was a Wednesday. I could see that it was July and I could see that it was around two in the afternoon. All perfectly logical and not really going to turn me into a psychotic maniac, but wait, there it was, reflected in my dining room window, something glaringly white and out of place in my little corner of suburbia.
Panning back and sure enough, there it was.
The scabby white tub that belongs to one of my neighbours.
Enough to gie yer arse a nippy taste.
The caravan.
Shortly after she moved into one of the flats across the street, it appeared. Allegedly, she was taking it on holiday the following week.
Smart girl, I thought. No towbar! Maybe she’s going to load it on top of her jeep or perhaps she’ll just hitch it around her waist.
Anyway, said trip came and went along with my expectations that afterwards, the caravan would do the same, returning to its rightful owner.
What a dumbass I am.
Should have known it wasn’t going to be that simple.
Five years later and the bastard thing is still there.
I’m surprised it hasn’t been torched or been taken over by squatters.
Despite phoning my local council office and the police, no one seems to give a f4ck about it. I guess because it’s not a danger or causing them any form of visual cancer, it isn’t really any of their concern.
Even I have got used to it being part of the landscape.
It’s that desensitisation effect.
You know like when you go for a dump, and someone’s been there before you. Someone else’s crap always smells like shit while your own, of course smells like roses. After ten minutes, you can’t smell it at all. You’ve become so inured to the stench that you simply don’t notice it.
And so it is with the caravan.
I see it every day I leave the house.
Every time I open the dining room curtains and now, every time I go on Google f4cking Earth.
Although I have no axe to grind with the owner, one day, just like Michael Douglas’ character in Falling Down, I swear to f4ck I’m going to crack and petrol bomb the bastard. Either that or perhaps those nice people at the Ministry of Defence might lend me a Chieftain tank. With a bit of strategic positioning, I could take out the caravan and the Masonic lodge behind it all in one fell swoop.
Someone else I bore no ill will towards was Jade Goody.
She wasn’t even on my radar, or at least so I thought, but now, with a similar omnipresence to the caravan, and despite the fact that I had ‘tuned out’ to the sight of her baldy heided impersonation of a Captain Beefheart album cover appearing all over the place while the press played out the unravelling saga of her very public death, I find myself in league with my dark side.
At least now we can get back to having real news instead of some juxtaposed muddle of sensationalised twaddle.
The product of reality TV at it’s most embarrassingly grotesque, Pete Burns aside, here is a woman thrust into the public gaze with not even a glimmer of talent to light her way. Her totally shameless hogging of the spotlight makes it hardly surprising that, in death, she should carry on as in life. Somewhere, I assume someone is interested and that all the silly and senseless little chavettes, in search of something to aspire to, will snap up copies of OK or Hello magazine by the pram load, all the while lining the pockets of Mr. Publicist.
Of course if we hadn’t gotten so obsessed with that whole stupid notion of Andy Warhol’s that we could all be famous for fifteen minutes then we might not have created so many pseudo celebrities and People like Max Clifford would be out of a job.
It must be a particularly sad set of circumstances that drives a particular section of the public to be so hungry and craving of the attention of celebritydom; so desperate to connect with the fantasy that they believe to be real, that they have to prostitute themselves into very lifestyle they crave the attention of.
They need to be protected from themselves and all around.
No wonder people like Max Clifford can clean up.
Real talent of course, needs no publicist.
There is no need to court the media and live in the glare of the public spotlight.
This was the case with Natasha Richardson; a real talent, underrated and under appreciated. Someone who lived within the privacy of her own life.
Half the nation are probably still wondering who she was.
Her untimely death made me wonder how many column inches she would be afforded relative to Ms Goody but as I rolled the notion around a bit more I came to realise that she probably wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Jade on the other hand, probably has a Richard and Judy special lined up by her publicist.
Talking of vampires, now that all the fuss has died down a little bit, we can take stock of the whole rebirth of that other ego maniac, Count Jackola.
HOW many dates?
To be honest, I couldn’t care a f4ck about the number of dates. I also couldn’t give a rat’s arse about whether or not he takes up permanent residence at the O2.
For all I care, he could take Priscilla, Bubbles the Chimp, the Seven Dwarves and his entire freak show and pitch an oxygen tent on the lawns in front of Buckingham Palace.
Really, what is all the fuss about?
Apart from dangling his offspring out of a hotel window, here is a guy who has done f4ck all for 20 years then, suddenly all our Easters come at once. I wouldn’t be surprised if his barking mad, wrinkled little ego views this as something akin to the rebirth of Christ.
What a sad parade indeed…
REM – Storytellers
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oo11fg
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ej6r3o
Blondie – Live At Hammersmith Odeon 01.12.1980
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9jjjwz
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ygs06i
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vapz5n
Rory Gallagher – Japan Tour
http://www.sendspace.com/file/74qryy
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2xips3
Billy Bragg – KCRW
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xw2yk9
Damien Rice – Live at Fingerprints
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wa3z0c
Death Cab For Cutie – Live in Eugene, Oregon
http://www.sendspace.com/file/51wzq8
http://www.sendspace.com/file/973nxi
Jackie Leven – Lovers At The Gun Club
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wftqeo
Ian McLagan – Never Say Never
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jdw3rh
Ian McNabb – Northwest Coast
http://www.sendspace.com/file/899i75
Ally Kerr
http://www.sendspace.com/file/65zklt
John Cooper Clark – Ou est la Maison du Fromage
http://www.sendspace.com/file/u8mk7d
Roddy Woomble – My Secret Is My Silence
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8ysq2d
For now...
Enjoy.
Hooli
It’s easy to see that with the correct motivation, a few misplaced remarks and someone pushing the wrong buttons, the step over to the dark side is a mere flick of the light sabre away.
Idly skipping around the web the other day, one of my colleagues asked for my postcode. Thinking nothing of it I duly gave it to him but, intrigued, I wheeled round to his desk to see what he was doing. To my amazement he was looking in my daughter’s bedroom window.
No, not in that way but what’s to say someone else hasn’t?
Google Earth and Google Maps are nothing new to me and I find them a great help when trying to find anywhere more than a couple streets away but the whole, dragging the wee yellow geezer into the street, business is just a little too 1984 for my liking.
I could actually see everything that was on the windowsill.
Now I’m sure good old Mr & Mrs Google have got this all covered and are doing something very sensible to protect the general public but if this is what we know about, imagine all the things we don’t know about.
Imagine all the images stored on secret government or military databases.
Anyway, getting to my point or one of them, in a roundabout sort of way, looking more closely at the view of my house, I could see that it was a Wednesday. I could see that it was July and I could see that it was around two in the afternoon. All perfectly logical and not really going to turn me into a psychotic maniac, but wait, there it was, reflected in my dining room window, something glaringly white and out of place in my little corner of suburbia.
Panning back and sure enough, there it was.
The scabby white tub that belongs to one of my neighbours.
Enough to gie yer arse a nippy taste.
The caravan.
Shortly after she moved into one of the flats across the street, it appeared. Allegedly, she was taking it on holiday the following week.
Smart girl, I thought. No towbar! Maybe she’s going to load it on top of her jeep or perhaps she’ll just hitch it around her waist.
Anyway, said trip came and went along with my expectations that afterwards, the caravan would do the same, returning to its rightful owner.
What a dumbass I am.
Should have known it wasn’t going to be that simple.
Five years later and the bastard thing is still there.
I’m surprised it hasn’t been torched or been taken over by squatters.
Despite phoning my local council office and the police, no one seems to give a f4ck about it. I guess because it’s not a danger or causing them any form of visual cancer, it isn’t really any of their concern.
Even I have got used to it being part of the landscape.
It’s that desensitisation effect.
You know like when you go for a dump, and someone’s been there before you. Someone else’s crap always smells like shit while your own, of course smells like roses. After ten minutes, you can’t smell it at all. You’ve become so inured to the stench that you simply don’t notice it.
And so it is with the caravan.
I see it every day I leave the house.
Every time I open the dining room curtains and now, every time I go on Google f4cking Earth.
Although I have no axe to grind with the owner, one day, just like Michael Douglas’ character in Falling Down, I swear to f4ck I’m going to crack and petrol bomb the bastard. Either that or perhaps those nice people at the Ministry of Defence might lend me a Chieftain tank. With a bit of strategic positioning, I could take out the caravan and the Masonic lodge behind it all in one fell swoop.
Someone else I bore no ill will towards was Jade Goody.
She wasn’t even on my radar, or at least so I thought, but now, with a similar omnipresence to the caravan, and despite the fact that I had ‘tuned out’ to the sight of her baldy heided impersonation of a Captain Beefheart album cover appearing all over the place while the press played out the unravelling saga of her very public death, I find myself in league with my dark side.
At least now we can get back to having real news instead of some juxtaposed muddle of sensationalised twaddle.
The product of reality TV at it’s most embarrassingly grotesque, Pete Burns aside, here is a woman thrust into the public gaze with not even a glimmer of talent to light her way. Her totally shameless hogging of the spotlight makes it hardly surprising that, in death, she should carry on as in life. Somewhere, I assume someone is interested and that all the silly and senseless little chavettes, in search of something to aspire to, will snap up copies of OK or Hello magazine by the pram load, all the while lining the pockets of Mr. Publicist.
Of course if we hadn’t gotten so obsessed with that whole stupid notion of Andy Warhol’s that we could all be famous for fifteen minutes then we might not have created so many pseudo celebrities and People like Max Clifford would be out of a job.
It must be a particularly sad set of circumstances that drives a particular section of the public to be so hungry and craving of the attention of celebritydom; so desperate to connect with the fantasy that they believe to be real, that they have to prostitute themselves into very lifestyle they crave the attention of.
They need to be protected from themselves and all around.
No wonder people like Max Clifford can clean up.
Real talent of course, needs no publicist.
There is no need to court the media and live in the glare of the public spotlight.
This was the case with Natasha Richardson; a real talent, underrated and under appreciated. Someone who lived within the privacy of her own life.
Half the nation are probably still wondering who she was.
Her untimely death made me wonder how many column inches she would be afforded relative to Ms Goody but as I rolled the notion around a bit more I came to realise that she probably wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Jade on the other hand, probably has a Richard and Judy special lined up by her publicist.
Talking of vampires, now that all the fuss has died down a little bit, we can take stock of the whole rebirth of that other ego maniac, Count Jackola.
HOW many dates?
To be honest, I couldn’t care a f4ck about the number of dates. I also couldn’t give a rat’s arse about whether or not he takes up permanent residence at the O2.
For all I care, he could take Priscilla, Bubbles the Chimp, the Seven Dwarves and his entire freak show and pitch an oxygen tent on the lawns in front of Buckingham Palace.
Really, what is all the fuss about?
Apart from dangling his offspring out of a hotel window, here is a guy who has done f4ck all for 20 years then, suddenly all our Easters come at once. I wouldn’t be surprised if his barking mad, wrinkled little ego views this as something akin to the rebirth of Christ.
What a sad parade indeed…
REM – Storytellers
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oo11fg
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ej6r3o
Blondie – Live At Hammersmith Odeon 01.12.1980
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9jjjwz
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ygs06i
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vapz5n
Rory Gallagher – Japan Tour
http://www.sendspace.com/file/74qryy
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2xips3
Billy Bragg – KCRW
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xw2yk9
Damien Rice – Live at Fingerprints
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wa3z0c
Death Cab For Cutie – Live in Eugene, Oregon
http://www.sendspace.com/file/51wzq8
http://www.sendspace.com/file/973nxi
Jackie Leven – Lovers At The Gun Club
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wftqeo
Ian McLagan – Never Say Never
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jdw3rh
Ian McNabb – Northwest Coast
http://www.sendspace.com/file/899i75
Ally Kerr
http://www.sendspace.com/file/65zklt
John Cooper Clark – Ou est la Maison du Fromage
http://www.sendspace.com/file/u8mk7d
Roddy Woomble – My Secret Is My Silence
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8ysq2d
For now...
Enjoy.
Hooli
Sunday, 15 March 2009
...I'm afraid it doesn't make me smile...
…as I was saying, charity and all that.
No bad thing if it’s done sensibly.
Awareness raising too, has its place but more often than not, the whole thing goes off like an an arrow with half the flights missing and skews pathetically, if not altogether fruitlessly, wide of the target.
In an ideal world there would be no war, no starvation, no pollution, no poverty and no need for charity. Everything would exist in a beautifully balanced state of equilibrium.
Imagine that, a world with no problems, where everything just jollied along in perpetuity.
You could be forgiven for thinking that it would be a pretty dull affair.
Well, here we are with the 21st century well under way, pollution spiralling out of control, global warming following a similar route and we get the same old same old from the fully paid up members of warmongers anonymous.
I have to say, that’s all getting a little bit tiresome.
Sure, it sells papers by the bucketload, fills 30 minutes of prime news time and provides enough material for the next five Al Gore movies but it’s getting tedious. Not the fact that the earth has been screwed in more ways than a Siamese whore house but the fact that all we can do is cobble together a few charity events, spark off a load of awareness campaigns and churn out a couple of annual telethons.
Ah, the great audio visual emotion fest that has become know as the telethon.
Maybe I’m too cynical and can’t accept that people really want to give up their time for the benefit of others or maybe it’s just that I’m a miserable bastard but the telethon has always been a turn off for me. Not only would I avoid being in the same room as a TV but, with the slightest chance that I might be exposed to some celebrity smugness or Davina McCall waving her arms about like a demented Kermit the frog, I would strenuously avoid all contact with radio, newspapers and the outside world in general. To me, there’s always been something slightly sinister about a celebrity with a six figure salary going on TV and asking the public to give him their money. When you multiply that effect and have a whole gang of celebs, it stops nothing short of obscene.
Why don’t they just have a big f4cking whip round or donate half the cost of their greatest extravagance.
Coincidentally, or perhaps not, red f4cking nose day and the whole charity bandwagon lurched up to full steam on Friday as the great cavalcade of mirth that we have come to know as Comic Relief trundled onto our screens like some deranged Reliant Robin with a big red splat on the front and Del Boy and Rodney gasping along after it in a slightly lukewarm pursuit.
If ever anything was a bit tired and overdone to the point of indigestable tastlessness, it’s when that great big world of celebritydom shrugs off it’s ‘up it’s arse’ image and tries to connect with real people.
They can’t half be a patronising bunch of bastards.
So this year, getting all earthy, the good old luvvies decided to trek up Kilimarjaro. Quite what that was about, I’m not really sure but in any case, off they went on their sponsored walk. Big Moylesey and Little Fearneypops from Radio One, the songwritey chap out of Take That, the crumpled nosed fella out of Boyzone and the grinning skull out of Girls Aloud. Accompanied by Denise van Wotsit, some other presenter types and some other, less interseting nobodies, off they went, marching into the wilderness, bold adventurers on a voyage of self discovery. A true rites of passage experience ahead of them.
All good stuff but what do we get from Moyles and his gang?
OK, so they managed to raise one and a half million quid, which is all pretty admirable, but did they really have to moan and winge about how tough it was.
Guys!
Hello!
It’s Kilimanf4ckinjaro.
It’s 19,000 feet above sea level.
It’s not exactly going to be a Sunday stroll in Richmond Park.
Anyway, along with all the sanctimonious guff, I can take all of that because, whether I like it or not, what they have done, is a good thing.
They have made a difference to the lives of those who need it.
What hacks me off though, is that having done all the hard work, having got even the driest of cynics onside, the whole thing still ends up leaving a nippy taste in the mouth.
Why the hell didn’t someone stop Gary Barlow hiring that private jet?
Couldn’t he see that a gensture like that just blows the credibility of the whole thing clean out of the water?
Surely I’m not the only one thinking about the thousands of quid it must have cost and the amount of pollution it would have created.
Fairly typical really, you spend ages battling against the odds, creating the biggest and most outstanding of all red balloons and all it takes is on prick and the whole thing’s f4cked.
Gary, one tip for the future – stick to songwriting.
In spite of all that, they still managed to squeeze me for a few quid.
And so, despite all the adversity Rapidshare threw at me, the music…
The Smiths - Live In Oxford
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2m2o0z
Re-uploaded as promised -
Shriekback - Care
http://www.sendspace.com/file/noc04w
Mike Scott - At The Slaughterhouse (not ex Waterboys)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sspy4b
Kings Of Leon - Glastonbury
http://www.sendspace.com/file/turd28
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hozb45
Jimmy Jimmy - Here In The Light
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3goz8g
Malcolm Middleton - Live At The Bush Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4qs3ci
Marianne Faithfull - The Very Best Of
http://www.sendspace.com/file/f8frai
Sigur Ros - Odin's Raven MAgic
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zpkydh
Hothouse Flowers - Glastonbury 1990
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ek25d6
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ryob7i
Hothouse Flowers - People
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lx0hb4
Modest Mouse - Atlanta opening for REM
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lfacou
Michelle Shocked - Live in Boston 1989
http://www.sendspace.com/file/88zkxy
Taste - London Invasion
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pjz3ks
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3hwyou
The Silencers - Seconds Of Pleasure
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nj23du
Matthew Sweet - Supervixen 2
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nvzc30
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bldhn2
Morrissey - BBC Radio Theatre 11.02.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/n483hp
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5nzmrc
Vic Chestnutt - Live At The Button Factory
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dsxlow
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8p1o7v
The Go Betweens - Live In London 2004
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dbyy1j
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ec778r
and finally, for anyone who has never experienced it in the flesh and, in honour of my little cultural indulgence on Tuesday, although this recording doesn’t do justice to the Russian Ballet…
Tchaikowski - Swan Lake
http://www.sendspace.com/file/njrc2q
Enjoy…
Hooli
No bad thing if it’s done sensibly.
Awareness raising too, has its place but more often than not, the whole thing goes off like an an arrow with half the flights missing and skews pathetically, if not altogether fruitlessly, wide of the target.
In an ideal world there would be no war, no starvation, no pollution, no poverty and no need for charity. Everything would exist in a beautifully balanced state of equilibrium.
Imagine that, a world with no problems, where everything just jollied along in perpetuity.
You could be forgiven for thinking that it would be a pretty dull affair.
Well, here we are with the 21st century well under way, pollution spiralling out of control, global warming following a similar route and we get the same old same old from the fully paid up members of warmongers anonymous.
I have to say, that’s all getting a little bit tiresome.
Sure, it sells papers by the bucketload, fills 30 minutes of prime news time and provides enough material for the next five Al Gore movies but it’s getting tedious. Not the fact that the earth has been screwed in more ways than a Siamese whore house but the fact that all we can do is cobble together a few charity events, spark off a load of awareness campaigns and churn out a couple of annual telethons.
Ah, the great audio visual emotion fest that has become know as the telethon.
Maybe I’m too cynical and can’t accept that people really want to give up their time for the benefit of others or maybe it’s just that I’m a miserable bastard but the telethon has always been a turn off for me. Not only would I avoid being in the same room as a TV but, with the slightest chance that I might be exposed to some celebrity smugness or Davina McCall waving her arms about like a demented Kermit the frog, I would strenuously avoid all contact with radio, newspapers and the outside world in general. To me, there’s always been something slightly sinister about a celebrity with a six figure salary going on TV and asking the public to give him their money. When you multiply that effect and have a whole gang of celebs, it stops nothing short of obscene.
Why don’t they just have a big f4cking whip round or donate half the cost of their greatest extravagance.
Coincidentally, or perhaps not, red f4cking nose day and the whole charity bandwagon lurched up to full steam on Friday as the great cavalcade of mirth that we have come to know as Comic Relief trundled onto our screens like some deranged Reliant Robin with a big red splat on the front and Del Boy and Rodney gasping along after it in a slightly lukewarm pursuit.
If ever anything was a bit tired and overdone to the point of indigestable tastlessness, it’s when that great big world of celebritydom shrugs off it’s ‘up it’s arse’ image and tries to connect with real people.
They can’t half be a patronising bunch of bastards.
So this year, getting all earthy, the good old luvvies decided to trek up Kilimarjaro. Quite what that was about, I’m not really sure but in any case, off they went on their sponsored walk. Big Moylesey and Little Fearneypops from Radio One, the songwritey chap out of Take That, the crumpled nosed fella out of Boyzone and the grinning skull out of Girls Aloud. Accompanied by Denise van Wotsit, some other presenter types and some other, less interseting nobodies, off they went, marching into the wilderness, bold adventurers on a voyage of self discovery. A true rites of passage experience ahead of them.
All good stuff but what do we get from Moyles and his gang?
OK, so they managed to raise one and a half million quid, which is all pretty admirable, but did they really have to moan and winge about how tough it was.
Guys!
Hello!
It’s Kilimanf4ckinjaro.
It’s 19,000 feet above sea level.
It’s not exactly going to be a Sunday stroll in Richmond Park.
Anyway, along with all the sanctimonious guff, I can take all of that because, whether I like it or not, what they have done, is a good thing.
They have made a difference to the lives of those who need it.
What hacks me off though, is that having done all the hard work, having got even the driest of cynics onside, the whole thing still ends up leaving a nippy taste in the mouth.
Why the hell didn’t someone stop Gary Barlow hiring that private jet?
Couldn’t he see that a gensture like that just blows the credibility of the whole thing clean out of the water?
Surely I’m not the only one thinking about the thousands of quid it must have cost and the amount of pollution it would have created.
Fairly typical really, you spend ages battling against the odds, creating the biggest and most outstanding of all red balloons and all it takes is on prick and the whole thing’s f4cked.
Gary, one tip for the future – stick to songwriting.
In spite of all that, they still managed to squeeze me for a few quid.
And so, despite all the adversity Rapidshare threw at me, the music…
The Smiths - Live In Oxford
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2m2o0z
Re-uploaded as promised -
Shriekback - Care
http://www.sendspace.com/file/noc04w
Mike Scott - At The Slaughterhouse (not ex Waterboys)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sspy4b
Kings Of Leon - Glastonbury
http://www.sendspace.com/file/turd28
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hozb45
Jimmy Jimmy - Here In The Light
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3goz8g
Malcolm Middleton - Live At The Bush Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4qs3ci
Marianne Faithfull - The Very Best Of
http://www.sendspace.com/file/f8frai
Sigur Ros - Odin's Raven MAgic
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zpkydh
Hothouse Flowers - Glastonbury 1990
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ek25d6
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ryob7i
Hothouse Flowers - People
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lx0hb4
Modest Mouse - Atlanta opening for REM
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lfacou
Michelle Shocked - Live in Boston 1989
http://www.sendspace.com/file/88zkxy
Taste - London Invasion
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pjz3ks
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3hwyou
The Silencers - Seconds Of Pleasure
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nj23du
Matthew Sweet - Supervixen 2
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nvzc30
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bldhn2
Morrissey - BBC Radio Theatre 11.02.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/n483hp
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5nzmrc
Vic Chestnutt - Live At The Button Factory
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dsxlow
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8p1o7v
The Go Betweens - Live In London 2004
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dbyy1j
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ec778r
and finally, for anyone who has never experienced it in the flesh and, in honour of my little cultural indulgence on Tuesday, although this recording doesn’t do justice to the Russian Ballet…
Tchaikowski - Swan Lake
http://www.sendspace.com/file/njrc2q
Enjoy…
Hooli
Friday, 6 March 2009
I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour...
So last week turned out to be a bit dry, on the blog front that is.
On the alcohol front, it was a different story.
My head was clearly placing bets that my body would be unable to cash.
Saturday saw the usual suspects gather for a bit of a ‘rugby come birthday come general excuse for getting together’ type of do.
Needless to say they recycling bin took a hammering, as did my ability to remember much about the evening's proceedings.
I do remember the rugby scores and I do remember getting home.
The five intervening hours though, are a bit of a Shiraz infused haze.
Having found nothing to grump about last week and just when I thought there was nothing to get wired about this week, there it was, tucked away in a little corner of the Sunday paper.
Having been on the singing soup the night before, I assumed I was still blootered and didn’t give it much thought (or at least I thought I didn’t give it much thought – if you catch what I mean)
Several hours, some smoked pig on toast and couple of pints of coffee later, I returned to the paper, confident that I had sobered up enough to distinguish one word from the next and that what I had seen earlier in the day wasn’t just onegreatlongjumbleofletterswithnospacesinbetween.
Convinced my eyes had deceived me, I returned to the crime scene.
No, I obviously wasn’t as pissed as it thought.
There it was, quite literally, for all to see in Scotland’s first Sunday rag.
National Pie Week.
Now what the hell is that all about?
I was fully aware that Sunday was the first of the month but surely I couldn’t have lost a full thirty one days in my drunken stupor.
This had all the hallmarks of an April Fool ruse.
Surely they, whoever ‘they’ are, can’t be expecting us all to eat pies for the whole week.
Sweet suffering maw o’ the wee man, by the time the weekend comes around we’ll all be rolling around like Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee.
How can we be expected to absorb or pay any kind of notice to the constant barrage of health warnings and the flood of statistics about how bad the Scottish diet is, when someone somewhere has decreed that it is national pie week.
Why not go the whole hog and declare national lard week or, for the posh and privileged, national saturated fat week.
To cap it all, my local DJ announced it was national tell a lie day on Wednesday.
Come on! Someone please enlighten me as to what the f4ck that is all about?
Why do we have to have national anything week or day for that matter?
This has to be the dumbest craze out.
Since the fifties and Christian Aid week, this has blossomed into the perfect cottage industry with dozens of little munchkins beavering away at titanic scale, steam driven, Heath Robinson like machines, churning out all sorts of nonsensical possibilities so they can ponder what will be next and how they might be able to screw over poor old ‘honest Bob’.
There are now around five hundred ‘national weeks’ disseminated unevenly throughout the year.
Many are slightly sinister and are nothing more than an excuse for chuggers to get their little plastic cans out and pester unwitting shoppers, (kind of reminds me of that old postcard showing two images of Aberdeen’s Union Street, one totally deserted; the other full of people, bearing the respective legend, Aberdeen on a flag day; Aberdeen during a door to door collection)
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no problem with charity if the proceeds are wisely used and have a positive effect on the intended cause but, pardon me for being cynical, something called National Real Ale Week is nothing more than and excuse for the participants to go and get pissed in some ‘olde worlde’ hovel with spit and sawdust on the floor, while we pick up the tab.
Some of it is just plain daft, national meeting week for instance.
Having said that, I do like the idea of national condom week and national breast-feeding week sharing the same dates - clearly the munchkins have some sense of humour.
Many of these of course are just an excuse for extremists to harp on about their chosen soapbox theory.
"I know what we’ll do!
We haven’t sold many fags lately – let’s have a national smoking week or maybe if the sales of petrol drop in the credit crunch we could have national set fire to your neeb's hedge week".
Then we could have national plant a leylandii week.
Simplest answer for me of course would be to declare national talking shite week.
I’d easy manage to take part in that one along, I dare say, with a fairly large proportion of the country.
You could argue that any week in the House of Commons would qualify.
Ah well, time for another Scotch pie topped off with some extra lard and some mealie pudding.
That should keep me going until national curry week in November.
Ahh the music…
The Smiths - Dundee Caird Hall, 26.09.1985
http://rapidshare.com/files/206147911/Dundee_Caird_Hall__26.09.1985_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/206163348/Dundee_Caird_Hall__26.09.1985_2.rar
Ray Davies – Other Peoples Lives
http://rapidshare.com/files/200547206/Other_Peoples_Lives.rar
Tom Waits - The Early Years 2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203145879/The_Early_Years_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203007064/The_Early_Years_2.rar
Ray Davies - Nashville, TN - 12-03-08
http://rapidshare.com/files/203015467/Ray_Davies_-_Nashville__TN_-_12-03-08_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203025092/Ray_Davies_-_Nashville__TN_-_12-03-08.rar
Glen Tilbrook & The Fluffers - Oxford, UK 24.10.2008
http://rapidshare.com/files/203031027/Oxford__UK_24.10.2008_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203039642/Oxford__UK_24.10.2008_2.rar
FunLovin Criminals - Mimosa
http://rapidshare.com/files/203046465/Mimosa.rar
Seth Lakeman – Poor Man's Heaven
http://rapidshare.com/files/203052493/Poor_Man_s_Heaven.rar
Big Country – Porterhouse Retford 18-09-1982
http://rapidshare.com/files/203057316/Porterhouse_Retford_18-09-1982.rar
The Postal Service – Give Up
http://rapidshare.com/files/203062433/Postal_Service__The.rar
Edwyn Collins - Queen's Hall, Edinburgh 21.04.2008.
http://rapidshare.com/files/203071547/Queen_s_Hall__Edinburgh_21.04.2008.rar
Ryan Adams - Live 08.12.2008
http://rapidshare.com/files/203079730/Live_08.12.2008.rar
The Doors with Eddie Vedder – Hall Of Fame
http://rapidshare.com/files/203083518/The_Doors_with_Eddie_Vedder_-_1993-01-12_Rock_And_Roll_Hall_Of_Fame__Century_Plaza_Hotel__Los_Angeles,_CA,_US.rar
Stan Ridgway – The Big Heat
http://rapidshare.com/files/203091087/The_Bigh_Heat.rar
Ruarri Joseph - Tales Of Grime And Grit
http://rapidshare.com/files/203096089/Tales_Of_Grime_And_Grit.rar
Undertones – Regal Theatre, Hitchin – UK – February 22, 1983
http://rapidshare.com/files/203107132/Regal_Theatre__Hitchin_-_UK_-__February_22__1983_Upgrade_.rar
Cowboy Junkies - Live At The Mountain Winery, Saratoga
http://rapidshare.com/files/203135893/Live_At_The_Mountain_Winery__Saratoga__C_Pt_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203120111/Live_At_The_Mountain_Winery__Saratoga__C_Part_2.rar
Enjoy
Hooli
On the alcohol front, it was a different story.
My head was clearly placing bets that my body would be unable to cash.
Saturday saw the usual suspects gather for a bit of a ‘rugby come birthday come general excuse for getting together’ type of do.
Needless to say they recycling bin took a hammering, as did my ability to remember much about the evening's proceedings.
I do remember the rugby scores and I do remember getting home.
The five intervening hours though, are a bit of a Shiraz infused haze.
Having found nothing to grump about last week and just when I thought there was nothing to get wired about this week, there it was, tucked away in a little corner of the Sunday paper.
Having been on the singing soup the night before, I assumed I was still blootered and didn’t give it much thought (or at least I thought I didn’t give it much thought – if you catch what I mean)
Several hours, some smoked pig on toast and couple of pints of coffee later, I returned to the paper, confident that I had sobered up enough to distinguish one word from the next and that what I had seen earlier in the day wasn’t just onegreatlongjumbleofletterswithnospacesinbetween.
Convinced my eyes had deceived me, I returned to the crime scene.
No, I obviously wasn’t as pissed as it thought.
There it was, quite literally, for all to see in Scotland’s first Sunday rag.
National Pie Week.
Now what the hell is that all about?
I was fully aware that Sunday was the first of the month but surely I couldn’t have lost a full thirty one days in my drunken stupor.
This had all the hallmarks of an April Fool ruse.
Surely they, whoever ‘they’ are, can’t be expecting us all to eat pies for the whole week.
Sweet suffering maw o’ the wee man, by the time the weekend comes around we’ll all be rolling around like Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee.
How can we be expected to absorb or pay any kind of notice to the constant barrage of health warnings and the flood of statistics about how bad the Scottish diet is, when someone somewhere has decreed that it is national pie week.
Why not go the whole hog and declare national lard week or, for the posh and privileged, national saturated fat week.
To cap it all, my local DJ announced it was national tell a lie day on Wednesday.
Come on! Someone please enlighten me as to what the f4ck that is all about?
Why do we have to have national anything week or day for that matter?
This has to be the dumbest craze out.
Since the fifties and Christian Aid week, this has blossomed into the perfect cottage industry with dozens of little munchkins beavering away at titanic scale, steam driven, Heath Robinson like machines, churning out all sorts of nonsensical possibilities so they can ponder what will be next and how they might be able to screw over poor old ‘honest Bob’.
There are now around five hundred ‘national weeks’ disseminated unevenly throughout the year.
Many are slightly sinister and are nothing more than an excuse for chuggers to get their little plastic cans out and pester unwitting shoppers, (kind of reminds me of that old postcard showing two images of Aberdeen’s Union Street, one totally deserted; the other full of people, bearing the respective legend, Aberdeen on a flag day; Aberdeen during a door to door collection)
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no problem with charity if the proceeds are wisely used and have a positive effect on the intended cause but, pardon me for being cynical, something called National Real Ale Week is nothing more than and excuse for the participants to go and get pissed in some ‘olde worlde’ hovel with spit and sawdust on the floor, while we pick up the tab.
Some of it is just plain daft, national meeting week for instance.
Having said that, I do like the idea of national condom week and national breast-feeding week sharing the same dates - clearly the munchkins have some sense of humour.
Many of these of course are just an excuse for extremists to harp on about their chosen soapbox theory.
"I know what we’ll do!
We haven’t sold many fags lately – let’s have a national smoking week or maybe if the sales of petrol drop in the credit crunch we could have national set fire to your neeb's hedge week".
Then we could have national plant a leylandii week.
Simplest answer for me of course would be to declare national talking shite week.
I’d easy manage to take part in that one along, I dare say, with a fairly large proportion of the country.
You could argue that any week in the House of Commons would qualify.
Ah well, time for another Scotch pie topped off with some extra lard and some mealie pudding.
That should keep me going until national curry week in November.
Ahh the music…
The Smiths - Dundee Caird Hall, 26.09.1985
http://rapidshare.com/files/206147911/Dundee_Caird_Hall__26.09.1985_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/206163348/Dundee_Caird_Hall__26.09.1985_2.rar
Ray Davies – Other Peoples Lives
http://rapidshare.com/files/200547206/Other_Peoples_Lives.rar
Tom Waits - The Early Years 2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203145879/The_Early_Years_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203007064/The_Early_Years_2.rar
Ray Davies - Nashville, TN - 12-03-08
http://rapidshare.com/files/203015467/Ray_Davies_-_Nashville__TN_-_12-03-08_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203025092/Ray_Davies_-_Nashville__TN_-_12-03-08.rar
Glen Tilbrook & The Fluffers - Oxford, UK 24.10.2008
http://rapidshare.com/files/203031027/Oxford__UK_24.10.2008_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203039642/Oxford__UK_24.10.2008_2.rar
FunLovin Criminals - Mimosa
http://rapidshare.com/files/203046465/Mimosa.rar
Seth Lakeman – Poor Man's Heaven
http://rapidshare.com/files/203052493/Poor_Man_s_Heaven.rar
Big Country – Porterhouse Retford 18-09-1982
http://rapidshare.com/files/203057316/Porterhouse_Retford_18-09-1982.rar
The Postal Service – Give Up
http://rapidshare.com/files/203062433/Postal_Service__The.rar
Edwyn Collins - Queen's Hall, Edinburgh 21.04.2008.
http://rapidshare.com/files/203071547/Queen_s_Hall__Edinburgh_21.04.2008.rar
Ryan Adams - Live 08.12.2008
http://rapidshare.com/files/203079730/Live_08.12.2008.rar
The Doors with Eddie Vedder – Hall Of Fame
http://rapidshare.com/files/203083518/The_Doors_with_Eddie_Vedder_-_1993-01-12_Rock_And_Roll_Hall_Of_Fame__Century_Plaza_Hotel__Los_Angeles,_CA,_US.rar
Stan Ridgway – The Big Heat
http://rapidshare.com/files/203091087/The_Bigh_Heat.rar
Ruarri Joseph - Tales Of Grime And Grit
http://rapidshare.com/files/203096089/Tales_Of_Grime_And_Grit.rar
Undertones – Regal Theatre, Hitchin – UK – February 22, 1983
http://rapidshare.com/files/203107132/Regal_Theatre__Hitchin_-_UK_-__February_22__1983_Upgrade_.rar
Cowboy Junkies - Live At The Mountain Winery, Saratoga
http://rapidshare.com/files/203135893/Live_At_The_Mountain_Winery__Saratoga__C_Pt_1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/203120111/Live_At_The_Mountain_Winery__Saratoga__C_Part_2.rar
Enjoy
Hooli
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