Computer Games

For those of us old enough to remember Kempston Joysticks, there’s a whole wealth of fun to be had in games made in Macromedia Flash. I like this one – it’s got all the features of Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge and Outrun in one neat little package. It all brings back the thrill of coasting to a halt having run outof time, then hearing the immortal computerised voice scream “checkpoint”, and you’re off again! Quite literally minutes of fun to be had.

Whateva!

I’m sure it’s probably been around a while but I found Liam Lynch’s reworking of his “United States of Whatever” song today with an anti-Bush hue. It certainly made my day. Look out for cameos from Clinton, Blair and more curiously a small Smurf…
Click here to watch the video.

Artiste’s Portaits

I’ve been spending a lot of time doing portraits for colleagues, to be used as publicity shots and on the web. I’m quite pleased with some of the results. It just amazes me the way a photograph can imply so much about your personality, ability and style. Hopefully I’ve created the right impression for Sarah with these…

Australian-ladies’ vehicular posessions

I hate certain adverts. More specifically I hate the “Sheila’s Wheels” advert, which has, quite possibly, the most annoying song in the world. I won’t post it because unless you’ve been on Mars for the last 6 months you can’t help to have heard it. Actually, they’re probably showing it on Mars as well.

However, the first line is really beginning to bug me:

“For ladies who insure their cars, Sheila’s Wheels are Superstars…”

I think somebody may have dropped the ball here, to use ad-men lingo. That first line implies either: a) There are a high proportion of women out there who are uninsured, therefore this advert is already saying many women are irresponsible or breaking the law, or b) This ad is for those women who don’t get their husbands/partners to sort their car insurance out, because car-things are manly, thereby implying many women are ditsy.
So, which is it Mr Advertising man??? Are women stupid or irresponsible? Don’t even get me started on the whole Diamond Car insurance thing (Really, name your company ‘Diamond’, beause everyone knows women will choose it because they like sparkly things!).

Rant over.

The Suffolk Coast III

The Suffolk Coast II

The Suffolk Coast

A lack of recent activity brought about by some time playing with the Briten-Pears Orchestra in Suffolk. Now I’m busy organising the photographs I took there. Here’s a sneak preview. More at Flickr.

Hairdressing and being cool

I hate having my haircut – almost as much as the small child who was screaming his lungs out in the seat at the other end of the salon. Actually, I think I might hate it more. I’m not sure why, I just always have. Back in my teens, at the height of Grunge, I grew my hair long, but the more I think about it the more I think it was less about rebellion against the system and identifying with my idols, and more about laziness and fear. I view haircuts like the phone bill – a stressful but necessary quarterly occurence. Sean Hughes summed it up well:

“You go into the hairdresses and he says, ‘how would you like it cut?’ – quietly please. You then sit there as he completely destroys your hair, then has the audacity to show you in the mirror what he’s done. All the time you’re thinking, ‘I look like Kenny dalgliesh in the ’80s’, and ‘Maybe I can cancel all my appointments for the next 6 weeks til it grows back’, but what you say is ‘that’s great, have a tip'” – Sean Hughes: Thirty Somehow 

You see it’s like a trendy club I’m not invited to. For a start they always play Radio 1 or some local commercial radio station far too loudly. I sat there for 50 minutes today and didn’t recognise a single ‘song’. They play it so it appeals to their trendy club-goer clientel, and that’s just not me at all. It’s meant to make you feel good and confident in your personal grooming – again not me. All around me stylists were chatting with their customers, but not me. To be honest I hate chit-chat from hairdressers, but like when the survey woman doesn’t approach you on the street, you feel like a failure that they’re not even bothering with you.

Finally there’s the friendliness. Everyone who came in asked for their stylist by name – I have trouble remembering when I last had mine cut (why do they always embarass you by asking that first, and in such an amazed way – really?!? 3 months, eh?), let alone who did it. They say ‘hi’ like old friends, and I’m the odd one out, left outside the gang of trendy people. 

Still, I got my haircut. It’s nice. And now I don’t have to go through that again for at least another 3 months. 

Renaissance Grunge

I’m reliving my youth through music right now. It seems that, having been hi-jacked by the latest generation of 15-year-old long-haired kids, Grunge is fighting back. When I teach in secondary schools it’s like I’ve stepped back 10 years in time. There are kids with army-surplus bags covered in badges and marker-pen-scrallings for Nirvana, Pear Jam, Green Day etc. Yes I know I’m in danger of sounding like every generation of the past as it comes to realise it’s not the new kid on the block anymore, but here’s the thing – they’re the same bands, not new ones playing the old tunes, except most of them haven’t been around for a while due to hitches like splits, musician exchanges, retirement and suicides. I was losing my identity.

It’s coming back anew though. Sent on a trip down memory lane by the SeatleMetroBlog’s post of Eddie Vedder’s Jam session in a Seattle Bar after a PJ gig, I bought the New Pearl Jam album ‘Life Wasted’. It’s good. It’s not the same as the PJ of my youth, with pure gold hits like ‘Jeremy’ and ‘Alive’ appealing to angst ridden teens. It’s grown up. It’s got a social conscience. It’s anti-Bush:

“She can feel this war on her face, sars on her pillow, folding in the darkness, begging for slumber… She tells herself, and everyone else, Father is risking his life for our Freedom…” – ‘Army Reserve’

It’s not just Eddie Vedder either. Unless you’ve been on Mars for the last 18 months, you can’t have failed to notice GreenDay’s ‘American Idiot’. I doubt if Cobain was still around he’d be attending anti-war rallies, but I’m sure he’d have written a thrashy little number about bombers or something.

So you see, the teenies haven’t got our music, they have is a snapshot of 1994. They have the teen-angst and trailer pop because that’s what was written for them. We’ll have the Renaissance Grunge, thank you, the ‘stick-it-to-the-man’, anti-war, anti-Bush Art. Yes it’s art, and it’s ours.

Fifa la Deutch

Now I’m no football fan. I was once, but now I’m pretty much as far away from one as you can get. However I can be a cynical watcher of ‘the man’, ‘the system’ or pretty much anything with the prefix ‘the’ (even ‘the Beatles’, though less so ‘the troggs’). I hate speed cameras, for example. However, I read with disbelief a report about TV Licence Enforcement Vans threatening to fine workplaces if their employees watch the World Cup online using the BBC’s Broadband service (although this article suggests it may a hollow threat).

Help is at hand, however. You too can beat ‘the man’, or indeed ‘the van’ – Watch the 80’s technology at work – yes, you too can watch the World Cup Live via Telnet pictures! It needs no licence, just a little imagination…