Skateboarding Dogs

There was a cacophony of barking as I walked along the sunny seafront in Brighton with Offsprog One yesterday. I needed a break and had hopped on a train; stuffed with pasta, we headed along the seafront towards Hove, dodging toddlers and toy dogs on trip-me-up extendable leads.
'Arf arf arf!' barked an excited dog; 'ARF ARF ARF ARF!', barked it's pal.
The two Staffordshire terriers were competing to ride the skateboard and when one of them managed to calm down enough, it could climb aboard and glide along until it's excitement cause it to fall off.

Very funny, very weird, very Brighton!

Technological Determinism

I have just spent five hours writing a lecture on technological determinism, and I still haven't finished.
If you don't know, it's an 'ism' that says that everything we do is controlled by the technology that we use to do it, and it sounds ridiculous sometimes and really true at other times.
Technology is really any tool that we use to do things for us, even a stone-age pointed rock that could be used to smash things. All the way from there to the mega-computers...
Technology has changes music greatly. There is a hilariously funny passage in Keith Negus's book Producing Pop about the shock people expressed when they first heard Liszt playing the piano: they simply weren't used to the huge dynamic range and were terrified of the volume when he played loudly. Harpsichords and clavichords were string-pluckers rather than string hammerers, altogether more genteel. And think about how different was before the Walkman and other portable music-listening devices; I know we had little tinny trannies with an earpiece, but the whole concept of piping and entire soundscape into your ears and walking round with it all day completely changed the way people 'consumed' music.
In fact I do wonder whether the penchant for gathering in thousands in warehouses and fields to experience the togetherness of dance music might be an extreme reaction to the isolating ways of listening to music that developed in the 1980s!

Silly David Lammy

David Lammy has been a fantastic politician, representing Tottenham where he grew up, and being faithful to his constituents.
What is this I read? That he thinks smacking children will stop them growing up to become rioters?
Pull the other one, David.
Hitting children is violence. If big mum or big dad thwacks you as a child when they don't like what you do, they are teaching you to be violent when things don't go your way.
And how are teachers at school supposed to discipline children who are disciplined by being assaulted at home?
It is very hard to be an adult and not hit your children, to explain what they have done wrong, and in extreme cases to stop their pocket money (they really don't like that).
Throughout my childrens' school life, I have been aware of parents both black and white, both working class and middle class, hitting their children to alleviate their feelings of anger and frustration at their behaviour. It isn't something that has gone out of vogue, believe me!
In fact, I would hazard a guess that the young summer rioters of London probably experience more violence in their homes rather than less.
Shut up, David, please.

Holding Up Lyrics

You Heard It Her (!) First

Next outing for the gig combo of Gina Birch, Viv Albertine and myself all playing solos is at

THE VERGE,

72 Manchester Road

Hyde, Cheshire

SK14 2BJ

on the 24th March 2012

I will post details of ticket prices and where to get them from as soon as the link is set up

                     

Bits Day

Strangely unfulfilling at the time, bits days save on stress further down the line. You go thorough the lists of things you should do, picking off a few while the washing machine is working. You sweep the emails, answering the ones you have been putting aside for later (ten days later, sometimes). You clear floorspace, and what's more, clean up the dust from underneath the stuff you have moved.
You listen to the Zombies and a bit of Aretha Franklin, but not much reggae because on a day when you are doing the housework you suddenly start noticing sexist lyrics (hence only a bit of Aretha Franklin).
You eat a fraction of a chocolate bar, remembering the genius move of leaving half a bar in the fridge to great you when you got back from a long rail journey (but you do know you are going to eat the rest of it later anyway). You survey the ever-increasing bags under your eyes, and say a thankful prayer (aha, yes, Aretha), that usually you don't have any time to look in the mirror and notice.
You think about phoning friends and wonder if you still have any.
You also sit and post something on the blog to avoid the very large pile of bits...
of paper
of bills
of bags of stuff
of pens
of shoes
...  and a green peg (?)
still left in the middle of the floor to be sorted out.

Irons 2

I have a new iron. It's quite frightening: it's red and white with a menacingly pointy nose.

Irons

My car, awash with water, has been diagnosed and is now in recovery. A carwash in Surrey that I got stranded in ('You can't just leave her there!', wailed the next customer, prompting a rescue bid) revealed water pouring in from the bonnet.
I was expecting a mega bill from the garage but got one only in double figures (big ones, though).
I can afford a new iron!
The one I have at the moment was the cheapest that Sainsbury's could suppy.
It has a lead so short that I have to have the ironing board unfeasibly low.
It is top heavy and falls over if left unsupported, smashing everything it comes into contact with into tiny irrepairable smithereens.
It has only two settings: 'Scorch' and 'Slightly Warmer Than Room Temperature'.
The cord doesn't wrap around it properly when I put it away, so it falls out of the cupboard- so frequently and annoyingly that I avoid using the cupboard at all costs. It's the cupboard with cooking vessels, so consequently I avoid cooking. And if I get home from work and the bread is stale so I can't make toast, that means I don't eat.
I just can't let that cheap iron run my life any more!

Martin Stephenson- Rain at the Cluny, 2011 filmed by Helen McCookerybook

Warm to the Cool Side: the Group Song

Why Aye Man!

I pinched this from Tim's Facebook page, because it made me laugh out loud this morning when I wound up my computer!

Interesting Blog

I found this music blog via Dickon Edwards' diary- it's magic!
http://www.yrheartout.blogspot.com/

Bardaid Book Launch

This is tomorrow (Sunday) from 7.30 p.m.
I'll be on at about 9-ish (actually I've forgotten exactly when but it's some time after that)
It costs £5 and you get a  free copy of the book
And Den Hegarty (once of The Darts) will be performing as well as The Anti-Poet and lots of other people.
It's at the Camden Eye, just next to Camden Tube Station.
See you there!

Bankers, bonkers

Avery apt misreading of a sentence by a disgraced banker (aren't they all?) this morning.
The word was 'brokered' but I read it as 'bonkered', automatically loading it with pent-up meaning.
See Ian Duncan-Smith last night, talking about shaving money off the benefits given to the poorest members of our Big Society? What sort of hell is this we are creating?

Chet Baker

De boop boop boop boop
Yeah yeah baby!
It's Chet Baker, singing in the background as I prevaricate as usual....
De boop boop boop boop
Parp! There goes his trumpet, mellow and swingin'....
De boop boop boop boop.
Pingle dingle piano frills
Absolutely frilling darling....
Time for tea
'A breeze caresses me'....
Hang on a minute! It's January outside: how come summer's crept in to the house?
De boop boop boop boop
A blue note or two
Where's my cocktail dress?
Why haven't I got one?
I could wear it for jazz moments
Even though I don't drink
Cocktails.