a nottingham blog

top 10 albums and singles of 2011

2011-12-15T07:00:00.005Z

Time again for my annual countdown of half decent music. A grand internet tradition since 2006!

This time last year, I suggested that I'd probably be bored of Kanye West's album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by February. How wrong could I be? Very. That and Janelle Monae have been my two most listened to albums of 2011, despite both being released in 2010, and neither featuring in the upper ranks of last year's countdown.

So it's in that spirit of success, and the fact that I've been backpacking for the last nine months - and so more detached from music than usual - that I present this year's 10 best albums and individual tracks. Now more valid than ever!

As usual, an artist will only feature in one list or the other, not both.

Albums

1. The Antlers - Burst Apart
2. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver
3. The Horrors - Skying
4. Jay-Z and Kanye West - Watch the Throne
5. Kasabian - Velociraptor!
6. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
7. SBTRKT - SBTRKT
8. Patrick Wolf - Lupercalia
9. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
10. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Diamond Mine

Listen to one track of each of these albums as a Youtube playlist. It's mostly a calm, enjoyable listen.

Tracks

1. Elbow - Lippy Kids
2. Coldplay - Paradise
3. Lupe Fiasco - Words I Never Said
4. Alex Metric & Steve Angello - Open Your Eyes
5. Noah & The Whale - L.I.F.E.GO.E.S.O.N
6. The Vaccines - Post Break-Up Sex
7. Arthur Russell - Walk On The Moon (Labyrinth Ear edit)
8. Nicola Roberts - Beat of My Drum
9. Kount Masloff - You Came to Win
10. The Go! Team - Secretary Song

Listen to the top 10 as a Youtube playlist. It's quite a brash, upbeat listen.

You may also look back over the album countdowns from 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007, and the single countdowns from 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006.

the struggle for aloofness

2011-12-07T14:56:00.001Z

It's 6:13pm. The sun has been considering whether to set or not for a couple of hours, and it seems now to have settled on an answer.

We're in a beach restaurant in Karnataka, India, but it could be any backpacker orientated hangout worldwide. All the hallmarks are present and correct: patio furniture, hammocks and facial hair. There's banana pancakes on the menu, and the same five Bob Marley tracks repeating on the stereo. Everything is familiar here. Comforting. Today will not be remembered for its life altering developments.

There's six of us enjoying an early dinner. People have been competing to try and out-liberal each other. Sid took an early head start when he pointed out he's a vegan and that he doesn't own a TV. Samantha however, announces she has her own vegetable patch. Her opponents are sent reeling.

It's in the midst of this that KC asks me what the time is. 6:13 I reply. "Oh, that's precise of you", he retorts. Everybody giggles. KC has dreadlocks. An unkempt beard. KC has no interest in the exact time. KC has no interest in the exact anything.

I feel bruised by this encounter. I have tried to help out my friend KC. Why should I be mocked for merely trying to provide people with a helpful level of accuracy? You've asked me something, I'm now trying to assist you to the greatest possible extent. Yet, I get laughed at if I don't give you a worse answer.

For me to round the time to 6:15 actually requires extra effort on my part. I'd have to think about that. Do a quick calculation in my head. It is you that has asked the favour of me. If you're going to ask me the time, but want a pleasingly inaccurate answer, round things off yourself. You go through the effort. Seen as I'm doing you the favour.

Failing that, just don't ask at all. Seemingly you don't really care what the actual time is anyway. You see the sun is about to set. You've been hanging out in this place for five fucking weeks. I would've thought you'd have a supernatural gift for time estimation by now. Roping me into proceedings seems unnecessary. You do the rounding. You do the aloofness. It's best off I leave it to the professionals.

weddings, deaths and public urination

2011-09-07T13:04:00.003+01:00

Due to the graphic nature of this blogpost, reader discresion is advised

This weekend, six things happened to me that had never happened before. For instance: I'd never accidentally bought women's clothing before. Now I have. I'm not yet very good at telling the difference with Indian clothes. Here's some further examples:

I'd never been a guest at an Indian wedding before. I manage to get off at completely the wrong Metro stop, and arrive late to find the party in full swing. After five minutes they play one of the very few Indian-influenced songs I know (Panjabi MC - Mundian To Bach Ke), so thinking this might be my only chance I'm immediately on the dancefloor, trying my best not to look an idiot. The food meanwhile, is a bewildering array of dishes to pick and choose from. Taking my cue from everybody else, I pile my plate with 15 or so different flavours - roughly 70% of which I'm unfamiliar with - and tuck in, before heading back for seconds. Otherwise the wedding is a backseat affair, and I observe a procession of rituals being performed, most of which I don't understand even once they've been explained to me.

Another first: leaving the wedding in a taxi, traffic suddenly envelopes us. It is a short wait before we pass by the cause. A man is lying in the street, having been knocked off his bicycle by a bus. His head is against the ground, except for roughly a third of it, which is scattered a few feet away. I've never seen a dead body before, and this is a horrific, perspective altering first time.

I've also never seen a film in a Bollywood cinema before, and so watching Bodyguard is an interesting experience. Nobody bothers to switch off their mobiles. Kids scream and run around in front of the screen. The film has complete disregard for whether what is happening is physically possible or not. At one point in the second half, the lead female character is lying in bed, watching on TV a scene from the first half of the film.

I've never seen a woman urinating whilst standing up in the street before. That was weird.

And I've never been in Nepal before. Until yesterday. Despite me being a (comparatively) tall westerner, I was forced to sit in my allocated seat for the 12 hour journey, which just so happened to be the one with the least leg room on the entire bus. Over the course of the journey I take increasingly desperate and absurd measures to highlight my discomfort. At first simply trying to sit elsewhere, then leaning on the guy next to me, then just giving up and sitting on the floor. Eventually I'm lying on the floor, deliriously trying to catch any sleep I can. As I understand, Buddhists believe that the head is the highest, holiest part of the body, and the feet are the lowest, dirtiest part. So the sight of this westerner deliberately lying with his head on the dirty metal floor must have been pretty bewildering to them.

So what do I think of Nepal? Seems to be full of unflinching, westerner baiting order-Nazis. I'm sure I'll find that to be wholly representative.

i'm an idiot.

2011-08-30T17:38:00.000+01:00

I'm an idiot. I recently spent a full 60 seconds trying to remember what side of the road people drive on in Britain. Having just written that sentence, I've now been struggling to remember which side of the road is used in India, where I've been travelling for six weeks now.

There is a more impressive example of my advanced idiocy though. In the northern city Amritsar, I leave my bank card in the ATM (British readers! That's the crazy name they have for cash machines in this country!) and walk off. Several hours later I'm confused when I can't find it. I head back, and there's no card, but a sign says that any swallowed bank cards will be returned to the nearest branch.

It's Saturday night, so I resign myself to the fact that I will have to stay in town until Monday to see if the card is safe. I tell pathetic lies in emails and Facebook messages to friends, saying I'm stuck here because an ATM has cruelly swallowed my debit card.

Monday comes, I walk to the branch and... It's closed. Public holiday, I eventually work out. Tuesday comes, and I get told to return the following morning with my passport, and they'll have my card. Wednesday comes, and it's a relaxed, conversational atmosphere as I'm sitting at a desk, signing paperwork to get my card back. I pop my passport back in my bag, wish everybody well and leave relieved. Five minutes later I turn around and start walking back again. I walk into the bank once more and five employees are in fits of laughter. I pick my bank card up off the desk and walk out again.

I'm surprised I haven't absentmindedly stabbed myself in the eye with a biro yet.

postcard from washington dc

2011-07-12T17:48:00.001+01:00

"The mind boggles at how much terrorism has been avoided since 2001, when companies started introducing a $4 tax on it."

Checking out of a youth hostel in Washington DC, I ask to put my backpack in their storage room until my coach leaves later that day. A fairly standard request. They explain that it's $4 per day for a locker, or for each time you enter the locker.

Mild extortion, but I agree to it.

In the storage room there's a sign warning people not to leave bags unattended, as "this is Washington DC, and people tend to be pretty paranoid about these things".

Now then. I know I'm nearly ten years late with this observation, but the terrorism America has seen over the last decade hasn't really been based on unattended packages, has it?

That's what we're constantly being told, "Please be aware of unattended packages". Any unattended package, be it outside the White House or outside Gateshead Plumbing School, may be the next step in Al-Quieda's deadly campaign of terror.

If I was a one of today's young aspiring terrorists, I'd be quite insulted by this misunderstanding of my craft.

And let's hope they don't come up with the idea of just putting their explosive inside one of lockers. I reckon 2011's sharp-minded terrorist might deem their 'destruction of western civilisation' cause worthy of a $4 outlay.

And what a time to insult them! "Hello young terrorist, I know you were thinking of blowing this youth hostel sky-high, but we're assuming you're too tight-fisted to pay for the privilege." If there's one time you don't want to be throwing around insults, surely just as they're making final preparations to blow up a building is that exact time?

INT. INTERROGATION ROOM. DAY

TERRORIST: Well I was having momentary doubts about my cause, about everything I've been taught, and about whether my beliefs are worth turning a six storey building to rubble for. But then I read that I had to pay $4 first? As some sort of barrier to entry for terrorism? Well from that moment I was convinced. And I didn't bother phoning in a warning either.

The mind boggles at how much terrorism has been avoided since 2001, when companies started introducing a $4 tax on it. Given the immeasurable success, it's perhaps time to extend the policy to other problem areas. Waging an unwinnable war on drugs? A £3 tax on drug trafficking should fix things. Depressed about iIllegal immigration? A £5 tax on war refugees will do the trick. And I seem to spend more money checking my Vodafone voicemail than I do on lunch, which is exactly why I've never entertained thoughts of hacking the voicemails of murder victims.

glastonbury plans

2011-06-18T17:55:00.001+01:00

Here's who I'm planning to see at Glastonbury this year. Let me know what your matches are. The last few years my spiritual home seemed to centre around the Other Stage, this year I'm gravitating more towards the Pyramid. Here's how we're looking:

Thursday:
campfire or aimless exploring

Friday:
Wu-Tang Clan
Biffy Clyro
Morrissey or park special guests (Arctic Monkeys?)
U2
Stanton Warriors or Zero 7 DJ set

Saturday:
The Gaslight Anthem
Pulled Apart By Horses or Mark Thomas
Patrick Wolf
Tinie Tempah
The Horrors
Noah and The Whale or park special guests (Pulp?)
Janelle Monae
Coldplay (tight timing. Chemical Brothers if too busy)
Orbital DJ set

Sunday:
Laura Marling
Dan le Sac vs Sroobius Pip
TV on the Radio
The Go! Team
Pendulum
Beyonce
no evening plans

Media-wise, I'm back tweeting for the Guardian, and I'm co-writing Drowned in Sound's review. So if you're not going, I can still irritate you about it.

postcard from louisiana

2011-05-30T19:00:00.001+01:00

Am I just lucky, or do remarkable things happen every day to everybody in New Orleans?

The threat of flooding from the Mississippi had continued as I carried on down towards its mouth. On the coach into town we're driving along bridges over marshland. Except today the locks have been opened and the area is being flooded to divert water from the city. It seems we're passing at exactly the right moment: we witness the sight of colossal amounts of water gushing into the area, overwhelming trees as it goes. The guy next to me said he's been traveling this route for 40 years, and never seen anything like it.

The best description of New Orleans I'm told is that I shouldn't think of it as the south of the USA, but as the north of the Caribbean. This seems accurate. And I say so with all the authority of somebody who has never been to the Caribbean.

My first night out in the city I am taken to a bar that feels more like an off-license, with patio furniture set up in the back garden, fairy lights decorating the fences, and musicians playing classical music in the corner. After that it's off to a private members bar/pool club where we relax drinking whiskey sours in the pool until 1am.

Hours before leaving the city I'm heading back to my hostel, along a street I'd already walked on several occasions. This time however, one of the parks is filled with a stage, the stage is filled with a reggae band, and 3000 people are partying along for free. I change plans, and join in. I ask the guy next to me why this is all happening, and his response describes New Orleans better in three words than I could in 300: "It's Wednesday, brother!"

postcard from arizona.

2011-05-27T17:13:00.001+01:00

Silliness, really.

postcard from tennessee

2011-05-23T14:07:00.002+01:00

Two objectives whilst in the Deep South: eat some BBQ, and see some live blues. I'm told these are the two most important things to sample whilst in the region.

Every now and then whilst traveling, you get lucky. I arrive for my 24 hour visit to Memphis and am told that today is the final day of the World BBQ Championship. 250 teams are competing. I get the feeling that today is one of those days.

It's a remarkable set-up. Teams have gone to great personal expense to build big stalls, and variously provide music, alcohol, elaborate stall designs, matching uniforms, games and gimmicks to provide the perfect BBQ atmosphere.

Team names pun around the subject of pigs. Two personal favourites: Notorious P.I.G. and The People's Republic of Swina.

All the while, judges go around sampling each stall, and marking their BBQ on the minutest criteria. I eat (for free) at about 14 stalls throughout the day, and struggle to discern anything other than superficial difference between them.

As the sun goes down, everybody gathers at the main stage, and 40-something awards are handed out ("and the ninth place in Ribs category goes to..."). A couple of winners cry on stage. The involved crowd cheer at any mention of local pride, local sports teams, or overcoming the floods (the venue was moved from it's usual spot on the banks of the Mississippi*). The biggest cheer comes when - apropos of nothing - a winner calls for the crowd to support their troops.

It's all very surreal, but a strangely moving experience. It's an taste of what gives people a sense of social harmony out here, in the same way that soccer and royal weddings do back home. Everybody leaves exhausted, elated, and very drunk.

We then head back into town and catch some live blues. That's pretty damn good too.

*superb analysis of the media's reaction to the Memphis flood can be read here

postcard from montana

2011-05-20T16:48:00.004+01:00

I've edited together a little video of a one day hike I did in Glacier National Park, Montana. Do you see?

By way of previous updates, you can see 42 postcards from April here, postcards from the Middle East, Japan and South-East Asia by scrolling back through here, and my postcard from Coachella festival here - find out which two headliners played the gigs of their career, which one had people down the front falling asleep, and which act Paul McCartney skanked to...

i'm backpacking again.

2011-04-14T02:52:00.005+01:00

Oh hello. I'm back traveling again. Which is nice. In the interests of brevity though, I'll only be posting to this blog if I have any stories worth telling.

For regular updates and silliness, follow me at http://twitter.com/muldoon. This is better than me flooding blogspot/facebook every time I'm feeling narcissistic.

If you're not on Twitter, you can just create an account, tell them your phone number, and then choose to have my tweets sent via SMS to you for free, should you wish. Technology!

Semi-interesting stories will be posted at the excellent audioblog service ipadio. There's a semi-interesting one there now about hiking in Yosemite National Park. It's semi-great!

The occasion photo will end up on flickr, and maybe the odd video on youtube.

If you like writing and countries, you can read what I typed about countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Japan by clicking here and scrolling past the silly long Glastonbury post.

BYE MULDOON BLOG. x

Brighton Rock: assumed film review

2011-02-14T17:17:00.001Z

Can I review a film, based on watching just the last 20 minutes?

So I saw the trailer for Brighton Rock a week ago. Looked enjoyable. Action packed, I would say. Perhaps even over-packed. Were any plot details left out?

Then yesterday, I read a review that mentioned that the climactic scene of the film is on a clifftop. Hang on! I thought. That trailer spends its last 20 seconds having emotional confrontations on clifftops!

Happy that the film promoters had already provided me with a handy two minute recap of 120 minutes of cinema, I returned to the cinema last night, when there was only 20 minutes left of the film.

And it was a very enjoyable 20 minutes, thank you. It tied up that nasty cliffhanger the trailer left me on, and I saved two hours of my life. Which I opted to spend in the pub. RESULT.

glastonbury 2010: a twitter memorial

2011-01-25T14:10:00.007Z

I've just been sorting through some old tweets, and ended up reading through my timeline from when I was at Glastonbury 2010. Thought I'd post the collection up here.

muldoon

Just finished washing last years Glastonbury mud off walking boots, ready for this years Glastonbury mud.

19 Jun

muldoon

Here's a fun fact: I'll be part of the team tweeting on the Guardian's website as part of their Glasto coverage. Expect MUSIC OPINIONS.

21 Jun

muldoon

Got into west carpark at 6am after 45mins crawling towards the site. Not bad. Now in W36 car park queuing for gates to open. #glasto

23 Jun

muldoon

Last #Eng game I saw at #Glasto was when they went out on penalties against Portugal in '04. Similarly electric atmosphere here today

23 Jun

muldoon

Suddenly I'm sat 60 meters from Prince Charles, standing on the Pyramid stage. Surprising.

24 Jun

muldoon

Detroit Social Club and Courteeners have put in decent sets so far. Hoping for big things from Bonobo #glasto

25 Jun

muldoon

Best t-shirt slogan seen: 'GIVE WAR A CHANCE' #glasto

25 Jun

muldoon

Bonobo: ace. Current rumour is that tonight's secret set at The Park is Thom Yorke. #glasto

25 Jun

muldoon

LATEST: Guy spotted on his friend's shoulders, eating a fry-up. The Big Pink's set, Park Stage. #glasto

25 Jun

muldoon

All pretty exciting up at the Park stage. Half the crowd think its The Strokes, half think its Thom Yorke... #glasto

25 Jun

muldoon

A 'well lubricated' Jamie from the Klaxons has left however, having been more interested in seeing The Big Pink. #glasto

25 Jun

muldoon

It's Thom Yorke! And Jonny Greenwood? #glasto

25 Jun

muldoon

Oh my days. Thom Yorke. Jonny Greenwood. Radiohead classics. Incredible. #glasto is ruined

25 Jun

muldoon

Last minute change of mind. Gorillaz too packed. Groove Armada instead. Have you heard their latest album? It's phenomenal #glasto

25 Jun

muldoon

Risk of seeing Groove Armada completely vindicated. They and the crowd were as one, and we left dripping with sweat. #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

A raucous late night DJ set from Chase & Status in Shangra-la just about makes up for not being able to see their live set earlier #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

Here be my Friday #glasto Top 5: 1. Thom Yorke & Johnny Greenwood 2. Groove Armada 3. Bonobo 4. Local Natives 5. Chase & Status (dj set)

26 Jun

muldoon

I wish I had found the time to make my HELLO STEVIE WONDER #glasto flag.

26 Jun

muldoon

It was going to be that or FLAG FOR SALE. ONE PREVIOUS OWNER. #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

Peter Hook talks Hacienda in the Park. "stock-take tip: if you manage a bar, it doesn't mean letting the staff take the stock." #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

Peter Hook talks Hacienda in the Park. "...I don't know if you've ever tried to reason with a gangster on crack carrying an uzi" #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

Not fussed by this footy tournament going on, but is anywhere here showing the Doctor Who finale? #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

Was expecting a bigger crowd for The National. Thought word had really got out about them in the last couple of months. #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

Overheard: 'picking your favourite National song is like picking your favourite sexual position' #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

If The National are any later coming on stage I can kiss goodbye to seeing Biffy Clyro for sure #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

We live in a world that is still only beginning to wake up to what a special band The National are. #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

Despite running from the Other Stage, can't even get where i can see Biffy Clyro's set at the Park. #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

"You are fully aware that Shakira is currently on the main stage, right?" - Ryan Jarman, The Cribs. #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

So how's the TV coverage of #glasto going so far? Has Jo Whiley been nice to a band she secretly hates yet? Perhaps @gracedent can advise.

26 Ju

muldoon

Have they begun EVERY SINGLE SHOW discussing the weather? Has @zanelowe said the Pyramid crowd is the biggest he's seen? #glasto @gracedent

26 Jun

muldoon

Monochrome is the last theme I ever expected for a Scissor Sisters set. #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

#glasto This backing singer has got a little over confident. #ohitskylie

26 Jun

muldoon

Excitement in Muse crowd is off the chart. Wish I'd been able to see Laura Marling though. #glasto

26 Jun

muldoon

Speechless due to fatal attack of Muse. Normal service will be resumed shortly. #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

I would have been tweeting throughout, but it was JUST TOO GOOD. #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

And having been previously cynical, what a wonderful choice of collaboration track Streets Have No Name was. #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

A Four Tet DJ set seems like a good way to loosen up after such a night. #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

Oh Four Tet, you were very wonderful #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

#Glasto Saturday Top 5: 1) Muse 2) The National 3) Four Tet (dj set) 4) Peter Hook (in conversation) 5) Silver Columns

27 Jun

muldoon

#glasto All I want is a curry before noon, but YOU'RE ALL only selling bacon butties

27 Jun

muldoon

#glasto Haven't heard any celebrity death rumours yet. Cliff Richard has usually corked it by this point

27 Jun

muldoon

Twitter! Help me start the rumour that Robert Kilroy-Silk has died! #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

Oh em gee! Just heard Robert Kilroy-Silk has died! Run over by a shopping trolley apparently! #glasto
27 Jun

muldoon

I'm not sure the guy with the DROP BEATS NOT BOMBS t-shirt has considered the real world practicalites of such a foreign policy. #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

Walking across #glasto site. Surprising numbers avoiding #eng #worldcup game. Temper Trap and Jaguar Skills playing to good crowds.

27 Jun

muldoon

Meanwhile Broadcast 2000 on BBC Introducing stage are playing the football commentary in between their songs! #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

Alex Metric felt lacklustre, so have come to Cabaret tent to see Shappi Khorsandi tell jokes instead. #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

"I read this wonderful piece in the paper - no sorry - the Metro, yesterday" Shappi Khorsandi, Cabaret tent. #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

I Am Kloot are making some beautiful noises in the Queen's Head right about now. The new songs are a revelation #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

I Am Kloot were wonderful. They'll be the set everybody talks about on the Other Stage at #glasto 2011, that's my prediction.

27 Jun

muldoon

#glasto Seeing LCD Soundsystem twice already this summer, so am at Faithless instead. Want to hear Insomnia live again

27 Jun

muldoon

Faithless: only just not as good as Scissor Sisters last night. Imagine they've won a lot of fans back.#glasto

27 Ju

muldoon

#glasto Fair to say the majority of the audience are at Faithless just for the hits. New stuff is winning them over though.

27 Jun

muldoon

#glasto Just saw four policeman on horseback each wearing Village People headwear. They were probably cheered louder than Gorillaz on friday

27 Jun

muldoon

Orbital release thousands of glow sticks into the crowd! Via strategically placed friends in the crowd! #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

Orbital Doctor Who end set madness! #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

We made a dash for Four Tet's set after Orbital. Never a decision one is going to regret. #glasto

27 Jun

muldoon

Four Tet was as beautiful as one could wish for. Now rushing to The Park because have heard a Chemical Brothers DJ set rumour. #glasto

28 Jun

muldoon
Made in to a gay club in Block 9 where you pay £2 or just flash your penis for free entry #glasto
28 Jun

muldoon

We obviously took the latter option. #glasto

28 Jun

muldoon

Now at Arcadia. Haven't experienced an insaner club night than this set up. And it only lasts 3 days a year. #glasto

28 Jun

muldoon

No queues to get out the car park! Woo! I don't think I've ever had happier news. Thank you #glasto, and happy birthday.

28 Jun

muldoon

#Glasto Top 5 of Sunday: 1) Orbital 2) I Am Kloot 3) Four Tet 4) Shappi Khorsandi (Cabaret tent) 5) Faithless

28 Jun

» muldoon

Top 5 of #Glasto: 1) Thom Yorke & Johnny Greenwood 2) Muse 3) Groove Armada 4) The National 5) Orbital

28 Jun

muldoon
#glasto Reading my tweets I was too drunk to remember on the Guardian's site. An odd feeling, one I imagine few people can ever have

28 Jun

In 2011 I'll be at Glastonbury again, as well as Coachella. Expect more livetweeting then.

the top 10 singles of 2010

2010-12-20T02:33:00.004Z

Top 10 singles of 2010, then. Time to acknowledge the year’s finest moments from the guitar, from the dancefloor, and from pop’s mighty cannon. Incidentally, any artist can only be listed in this or the albums list, not both. Here also are the lists from 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006.

The tenth best single of 2010 is also the remix of the year. Gorillaz – Stylo (Alex Metric remix) takes the original, and adds a drop so head-slappingly joyous, it’s remarkable it took until 2010 for somebody to come up with it. Certain to get people on their feet, and as such, the perfect party track.

In last year’s countdown, Felix Da Housecat came up with the perfect way to start a DJ set. Over the last month, Nero – Me & You has been doing the very same job, whilst also making the wait for the new Chase & Status album more bearable. It’s an announcement of a song, a statement of intent. It’s telling audiences ‘the next two hours is going to blow your mind’. Even if that didn’t happen, the following four minutes certainly did.

From that, it’s a complete change of pace to Foals - Spanish Sahara, the eighth best single of 2010. Hearing this for the first time was a genuine stop-you-in-your-tracks moment. Foals, yeah? Overrated math-rock hype band of 2008? Here they were devastatingly beautiful – both in music and in vocals such as “Now I see you lying there/Like a li-lo losing air”.

At number seven, it’s KT Tunstall – (Still a) Weirdo, essentially a radio friendly adaptation of Radiohead’s Creep. It’s a delicate, quirky theme song for anybody with a quiet side and an outsider complex. Superb.

Number six is Ou Est Le Swimming Pool – Dance The Way I Feel. A gorgeously melancholic disco track, sure, but if I’m honest the emotion of the song took hold some months later, because of the horrific fate of the lead singer, Charlie Haddon. Now the song is a heartbreaking listen, embodied with accidental meanings.

This collective produced two great hits this year, but a guest turn from Tinie Tempah just about lifts Swedish House Mafia - Miami 2 Ibiza to number five in this countdown. Over a typically accomplished SHM beat that peaks and drops as well as you’d expect, Mr. Tempah’s contribution is an addictive, light-hearted ode to hedonism. An album now, please.

WTF? Feat. Dead Prez – It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop UK is the forth best single of 2010. A retooling of the Dead Prez classic, WTF? threw dubstep basslines in the tracks’ direction so it became that rare beast: a re-version that improves upon the original. As a result, it destroyed every dancefloor it came near.

To the top three then, and the stone-cold classic Cee Lo Green – Fuck You. The naughty genius of this song, I presume, doesn’t need explaining. But it’s the kind of track that comes along and becomes all you listen to for a fortnight. You’ll start singing it whilst at the gym and be anxious to get home to play it again. You’ll want to tell near-strangers about it in supermarkets. Then get thrown out the supermarket for accidentally singing ‘fuck yooooou’ in the direction of the checkout assistant just before it’s your turn to be served. A definitive 2010 track.

Also responsible for the loss of a fortnight this year was our runner-up: Robyn – Dancing On My Own. An outright pop classic, you’d occasionally find yourself entirely lost in the 2am heartbreak laid bare here, whilst lovely electro-riffs made you simultaneously want to dance, and cry a bit. Congratulations Robyn, you went and created the perfect pop song.

And so, to the winner. The best single of 2010 was: Black Eyed Peas – The Time (Dirty Bit). It was the most inventive reworking in years, crossing cinema’s finest moment with inventive dubstep beats, to produce a concoction that gelled together perfectly.
Alright alright, just kidding. Our actual winner is Chemical Brothers – Swoon. It sounds like the spiritual successor to Daft Punk’s Da Funk, and it certainly borrows the template: take a genius three second hook, and loop it over and over, whilst expertly building up a heady cloud of delirium around it. Achingly simple, brutally effective. A winner and a half.

the top 10 albums of 2010

2010-12-12T12:15:00.012Z

And so to my fourth annual countdown of the year's best albums. You can also check out the lists from 2009, 2008 and 2007. Next week, 2010's top ten singles.

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach kicks off the list at number ten. The achievement of this album is how experimental and quirky it manages to be, whilst still being accessible pop. Witness then, as after two minutes Empire Ants suddenly explodes in electro-euphoria, or as White Flag is book-ended by an oriental Arabic orchestra. Cut four tracks and it would’ve been a classic.

Similarly, cut two tracks (specifically Pow Pow and Somebody’s Calling Me) from the back-end of 2010’s ninth best album, LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening, and you’d have a perfect 50min LP. Album opener Dance Yrself Clean was still making friend's jaws drop in November, but in All I Want, You Wanted A Hit and Home, this was LCD’s most relaxed, confident album.

Less reliable than James Murphy, is the creator of the year’s eighth finest album. With Record Collection by Mark Ronson & The Business INT, the producer has gone from making 2007’s most irritating, to 2010’s best pop album. Every chorus offered up here is a classic. It’s increasingly baffling why he concerned himself with cover versions at all.

I Am Kloot – Sky At Night was the year’s seventh best album. Deservedly stretching their popularity beyond their unnervingly devoted fanbase, Sky At Night is an ambitious, tender, rewarding listen. It’s telling that this album really broke through to me on a 3am walk home – dark, lonely contemplation has rarely sounded so enjoyable.

Not quite so relentlessly dark, despite the name, is Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, taking the number six spot. It’s practically worthy of a place in the top ten for Runaway alone, the track at the beating heart of this album. It’s not quite worthy of the praise it has received from some quarters, and you may well be sick of it by February, but the creativity on display here is wildly commendable.

To the top five now, and to Errors - Come Down With Me. Best described as the album Foals should have made, it’s got groove, accessible hooks, and an ability to win you over by the 3^rd listen – yet have you still wanting more by the 30^th. Ace.

Just edging out Errors as the year’s best dance album is Groove Armada – Black Light, at number four. It’s a remarkable album from the group you could previously dismiss as dance also-rans. Simultaneously fun, pounding, exhilarating and poppy, it stretches its finest moment – Paper Romance – beyond pop boundaries to a delirious 6 minute stomp. It knows that tracks like Cards to your Heart and Shameless are hidden gems to be discovered further down the line, but most of all it simply understands how best to spread a big grin across your face.

Third best album of 2010 is Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can, and it is miraculous how far she has come since 2008’s Alas I Cannot Swim. Her staple folk balladry is present, but here the gutsy statements of Devil’s Spoke, Rambling Man, and Hope in the Air take centre stage, whilst the layered wintry joy of Goodbye England (Covered in Snow) provided us with her finest song yet. Still just 20, the mind boggles at how wonderful she could yet become.

Runner up this year is The National – High Violet, and it’s perhaps best to deal with concrete details first: this – their fifth album – is their most accessible. It understands where to build tension, and where – on Runaway and Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks – to release it, with air-punchingly satisfying results. Is it their best album? Maybeee. Many a die-hard fan would choke at the suggestion. It’s certainly the best point at which to introduce yourself to such a special band.

And with that, our winner. This blog’s number one album of 2010 is Arcade Fire – The Suburbs. Having lost a few fans with the apocalyptic tone of Neon Bible, The Suburbs saw Arcade Fire settle down and just make whatever they wanted. Neon Bible-era is embraced in Modern Man and Deep Blue, their ear for anthems present in Ready to Start, City with No Children and Sprawl II, and each subsequent listen revealed a new favourite. Suburban War, anyone? Half Light I?

In 2007, if you were put off by Neon Bible, you were perhaps a less dour, more optimistic, maybe even more discerning listener. In 2010, if you didn’t like The Suburbs, you were just an idiot.

glastonbury festival 2010: the review

2010-07-01T17:12:00.001+01:00

Disorientation Central. Location: a Welcome Break service station somewhere along the M5.

It's around midday on the Monday after Glastonbury, and as you enter through a set of well polished doors, thoughts race through your mind: "These people are CLEAN!", "Why has the all day breakfast stall been replaced by a gourmet salad bar?", "Why are the men all wearing suits and giving me a wide berth, rather than smiling merrily whilst reloading their beer hat?"

A week at Glastonbury will do that to you. What it doesn't usually do though is leave you with a tan. Sure, most of it turned out to actually be dust once you'd taken your first shower in a week, but it's likely an impressive brown hue still remained. Thursday at Glastonbury was mostly spent wandering around AMAZED that a week in June has turned out to be DRY and HOT!

Having been one of the people that endured the 10 hour traffic jam outside Glastonbury 2009, this year’s relatively light-congestion around the site (at 6am Wednesday morning and again when leaving Monday) is a revelation, only marred by what followed joining the entrance queue: a three hour wait with heavy bags, in sweltering heat, to get through the ticket barriers. But really, getting 20,000-odd overly keen revellers through the gates in 20 minutes was never going to be possible was it?

Thursday is spent relaxing near the front of the Pyramid Stage, and suddenly realising you're sat 60 meters away from a visiting Prince Charles, and then later falling down the Rabbit Hole in the Park, where to enter you had to first locate the secret entrance, then answer a question correctly (sample: What was the White Rabbit late for?), and then crawl through a tunnel into a noisy, grimy backroom complete with solar powered LED dance floor.

Friday's entertainment is mostly more predictable. Detroit Social Club open proceedings in a busy John Peel tent. This time last year the rain had put most people off even leaving their tent this early, but the warmth means Worthy Farm rises early, and the band rise to the occasion nicely with a punchy, involved set.

After catching a lively Mumford & Sons do a couple of songs for Jo Whiley in an overflowing BBC Introducing tent, critical darlings The Courteeners play to a similarly packed Other Stage field. There are less Mancunian accents than expected amongst the crowd. The set goes well enough, but then singles such as Not Nineteen Forever and What Took You So Long? kick in and we get our first party atmosphere of the weekend.

It's a rush from there to ensure none of Bonobo's set in West Holts is missed. The setlist is as blissfully danceable as hoped for, and it's difficult to imagine a more appropriate sunshine soundtrack. Sorry, Snoop.

Up in the hills, Local Natives are showing how difficult it is to misfire on an idyllic afternoon in the Park. Any floating voters won't be rushing out to buy their album, but they soundtrack the moment well.

The Big Pink aren't known for their stage theatrics, so luckily a 'well-lubricated' Jamie from Klaxons is in the third row, doing forward rolls and asking girls for a leg-up so he can go crowdsurfing. It's hilarious, and helps a guarded performance through its natural ebbs.

To be blunt, it’s all preamble for the special guests that are due on stage next. A quick audience survey suggests a 50/50 split on whether it will be The Strokes or Thom Yorke, and as instruments are set up, some Strokes fans drift away. No rumours nailed precisely what we actually get though: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood.

Some reports suggested the faintest air of anti-climax, but for us delirium from the sense of occasion, solo highlights like Harrowdown Hill and The Eraser, and a final run of Radiohead classics made it the finest moment of the weekend, and roughly level with the feeling of when the audience wouldn't stop singing Tender back at Blur in 2009. Magical.

Speaking of which, could Gorillaz possibly top either of those two moments? Finally making it down to the Pyramid stage afterwards, it's impossible to get a decent place in the audience. When during the second song it appears Snoop Dogg is appearing on videoscreen, despite having played earlier that day, a decision is made to make haste for the John Peel tent to see Groove Armada instead.

Having released their finest album this year, it isn’t a decision regretted. The new material has added a newfound pace, and raucous edge to their show. Coupled with the high production values that are typical of live dance music shows, it's a complete joy from start to finish.

Not that the day ends with the headliners, of course. From there it's to Shangra-La where Annie Mac is playing a plodding set for Radio 1's Essential Mix. Not that the crowd seem to mind. Afterwards Chase & Status bring more of a party vibe, gradually tearing apart late night Glastonbury piece by piece over the course of an hour. Afterwards, it’s definitely time for bed.

It feels like the worst Glastonbury yet for clashes. More great acts are being crammed into seemingly less space on the schedule, and the list of acts I miss out on stretches longer than the list of those I get to see: Snoop Dogg, LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, Editors, The xx, Foals, Laura Marling, Sub Focus, Chase and Status (live), Frank Turner... and so it continues.

Saturday starts with a visit to The Free University of Glastonbury to hear Peter Hook talk about managing the Haçienda. It's such a rich topic, that every single thing he says has the audience burst out in laughter. Having paid £12,000 for a university education, one leaves upset at having never been given such an engaging talk as this. Time to get his book off the Amazon wishlist and onto the bookshelf.

The National are playing to a smaller crowd than expected. Hadn’t word really got out about them this year? With an embarrassment of fine songs to cherry-pick from, and Matt Berninger's willingness to venture far out into the crowd, they galvanize an initially staid audience. On the strength of this performance, they'll glide up the festival bills.

They're also running late, however - and despite sprinting up to the Park, it's impossible to get where you can see the stage for Biffy Clyro. A dejected return to the Other Stage to see some of The Cribs is a pleasure though. They berate their audience for not watching Shakira instead (who is on the Pyramid Stage doing a cover of Islands by The xx - two credibility points to you, my dear!). Whilst the buzz around them has faded somewhat, they’re increasingly a ferocious, yet intelligent live band.

The decision to see Scissor Sisters over Editors is mostly to ensure a good place in the crowd for Muse, but their show is more watchable than ever. Kylie's cameo is a well-rehearsed bonus, the new material seems to come with extra party bounce that ensures the set never drags, and everybody is reminded that I Don't Feel Like Dancing is one of the finest pop singles of its decade. They do lay the Glastonbury-means-so-much-to-us patter on a bit thick though.

No chance of over-emoting from the Muse boys. By now they've got a back-catalogue that could see them through festival sets without any theatrics. And for the most part, that's what we get. Perhaps because Glastonbury is a small paycheck for them, the songs are mostly left to do the job. A crowd half-cynical to the idea of U2's The Edge guesting on stage is immediately brought onside by the perfect choice of song (Where The Streets Have No Name), performed exceptionally well. It's enough to ensure that they’re second only to Radiohead as the highlight of the festival.

Then it’s off to the fringes once more, to see Four Tet put in a late night DJ set in the Park. It's ideal post-Muse fare, minimal yet never boring, or less than danceable. It's a vibe somewhat ruined by the well-meaning harsher beats of Silver Columns afterwards. We give it a good hour, before opting to enjoy pleasant campfire vibes elsewhere.

Sunday afternoon has an ADHD feel to it, with Grizzly Bear, The Drums, and Temper Trap all failing to hold interest for more than 10 minutes. The nagging feeling is of regretting not having seen Slash instead. Broadcast 2000 hold real folk-pop promise in a sweltering BBC Introducing tent, before Laura Marling plays a couple of songs for Radio 1, precisely as she did on her album.

Jaguar Skills is playing to a packed West Dance tent, although given that the three songs we catch are Smells Like Teen Spirit, Pon Du Floor, and the Only Fools and Horses theme, that perhaps isn't surprising. Later on the tent has cleared out for Alex Metric's live band show. He doesn't seem to take it well, and appears moody throughout the 30 minutes we give his lacklustre set.

Instead it's a rush across site to the Cabaret tent where comedian Shappi Khorsandi is effortlessly winning her sizable audience over. It's easy to see why with such well contructed, witty social observations.

In the Queen's Head, I Am Kloot are a revelation. A run through new material has eight people on stage at various points, adding string and wind sections. Here's a prediction: they'll be the set everybody talks about on the Other Stage next year.

Plenty of people are talking about LCD Soundsystem this year, though as they’re playing the UK loads this summer, the decision taken to enjoy trip down memory lane with Faithless instead.

With a crowd surely disinterested in hearing any new material, it's no small triumph that they are won over by it. As the audience slowly realises its own willingness to jump along to songs it doesn't even know, Insomnia and We Come 1 predictably erupt.

Orbital aren't likely to make any errors in headlining the Other Stage. It's a set that rarely applies its airbrakes, and they have a knack for surprising their followers too - they plant people throughout the audience that simultaneously erupt thousands of glowsticks across the baying crowd, and they finish with Matt Smith - the current (excellent) Doctor Who - guesting on a remix of the show's iconic theme tune. It's a riot.

For the second night in a row we again rush to catch Four Tet, this time playing live in the dance village. It succeeds in topping his set from 24 hours earlier, with all the exquisite electronic noises you could hope for.

From there we head off to explore the remainder of the festival's late night areas - including being dazzled by the 360° visuals in The Igloo, before being completely blown away by the magnitude of the production in Arcadia. It's impossible to recall a more impressive clubbing environment, and this is one that only exists for four nights a year. Essentially a giant spider structure, MC's spit rhymes on platforms above the crowd, whilst flames blast from every corner of the construction.

Breathless, we end the night by heading for a gay club in Block9, where entrance is either £2, or you flash your penis. We opt for the latter. It feels like a last chance to connect with the Glastonbury spirit. After all, next week we’ll be back wearing our suits, stopping off at motorway service stations, eating gourmet salads…

14 stand-up comedy DVDs reviewed

2010-03-01T16:56:00.000Z

It struck me recently just how many of the Winter '09 Stand-up DVDs I'd watched. With that in mind I figured I'd be better placed than most to advise on which are worthwhile.

Micheal McIntyre - Hello Wembley!
Not even as good as his (occasionally funny) first DVD. And that Salt & Pepper routine everybody laughed so hard at can fuck right off. 1.5/5

Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra
Nice idea, interesting in places, but short on real laugh-out-loud moments. 2/5

Ed Byrne - Different Class
Ed is on seriously good form. Here he is funnier even than his 2006 DVD, which was a compilation of five years of material. He's got a knack for good value DVD extras too. 4.5/5

Russell Brand - Scandalous
Very funny meditation on a rough 2008 for Brand, but you'll only want to watch it once, so borrow it off a mate. 3/5

Stephen K. Amos - Find The Funny
You'll know the face even if you don't his name. He's got a real natural gift for being on stage. A couple of routines fail to hit home, but most are excellent, and few comics here are better at working with an audience. 3.5/10

Al Murray - Beautiful British Tour
Occasionally clever, but large swathes of the material here could have been written by a sixth former. Remember his rank 'Live At The Apollo' bacon routine? That's here. But longer. As is an appallingly underdeveloped singalong ending. 1/5

Richard Herring - ménage à un
The second half stretches the jokes too far, but the first half is comedy gold. Buy it here. His latest show Hitler Mustache is better - which is really saying something. 3.5/5

Rhod Gilbert And The Award Winning Mince Pie
Currently being talked about in the same excited tones that Micheal MacIntyre was 15 months ago, here's a solid DVD that won't halt his assent to the big time. A bit over-filled with stuff fans will have already seen on TV, though. 2.5/5

Jimmy Carr - Telling Jokes
Funny how Jimmy has got funnier with age. Previously you'd get bored halfway through one of his DVD's. Not so now, he's done his time and learned his craft admirably. 3.5/5

Dylan Moran - What It Is
Meh. Good, but unremarkable. 3/5

Andy Parsons - Britain's Got Idiots Live
I like him on Mock The Week, but he doesn't cut the mustard live whatsoever. Hugely disappointing. 1/5

Omid Djilali - Live in London
Seriously lacking in killer lines. Wildly disappointing. Nowhere near as clever as that other Iranian comic Shappi Khorsandi. (He's a fine dancer though). 1/5

Russell Howard - Dingledodies
Yeah, he's a natural this one. And still improving. A rare comic to actually be able to justify how popular they are. 4/5

Tim Minchin - Ready For This?
Five brilliant songs, a couple of decent ones, and several fillers. Those five songs are pretty much essential though, so get ye to iTunes and download 'Prejudice', 'The Song for Phil Daoust', 'Storm', and 'White Wine In The Sun'. And nip over to Youtube for a listen to 'I Love Jesus'. 3/5

the best single and album of 2009

2009-12-04T17:17:00.001Z

Singles.

No. 1: Röyksopp - Happy Up Here.

So this was the only song released this year that was better than Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers? Quite a bold statement, if you think about it.

It's a simple song. In discovering the nicest four second little hook buried away at the start of a song by Pavement called Do That Stuff, you imagine they then spent a weekend building it up so it lasted three minutes, adding increasing waves of pleasure until no more can possibly be crammed in.

The result is indeed maybe the happiest song ever created. Go listen to it and try to disagree with me. Quite simply remarkable.

Albums.

No. 1: The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

A prog-rock opera album, anyone?

Don't all jump at once now, but after one listen you'll be converted. This is a very immediate album. The structure. The exquisite sense of escalation. The odd reprise or five. And just how damn fine these songs are. Subsequent listens and you'll notice the whole thing is one big story of forest-dweller love.

It's awe-inspiring stuff, an epic hour long journey. You couldn't possibly regret purchasing it.

top 10 singles and albums of 2009 - part 3

2009-12-03T16:14:00.001Z

Singles.

No. 2: Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers.

The future casestudy for how to bring the mainstream to you, rather than pander to it. Whereas Holiday and Dance Wit Me are unquestionably pop, here the beat comes straight from the club scene.

What really carries it the song though is its sense of fun. Nobody's taking themselves too seriously here. Seeing 60,000 people bouncing to it at Glastonbury isn't a memory that will fade easily.

Hell, it might even be better than Sirens. Although that might be pushing things a little too far.

No. 3: Biffy Clyro - That Golden Rule

The perfect marriage of the usual preposterous Biffy fare, and newly found mainstream sensibilities. Moments later they go too far and dumb down for the masses (The Captain), but that's not so here.

Getting the radio-friendly formula out of the way in two minutes flat, the track then beds down into its real intention: producing the riff of the year.

No. 4: Jay-Z - Empire State of Mind (feat. Alicia Keys)

The unquestionable highlight of Blueprint III (even when you take into account the circling addictiveness of ace street track D.O.A. (Death Of Autotune).

A simple love letter to NYC, the combination of Jay-Z's tension building lyrics followed by the release of Alicia Keys' chorus made this stand out from first listen. This was the highlight of Jay's live set even as the album was just being released - it sounded absolutely massive.

Albums.

No. 2: The Horrors - Primary Colours

Nobody - really nobody - expected this to be any good. An industry joke in 2007 - the very definition of style over substance - to return with such an incredible second album was one of the most remarkable moments of the year. Wall-of-Sound classics like Mirror's Image and Three Decades sound incredible after first listen, and even better after the tenth.

Also impressive was the nod to non-commercialism in releasing the eight minute Sea Within A Sea (nowhere near the best song here) as the first single. Now a superb band with style AND substance.

No. 3: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

Somebody, anybody, please explain why Zero wasn't the massive hit Yeah Yeah Yeahs have deserved for so long.

It was typical of the assured sound here, whether rocking the dancefloor (Heads Will Roll) or pulling on heartstrings (Hysteric). Since Elbow went mainstream, music's most undervalued band.

No 4. The XX - The XX

Pop minimalism? Yes please.

There's certainly nothing else out there quite like like The XX. Catchy pop tracks are stripped back to their most basic instrumentation, giving them full room to breath. The result is wonderful atmospherics like those of Crystalised and Fantasy.

Next time you're faced with a long train journey or drive home in the middle of the night, you will not find a more perfect accompaniment.

top 10 singles and albums of 2009 - part 2

2009-12-02T14:30:00.003Z

Singles.

No. 5: Felix Da Housecat - Elvi$.

There was only one way to start a DJ set during the summer of 2009. With brutal urgency and immediacy, this is simple stand-up-and-pay-attention club music to get everybody in the room on side. Especially reccommended for anybody that's ever thought a car alarm is knocking out a surprisingly danceable hook.

No. 6: Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses

Their most assured song to date, here was where they slowed proceedings down a bit, and in doing so made the perfect (yes really: perfect.) indie disco anthem.

Their album 'Tonight...' deserves credit too - it's also their best yet, despite sinking without a trace due to the fact that nobody listens to indie anymore.

No. 7: The Airborne Toxic Event - Sometime Around Midnight

The song that should have been as big as Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars.

Which means it had the mainstream-y big-hearted appeal to sell a LOT of copies over a very LONG period of time. Soundtracking reality TV montages, or adverts for ITV's new autumn drama season. That sort of thing.

Might still happen of course. X-factor must be crying out for new tracks to help falsify emotion by now. This epic slow-building classic is actually deserving of such a wide audience.

Albums.

No. 5: Vitalic - Flashmob

Continuing to prove that electro can work in the album format (see also: Justice, Mylo), thank the lord himself for Vitalic.

Now on his second completely essential album, he doesn't stray too far from what made 2005's OK Cowboy such a success. This is refinement, polish and progression. The quality never dips, and the pacing never falters. Ace.

No. 6: The Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage

A blend of gothic folk, krautrock, doo-wop and electro (thanks, Guardian), The Phantom Band are a weird bunch.

That's not to say they don't know their way around a good melody. It's a pitch-perfect blend, intelligent, experimental, yet accessible music. You should start your journey by giving Folk Song Oblivion a listen.

No 7. Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring

For everybody who fell in love with Bon Iver in 2008, here 2009's heartbreak album of the year.

And what heartbreak it is. Charlie Fink's lyrics don't bother to hide behind analogy, instead airing themselves in plaintive literalism. There's bad days (I Have Nothing) and good (Love of An Orchestra), and he chronicles the stages of the break-up process in agonising detail (the sleepless nights, the rebound sex, the determination to move on).

Rarely does music bare all quite so honestly.

top 10 singles and albums of 2009 - part 1

2009-12-01T18:07:00.000Z

Singles

No. 8: Sub Focus - Could This Be Real

Exactly what pop music should be doing in 2009. The initial Chicago house vibes give way one of the year's best wonky basslines (and that is a strongly contested category). In a lesser song these two sections would feel disjointed, but Sub Focus has more talent than that. A lesser artist could also be accused of selling out with a track like this, but here Sub Focus can be excused on the grounds that he is making pop music as interesting and high quality as is possible.

It comes from a (self-titled) album that nearly matches 2008's Chase & Status record as an urban album that deserves to steal the mainstream limelight.

No. 9: Jamie T - Sticks 'N' Stones

Credit to Mr. T (as everybody should refer to him) for nailing the artform of comeback single. Easily at his best both lyrically and musically, anybody who wasn't sold on his music surely was by now. There's a clever narrative structure in there and everything!

Which makes it all the more of a shame that the follow up single Chaka Demus was his worst single yet. Whoever released it needs shooting.

No. 10: Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone

The welcome relief on their otherwise overblown album, here's a terrifically confident waltz that knows it doesn't have to try too hard. Seemingly Alex Turner is missing Alexa Chung a lot, so is wondering around town kissing similar looking girls whilst asking if he can call them Alexa Chung. Bit odd, but polygamy is one of the job perks of being an international rockstar I suppose.

It's a shame it's the song picked to sell the album to christmas buyers - many will feel cheated by how out of place it sounds.

Albums.

No. 8: Muse - The Resistance

If you've come here looking for Knights of Cydonia v2.0, you'll be leaving solely disappointed.

The sound of a band deciding they've conquered rock music, and climbing into their spaceship to fly off and see what other genres they can invade. There's R'n'B (Undisclosed Desires), pop (The Resistance), classical (the wonderful Exogenesis: Symphony), and rock pomp channeling Bon Jovi (Guiding Light) and Queen (United States of Eurasia). What's special about the band now is their justified musical confidence in pulling these tricks.

Continue to push creative boundaries at the same pace please, Muse.

No. 9: Sweet Billy Pilgram - Twice Born Men

Completely unheard of before gaining a Mercury nomination, here's an album that marries left-field experimentalism with Elbow's gift for beautiful melodic sentiment. It's a thrilling combination, packing a sentimental punch that lingers long after its final note. Q Magazine readers especially should investigate immediately.

No 10. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

Experimental wankery from Bristol, five of the seven tracks here come in at over eight minutes, so prepare to get lost in some seriously epic soundscapes.

And get lost you inevitably will do. This is ideal walking home, headphone music. Even better, find a dark room, a fine soundsystem a bottle of red. It's an often relenting and oppressive listen, but a hugely rewarding one.

next week: annual top 10 singles and albums countdown

2009-11-29T14:51:00.003Z

All next week I'll be posting my annual countdown of the Top 10 singles and albums of 2009. It's a little tradition I've kept up since 2006, when I used to write about music far more often than once a year.

To set the mood a little, take a look back at last year's Top 10s, which featured Chase & Status and White Lies before you had heard of them.

postcard from glastonbury festival

2009-06-30T15:58:00.003+01:00

Arriving on the Wednesday is clearly the big thing to do at this year's Glastonbury. It's a torturous 14 hour journey from Nottingham to the festival site, arriving at midnight, then taking until 3am to cross the site, locate our friend's tent, and pitch ours in the dark.

Thursday is better, as the weekend gets off to a flying start at the BBC Introducing stage, where Zane Lowe is playing a mammoth DJ set that's going out live on his Radio 1 show. It's riotous fun, the just-elated-to-be-here crowd celebrating every well-selected track. He's still the finest party DJ out there, and appearances from Mike Skinner, Mr Hudson and Jamie T are all similarly well received. It's a shame then that 10 minutes after going off air they pull the plug on the last hour of his set - unbeknown to us there's been a thunderstorm going on outside the tent, and the show has become something of a health and safety risk. More next year please.

After doing a quick radio interview with Jo Whiley I catch the last 10 minutes of N.E.R.D's set, which is being rapturously received. Even way at the back of the field the crowd is dancing and shouting along - quite an achievement. The incendiary atmosphere goes as far as the set being cut off mid-song when it over-runs by ten minutes, the band remain on stage for another five, visibly fuming.

No such anarchy from Fleet Foxes, who freely admit to being terrified. It effects their performance sadly, they keep their fans content as harmonies drift over their heads, but they won't be making any new ones here. It's a case study example of how to botch a festival set.

The Horrors are the opposite - playing ferociously to a crowd that is bizarrely slow to match their enthusiasm. They sound unstoppable in the usually tranquil (and busier) Park area.

Nearby, Skream and Benga are twisting a small crowd around their little finger, in one of their less publicised performances of the weekend. The energy in the room is extraordinary. 12 months on from a pleasant, convivial 2am set in Shangra-La, they now have the tracks and the momentum to tear a room to shreds. Thrilling.

In their 2007 Pyramid Stage set Bloc Party were happy to arrogantly leave two of their most famous songs - I Still Remember and (the now appropriately titled) Two More Years - out of their set. The fiercely Reading/Leeds loyal band have since learnt to avoid such antagonism, and deliver a crowd pleasing set heavy on fan favourites from the Silent Alarm era. It's an unquestionable success, only marred by the volume not quite matching the energy level on display from the band.

15 minutes of Spinal Tap's winning set are the perfect accompaniment to a late breakfast, before heading over to see The Japanese Popstars fruitlessly try to win over their tent of 150 afternoon ravers. When a track such as Face Melter (brutal 3am club destroyer that it is) fails to get a room moving you know somethings gone wrong.

Perhaps they could take some stage craft tips from Dizzee Rascal, who is playing to a rammed Pyramid arena. It's impossible not to be charmed by how much Dizzee is clearly loving his job, and the crowd are onside from the first note, greeting harsher hits like Sirens (still his best song) with as equal glee as they do. That is of course, until the whole field goes Bonkers. Other Stage headliner next year?

The second best set all weekend, The Gaslight Anthem are on unstoppable form in the John Peel tent. Playing like they want the idle Pyramid Stage crowd to hear them from across the site, they tear through a set that leaves nobody questioning how ready they are to breakthrough. The highlight of course, is when they are joined on stage by their hometown icon Bruce Springsteen to duet on The 59 Sound. The tent erupts. An impossibly cool moment.

The Klaxons are never ones to hide their affection for Glastonbury, so fears that their semi-secret Park show will be heavy on the new songs are perhaps naive. Band and crew alike are impeccable in full fancy dress, and the new songs they do play suggest the record company might have overreacted somewhat when they rejected their second album. It's resolutely crowd-pleasing stuff.

I have fond memories from 2005 of Pendulum tearing up the dance tent in one of their first performances as a full band. It was a landmark performance, but I still haven't forgiven them for delivering a rotten second album, and instead remember that I have important plans to return to my tent and eat a Malteser.

"Tonight, Glastonbury, we need to build a house on this field", begins Bruce Spingsteen, four songs in to his headline set. "Build a house", he continues, "out of love, and happiness, and togetherness". And presumably, shite metaphors.

The theory put in place for watching Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band is that he is perfect music for getting a few friends round, plenty of beers, and finding a nice spot high up in the field to dance around a campfire to.

As theories go, it's deeply flawed. The sound is terrible up there, akin to having the radio on in the background. It's not Bruce's fault, of course, but after 30 minutes the logic is reached that it will be more entertaining to watch the show on TV once we get home, and instead we hotfoot it across the site to watch Bon Iver, passing along the way a respectably sized crowd enjoying an eager Franz Ferdinand set.

Of course, the gorgeous intimate surroundings of The Park stage are completely ideal for a Bon Iver show, and much of the (considerable) crowd remains seated, quietly and reverentially singing Justin Vernon's heartbreak ballads back at him. Only the best songs from the album are aired, alongside every track from the Blood Bank EP. File just after The Gaslight Anthem as the third best set of Glastonbury 09.

The next morning Brand New provide the soundtrack to an afternoon's read of the free Q Daily newspaper. Whilst it's important to remember that there's a recession on, the quality of journalism on the paper this year reaches a new all time low. Any real story (the madness of Wednesday's traffic, how diverse and harmonious the crowds are this year, how much every single person loves Dizzee Rascal) are ignored in favour of the blandest stories possibly imaginable. Information-free lead article about how the after hours activities in Trash City and Shangra-la are the real heart and soul of the festival, anyone? The paper seems determined to even buck the British obsession for discussing the weather. It's almost as if the paper had been written without a single journalist ever setting foot on site.

(whilst I'm ranting, the Q Glastonbury Review was also a more lightweight and badly written offering than ever before this year. Cover more stages, you tightwads. Employ journalists that actually have an opinion on performances, rather than simply an ability to describe them)

"This next song is from my new album, which you can get if you want. Or illegally download, whatever". Considering how little time they've spent together as a proper band outfit, Kissy Sell Out put on an utterly remarkable set. It's roaring fun, the three piece playing as tightly together as any band with a few years experience on the gig circuit would do. One wonders what they could achieve over a similar time frame.

With heavier rock bands finally beginning to appear across the board again at Glastonbury 09, it seems fitting to celebrate by watching Enter Shikari.

It's difficult to decide who deserves more credit, the camera crew for grin-and-bear-it determination to document the performance, or the sixth former the band got to write their anti-war lyrics for them. Finding success when they stick to p[laying outright metal, any attempts to genre-meld simply creates music that at best doesn't work in this setting. A final sucker punch? Guitar problems mean they don't even play Sorry You're Not A Winner.

Remind me again why the album It's Blitz hasn't made Yeah Yeah Yeahs huge? Hit after hit gets the Other Stage crowd dancing whilst Karen O spends an hour making love to her own music. It's hard to think of a more undervalued band on the lineup. A bit like Elbow at last year's festival, really.

With no other pre-Blur entertainment looking particularly interesting, Bon Iver's Other Stage set is enjoyed, following closely after Bat For Lashes. Neither suits the setting - Bat For Lashes struggles to command attention right up until final song Daniel, whilst Bon Iver plays a near identical set to the previous night to an appreciative if not captivated crowd.

And then to Blur, who surpass every single expectation. Damon Albarn is an entirely compelling front man, their back-catalogue is wringed into a dream festival set, and an adoring crowd lap it up. Clearly cherishing each moment, setlist and performance are clearly the work of a band who genuinely want to give the performance of their lives. Objective achieved, then. Band of the festival by a country mile.

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Song of Glastonbury 2009: White Lies - Death (Chase & Status remix)
Glastonbury Festival rating: 8.5/10
Friendliest people met: The staff at the National Express festival terminal, which was better organised than ever this year. Credit deserved.
Scariest moment: Erm, nearly falling over in the mud?
Most beautiful sight: Bon Iver's Park Stage set.
Dream 2009 headliner: Muse, please.

postcard from thailand

2009-06-18T17:57:00.002+01:00

As I arrive in Bangkok my foot is still in agony and I am having to balance what I want to see and do with the amount of pain it will cause me.

It doesn't help matters that two days earlier in Kuala Lumpur I have a haircut, it's too short, and I now somewhat resemble a sex tourist.

Two days in Bangkok therefore fly by uneventfully, before I get another sleeper train towards the island of Ko Pha-Ngan. The 24 hour journey actually takes this structure: Walk > River Taxi > Walk > Tuk Tuk > Sleeper Train > Local Bus > Sawngthaew > Scooter > Ferry > Sawngthaew.

The most eventful section was the scooter ride. I had never been on a scooter before, but the only way to make the 6km trip from Don Sak town to Don Sak pier was to pay a guy £1:30 to take me there on the back of his. It was a surreal experience as I had my massive backpack on my back as well, but we made it to the pier safely. Nobody had ever told me, however, that when you dismount a scooter you should be very careful of that big metal tube on the side. Apparently it's an exhaust pipe and it gets very very hot.

Having staged a moderate post-Bangkok recovery then, the first two days on Ko Pha Ngan island are spent with a deep, inch wide burn on my leg, and an inability to walk more than 100 meters at a time.

I recover just in time for the Full Moon Party pre-celebrations, which are enjoyable events in their own right, if ruined somewhat by the overwhelming popularity of Drop-in Bar and it's playlist of Euro anthems (YMCA, and 'Blow Your Whistle' being two such examples).

I'm walking back to my room at 3am the night before the full moon party, only to discover commotion on the street outside. It transpires that a local Thai woman was drumming up taxi business to all who passed. Some English idiot (not exactly well built) walked past and replied to her "no thanks, but I'll have you instead".

Which is just an insanely disrespectful, naive, downright stupid thing to say. Pretty quickly the women's husband gets to hear about this, and he proceeds to start chasing the tourist with a Bamboo stick.

As I get there, they are in a stand off, separated by some stone island thing, and the terrified tourist has blood dripping all over his arm.

I try to calm the situation somewhat, but it is difficult. The language barrier means that I am in danger of appearing to be taking his side, and I don't want to look like the sort of person who would automatically side with the Westerner in this sort of situation. Nor do I want to add to any underlying ill feeling between locals and tourists.

Plus, this tourist probably deserves to be shaken up a bit after such a moronic comment.

Still, there's a very real possibility that it'll go too far. A couple of minutes later, he's being chased again. A couple more hits with the bamboo. They jostle on the ground. Me and a local are attempting to break them up. The tourist breaks free, but only makes it back to the relative safety of his stone island divider.

Another five minutes pass. Diplomacy isn't working. Another chase breaks out, other locals are either trying to calm or further aggravate the situation.

Again they jostle on the ground. I am trying to wrestle the bamboo stick from the husband's grasp. The tourist breaks free, and this time decides running down the street would be the wiser direction. As he scarpers somebody throws a bottle at his feet, which shatters everywhere. The husband gives chase not far behind, and I am left to take myself off to bed with another man's blood running down my leg. I don't know if he sustained further injury from the shattered glass, or being caught by his pursuers. I don't see any of them again, though I am tenterhooks for the rest of my stay in-case anybody spots me and reasons that I am the next best target.

The event is an unwelcome echo of life back in Nottingham, and is something I have been very happy to not experience since I started traveling. The English influence has permeated this island, and in the following 24 hours, I bizarrely bump into two different people that I know from back home in Nottingham, neither of which I had any idea were over here.

The Full Moon Party then, is the nicely timed final blowoff of the whole three month backpacking trip. It is two days before my flight home. It is an anglophile beach party of (this time) roughly 10,000 people on a beach, dotting between 12ish bars all playing very loud, generally good, club music. It's a bit like a festival - all very hedonistic.

The challenge was to stay awake until 6am and see the sunrise. We filmed it, and I recommend you watch the resulting video here.

After the full moon party, I was awoke at 10:50am by loud knocking on my door. The minibus outside was waiting to take me to the ferry, so I could then get back to Bangkok and catch my flight home. I had no memory of most of the previous night. I surveyed the room - my backpack was still unpacked. I was in trouble.

No time to waste, I set about throwing everything together and getting out the room. It takes a while, but luckily all week I have been making an effort with the wonderful bungalow owners, have been getting on well with them, and at my time of need they are on my side. The driver is persuaded to hold-on until I stumble out the room 15 minutes later, and I am whisked off to catch the connecting ferry, then sleeper train, and eventually - flight.

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Photos: click here.
Thailand rating: 7.7/10
Friendliest person met: The owners of Haardrin Hill Bungalows
Scariest moment: Bamboo stick fight
Most beautiful sight: Wat Pho, Buddhist temple in Bangkok
The Soundtrack: Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run (album)
Still to come: Glastonbury festival.

postcard from malaysia

2009-06-01T16:21:00.003+01:00

Malaysia heralds the opportunity to shift down a gear. Cultural exploration is out, lazy days on beaches is in. And what of those beaches? They just happen to be perfect, white, 32°c creations. The accompanying sea is also cliqued: crystal clear, invitingly warm, and filled with psychedelic tropical fish to meet whenever one gets bored of static sunbathing.

After day one of such debauched activities, myself and Simon go our separate ways. He has traveled Malaysia and Thailand before - I haven't - so our planned itineraries differ wildly. Plus after two months on the road together, cabin fever has, somewhat inevitably, set in.

Due in part to me underestimating the size of Malaysian Borneo - and the complexities of crossing it - 24 hours after our arrival in Kota Kinnabalu I set out attempting to make the +600km journey from east to west in three days, in order to catch my flight to Kuala Lumpar, the story of which you can watch in videoblog format here.

The climate plays a major part in my traveling in Malaysia. The humidity is remarkable, the typical minimum nightly temperature is 25°c, and every few days a monsoon-esque storm arrives to batter the landscape for a couple of hours.

I've also become something of a sunset addict, they get some real classic sky-displays out here.

Kuala Lumpur then, is a curious city. Multicultural, but harmonious, it also has more crime than the middle eastern countries I visited, yet I suffer less from Walking Cash Machine syndrome (everybody wishes to make a withdrawal), and it's much less common that I suspect I am being overcharged for something.

Religion runs strong throughout the city, yet so does a remarkable consumer culture. The blasé Berjaya Times Square shopping centre in the heart of the city includes amongst it's eight floors and countless other attractions a fully blown rollercoaster. Each monorail station - and tram - is blanket sponsored by some brand or other, and this is typical of how deeply advertising has permeated the city. By-and-large, young people have gleefully bought into this culture.

So do I, mind. Drunk on elation at being in a shopping city where prices are 25-50% cheaper than they are in the UK, I dive straight in. Soon after I am bored though, and soon after that irritated.

Still, the culture of the city is wonderfully welcoming, ambitious (one need only look to the city's unique skline for evidence of that) and it deserves it's place in the top half of my major-cities-I've visited league table. Probably nestled between Tblisi and Tel Aviv.

One particular beach island deserves special mention. The idyllic backpacker island of Pulau Perhentian Kecil combines all the aforementioned beach features (sand, sun, fish) with a laidback, young culture. It would have been the ideal place to spend a week or two if it wasn't for Malaysia's crippling problem (in the eyes of this 25 year old at least) - the price of alcohol. Compared to the general cost of living (₤2 a night accommodation? Yes please!) alcohol is taxed to the hilt by the Islamic government. Craving more of a nightlife, it is time to head north towards Thailand.

A school holidays-clogged public transport network means it isn't easy however, and I spend a day in the conservative muslim town of Alor Setar awaiting a connecting train. This is a problem, as I have long since discarded the long trousers/sleeves that are appropriate clothing in such surroundings. It's certainly impolite to visit such a town in t-shirt and kneelengths.

Also, a combination of cheap sandals and heavy walking sessions mean that my foot is now in agony, and I am using taxis to make journeys for which I would never usually consider them. For the 6am journey from Alor Setar bus station to train station, the resident foot masseuse negotiates a bizarre multibuy deal with the taxi driver so that I can get my foot massaged then a taxi ride for ₤2.

Conversation continues, and the driver is dismayed to hear that my train is not until 4pm. To that end, he instead takes me back to his home, lets me sleep for 3 hours, shower, provides a light breakfast, introduces me to the family, before then dropping me off at the train station.

Imagine that happening upon entering a taxi in Nottingham. I board the overnight train to Bangkok with 10 days of the trip remaining, and a desire to fritter them away hedonistically...

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Photos: click here.
Malaysia rating: 7.6/10
Friendliest person met: Taxi driver man
Scariest moment: Wondering if Malaysian Borneo can be crossed in 72 hours
Most beautiful sight: The sunset in Kuching, Malaysian Borneo
The Soundtrack: The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
Still to come: Thailand, Glastonbury festival.

postcard from japan

2009-05-28T12:47:00.003+01:00

In Tokyo we have the advantage that we have solely missed throughout our trip so far: local knowledge. A friend of mine - Hannah - has been living in Japan for seven months now, and she has generously volunteered to ease us gently into the Tokyo experience, as well as act as our base camp for the center-piece of our Japan trip: climbing the 3770m Japanese icon: Mount Fuji.

Tokyo is certainly a headrush experience, although too expensive for us to fully enjoy - three days was too much time here. Still, there were definite highlights.

(Direct Youtube link)

One such highlight was playing with all the latest top-of-the-range gadgets at Sony's Tokyo HQ made for a fun evening, though it will come back to haunt me (and my bank account) one day as it made me fall in love with the idea of owning a digital SLR camera.

Climbing the aforementioned Fuji-san is easily the hardest physical activity I've ever undertaken. It was a heavily presumptuous - perhaps bloody foolish - plan to begin with, the whole day was totally dependant on us successfully hitchhiking up as far as the road goes (2400m) and back down again afterwards. Given that we saw roughly 15 people on the mountain all that day, we would have to be very fortunate indeed.

And it was this that summed up the Japanese personality perfectly. By nature very shy and conformist, whenever we asked for help people would go out of their way, offering more help than we had wished for. So on our way up the mountain we managed to flag down a woman driving home, who - despite not speaking any English - insisted on driving us all the way up to the 2400m starting point.

You should watch the video for a decent indication of the experience, but really, we were putting on brave faces for the camera. It was just a seemingly neverending trial of ever-increasingly steep, and unstable rocks and snow to traverse. It was seldom (though occasionally) dangerous, but it was always grindingly difficult. As we were climbing out of season, the trial was covered by snow, meaning we had to invent our own route up the mountain.

Luckily it was worth it for the view of the snowy crater at the summit, and for the slide back down afterwards. My trousers were torn to shreds, and my backside still aches a week later, but after a six hour hike to the summit, we get down - mainly sliding on the snow - in under two.

We needed to as well, as sunset was approaching and with it any chance of there being anybody left at base camp - let alone anyone willing to transport us back to the nearest town. Indeed we get back to our 2400m starting point and there are just three cars left.

We start walking the 28km down the winding Mount Fuji road. Sleep deprivation is setting in, and Simon is falling asleep whilst walking. Worst case scenario: we have to walk all night to reach the town, meanwhile Hannah is worried about where we are, and has maybe even called Mountain Rescue out for us.

Half an hour later however, and the 2nd of the three cars stops for us, and - again giving us more than we asked for - drops us right outside the train station of his town, from which it is an easy 20m ride back to Hannah's house. By combination of grit determination, energy, generosity and luck, we had tamed Mount Fuji.

(Direct Youtube Link)

In Japan, there is only one way to celebrate: Karaoke. Typically this involves hiring out private rooms for your group for an hour at a time, for about ₤7. The clincher though, is that it includes all-you-can-drink alcohol. Hannah takes us to her local establishment, and it's a great evening as social inhibitions get thrown to the wall with each successive drink and each more ambitious song choice. Gorillaz is followed by Oasis, then by an acutely optimistic rendition of Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like Dancing.

The personal highlight is remarkable: Hannah had remembered from my days running a music pub quiz in Nottingham that I had a soft spot for a song by Belinda Carlisle called Runaway Horses (she had been the only person in the bar of 50 people to guess the intro correctly), and though I had no memory of this myself, when the song suddenly popped up as the next track it, and the ensuing hairbrush diva scenes that followed, were a genuine classic holiday moment . The night rounds off with a mass-singalong of Take That - Back For Good, and I personally am left feeling as though I have finally discovered entertainment utopia.

Other Japan highlights?

Visiting the peace museums, memorials and relics of the Atomic bomb in Hiroshima
Wondering around Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo at 5:30am
Kyoto's incredible collection of beautiful Temples and shrines
The deservedly renowned public transport system - bullet trains and all
Beating Simon at a long-hyped game of air hockey
Spotting Geisha in Kyoto and cosplay girls in Tokyo.

So Japan? Amazing country. And it's possible to do it on an affordable budget if you're a committed shoestringer. For us though, it's another flight, this time to Malaysian Borneo, another change of scenery, and one final culture shock...

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68632&id=282401058&l=40028b218f (no login required)
Japan rating: 8.3/10

Friendliest person met: Both saintly car owners who picked up us hitchhikers

Scariest moment: The fear-wracked decent from Mt. Fuji.

Most beautiful sight: Summit of Mount Fuji.

The Soundtrack: Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.

Still to come: Malaysia, Thailand, Glastonbury festival.

postcard from egypt

2009-05-22T06:06:00.001+01:00

With only four days in Egypt, and half of day one spent trapped on the world's least punctual ferry, our intentions to explore the less visited Western Egypt have been scrapped.

Finally getting out of port at 11pm, we barter a taxi driver down from ₤5 to ₤2 (we probably could have got it for ₤1.50 if we had really pushed) to take us the 6km drive to some nearby budget accommodation.

Luckily, it (New Soft Beach Camp in Tarabin, should you ever be in the area) is great. Sleeping in beach huts on a gorgeous beach, with a gorgeous spanish omelette breakfast, and only five guests staying in the whole place? Yes please. And all for about ₤4 each? Idyllic.

The next day we find ourselves in Dahab. The reworked plan for Egypt is now to unwind for a couple of days on the beach to round off the first leg of the trip. For this privilege we are paying the cheapest accommodation I have ever been granted: ₤1.80 for the night. Again, as it isn't peak season yet, there's a feeling of having the town to ourselves.

Cairo, then, has been planned so that we arrive early morning (6:30am) off an overnight coach, see the Pyramids, then fly out again the very same afternoon. Neither of us is particularly keen to see the city, it doesn't have a good reputation.

Said reputation seems fairly justified. Most upsettingly, every guy (and it is the men, the women of this comparatively liberal country are friendly and fun) who strikes up conversation with us is guaranteed to eventually try to sell us something.

Again, we've been warned not to expect too much of the Pyramids themselves. Undeniably impressive themselves, the illusion is somewhat ruined by their location not in the middle of the desert, but in a Cairo suburb, adjacent to a big coach park, and swarming with the most sophisticated touts I've yet come across.

The Touts of the Giza Pyramids methodology

"Hello Sir, would you like me to take your photo with the Pyramid?"
"No Sir don't worry, it is for free"
"Sir, the photo would look very cool if you wore this Arabian headscarf in it. Try it on please"
"No Sir, of course I do not want your money"
"Sir, you should come here and climb atop this camel, then the photo will look really good"
"No Sir, it is for free, for free"
Oh yes Sir, this is a good photo. Perhaps we go for a little walk on the camel now?"
"No no Sir, no problem. It is free, it is free."
"Sir did you enjoy that ride? That will be ₤5 please"
"Sir I can not let you down from the camel until you have paid for your camel ride"
"Sir you must pay for your camel ride"
"No Sir I cannot let you down"
"The Police, Sir? (Begrudgingly ushers camel to the ground)"

(please note that this tale comes from Simon, my zero-tolerance policy on touts remained steadfast throughout)

Still, we're glad we did see the Pyramids, and going inside one of them was the most humid, claustrophobic, sweatiest experience of my life.

And then, it is time to leave the Middle East. The second leg of our trip has undergone major restructuring: word on the road is that Vietnam has been spoilt by a massive influx of tourism recently (a predicament I'm content to blame on King Tory himself Jeremy Clarkson, and the rest of his Top Gear goons), and we have less time for our trip after Japan than we had originally planned (just over three weeks) so we've instead decided to see Malaysia and Thailand rather than the original Vietnam > Cambodia > Laos > Thailand route.

That's all in the future though, and first we've got the matter of a flight to Japan to deal with. Aboard a plane on which we are the only two white people, the (half full anyway) aircraft crew treat us first to seats with extra legroom, then to a full second meal after we had just finished our first one. To top it all off, the in-flight movie is Slumdog Millionaire, a film I've been desperate to see since it rampaged the Oscars a few months back.

(Direct Youtube link)

Top flight, Egypt Air, thanks. We arrive in Tokyo jet-lag free, refreshed, and prepared for a major cultural change of scenery.

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68269&id=282401058&l=5615fcdf08
Egypt rating: 6.5/10
Friendliest person: Enjoying a bit of a song and dance with the group of 10 girls at the Pyramids.
Scariest moment: Losing sight of Simon as he got taken off on the back of a camel, hours before our flight.
Most beautiful sight: The Pyramids - from certain angles.
The Soundtrack: Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes.
Still to come: Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Glastonbury festival.

postcard from jordan

2009-05-10T17:28:00.004+01:00

Time is in short supply now, and we are not getting to spend as much time in countries as we would like to.

Jordan, we boil down to it's two essential destinations, the first of which is Petra.

Familiar to millions as one of the new seven wonders of the world, and as the scene of a couple of chase scenes or something in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (although I'm one of those people that has never actually seen the film), Petra is a colossal playground of incredible natural colour and ancient architecture.

It's expensive (₤26!) and takes effort - on our second day we walk 20km to ensure we see the essential sights everybody sees, and do some hiking around rarer ventured sections.

Has we not, it would have been a day spent trudging round alongside the masses of tour groups, but Petra is most certainly a location where the more you put in, the more you get out. The result is the most rewarding day from the five weeks of the trip thus far.

From Petra we head to Wadi Rum where we spend 24 hours in the middle of the desert, as guests of a Bedouin family. We sleep in Bedouin tents, go jumping off sand dunes, and bomb around the desert in a 4x4 van exploring some of the more impressive desert scenery. It's all very good fun.

It's hard to tell after such a short stay, but the Jordanians are roughly as hospitable as the Syrians, who I was waxing lyrical about a couple of weeks ago. It's still a joy to be welcomed to a country like this.

The ferry to Egypt is a nightmare. Expensive as well (₤45), the boat takes three hours to leave the port, three hours to cross the sea, and four (!) hours to dock at the other side, a failure for which they bizarrely and unfathomably blame on the 'high' (yet barely existent) winds. By our rough calculations, we reckon it would have only taken slightly longer to walk the journey (were it possible).

Thank goodness then, that we are prepared for entertaining ourselves whilst in transit. I have on my ipod the full first series of 24 (neither of us have ever seen it) and on the ferry we manage to watch the five remaining episodes of the series. I dread to think how the journey would have been without them.

The boat docks at 10pm - way past schedule - and we still have to get through passport and luggage control. There is no chance we are going to be able to get to our intended bed - 70km away - tonight...

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68269&id=282401058&l=5615fcdf08
Jordan rating: 7.7/10
Friendliest person met: The guy who we asked for directions to Irbid bus station, and he walked us the 20 minute route there.
Scariest moment: none.
Most beautiful sight: Petra.
The Soundtrack: Chemical Brothers - Push The Button.
Still to come: Egypt, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Glastonbury festival.

postcard from israel

2009-05-05T21:51:00.001+01:00

We had been warned about two things before entering Israel. First, that the political situation can change very suddenly, so we should pay attention to current events as we enter and explore the country, and secondly, that crossing the border into Israel - especially for those with Syrian border stamps in their passport - can be a time consuming, and sometimes unsuccessful, ordeal.

We hear stories from fellow backpackers of people being questioned for an hour about their intentions, border guards hell-bent on picking holes in plans or making people crack and declare secret Arab loyalty.

A little of this turns out to be true. What we don't anticipate though, is that the border guards will in fact be a flotilla of 18 year old, attractive (and in Israel they are all attractive), uniformed girls. It appears as though this is Israel's national service in action: as the boys protect with guns elsewhere, the girls protect with pens here.

A 90 minute wait is followed by five minutes questioning by two such ladies, and some light critiquing of the Syrian Government later, we are through and on our way to Jerusalem.

After a month of being largely separate from any kind of backpacker scene, in Israel we are thrown right back into the center of one. The hostels are busy and vibrant, and it is good to be back in like-minded company.

Jerusalem itself is an expectantly serious affair, creaking as it is under the weight of 3000 years of religious and political history. It's a beautiful city - particularly the claustrophobic, bustling and ultra-holy old town, and I take my reverential moments with some of the very origins of today's religions by visiting various holy places of Muslim, Judaism, and in particular Christianity - by touching the stone Jesus was laid on after he died.

A day trip to Ein Gedi means traveling 410m below sea level to the lowest point on the earth's surface, the site of the Dead Sea.

Floating in the Dead Sea is perhaps how you imagine it - you're in water but it's impossible to sink, difficult to swim, and perfectly possible to just lay there, reading a newspaper. Care is required, however: a tiny drop of the ultra-salty water that enters your eyes, mouth or any open wound will be an intensely unpleasant experience.

In stark contrast to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv is a party town. Upon arrival we could easily be in an Australian city. The beach is long and inviting, the high-rise hotels sketch along it, and the hostels are packed with hedonistic, self-interested travelers.

It's not particularly a criticism, after five weeks of what I'll perhaps overstatingly call high-brow traveling it's welcome respite. Days therefore, are spent on the beach, and nights are spent with alcohol.

I'm standing at our hostel reception one afternoon, and the receptionist is having an argument with one of the hostel's long-term residents. She's having to remind him that it is against house rules to bring your gun (in this case, a two foot long Assault Rifle) onto hostel premises.

Also in Tel Aviv we get on a couple of computers and create fake-letters from our old universities confirming that we are currently studying there. We use them as 'proof' to get student ISIC cards that will save us plenty of money throughout the rest of our travels. We also spend half an hour in the 5-star surroundings of the Sheridan Hotel stealing a towel, after I lost mine in Jerusalem.

Our main night out in Tel Aviv sees us heading to a recommended dance bar called Lima Lima, before leaving again five minutes later, put off by the Garage music playing within, and the atypical garage crowd that comes with it.

Nearby though, we hear noise coming from the roof of a nearby apartment block - there's a party going on. Drawn by the appeal of raving on the cheap, we gatecrash. At 6:30am we leave - with the music still blaring out across Tel Aviv's skyline - and go for a walk along the beach with new friends.

Our further exploration of Israel is hampered by the country's Independence Day, a two day public holiday in celebration of the country's birth that will see systems like public transport grind to a halt. We hit on an idea of hiring a car instead to explore Israel's Northern regions.

Nervous about the manic local driving style, Simon is taking every precaution possible as we set out. We have been driving for two hours though, when he takes a roundabout exit too tightly, jolts the car up the kerb, and punctures both the (puny new style aluminium, apparently) wheels.

It is five hours later when a replacement car is brought out to us and we are back on our way again, and we would waste another two hours the following morning detouring to visit the rental company to fill out mindless paperwork. Meanwhile at the time of writing we are still awaiting confirmation that the incident was covered on our insurance. The excursion had not started well.

With our newly-thinned itinerary we go hiking down though a canyon in Yahudiya Nature Reserve, the highlight of a precarious hike being a unavoidable decent down a 9 metre ladder into a deep pool, followed by a 30 metre swim to the other side.

Elsewhere, we take a quick dip in the Sea of Galilee, and go exploring the especially politically tense area along the United Nations disengagement zone between Israel and Syria. We stop off at bomb shelters, abandoned buildings, disused tanks and an observation point overlooking the 1000 soldier UN base.

At one point Simon is at the roadside photographing a snake, when the air fills with a wailing sound. We look at each other as we realise: it is an air raid siren. Rushing back to the car we take off down the road with little idea of what to do, except drive. We shortly after pass through a village, and notice that everybody appears to be going about their lives as normal.

The next morning we are driving through more populated areas, and it happens again - sirens start blaring out across the landscape. This time though as we continue, we pass cars pulled up at the side of the road. Beside them people are standing, seemingly praying. As it is the public holiday of Independence, the air-raid siren signifies two minutes silence in memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Photos: (coming soon)
Israel rating: 7.4/10

Friendliest person met: Chem the Depeche Mode fan in Tel Aviv, or Teresa and Eva, the German sisters in Jerusalem.

Scariest moment: Air-raid siren.

Most beautiful sight:The waterfall pools in Ein Gedi national park.

The Soundtrack: Bat for Lashes - Two Suns

Still to come: Jordan, Egypt, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Glastonbury festival.

postcard from lebanon

2009-04-28T17:02:00.002+01:00

After being spoiled by the welcome in Syria, Lebanon is (perhaps inevitably) not so embracing.

Beirut in particular won't ever be named as one of my favourite cities. It has a very materialistic culture, and appears divided quite prominently between those that have, and those that have not. If you don't appear as though you fit into the former category, nobody takes a second glance at you.

This is most evident in the rapidly evolving central-Beirut area, where each interesting, war-ravaged building is being torn down to make way for an ever expanding, glitzy, fastidiously clean, Disney-like town center. It looks pretty and probably appeals to couples on a weekend break or something, but we feel out of place and somewhat looked down-upon as we venture through it.

As an aside, Beirut is the first time in four weeks of traveling that I spot a Starbucks outlet. It had been nice walking through cities that don't have American chain stores on every corner.

People pay expectantly scant regard when we attempt a night out in the city. I've got my heart set on sampling Beirut's most famous club: B 018. But it will - of course - be expensive, and we are determined to experience it on as tight a budget as possible. To that end we buy beer cans from a local store (extra strength 9% stuff, we soon notice) and dress to impress.

As backpackers with a minimal wardrobe, that is not easy. Lebanon's aforementioned culture means clubs have a strict dress code, and I have come traveling with no suitable footwear. I do however, remember hearing about a trick whilst backpacking around Australia in 2003, that stretching a pair of black socks on over shoes makes them resemble plush footwear, or at least to the cursory glance of the nightclub doorman.

It works a treat, but I shouldn't have gone to the trouble. After four weeks of sobriety, my hard-won alcohol tolerance has declined steeply. Despite drinking nothing extra once we left our hostel room, 20 minutes after entering B 018 I am vomiting in the toilets. We are invited to leave the club some time later, and the vomiting continues outside the club. And then back at the hostel. For two more hours. The next morning I resign myself to having visited Lebanon's most famous club - and not being able to remember a single thing about it. Apparently the moment when the roof opens is spectacular.

The driving in Lebanon deserves special mention. Across the Middle East it is already appalling, here it is a completely lawless. Traffic lights are - at best - give way signs, and don't ever expect that the car at the junction ahead won't pull out right in front of you. Lanes are ignored, and it is every man or woman for themselves. Despite this, I am four weeks into traveling, but have yet to sit in a seat - in car, coach or minibus - that has a seatbelt fitted.

Elsewhere in Lebanon, we visit the northern city of Tripoli. The atmosphere is edgier. We spend half an hour strolling to the center of a street market before we spot unwelcoming, anarchist black flags flying from the lampposts. On a (hastier) walk back, we spot two propaganda posters in support of Saddam Hussein, amidst the countless others that adorn the streets.

The next day revolves around wonderful hiking near the mountain village of Bcharre. It's the highlight of an otherwise unremarkable Lebanon trip - even the spectacular Roman ruins at Baalbeck (think Athens's Acropolis but far bigger and far better preserved) is dampened by torrential rainfall.

No matter, a day's coach hopping later and we are at a border entrance to Israel, trying to enter despite our passports bearing stamps from their Syrian arch rivals. Convincing them to allow us in will be time consuming...

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=67480&id=282401058&l=91c80395d3 (no login required)
Lebanon rating: 3.2/10

Friendliest person met: The most anxious hotel manager in the world, in Beirut

Scariest moment: Walking around Tripoli.

Most beautiful sight: Baalbeck, despite the rain

The Soundtrack: Assorted works by Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jnr.

Still to come: Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Glastonbury festival.

postcard from syria

2009-04-20T22:58:00.000+01:00

After a spate of people trying to overcharge us in Turkey, it's safe to say that we're on our guard as we enter Syria.

In both countries so far we've had a 'baptism of fire' moment where we find ourselves walking through a new city within a brand new country, with our heavy backpacks, everybody looking at us, and we have to get our bearings and find where we are going to stay that night. We very quickly find out about the national psyche of a country in that time.

So we are cynical about early offers of help. In Turkey people (commonly children) would request money after such favours. We find the time though, to speak with two liberally dressed women in their early twenties that stop us in the street. They are English teachers, and are delighted to meet us. Afer conversation they explain that they would love to invite us back to their house, but that we are men and there are Islamic customs that must be adhered to. They then detail that we will need a taxi to get to Qamishle train station, inform us not to pay more than 50 Syrian Pounds for the journey, then change our 500 pound note for us so we can offer the driver exact change.

Hailing a (tiny, clapped out) taxi, we ask to go to the train station, and explain that we will only be paying the going-rate for the journey. He is a nice man, but he shakes his head continuously each time we try to state our price. This is a situation we are already all too familiar with. Concerned, we persist for a while, before moving on to talk about other things. At the train station the driver explains fully: this journey is free, and it is an honour to have met us and had us ride in his cab. We are bowled over and feel more than a little guilty.

At the train station we discover that we have a five hour wait until our train. It's no real problem and we've been in this situation before, so we settle down to entertain ourselves as we are used to, for the duration. Not long after, and a crowd of 15 people has formed around Simon. They are fascinated by the sight of a young western man slumped in their train station, knitting a scarf. They point and discuss with each other this most curious of sights.

People occasionally talk to us, and 20 minutes later one particular young group of men strike up conversation. After a while they invite us to their house (an offer we've been told to accept should we be fortunate that it ever be made), and we walk through the mud tracks (Qamishle has no middle class to speak of, it isn't a wealthy town) for 15 minutes to their house.

At their house we chat and our entertained for four hours, and the women of the house (who are kept from our view throughout) prepare tea and a fantastic evening meal for us. We try our best to adhere to the many rules of eating we've read (e.g. never with your left hand, never double dip anything) but inevitably slip up along the way. Not that our hosts would ever mention when we did. Although they are poor they have mobile phones, satellite TV and shared internet access. They are amazed to have such company in their house, and several times apologise for the meal they have put on for us. "Had it not been dark we would have slaughtered a lamb for you" they say.

Later they put us on the night train, and we ride to Aleppo attempting to recover from such an overwhelming day. Aleppo is far more used to tourists, so the welcome is inevitably not as sweet, but it is still a strong, honest one. Whilst it is not a thrill-ride of a city, we find entertainment in the twisting Souqs (marketplaces), and beautiful ruins at Qala'at Samaan 40 minutes drive out of town. Simon also bumps into an old workmate from Winchester (!), and we spend an evening as guests in their hotel.

You know that beeping sound big vehicles make when they're reversing? In Syria that doesn't happen. Some cars, however play a tune called Lambada that I haven't heard since I was 14.

From conservative Aleppo (female dress code: a veil) we travel to liberal Lattakia (female dress code: skinny jeans), but leave the next morning as miserable weather ruins our dreams of a beach day. From there to Hana, where the 12th century castle of Crac Des Chevaliers is the highlight of Syria. It's a brilliant castle for exploring all day, as if it's come straight from dreamland.

I can't lie, part of the appeal is that if this was in the UK it would be constantly swarming with visitors (think: Stonehenge), and railings and safety warnings would be placed everywhere in a paranoid health and safety frenzy. Here it is a beautiful structure left untouched and untarnished, and there wasn't more than 100 people exploring it's huge innards at any point during the day.

Then to Damascus, which may just be my favourite city I've ever visited. Despite receiving a not-inconsiderable portion of tourism, the Syrian welcome still runs strong through the city. Getting lost in the tiny twisting alleyways that cover much of the centre would feel threatening in many lesser cities. Here it is enchanting.

Damasus combines all the fine characteristics of Islamic cities (the culture, the people, the mosques with their nightly green glow and 'call to prayer' musical harmonies that ring out across the city), with youthfulness, character, and even a christian quarter where it's possible to enjoy a night out.

Night activities such as exploring Damasus's winding back-alleys would be precarious, often ill-advised in other countries, but everybody seems to agree: Syria could barely be any safer to travel in. It's just one more example of the Syrian welcome, and it is truly humbling. I have thought several times about what welcome our hosts would be given should they ever visit the UK, and it's a depressing thought.

Keen to not misrepresent, we do have a few hard-fought battles over money, almost all of which are with minibus drivers. One such occasion is on our final Syrian excursion - to the desert town of Palmyra. The town is graced with a castle high on hilltop, which we undertake a treacherous speed-hike to the top of in order to catch the sunset. Palmyra also has Roman ruins, the likes of which we were getting a little bored by at this stage, but we took the time to explore them at both midnight and sunrise, with beautiful results.

The ride back from Palmyra took a curious turn. All the coach companies were charging 200 Syrian Pounds to get back to Damascus, but one older gentlemen requested just 150 to ride in his rickety old Japanese bus, a vechicle with character to spare. It was an opportunity we jumped at. We must have been offered various food and drink by everybody on board during that journey - each person wanted to meet us and make us feel at home.

All that remained after that was to get out of the country, and as the minibus is about to set off the driver asks if we would mind storing some mystery goods in our bags as we cross the border. We remember our not-getting-thrown-in-jail training and politely decline. It would be a shame to have the trip cut short at this point.

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Syria rating: 8.4/10
Friendliest person met: Ahmed and his friends in Qamishli
Scariest moment: Not once were we unnerved.
Most beautiful sight: Crac Des Chevaliers
The Soundtrack: Elbow - Leaders of the Free World
Still to come: Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Glastonbury festival.

postcard from eastern turkey

2009-04-12T12:55:00.000+01:00

In an otherwise unremarkable 24 hour coach hopping journey from Tbilisi in Georgia to Van in Turkey, the road leading to the Turkish city of Erzurum astounds. Suddenly we find ourselves driving through a landscape of mountains with only beautiful, untouched snow stretching out for miles in every direction. For 30 minutes all we do is continue to stare out the window as each new permutation of landscape is presented to us.

Later on we would do our research, an it becomes more clear as to how fortunate we've been. This is an area used to relative extremes of weather. A month later and most of the snow would have melted, a month earlier and we may not have taken this route due to road closures.

Lake Van provides a day's perfect camera fodder, before we head out to a popular Kurdish bar for the evening, only to discover we are there on a quiet night and - save the manager's friend - are the only people there. It's becoming an upsetting trend on this trip, despite our efforts to the contrary.

The next day Simon wanders off south of Van to attempt some mountain hiking, whilst I stay in town. My decade old walking boots have become progressively more painful, and I can't possibly face a hard day in them. Instead I spend the day shopping.

Van shopping receipt

New shirt - ₤4
Haircut (long overdue) - ₤2.40
New waling boots (from the only shop in town that sells them) - ₤32
Chicken kebab - 80p
An hour's internet access - 40p

Meanwhile south of town, Simon has successfully traversed a snowy mountain, but has attracted uniformed attention on the way down. Some police are giving him very confused looks.

The area, it seems, is one in which the PPK is active, and Simon ends up being detained for 30 minutes and questioned under suspicion of terrorism. They part on friendly terms though, and before getting a minibus back to town the whole village excitedly comes out to meet him.

On our last night in Turkey we decide we should fit in an authentic Turkish bathhouse (called 'Hamam') experience after all. Wearing just a towel we are ushered first into the sauna room. Simon is in his element in this kind of heat, but I am less comfortable. I stick out the heat as long as possible, aided by Simon's goading, but when I have to leave it becomes clear I've left it a little too late, and back in the main room I nearly faint, cannot stand up, and three Hamam staff have to prevent me crashing into various marble fixtures.

One tea-aided recovery later, and the experience continues. An attendant scrubs seemingly four layers of skin off us, douses us with a bucket of water from the cold tap, then one from the warm, then we lie on a marble slab whilst two middle aged men massage us with levels of intimacy beyond which either of us are comfortable with.

From Van we set out coach hopping to the Syrian border, stopping for a couple of where the Turkish officer attempts to levy us with a fictional 'departure tax'. It's the fourth time in three days that somebody has tried to overcharge us (to varying degrees of success), and it has spoilt our otherwise very high regard for the Turkish people. Talking our way out of that, we walk forward and cross the border into Syria...

Wish you were here,
Mark.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66273&id=282401058&l=ab25ed7210 (no login required)
Turkey rating: 7.2/10
Friendliest person met: A guy called George who helped us with the Tbilisi - Van journey a lot
Scariest moment: questioned under suspicion of terrorism
Most beautiful sight: the road to Erzurum
The Soundtrack: Royksopp - Junior
Still to come: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Glastonbury festival.

postcard from turkey and georgia

2009-04-05T23:12:00.003+01:00

When confronted by a journey of a thousand miles, it's of comfort when you have a stroke of luck in the very fırst step.

I take my seat on the 2120 traın from Nottingham to London St. Pancras. Half an hour later a guy, early twenties, gets on at Leicester and sits across from me. He then gets a guidebook to Turkey out and begins reading.

It transpires that his name is Vishnu and that yes, he is on his way to Gatwick to catch the same 8am plane to Istanbul as me. He's a medicine student, and full of advice on travel health matters. He would end up joining us for the first 24 hours of the trip.

Six sleepless hours in Gatwick airport later, Simon - my companion for the next 80 days - joins us, and we're off to Turkey.

Our first taste of Istanbul is a boat ride across the Sea of Marmara (about twice the size of Sydney Harbour) that also means we are crossing the continental border from Asia into Europe. After settling at a hostel we go off in search of a traditional Turkish bath house experience. Any such place in easy walking distance is likely to be a dumbed down, overpriced experience for the tourist market, so we instead head out after dark through the back alley labyrinth of the Bazaar district in search of an authentic one, on guidebook recommendation. 40 minutes intense map work later we find it, and it's mysteriously closed down.

We then bid farewell to Vishnu as he catches his coach to Turkey's west coast.

One typical sightseeing morning later, we head off to the Grand Bazaar, expecting just another large marketplace to wander through. Instead we are greeted by a sprawling uber-market (the world's largest, or something) full of a complex mesh of pathways to get completely lost in, and (mostly) charming stall owners eagerly touting for business. At first it's an overwhelming headache of an experience, but shortly after it becomes a place to fall in love with, especially after a lifetime being conditioned by the monotone rhino that is Asda West Bridgford.

A 10pm train out of Istanbul (we've decided to travel at night whenever we can, to save on accommodation costs) brings us to Turkey's charmless grey brute of a capital, Ankara. Luckily we only have to whip between transport hubs before getting a coach out of there.

It's on the ensuing 24 hour (!) coach journey through Turkey's arid, featureless northern countryside that the complexities of their language really become apparent. After 60 hours in the country I still had not managed to pronounce 'thank you' properly, and every time I tried would either be greeted with a part confused, part vacant look, or simply ignored altogether. Now, in my life to this stage I had drunk a total of one solitary cup of tea. Sorry England, I just never saw the point of it. But with the translation for 'thank you' being an unpronounceable jıgsaw of syllables, and the word for tea being kind enough to rhyme with tea ('che' or something), by the end of the journey I had drunk sıx cups of the stupid overrated stuff.

Late at night the coach reaches border control between Turkey and Georgia. Based on this experience, I reckon I can claim with fair confidence that I am the first Irishman to ever visit the country. The Georgian border guard spends a full five minutes reading every-single-page of my passport at least once whilst everybody else is waved through after a cursory 30 seconds. Everybody else working the border seems genuinely fascinated by it too, and I hop back on the bus with an odd feeling of mild celebrity about the whole thing.

Georgia's countryside seems more interesting. One particular mountain village we pass through bears a striking resemblance to the the one depicted in Resident Evil 4.

Arriving in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on the morning of what just so happens so be my birthday, we cross the city center on foot, passing two United Nations cars (always a sign you've made idiosyncratic holiday plans) to our bed for the night at Irena's Homestay.

Tourism is such a rarity in Georgia that hostels don't exist, and the only budget options are Homestays where locals pile beds into any unused floors of their buildings, whilst the proper hotels cater almost exclusively to business customers.

Later we head out to sample Tbilisi's nightlife. As westerners, we are exiled from the main form of entertainment - late night restaurants - on the advice that attending without native companions can turn unsavory once things get going. Instead we sample three of the city's bars. The first serves beer at just 85p a pint, the second feels instantly like the ones I have drunk and worked in back in Nottingham, and the third turned out to be one where you are offered a drink, then a table, then a choice of ladies to entertain you for the remainder of the night. We drank up and bolted out the door pretty quickly from that one.

The whole of the next day is spent exploring Tbilisi, seeing beautiful churches, ramshackle neighbourhoods, and climbing a big hill, aided by the city's underground Metro system that costs 18p to travel on.

The reactions of Georgian people to us has been fascinating. Walking down the highstreet half the people would be staring (literally) at us. On three separate occasions Simon had a tiny pebble, then a light punch from a girl, then a piece of rubbish, thrown at his back. (his back isn't particularly incendiary or anything, it just seems like a desire for an anonymous, very mild form of hostility) But beyond that often lay an excited welcome. As no other country speaks their language, a joyful, surprised smile often crosses their faces when you make even the most basic attempt at speaking it. Our local convenience store was seemingly run by a rotating army of 12 women in their early twenties who would flutter with excitement every time we entered. This is certainly not a reaction I'm used to garnering in Nottingham. A tourism student called Mia, a devoted Westlife - and by association Ireland as a whole - fan stepped in to help us navigate Tbilisi's impenetrable underground system, and after I showed her my passport stayed with us for two hours helping us plan our upcoming day trips.

Then there was the minibus ('Marshutka' - the main form of public transport in Georgia) assistant who was so proud to have an Englishman and Irishman in his vehicle that he stopped five minutes into the journey to buy a round of beers for us to enjoy on the journey together. The ensuing conversation was a challenge given that we only knew two words in Georgian (thank you, hello) and he only knew one phrase in English ('okay, let's go', curiously), but through talented miming on both sides we managed to discover that his hobbies include football, women, alcohol and firing guns, and that he once got arrested by the police after taking heroin. We were pretty anxious for the rest of that journey.

Said journey, after also passing through a snow blizzard, took us to Gori, the birthplace of murderous psychopath dictator Stalin. Georgia is oddly proud of him, and we toured the museum, the train he used to travel in (you haven't lived until you've photographed a dictator's toilet, let me tell you) as well as some gorgeous dilapidated old trains in a disused area of the railway station. We also managed to lose each other for two hours, which was a challenge given that neither of us have mobiles on this trip.

By the next day we were getting the hang of Georgian as a language much better than we had Turkish, and had excitedly learned that the word for 'sorry' is 'bodishit' (literally pronounced 'body shit'), which sounds like the kind of filth Boy George, Max Moseley or Jamie Theakston might be into. I used it a lot though, enjoying getting to be polite and have my own little bit of naughty fun at the same time.

A final day trip to the manicured heritage village of Signahi later, and we left Irena's Homestay (her daughter insisted on taking photos of us before we left) and headed to the bus station where we stayed for seven hours to save a whole ₤10 each on accommodation. Come morning our Georgian trip would be spoilt somewhat by the bus companies tactics of clubbing together into an infuriating cartel that means that it's twice as expensive for Westerners to leave Georgia as it is to get there - and even locals pay about 50% more. Simon argues long and aggressively about this, and eventually gets us 30% off the price five minutes before the coach leaves, to take us to Eastern Turkey...

Wish you were here
Mark

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66273&id=282401058&l=ab25ed7210 (no login required)
Georgia rating: 7.7/10
Friendliest person met: Mia the Westlife devotee
Scariest moment: Heroin minibus guy
Most beautiful sight: christian church in Tbilisi.
The soundtrack: Guns 'N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction
Still to come: Eastern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Glastonbury festival.

audio/visual update

2009-02-22T18:31:00.002Z

A couple of weeks I was in London seeing a couple of friends and doing some drinking. This video of one such friend dancing to Leona Lewis's version of Snow Patrol's Run was the brilliant highlight of the night.

Around the same time I appeared on MistaJam's excellent Radio 1 show, The 1Xtra Mixtape at four in the morning. He does a feature called Mission Mixpossible, where he invites listeners to challenge him to mix any three songs in the world together. I challenged him to mix Benga + Skream - Night into The Ski Sunday theme tune, and that in turn into Justice - Phantom Part II. You can hear audio of the whole thing here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mmtjjqeotyz

the top 10 albums and singles of 2008

2009-01-06T17:23:00.000Z

A final nice tidy round up then, of my Top 10 Albums and Singles of 2008 - including links to all the writing bits. An act could only be named once in either list. Also take a look at 2007's lists if you like.

Albums

Singles

the best album and single of 2008

2008-12-30T18:26:00.003Z

TV On The Radio - Dear Science

Oh, Lord. To think that four months ago I had never heard a TV On The Radio album before.

Life has actually improved, thanks to the blistering rants of Dancing Choose and Red Dress, or the touching melancholy of Love Dog and Family Tree.

Every song stops you in your tracks. Each and every one is so different, so set apart from everything else 2008 had to offer. It is an utterly remarkable listen.

Once I finally drag myself away from Dear Science, 2009's first task will be to explore their previous, less commercial works. In the meantime you just go buy this. Now.

MGMT - Time To Pretend

Do-do-do-do-doo-do-do-do-doooooo
Do-do-do-do-doo-do-do-do-doooooo

Take the hook of the year, surround it in a psychedelic pop casing, furnish it with knowing lyrics of escaping the ratrace for the 'dream' of fame (yeah it's overwhelming/but what else can we do?/get jobs in offices/and wake up for the morning commute?), and you've got the unquestionable single of the year.

And what of the hoards of teens drawn to Oracular Spectacular by these tightly woven singles? They were battered by an eclectic waves of music. Not all worked (the NME naming it Album of the Year was a joke), but when it did (The Youth, Of Moons, Birds and Monsters) it lived up to the lead single's promise.

the second best album and single of 2008

2008-12-30T18:25:00.002Z

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

2008 was undoubtedly Elbow's year. I was lucky enough to see them at the album's preview gig in London back in February, a month before its release, and even then it was clear that this was their greatest body of work yet.

And then the thrilling stomp of lead single Grounds For Divorce didn't garner the attention it deserved, and following a collective shrug, everybody stayed put for a couple of months assuming the monumental One Day Like This would go stratospheric. Again inexplicably, it was only a minor hit.

Then Glastonbury, where those that weren't talking about how good Jay-Z was were more than likely to be found describing the wonder of Elbow's performance instead. Despite that, and plenty of BBC airtime, they remained the criminally undervalued band they've always been. And then the Mercury Prize, of course.

But it's difficult to overstate just what a stunning album this was. The two aforementioned singles grabbed the attention, but each track was a beautifully crafted, distinct wonder in itself.

Sample the majestic Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver, the literate detailing of love in An Audience With The Pope, or the classy comedy of The Fix. 2008 was a lucky year.

The Killers - Human

Some people just have the knack for creating the tunes of the decade. This perfect 4 minutes can be laid down right next to Mr. Brightside as a track that will be adored for many years to come.

It raised the hope that the album Day & Age might be full of similar indie-electro dancefloor classics, instead of the assuredly silly pop we were left with.

After getting over such a shock, it proved a thoroughly enjoyable listen, better than the remarkably overrated Hot Fuss (has there ever been a greater contrast between a stunning first half of an album and a dire second half?) but not quite as good as the remarkably underrated Sam's Town.

the third best album and single of 2008

2008-12-28T15:08:00.006Z

Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends

Their most consistent work since Parachutes, album #4 saw Coldplay successfully better themselves in all areas of album creation.

Cemeteries of London improves upon What If?. There's nothing as instantly skipable as Low or Twisted Logic off X&Y, or Daylight and A Whisper off the oft-acclaimed A Rush of Blood to the Head. And Strawberry Swing would've been the best song on Parachutes.

Violet Hill is a terrific and original track, the aural imaging of a giant robot rolling across the Spanish countryside. Chinese Sleep Chant is five fold better than the aforementioned Twisted Logic, and Viva La Vida very nearly tops Fix You as the best song they've ever written.

A scattergun album that is their most complete to date, from one of the planets' best selling bands, yet that now seem artistically underrated. Curious.

Eric Prydz - Pjanoo

Or: where Mr. Prydz takes the filthy wealth he made from the adequate but horrifically attention seeking Call On Me, and decides that credibility should be his next aim, magically releasing the club anthem of the year in the process.

Repeating that irresistible hook alternately between piano and gorgeous trance strings, it built and crashed over six dazzling minutes (so long as you avoid the castrated radio edit).

More of this sort of thing please, Eric.

I'm counting down my 10 best albums and singles of 2008. An act can only be named in either list once. Also take a look at last years top 10's.

the fourth best album and single of 2008

2008-12-28T13:29:00.002Z

Bloc Party - Intimacy

The creators of 2007's album of the year return, somehow making much less impact than with their last album.

It's difficult to tell why, as this glorious mix of early Bloc Party urgency, A Weekend In The City ambition, and Chemical Brothers inspired beats should have had students up and down the land foaming at the mouth.

It's the album Silent Alarm would have been if it was all as good as the opening five tracks. Here is a band that get stronger and more interesting with each album.

Bloc Party: the kings of modern indie.

White Lies - Death

Staying on the indie dancefloor, this perfectly crafted single is like (in the spirit of lazy NME journalist cliché) Smile Like You Mean It on crack.

It's the kind of track that makes you want to hijack DJ booths to play. Will be huge in 2009 if they've got a couple more singles this good.

the fifth best album and single of 2008

2008-12-27T21:33:00.000Z

Glasvegas - Glasvegas

Lyrically the album of the year, its strengths were in its vivid depiction of East Glasgow life, and the honesty of which lead singer James Allen let you see into his own soul.

The utter highlight was It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry, a stunning work where James Allan is the jealous, adulterous, paranoid, womanizing, hypocritical villain approaching his comeuppance.

Superb Christmas EP too, which suggests this class act have much further to travel yet. Exciting times.

Hot Chip - Ready For The Floor

Still sounding fresh and unique 12 months later, here Hot Chip took the mania of breakthrough track Over and Over and had the confidence to strip back, slow down the tempo, and add extra groove.

The album was overstocked with balladry for personal tastes, but this utterly creative, utterly danceable track was sheer joy to the ears.

the sixth best album and single of 2008

2008-12-26T17:57:00.000Z

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

An album where the backstory is as well known as the record itself. Guy beaks up with girl, guy flees to solitary confinement at father's log cabin with only guitar for company, guy writes one of the very best albums of the year.

Simple acoustic tales of heartbreak, then, but this is perfection of the genre. The heartbreak is so very real, the reflection and isolation always apparent.

The perfect album for your own moments of reclusion.

Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire

Something like their 9th classic single, here KOL took a leaf out of The Killers book and by taking the purposeful guitar work they were always known for and mixing in just the right amount of absurdity and radio-friendliness to create their long-overdue ubiquitous hit.

Deservedly so, but if you're thinking of buying the album on the strength of this and Use Somebody don't: just download them, and then either buy Because of The Times or stick with The Killers and buy Sam's Town instead. They are the absurdity/radio friendly masters.

the seventh best album and single of 2008

2008-12-25T19:54:00.000Z

The Music - Strength in Numbers

How best-song-they've-ever-done Drugs went completely ignored will remain one of 2008's greatest mysteries. It's the standout track on the third brilliant album from the forgotten Leeds band.

Elsewhere there's another bank of solid rock here, tracks like Fire and Vision won't set the world alight, but they add further to the band's increasingly dependable legacy.

And before it breathes it's last, just wait until you witness the new prog destroy-all-its-in-path monster that is the secret track. Think Led Zepperlin crossed with the Muse classic Knights of Cydonia.

Since Elbow finally found success, the country's most underrated band.

Benga & Coki - Night

The pinnacle of dubstep in 2008, despite being released back in February. It's all thanks to one simple hook that had a level of addictiveness somewhere between blueberry muffins and heroin.

12 months ago every underground dancefloor was awash with people wanting to know what 'that' track was. We personally sang it round and round for 20 minutes whilst walking back from seeing Benga at Glastonbury at 3am, much to the amusement/bemusement/occasional irritation of our fellow festival goers. Sorry if any of you are reading this, musical heroin does that to you.

the eighth best single and album of 2008

2008-12-24T18:23:00.000Z

Chase and Status - More Than A Lot

Let's rewind 12 months. One of my most anticipated albums of 2008 was from Pendulum, following their superb debut album it was reasonably expected that album two would see them rise to become the next Prodigy, not as the turned out, some appalling mashup of their first album and Nickelback.

Kind thanks then, to Chase & Status. The Drum and Bass producers have quietly come to dominate every bass heavy clubnight over the last 3 months, with any of the 12 tracks here going down fittingly well at the peak of the night. Smash TV in the pinnacle - a simple tease and release joy based around a wall-toppling bass hook.

Not that this is a one trick album. Hip hop and jungle are present and strong, whilst the two dubstep tracks (the Bollywood-tinged Eastern Jam, and Running - the track surely to take dubstep into the mainstream in 2009) are exemplery samples of the genre. Pendulum who?

Middle Class Rut - Busy Bein' Born

Superb debut rock single from some bunch of Californians, that somehow seem to have so far gone fairly unnoticed (Only 4,000 Youtube video hits? Really?).

Weird, as to these ears this glorious racket should be playing at every rock clubnight across the country. Simple, brutal fun.

the ninth best album and single of 2008

2008-12-23T16:56:00.000Z

British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?

The reviews way back in January seemed unanimous, "best work yet", "up there with Arcade Fire", "better than kicking a tramp", and indeed those were persuasion enough for British Sea Power to come along and fill the Arcade Fire-shaped hole in my life.

Highlights drip from every corner of this album. From the glorious single-ready duo of No Lucifer and Waving Flags, through the beautiful building instrumental joy of Golden Skua, to the building climax that is Atom, and alongside every winning track that infects you along the way, it's an album that reeks quality.

Red Light Company - Meccano

Although in all honesty it could have been any of the three Grade A singles they released this year (them being With Lights Out and Scheme Eugene).

On the strength of those, Red Light Company deserve to be as big as Vampire Weekend or Scouting for Girls in 2009. It's classic indie-pop, like a more anthemic, bigger version of The Kooks.

Fluffy, addictive, and with a little kick to it. It's the musical equivalent of lemon and raisin pancakes.

I'm counting down my 10 best albums and singles of 2008, and this year doing a bit of writing about each one. An act can only be named in either list once. Also take a look at last years top 10's.

the tenth best album and single of 2008

2008-12-22T12:58:00.002Z

Hello. I'm going to count down my 10 best albums and singles of 2008, a pair of them each day until NYE.

10. Port O Brien - All We Could Do Was Sing

Evidence if ever it were needed that great trials inspire great art, this album is based around the lead singer's enforced summers spent on his father's fishing trawler in Alaska every summer whilst growing up. The theme runs throughout the record, as Van Pierszalowski dreams of escaping the alpha-male, 20-hour day environment he finds himself in. Part British Sea Power, part Stephen Fretwell and part David Attenborough arctic special, it's simple tales-of-isolation are of the highest quality.

10. Tilly and The Wall - Beat Control

The best pure pop moment of 2008 (narrowly beating Dizzee & Calvin and Ting Tings - Shut Up and Let Me Go into this countdown), this happy little pop tune would've put a smile on Johnathon Ross's sullen face this winter. Why it didn't bother the Top 10 like the aforementioned modern pop gems is anybody's guess. Bright, bouncy, and makes it's point in less than 3 minutes so that by the end all you want to do is play it again. Ace.

I'm counting down my 10 best albums and singles of 2008, and this year doing a bit of writing about each one. An act can only be named in either list once. Also take a look at last years top 10's.

99 Problems, ticket sales ain't one - An Ode to Glastonbury

2008-06-06T13:43:00.002+01:00

[Verse One]
It's half past eight on a Sunday morn
Driven thirty miles to my office in Eastbourne
Get there, switch twelve computers on
Speed dial ready, finger over the F five button
Clock strikes nine engaged tone on the line
Half hour gone, they’ll be sold out in no time
Then here texts dan, from his garden
He’s got tickets for himself always hated that man
Whilst catching a tan, screw my careful plan
Well I've shagged his girlfriend, couldn't give a damn, so
'nother hour in, finally your luck begin
Then you find out everybody else has had a win
Got 3 hours sleep for this, have you know
Could have slept 12 hours an' still be good to go
fall asleep at the wheel while i'm driving home
I got 99 problems ticket sales ain't one
Hit me

99 problems ticket sales ain't one
If there’s Glastonbury problems i'll feel bad for you son
I got 99 problems ticket sales ain't one
HIT ME

[Verse Two]
The year's '08 and last year was not great
In a tractor mirror, an apocalyptic state
Two choices have our men book the same folk again
Or grab the phone, dial sha' boy and ask when
he can come play, be it night or be it day
They'll give a few dollars, half what Radiohead they'd pay
Then he'll... come down rappin' bibblical text
That we'll only hear forward of the mixing desk
It'll rain again and no-one likes The Verve
Are these the real headliners? We've been SERVED.
Why they sellin' no tickets, should I guess some mo'?
"Well it it was rainin' lots last year, and the time before"
"Coldplay won't come, they play every year"
"Bono don't answer my calls" he said with a tear
No matter, I say, Jay-Z doesn't take the piss
I bet Noel Gallagher will say nice things about this.
"Everybody will love it, can't imagine any rage
Bouncing to 99 Problems down at the Pyramid Stage"
Whilst snacking on our seven pound chips-to-go
That got cold three hours back in a display window?
I don't work for Live Nation but I know a little bit, enough that Kings of Leon won't create a sales hit
I don't mind i'm still plannin' on havin' my fun
I got 99 problems ticket sales ain't one
Hit me

[CHORUS x2]

[Verse Three]
Let me say, it’s no fun following the beats
£40 just to get in the top tear seats
To watch some rap group you saw in ninety eight
For seven quid tops and that included your date
I’ll try and blag guestlist, plead for sympathy
Won’t work, two months back same guy fired me
You know the type, tied to the job role
Rather than help a brother fresh off the dole
Here’s the problem, I can barely afford lunch
All thanks to our friend the credit crunch
Land lords on my back, they’ve cut my hours at work
Haven’t paid off my credit card, my dad’ll go beserk
And on top of all of this there’s Glastonbury
But they’re a nice place, they’ll charge a reasonable fee.
No Seetickets hidden fees all up in my ass
Six pound fifty bookin' fee cos' i'm middle class
All because this fool was so desperate
Get hands on some tickets but do you know what?
This ain't my fight I’ll just dance and have fun
I got 99 problems ticket sales ain't one
Hit me

[CHORUS x3]

You're crazy for this one Eavis
It's your boy

gatecrasher summer sound system - the review.

2008-05-27T01:09:00.006+01:00

"Whether it be sheer cheek, lack of intelligence, commercial greed, or laziness, this must be the only major

festival not to make sufficient plans so that their own customers are not left severely short-changed."

So how would a seasoned Glastonbury patron cope with a more commercialised, dance orientated, festival?

No alcohol allowed to be brought in to the main arenas, you say?
Having to pay just to find out the set times?

Is this what the average UK festival goer has to put up with…?

Arriving on site Saturday afternoon, it's a mixed start. Fully expecting to have to pay through the nose for an official program as the only way of getting hold of the set times and site map for the weekend, the £10 price tag is still jarring, and depression soon kicks in when the extent of how bad the stage clashes are become apparent.

Justice or Soulwax? Chemical Brothers or Zane Lowe? Pendulum or DJ Yoda? Dizzee Rascal or Hot Chip?

No point in agonizing over such issues all day, so we instead forsake seeing Adam Freeland or Does It Offend You, Yeah? in favour of firing up a barbecue.

When we do eventually get into the Arenas our first port of call is Digitalism, who bash out their electro with just enough energy to get us dancing for the first time. Pogo, I Want I Want and Zdarlight sound great, but otherwise the source material is a little to dull to prevent the set from lagging in between.

No such problem for The Prodigy, naturally, who are able to draw on two decades of material for their headline set.

Not helped by strong winds hampering sound quality, they only succeed in matching expectations, rather than exceeding them. Whilst Out of Space and Smack My Bitch Up are the show stopping festival anthems you would expect them to be, a lifeless Firestarter falls flat.

Roni Size – Reprazent on the other hand happily tear up the Drum and Bass Arena with an hour long set that barely leaves the audience opportunity to catch their breath. It's a welcome expelling of energy that had been lacking in the patchy early performances, and feels like a genuine thrill.

From there things can only get worse, which they do in spectacular style as 25 minutes of Pete Tong's inexplicably boring set are endured before an escape plan to see the end of Audio Bullys is hatched, who whilst hardly revolutionary are infinitely preferable to Tong.

Then it's a case of sticking around to see the air-horn wielding Kissy Sell Out prove why he's one of the most eccentric DJ's on the scene. Mixing inventive beats with intensely danceable hooks, and throwing the odd shot of surrealism into the mix, he's a genuine highlight. Any DJ that will throw R.E.M. and Wham – Last Christmas into a club set has got to be worth their salt, surely?

From there a snacking approach dominates as a visit to TC in the Drum and Bass Arena is a lifeless affair, we prove too sober to enjoy the minimalism of Vitalic, and are just too plain wiped out by the time we sample the actually very accomplished trance DJing of Ronald Van Gelderen. At 4am then, we retire to our tent for the night…

Sunday

…where we would end up staying for the next 13 hours. A mixture of sporadic sleeping, entertaining visitors to our tent and general laziness would mean missing the likes of Plastic Little, Skream + Benga, Annie Nightingale and Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip.

Eventually we emerged, and set about attempting to beat paying £4.50 a drink by successfully finding a spot along the perimeter fence we could lob our wine box over.

Once inside, the (hardly torrential) day's rain had meant that the Live Stage acts were being cancelled, meaning no Hot Chip performance, and that disappointed crowds had instead packed out Dizzee Rascal's tent making it impossible to get in.

Dejected, it was a case of waiting until the tent cleared out so that Freq Nasty could spin a highly enjoyable warm up set to the fantastic Dj Yoda's Magic Cinema Show.

Thoroughly entertaining, Yoda mixes live an eclectic range of DVD imagery and music ranging from Super Mario Brothers through to Chemical Brothers and back to the Rocky theme. It's just about the most inventive live music proposition out there and the only fault is that after 50 minutes the decision is taken that we have to leave to go see some major headliners.

Developments have reached their disgraceful nadir though, as it transpires that main headliners Chemical Brothers have also been cancelled due to the weather, so instead we put up with 10 minutes of Mark Ronson's over-running DJ set in preparation for Zane Lowe.

Ronson may actually be a good DJ one day, but as he still has a commercial reason to rely on playing out rancid songs from his awful Version album, you sense that day won't come anytime soon.

Zane Lowe meanwhile, immediately goes about proving why he's the very best party DJ out there. Mixing up genres as he is known for, his choices of tracks are 10 out of 10, his inventiveness is 10 out of 10, and his technical ability as a DJ rates pretty damn highly too. It's a show-stealing and raucous affair.

Next comes the difficult decision to miss Soulwax and a rescheduled Pendulum, to instead crowd into a brim full tent to see Justice.

Remixing, cutting and mashing together the already brilliant material from their "†" album couldn't really go wrong, but live they've continued to improve how they reinvent the material so that the crowd is teased and punished by relentless waves of insanely danceable music, which reaches it's climax with three false endings and the destroy-all-in-path Soulwax remix of Phantom pt.2. It's a down-right logical end to the best set of the weekend.

The final five minutes of Soulwax's alright-sounding set are caught, before Paul Oakenfold headlines Gatecrasher's own tent with a moderately pleasing trance show.

Tiredness and sobriety are again setting in though, and managing to drag ourselves to Simian Mobile Disco's 2am live performance is partly rewarded by a proficient and lively set that is sadly unable to stop the pain of the weekend mounting up, and 40 minutes in the decision is taken to retire for the night.

Overall though, the inexplicable event management must be questioned.

Whether it be sheer cheek, lack of intelligence, commercial greed, or laziness, this must be the only major UK festival not to make sufficient wet weather plans so that their own customers are not severely short-changed by what was – realistically – an averagely wet British Sunday afternoon.

Festivals like the constantly drowning Glastonbury show Gatecrasher to have complete contempt for their paying guests, and the public should respond with that very same contempt.

gig reviews: elbow, hot chip, justice, twilight sad

2008-04-21T22:16:00.005+01:00

Four reviews written over the last few months, all of which were also featured on Teletext's Planet Sound pages.

Elbow/Nottingham Rock City

Three times better than the superb show when they last played this room, Elbow are now an unmissable live outfit.

Guy Garvey only gets more captivating with age - now attaining Dean Martin levels of stage charisma, whilst the band serve up a faultless setlist of songs, culminating with a devastating eight minute New Born that leaves the room utterly breathless.

One can only assume they'll never play this room again. 9/10

Hot Chip/Manchester Academy 1

Or: "Hot Chip attempt to warm up the still half built and freezing cold Academy 1"

They succeed, for the most part. Sensibly avoiding most of their ballads to present an 80 minute dance-athon, their only fault is placing a raucous Over & Over half way through, as not even penultimate track Ready For The Floor can match it for sheer dance-ability, and the pace never quite recovers.

Address that, and 2008 really will be their year. 7/10

Justice/Nottingham Rock City

Nottingham is already something of a Justice stronghold, so remixing and splicing together their own tracks alongside their remixes of Franz, Klaxons and Metallica was always going to provide an easy win.

So it is here. The 1,300 strong crowd lap up the duo's tight and well crafted party soundtrack.

Some leave in a confused moment where the house lights turn on, before a heavier techno encore which puts off a few but sends most crazy. 8/10

The Twilight Sad/Nottingham Bodega

Finally headlining their own tour south of the border, and one still wonders why they can only half fill this 200 person venue.

Those who do show are literally battered by a wall of sound, as James Graham leads a tight and mesmerizing 50 minute blast, singing acapella, knelling to pummel a cymbal, and all whilst stringently avoiding eye contact with anybody.

It's literally breathtaking. LP2 can't come soon enough. 8/10

my top 10 albums and singles of 2007

2007-12-30T12:45:00.001Z

Albums

1. A Weekend In The City - Bloc Party
2. Neon Bible - Arcade Fire
3. An End Has A Start - Editors
4. We Are The Night - Chemical Brothers
5. Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters - The Twilight Sad
6. Myths of the Near Future - Klaxons
7. Thirst For Romance - Cherry Ghost
8. Hit & Hope - Ormondroyd
9. "Cross" - Justice
10.Between Voices - Anti Atlas

Singles

1. Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors - Editors
2. No Cars Go - Arcade Fire
3. Can't Stop Moving - Sonny Jim
4. Sirens - Dizzie Rascal
5. Breakin' Up - Rilo Kiley
6. I Wish I Could Have Loved You More - Candie Payne
7. The Beat That My Heart Skipped - Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip
8. Selfish Jean - Travis
9. Granite - Pendulum
10. Mammoth - Interpol

simon's job interview calamity

2007-12-07T00:31:00.000Z

So dear friend Simon emailed me with the story of a job interview he'd just been to. We both then agreed that it would make an AWESOME blog post. And so here it is:

went for a job interview the other day, walk to reception they take a picture of me and put it into an open plastic wallet to pin to my suit for ID purposes, bit nervous i pin it on, go to the toilet whilst someone is coming for me from upstairs. go to toilet to have a quick piss and make sure im looking good. have a piss bit yellow, look in the mirror lookin good paronoid about possible piss stain in my suit which i happily avoided, i bend over to flush the toilet.

before i reach the handle to flush i realise i have not properly secured my plastic open wallet to my suit because it is filling up with piss at the bottom of the toilet.

i pick it out straight away think ill get another one, but then think right im on my own i cannot describe what i have done to anyone, start taking the paper of my name and face out of it which luckily still is half dry . i turn upside down the plastic wallet to return the piss back to the toilet. i try to dry all the piss but it is difficult to get out of all the corners, so remembering someone is on there way i put my damp ID on and leave the toilet. at the end of the interview i had to give the damp ID back felt a bit bad.

got a call today that i didnt get the job, which was a bit disappointing

gig reviews: pendulum, cherry ghost, damien rice, foals, air traffic, amy macdonald

2007-11-26T22:26:00.000Z

I haven't posted any gig reviews up here since Glastonbury, so here: have six at once.

Pendulum, Nottingham Rock City

Always teetering on the edge of fully-fledged mainstream success, with a new band aesthetic Pendulum appear hungrier than ever to achieve it.

The songs previewed here have a new intelligence. It's still drum and bass, but now guitar heavy, seemingly more influenced by the likes of Zeppelin and Muse. That this performance is an all-conquering riot despite only paying brief lip-service to signature-track Slam indicates the strong body of work they have now built up.

It all makes one confident enough to make this prediction: 2008 will be Pendulum's year. 9/10

Cherry Ghost, Nottingham Rescue Rooms

Simon Aldred appears every inch a studio artist.

Throughout his set he speaks only to thank his audience and never veers a note away from his (unquestionably wonderful) source material. Such an approach then becomes a chore as it is stretched over 80 long minutes.

The crowd never returns favour with more than polite applause, and presumably leave wishing they'd stayed home with their copy of the album. 6/10

Damien Rice, Nottingham Arena

Damien Rice really has no idea how to play arenas. Ignoring several of his best known songs in order to air four b-sides, the casual fan must have started out dumbfounded.

For the obsessive though, it's more a wet dream.

Singing Cannonball unamplified to a pin-drop silent audience, Guillimots-esque reworking and extending of songs, breaking fire regulations and riling the furious stewards by inviting the seated audience to all stand at the stage front...

Afterwards, one thing becomes clear: Damien Rice really knows how to play arenas. 8/10

Foals, Nottingham Rescue Rooms

There is an unprecedented amount of between song chatter amongst the audience for a gig outside of London.

Many have clearly come along to check out the next big thing. Indeed for a band so early in their career headlining the 500 capacity venue seems a tall order.

Aware - and yet slightly fazed by - the challenge, the band power through a raucous 35 minute set that sees most won over. Any longer and their staple dance-punk sound would get tiresome, but in this well sized portion, they're a riot. 8/10

Air Traffic, Nottingham Rescue

Special mention must go to support band The Law, who only turned up 20 minutes before their set time, and put on a similarly botched performance.

For Air Traffic themselves, a dull opening 20 minutes doesn't provide much confidence, but when they belatedly burst into life with Charlotte its as much a relief as a joy.

A storming closing gambit of Empty Space and Shooting Star seals the deal, and if nothing else they're a perfectly amiable way to pass the time waiting for the next Coldplay album. 7/10

Amy MacDonald, Nottingham Social

Amy is doing nothing particularly original with her blend of Radio 2 friendly acoustic pop, but she's doing it better than most purely thanks to the strength of her songs.

Live, she's also helped by a fine line in telling chattering audience members to 'shut the hell up', and a charming stripped down cover of Mr. Brightside which seems purpose built to be played on Jo Whiley's Radio 1 show one day. It all makes for an endearing performance that hints of greater things to come. 8/10

who'd be england manager?

2007-11-22T15:04:00.000Z

Christ, can't believe I'm posting a blog about football. It must be a big news day in the sport world.

Seriously though: England, as a competitive force, are permanently screwed. They'll never win a major competition again. Because, realistically who on earth is going to be daft enough to ever take the England Manager's job ever again?

It must rank down there amongst 'traffic warden', 'Blue Peter competition operator' and 'terrorist' for professions where everybody is going scrutinise you and end up hating your guts.

The knives came out for Steve McLaren today, as you might expect. Graham Taylor was Public Enemy #1 after England last failed to qualify for a tournament back in 1993. Other managers have enjoyed relative success then hit a bad patch and had to endure the country turning on them (Glenn Hoddle, Kevin Keegan). Even Sven-Goran Eriksson at the height of his success in the role had to cope with ridiculous amounts of press and public scrutiny into his private life. Only Terry Venables seems to have escaped unscathed from the job in the last 15 years.

So, the question has to be asked: who on earth would be stupid enough to take the England Manager job now? The media scrutiny and willingness to change their opinions as regularly as the wind changes direction means that the best people for the job are going to have the good sense to leave it well alone.

is this the tipping point for facebook?

2007-10-18T00:49:00.000+01:00

Anybody been having problems with Facebook over the last few days and weeks?

Quite possibly. For me it's been the odd error message here and there. Today the site has decided not to send out any email notifications to me, which is odd. Meanwhile my friends' status updates page seems to fill up with people complaining they can't access their message inboxes, or write on people's walls.

And well, it all seems a little too familiar.

Familiar because, we were all here a couple of years ago. When Myspace was at it's peak, and then started to have a few technical difficulties. Bulletins not working, the occasional error screen - nothing too damning, but mildly irritating all the same.

And of course the spam. Mildly forgiveable at first (hey, we're a slightly above average unsigned band, can we be your friend please?), and nowadays taking a more traditional spam format (hey, I'm new to this place, I've got this other site, a webcam and slight nymphomaniac tendencies. Can we be friends please?)

And then it was sold for a ridiculously over-the-odds amount of money to News International, and sat there for a good two years barely receiving any new features, funding, or attention whilst Facebook slowly stole it's limelight.

And so I'm just wondering, when will this all happen for Facebook too?

It's certainly still enjoying the same surge in interest that Myspace had in its heyday. And generating the same stupidly lucrative takeover talk.

I've had friend requests from a couple of organisations irritatingly posing as people. And the site's equivalent of unsigned band spam (hey, we're a local clubnight promoter, please come join our group which will never top 100 members) has been around for a fair while.

So what's next? Increasingly severe breakdowns like the ones we've been getting recently? An invasion of the spambots? Lucrative buyout from a clueless snail-like old-media organisation?

I'm not sure. I'm just hope the organisation is wise enough to learn from the past mistakes of it's competitors.

People inevitably ask whether or not Facebook is just a passing fad, but in all likelihood that's probably only going to be true if a better product comes along to replace it. That's all that's happened to Myspace, and previous flash-pan successes like Friendster. Who knows how Facebook will fare?

my mum likes spooks

2007-10-17T01:22:00.000+01:00

A quick hello to my mum, who's a big fan of returning BBC spy drama Spooks. She rushed in to the lounge to watch the 10:30pm showing of Spooks on BBC3 tonight. She turned it on 4 minutes late, thinking it was a repeat of the BBC1 episode that was shown at 9 o'clock, then proceeded to ponder that they seemed to have jumped straight into the plot a little quicker than usual.

It was only when I got home at 12:30 that I explained how BBC3 often broadcast the following episode of big shows shortly after their terrestrial counterparts have screened the preceding ones, and that she'd actually just watched episode 2 by mistake.

Bless.

nottingham city transport axe nightrider services

2007-10-03T20:08:00.000+01:00

Here's some news that pretty much nobody else will care about apart from me: Nottingham City Transport are to end their night service buses from the 24th November, so I hear.

The services are to be replaced by buses travelling along the popular Go2 routes after midnight on Friday or Saturday nights only.

It's hardly surprising, the service must have been making a huge loss for months. Barely anybody uses the things. So it's not really their fault if they cancel them, right?

Well, wrong. Plenty of people would use them, but the operation of the services over the last few years has been a joke.

Firstly, the price. It has risen by 50p every year recently. It now stands at either £3 or £3:50 for a single ticket, I can't remember exactly because I've got a bus pass. But either way, that's a ridiculous amount of money. The only people who are going to pay it are customers who regularly get the bus on their own (read: me). If there's two or more of you, you might as well get a taxi at that price, and you'll be home a lot sooner too.

So it's hardly surprising that the amount of people using the service now has completely nosedived. Why wasn't the price kept at a more competitive level, hmm?

Secondly, marketing. Or rather, the lack of it. Hardly anybody has ever known about the existence of the night services. People don't even know of them as an option. It wouldn't have been hard, NCT: put up adverts for each Nightrider service on the applicable daytime bus routes that go to the same areas - so - advertise the 99 Nightrider service along all the daytime busses that go to Clifton, Ruddington and West Bridgford, alongside all your adverts for Skylink services and sex advice clinics.

So, the Save The Nightrider Services campaign starts here. If nothing else, I need them to get home from work during the week or I'll struggle to keep being able to work at Rescue Rooms. Are you listening, Nottingham City Transport?

dirty thieving asylum seekers

2007-09-27T03:20:00.000+01:00

Wow, people really have a problem with the whole immigration thing in this country don't they? It seems like every week somebody's informing me of how this country is now being over-run by foreigners, stealing either our benefits, our jobs, or our wives. Or all three. At once. Whilst grooming our children. With Gangsta rap and Turkey Twizzlers.

Just the other night one of our bouncers at work was sounding off about how this country's lost the plot regarding the whole thing, and I could only reply with "well I disagree, but I don't want to get into it". Mainly because I try not to get involved in big arguments with people who's job role could encompass saving my life one day.

But yeah, why is this opinion so overwhelmingly widespread, mmm? Have people simply been paying too much attention to what the Daily Mail tells them? (Along with the rest of the newspapers, come to think of it)

I thought I'd attempt to douse the situation with some cold hard facts I came across, instead of - you know - scaremongering and distortion and that...

The number of people applying for asylum in the UK is at its lowest level since 1989.
The UK hosts 3% of the world's refugees. Germany hosts 8%, Pakistan 13%.
Asylum seekers supported by the Government receive less financial support than British citizens are entitled to.
Albert Einstein entered Britain as a refugee.
The value that immigrants - including refugees - bring to the economy is that they pay £2.5 billion more in taxes than they take from the country in welfare benefits.
(source)

Some of those surprised me. I mean it's not as if you ever hear them from the non-BBC areas of the media is it? They'd rather stoke the fires and sell more copies, turning us into a country of paranoid racists, of course. They know full well that immigration is the one issue that will really get their readership riled up while they're necking their Carling's watching the football on a sunday afternoon.

Even without all those perspective-setting facts, why are the public so paranoid about people seeking asylum in this country anyway? Where's the compassion to say that just because you're not fortunate enough to be born in this country, it means you're less deserving of our help? We're happy to help you out with a few quid to save our conscience when the TV appeals to us to do so, as long as you don't actually come anywhere near where we live, thankyouverymuch.

Am I just being a silly idealist here? Thoughts please.

tales of an ex-barman

2007-09-16T18:18:00.000+01:00

Given that this blog is supposed to be vaguely themed around the struggle to get a career started post-graduation, I suppose I have to make this post: I've kind of had a promotion at work. I'm now apparently a Cellar Supervisor, which is exciting news. (it isn't)

So instead of doing everything customers and managers tell me, I'm now doing everything bar staff and managers tell me. Changing barrels, stock takes, deliveries, that kind of thing. Joy.

Anyway, this is pretty much the dullest subject for a blog post in ages, I think I'll liven it up with the exact, full transcript from the interview for the new job:

"Mark, are you interested in that Cellar Supervisor position going?"
"Yeah"
"What are you doing next week?"
"Well, taking some Class A drugs, mainly crack cocaine and heroine"
"Excellent, well that's the interview for Cellar Supervisor. You start Monday"

job interviews are rubbish

2007-09-08T13:50:00.000+01:00

Is it a good idea to mention the fact that you write a blog when you're at job interviews?

I've never been sure. On the one hand, it's a vague example of the creative writing that I list as one of my interests on my CV. But the problem is, recruiters can then go off, find your blog through Google, and know far more about you than any interviewer really should. But then again, if I don't mention it, there seems to be this big gap in my life that they'll no doubt assume I fill with sitting on my arse watching TV, or throwing eggs at pensioners whilst riding a chopper around my estate, or something.

So yeah, I've been struggling with it recently. I'd generally preferred a cautious approach, not mentioning anything up to now, but after something like 9000 failed interviews recently, I was willing to have my mind changed. So last week in an interview for the head office of a famous British high-street retailer I brought it up.

And the next day, I remembered that I'd actually been quite anti-capitalist on this blog in the past. Even, on occasion, quite anti-British retailers. Which might be a problem.

And the next day, I heard I hadn't got the job.

Balls.

news international is watching you

2007-09-05T13:58:00.000+01:00

This is a bit of a weird one, but because I'm sad, I have often find myself commenting on BBC News articles online. Often the site gives you the chance to have your say, alongside boxes where you enter your name, your email address, and your websites' address - should you have one.

Naturally I enter the address for this here blog.

Now, whenever I have done this, there is an unnerving habit to get a hit on my blog from somebody within a BskyB building (that being the mega-company that owns The Times, The Sun, Sky, Myspace and a fair few other things). They have clicked on the link in that BBC News article to go to my blog. And it happens with quite disturbing regularity. Am I under surveillance here, Mr Rupert Murdoch man? Have you got your binoculars out, peering through my window whilst chomping on a Cornetto? Hmm?

hurrah for klaxons

In a vaguely related note, many congratulations to Klaxons for scooping last night's Mercury Music Prize award. As I detailed elsewhere yesterday afternoon, it more than deserved to win. It was an innovative, trend-setting, and all round accomplished work. Which is really exactly what the Mercury prize should stand for.

the 7 songs i currently can't stop listening to

2007-09-03T20:35:00.001+01:00

Elbow - Forget Myself

I always quite liked this song, but over the last month or so I've become really quite obsessed by it. It's a soaring anthem of a track that's sheer epic feel exhausts you by it's end, yet still leaves you wanting to play it again immediately afterwards.

Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip - The Beat That My Heart Skipped

Underground hit Thou Shalt Always Kill was a clever track that got this duo noticed, but which also got annoying after five listens. This offering though is a far more addictive prospect, with a subtler subject matter that still remains as smart as before, over a killer tune that will be knocking around your head days later.

Candie Payne - I Wish I Could Have Loved You More

I wasn't sure when I first heard this classy soul effort, through headphones whilst on the bus into town. but a few days later I was picking some songs to play out on a Saturday night in Main Bar at Rescue Rooms, and I gave this one a go, and man, did it sound glorious thorough our deep, powerful sound system. Could be a bond theme with it's rich, dramatic sound.

Chemical Brothers - Saturate

The understated highlight of their We Are The Night album, here's a track that starts based around an addictive little hook, then keeps building the same idea over 5 minutes until you're forced to dance regardless of whether you're in a club, or walking down a crowded highstreet. Mixes that killer hook with a dizzying euphoria to dynamite effect.

Sonny Jim - Can't Stop Moving

The song I can't stop going on about at the moment, and the sole track that's keeping me going during the horrid wait for The Avalanches to follow up their 2001 album Since I Left You. Seriously, you need this song in your life.

Athlete - Hurricane

Always good for at least one triumphant, rousing pop tune per album (remember Half Light and El Salvador?), here's this album's example. Completely unchallenging, yet simply lovely. The audio equivalent of a particularly gripping game of cricket.

The Courteeners - Cavorting

Widely predicted to be the best thing ever, this song lives up to the considerable hype that already surrounds the Mancunian band. A simple tale of rubbish nightclubs and the overly-indulgent folk that inhabit them.

thank god it's autumn

2007-09-01T14:35:00.000+01:00

If there's one thing I try to avoid blogging about, it's the British clique of writing about the weather. Regardless, though: thank God it's September. Not because I hate hot weather, or like the sight of leaves falling off trees or something, but because of this simple fact: stuff gets good again.

And there's lots of stuff to look forward to now that autumn is finally hear: new album's from The Go! Team and Pendulum are on the way. TV also becomes good again: Spooks will be back in a couple of weeks, along with Never Mind The Buzzcocks around mid-October.

Bands start touring again as well, and I'm somewhat overly excited about upcoming tours from Editors, Bloc Party, Stephen Fretwell, Feist, Foals, Damien Rice and Arcade Fire over the next few months. Along with that it'll be great to have Manchester's Warehouse Project back - I'm already booked in to the opening night Essential Selection Party and the Pendulum gig.

And then there's videogames, where there's Super Mario Galaxy and SingStar PS3 to look forward to. Not that I actually have a Playstation 3, or could remotely afford one, but this is the first game to make me actually want one.

So yeah: hurrah for autumn and that.

5 things i hate about asda

2007-08-31T01:37:00.000+01:00

1. Rubbish products. It's all very well battling to have the lowest prices in town, but if those low-priced products are awful quality, I don't care. And it happens too often in Asda's case: Jam Doughnuts with the tiniest amount of jam in their centre, fruit loafs with about 7 sultanas spread miserly throughout, trainers which you only discover two days later are cripplingly uncomfortable...

2. Reducing Choice. In the never-ending rush to sell as many different ranges of products as possible, they save space by reducing - say - how many different sizes of baked beans cans they sell. Sometimes this is okay. But sometimes it is bloody annoying. When I pop in to buy some deodorant, I want to have the choice between the big 250ml can and the smaller 150ml one, not be forced to buy the 150ml one, that you are then going to charge me over the odds for, thanks.

3. The new food labelling guidelines. Now, I was upset when Tesco ignored the Government's wishes to introduce the new traffic light system for food, in favour of their own stupid system, but hey: at least Tesco have done something. I may be wrong, but Asda haven't introduced any system to their own brand products have they? This is shameful.

4. Opening Hours. My local one (Asda West Bridgford, supermarket location fans) is no longer open 24 hours a day. I mean, even if they were making a loss by opening 24 hours, you'd think they'd absorb that loss for the sake of having that perception that they're always there for when their customers need them.

5. The Self-Service checkouts. God they are strict. They moan at me if I put a scanned item anywhere else but the bagging area, like, I don't know, in my own bag or something. And God forbid I should place that bag of mine in the bagging area while I pack it instead. That's against the rules that is, and the machine will scream UNEXPLAINED OBJECT IN BAGGING AREA at you, before setting off a big red flashing light above the till accusing you of being a thief, and then notifying some spotty member of staff to come over and encourage bystanders to point, laugh, and pull down your trousers*.

These, it should be noted, are in addition to my generic gripes about the supermarkets, such as screwing suppliers, using loss-leader and predatory pricing tactics, and destroying competition in the sector.

But of course, I still shop there don't I? So feel free to call me Jimmy Hypocrite.

*may not have actually happened

listen to this

2007-08-28T02:35:00.000+01:00

Please click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9e_4A7EKoA and listen to the resulting song.

It's by a chap called Sonny Jim, and since hearing it for the first time last Wednesday, I can't stop playing it now.

Take the following ingredients: The Avalanches, The Go! Team and Lemonjelly, mix, then shake, and serve over ice on a hot summer day. Loooooovely.

bad toilet habits

2007-08-22T14:15:00.000+01:00

Like many young people, I've spent a fair few cash-strapped evenings in Wetherspoons pubs, enjoying their reliable mix of dirt cheap drinks, quiet distraction free atmosphere, fiercely brand loyal staff, and secret lapdancing rooms*.

One other thing you could always be assured of from Wetherspoons pubs though was very well kept toilet facilities. Always clean, well maintained and smelling oddly like a packet of Refreshers.

Except, I haven't been to a Wetherspoons in ages now, so when I briefly popped in to one last night (Nottingham's Roebuck Inn, pub chain fans), I was reminded of how they have introduced one tiny new thing, and completely ruined their long-standing super-toilet reputation.

Right: urinals. Not the most pleasant subject in the world, but has anybody else noticed the stupid plastic things Wetherspoons have in their urinals now? That look like giant white slices of swiss cheese, or something?

And if so, can anybody else testify that it is utterly impossible to pee on the things without getting at least some form of, well, splashback?

It's bloody annoying, Wetherspoons. Every time I'm drinking in one of your pubs girls think I have the world's most reliable incontinence problem. Sort it out please, mmm?

*may be a lie

knife crime on the up

2007-08-20T14:37:00.000+01:00

So the big news story today is that knife crime cases are on the up, and are currently double what they were last year.

Which all looks very nice and panic-inducing on the front page of the Mirror, or whatever newspaper you choose to rub over your nipples on a daily basis.

I wonder how many of the news articles covering this story though, also include this related statistic: that knife crime is lower now then it was 6 years ago.

I'm going to assume not many.

Also: I'm going to further assume that those that do have the balls to include this, or any similarly vital quantifying statistic will have it buried towards the back end of the article, which only a few people will actually read, thanks to the fact that they had to turn to page 9 to get the full story because the huge headline THE WORLD IS GOING TO END dominates the front page.

Indeed, it seems you can't move these days without some foaming 47 year old bemoaning how society has broken down over the last couple of years, and that 'it's not safe to walk the streets anymore'.

And I blame the media. Safe in the knowledge that bad news sells more papers than good, somebody has latched on to the fact that if you can make people fearful, they will continue to relentlessly consume your newspaper/program/whatever.

And the only way the problem will ever be rectified? If people stop consuming the offending media. Likely? No.

Depressing stuff.

RIP newsnight video podcast

2007-08-16T16:40:00.001+01:00

Oh man, sorry about this blog post, but I haven't been as upset about losing a TV program since Channel 4 decided to axe Hollyoaks In The City. And some of you will remember what a traumatic blog post THAT was.

But yes: Newsnight had for the past few months been doing a video podcast consisting of some of the weekly highlights of their TV show. And last night I discovered they had stopped doing them, presumably due to the lack of take up, or something.

This is upsetting. You see: I would never bother to actually sit down in front of the TV and watch an edition of Newsnight. But it was a brilliant service having bits of it downloaded to my ipod without even having to think about it, for me to flick through on my regular commutes. I could be on a bus travelling through the Nottingham countryside at 3am, whilst learning about Egypt's police state, or a debate on the conflicts within Islam, or something.

But they're no longer podcasting the thing. Despite the fact that the same highlights show goes out on BBC News 24 every week anyway. Upsetting. If nobody was using the service, it's probably because nobody outside of Newsnight's regular audience knew of it's existence. And at a guess, maybe there isn't much overlap between the group of people that watch Newsnight and the ever-busy group of people that own Video iPods?

Right, this is all getting a bit too highbrow for me. I'm going to go read Nuts magazine, drink some Carling, and discuss the merits of breasts. Whilst watching some football. In the nearest branch of Yates's.

the south park film is possibly my favourite

2007-08-13T02:24:00.000+01:00

...despite this, I only realised tonight that the full title of it is a rather blatant penis joke.

I've watched the damn film around ten times.

Point and laugh if you must.

pre-wedding videoblog

2007-08-10T21:06:00.000+01:00

So it's my brother's wedding tomorrow. I was down at the reception venue this afternoon helping with all the preparations. Couldn't resist doing a little video blog as well though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIFnWYKjoMk

x

audio of us on radio 1 six weeks ago

2007-08-09T13:14:00.000+01:00

This will probably be of no interest to anybody else but us four, but 6 weeks late, I've got round to editing together the audio of our week on Radio 1 for Glastonbury.

Basically, me, Fraser, Harriet and Lucy were on Edith Bowman's show for four days as we prepared, travelled to, and messed around at, this years Glastonbury Festival.

You can listen to and download it here: http://www.zshare.net/audio/30567406b4bb96/

Listen, as I talk of the stag weekend I'd just been on!
Marvel, as Fraser extols the merits of Aqua's Doctor Jones single to 4 million people!
Gape, as Harriet orcastrates the playing of the legendary Divine Comedy's National Express on Radio 1!
Cower, as we sing "The Wheels on The Bus" live on air!
Ponder, as Lucy gets confused as to why Edith sounds like as 26 year old Asian bloke, forgets the name of the song she's supposed to be requesting and then perpetuates discussion of Glastonbury's non-existent sausage obsession!

At 33 minutes it makes for it's own little radio show. Maybe for you to download and listen to on your daily commute, mmm?

southern discomfort

2007-08-04T18:58:00.000+01:00

So it happened for the first time last night. It was bound to eventually.

I was serving somebody behind the bar, and they asked me for a 'SoCo and lemonade'.

NO. It is called 'Southern Comfort' damn it. So Co is a dreadful name from a dreadful marketing campaign.

To be honest I'm surprised it's taken this long for somebody to use the name born from this steaming pile of contrived guff. I thought most Southern Comfort drinkers would've been asking for it by now.

Which is a relief at least. Please nobody else use it. It's rubbish and sounds silly. Thank you.

i thoroughly enjoyed the simpsons movie

2007-08-02T00:17:00.000+01:00

No, really.
Saw it this afternoon.
Thought it was great.
What?
Why are you staring at me like that?
Stop it.
And stop trying to pull my trousers off as well, damn it.

I can only assume that it's been panned because of the stupid amount of hype that was built up around it (I'm partly looking at YOU, 20th Century Fox), meaning that the first critics to see it were expecting not so much a film, but the second coming of Christ, or something.

It's not the second coming. It's an 90 minute long Simpsons episode. After everybody said it was rubbish I didn't go into the cinema expecting much, which might have been a factor. I even hardly ever watch the TV show.

But yeah, blame the makers and promoters for hyping the thing out of all proportion, and then blame the critics for being po-faced in wanting anything more than an extended lighthearted comedy romp through Springfield. And then blame me. Because I am still talking to you despite having lost my trousers.

i dearly hate psychometric testing

2007-07-31T02:52:00.000+01:00

Who on earth invented Psychometric Testing? I would like to throttle them with a dead pigeon should I ever be given the opportunity.

I spent about an hour doing my first ever psychometric test today for some retailer's graduate scheme, which comprised of a verbal reasoning test, numerical reasoning test, a personality questionnaire, and a flash game where I had to protect one of their stores by fighting off evil Government Trading Standards officers.

Okay, I lied about the last one.

However, I now feel they know everything about me. Literally. They know I struggle to answer any question with a straight yes or no answer, they know I took 20 minutes to answer a question where I needed to work out some percentages, they know that I have an inkling of dislike for companies that "ruthlessly pursue profits at whatever cost" (as if this ruthless retailer would ever employ me now), and they know I took about an hour to complete an online exercise that should have taken 35 minutes.

URGH. I had enough difficulty trying to get a job when it was just an interview I had to stumble through, trying not too appear way out of my depth, now I've got to contend with tests designed to find out everything about me before I've even got through the front door?

They've taken the romance out of the recruitment process. Sod this, i'm going to be a barman for the rest of my life.

television is lying to you

2007-07-24T13:52:00.000+01:00

Every journalist and his dog seems to be talking about TV and how it misleads us at the moment. With that in mind I went searching for something quite interesting I read a long time ago, that should add something to the whole issue.

Most of you will probably remember a Channel 4 TV show called Faking It. You might even remember this particular edition, where a Choir girl Laura-Jane Foley was challenged to fake being a Rock Chic in the space of four weeks.

Well, the day after the show was broadcast, she popped up on the Channel 4 website's forum putting her side across. The posting has long since disappeared from there, but I found it knocking around thanks to Google Desktop, and so thought I'd put it up here to see what people think...

"Well, well, well. I've stumbled upon this forum and thought I'd contribute and clear up a few misconceptions and misunderstandings about me. Before any of you say differently this is Laura-Jane Foley - not someone faking being me (haha!) nor is it one of the many people who have pretended to know me/ be related to me! For my sins... this is me...like me or loathe me! And from what I've read a great many of you seem to loathe me. It's a good job I'm not a depressive kind of person because some of the vile comments some of you have made about me could have sent another person to the brink.

I'm not going to defend myself (those who know and love me know full well that the Laura-Jane Foley on Faking It was not the real me) but I will just point out some issues you may not be aware of.

Out of the many hundreds of hours of filming, Sidra Khan, the director chose to show one hour of the most negative parts of the four weeks. She did not show any of the occasions on which I threw myself wholeheartedly into the project. She did not show me having a tattoo in a tattoo parlour (bet that surprises you!) riding on the back of motorbikes with Nikki, dancing into the night with Harry and various other rockers and getting on with Harry... I never at any stage criticised Harry. The very careful editing and pointed questions made it seem otherwise. And by the way the house wasn't hers (she lives in Ascot... how very rock!)it was rented for the four weeks by channel 4... yet another of the many cons!! And did you know that I spent just as much time with my other mentor singing teacher, Nikki who has become a good friend of mine and with whom I got on really well. Strange that they didn't show any of that or the footage of her lifting me in the air after the final gig? Of course they wouldn't would they because those were positive aspects!

And another bombshell. Did you have any idea that Faking It is scripted? Every single event, movement and reaction by me and my mentors was planned well in advance of even meeting me! So much for spontaneity and life-changing experiences! At the beginning of Week 2 I found the script which Khan carelessly left behind after a days filming and discovered that I was to be reduced to tears the following Friday by the band who were going to tell me I was rubbish - even though I hadn't even met them at this point! and that my first gig was going to be lied about to me and then thrust upon me at the last minute with no preparation time. Nice people eh? When I found this the production nearly stopped and quite frankly I wish it had. From then on it was Khan's intent to portray badly. She'd been told off by her boss, Stephen Lambert and wanted to get her revenge.

Finally to those of you who have asked why did I do it... I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. Khan misled me from the beginning. I was conned into signing a contract by saying that the show would make good use of my classical voice. I was under the impression that I would be performing on the West End stage or something like that... at the beginning of filming I was told I would be transformed into a Blondie-style singer... it was only when I went for my make-over two weeks into the project that the punk rock element was thrust on me.

So there you have it. Faking It is one big fake from start to finish. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this email gets removed. After all they've already removed me from the list of shows on this website!

Anyway, there's plenty more I could say but I'm really not bothered about it anymore. I am very happy with the REAL life of Laura-Jane Foley!"

reader's comments 6: live earth

2007-07-21T14:15:00.000+01:00

Plenty of responses (6 to be exact), to the Live Earth opinion piece I did last week. All of which arguing the opposite to my silly idealist standpoint. Let's take a look at some of the highlights.

Rachel Bullock, 19, from Derby, wrote:

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the politicians the ones that are telling us about global warming/climate change issues? The outcome of Live Earth has been a lot of people talking about things that we already know about (recycling, carbon footprint etc etc etc) and a lot more people slagging off the whole concept.

I really don't need the likes of Madonna and Al Gore telling me all about the little things I can do to help save the environment. Thank you very much, I already recycle, use public transport and turn the lights off when I leave the room. Maybe if they didn't fly everywhere in private jets that seat about 20 people, I wouldn't find it so hypocritical."

I think there's a big difference between what politicians are telling us about, and what they actually know are the most important issues to their constituents. The issues that the people are raising most are those that they then take back to Parliament and change begins to get lobbied for. If nobody puts on this pressure then nothing changes. This is the process Live Earth taps into: trying to get the people pressurising the politicians.

Well done for being one of those that doesn't need Al Gore and Madonna telling you what you need to be doing. If everybody was in your situation we wouldn't have a problem would we?

This whole "all the artists were flown in private jets" argument is way overblown as well. Performers took the minimal carbon producing forms of transport possible to the event, and backstage, were learning about their worse-than-most contributions to the problem, and how their impacts can be reduced. So Live Earth was partly about lobbying these musicians that everybody says are such major part of the problem.

Amy Harrison, 29, from Sunderland, wrote:

"Many people in Britain already know about climate problems, the people who really need to be educated about it are the Americans, and hardly any of them watched the event, so it was a bit of a flop there."

Again, not enough people in this country understand the issue, so the concert is worthwhile. Things still need to be changed. Once they have been, we can lead by example in convincing the rest of the world. Obviously, nothing is going to change over night, but with small steps like Live Earth, perceptions start to change and actions start to be taken.

Tom Riley, 17, from Gingertown, returns to reply:

"Muldoon Muldoon Muldoon! I was saying its a waste of time, effort and pollution. 31,500 tonnes, it was a waste of time. Why hold 10 concerts, why not 1 televised worldwide live?
Too much for too little mate!"

Well, because you need to go to these countries to put the point across. Or else the global interest would've been even lower. It's all about small steps, Tom. And for arguments already outlined, the ends justify the means.

Richard Stratford, 42, from South Korea, wrote:

"This thing was a waste of time. There will be no positive fallout from the UK concerts, and where raising awareness was a necessary issue, the event was bungled. As was said above, the American leg was a flop, and the even more necessary Shanghai leg was attended by a whopping 3,000 people.
Although i hold nothing against those that attended these concerts, and would even say that the intention of the organisers was noble, someone soon must realise that if you want to bring about real change, the answer is not always to put on a concert. People attend for the performers, and any impetus for change created by their attendance is fleeting and quickly forgotten."

See, I disagree. It's not as if Live Earth is the only thing that's being done to stop climate change, it's just one thing, as part of a wider movement. And as part of that movement, it's been successful. You cannot argue that it hasn't improved the attention given to the issue. And that all helps the process slowly come to the attention of the global community. Again, the perceptions of the local Shanghai population isn't going to be changed overnight by one concert. I admit that. But it still helps give the issue an airing where it needs it.

I think with all the global problems of poverty, climate change and the Iraq war of the last few years, we've created a generation of cynics. People who's instinct is to assume the worst, to critique everything, instead of getting behind movements like Make Poverty History and Live Earth. Everything is a target for a public mauling nowadays.

Meh, thoughts please.

my final harry potter book prediction

2007-07-16T12:59:00.000+01:00

Can I make a prediction about this new Harry Potter book please? The one that's being built up around the fact that one of the lead characters dies?

Now, I haven't read any of the books, and only have vague recollections of seeing some of one of the films once, but I still want to be the first to make this prediction about which of the little ones is going to cork it. And that prediction is: none of them.

It's the best plot device in the world to base a book around the fact that at some point, one of the lead characters is going to die. Everybody will be super-tense while they're reading to find out who it is.

This JK Rowling woman will be able to have fun with it, playing with reader's emotions by mixing up who's getting into near-death situations. But the surprise factor won't be there when one of them pops their clogs now. Instead, why not surprise everybody and give them the fairy tale happy ending they'd all secretly love?

There you go, that's my prediction. Either that or all of them end up dying from an Anthrax attack or something. That'd be funny.

drunken internet stupidity

2007-07-14T15:41:00.000+01:00

Many of us will be familiar with the problem: you get home after a night out, drunk, log on to the internet, and send a couple of emails/instant messages/Facebook wall posts you might live to regret when the sobriety of morning arrives. We've all done it before, right?

So Lord knows what was going through my head last night when I got home and instead of logging in for a quick Facebook session, I started posting comments on the BBC News Editors Blog instead...

They haven't published any comments I made, so Lord knows what I wrote, but it can't of made much sense.

My actions scare me sometimes.

in defence of live earth

2007-07-12T17:51:00.000+01:00

Friend, former workmate and ginger person Tom Riley is amongst a few of my friends who disagree with my thoughts on Live Earth. He writes:

"Yeah, I read on the news that the carbon footprint of the event is akin to moving an entire army across the globe...See with Live 8 and Aid it could work cos people could donate, but this had no point apart from being a big knees up. Pointless, could have spent millions of pounds on clean carbon free technology, but no, lets listen to Kanye West and the Pussycat Dolls....hmm!"

Oh Tom, you make me cry inside. Cry like a disabled goat, or something.

Right: putting on the Live Earth events caused some CO2 to be released. True fact. No arguments there.

Most people seem to be arguing that you can't put on a CO2 causing event with the intention of reducing CO2. Right? Well, it's a worthwhile argument to make.

Worthwhile, but also a bit rubbish. Compare it to an event like Comic Relief. I'm assuming it probably costs the BBC some money to put on Comic Relief. Presumably a fair bit of money, yes? But, hang on there BBC, how dare you spend this money when they could instead just give that money straight to charity?

But every couple of years the BBC puts Red Nose Day on. Why? Because the end justifies the means. Far more benefit will come from the money that the event raises than what it cost to hold the event. So, explain to me how Live Earth and CO2 emissions differentiate from this?

What was Live Earth trying to do? Get word out to as many people as possible that they need to a) do the little things that reduce their own carbon footprint, and b) lobby politicians to let them know that this is a matter we care deeply about.

In terms of getting that message out, it's been a spot on success. Everybody certainly knew the event was happening, and it's kept the climate change issue very much top of the news agenda recently, where it otherwise might not have been - what with all this terrorism and stuff going on a the moment. Indeed, the controversy around the whole event has probably helped. Whilst everybody is debating whether it's right or not, very few are arguing that a reduction in CO2 emissions isn't necessary. And all this debate just keeps reminding people of that need.

Above all, this is a situation that desperately requires some action. Somebody needed to do something. The Live Earth organisers have got off their backsides and done something. What thanks do they get? A bunch of Daily Telegraph readers telling them they're pretty much solely responsible for climate change themselves. Which is unfair, and a really quite awful considering the effort they are putting in. If you haven't done anything, then they are better than you. People who are cynical about such things are, in my mind, tossers.

smoking ban update

2007-07-03T21:45:00.000+01:00

Well, that was a bit of a panic over nothing. Having worked the last three nights in a busy city centre bar (i.e. the last night of smoking and the first two nights of the ban) we have in total had to ask one person who was just lighting up not to. At which point they apologised profusely for forgetting. No need for bars to complain about losing trade either, last night was really busy for a Monday night.

Plenty of people seem to be taking it as an opportunity to give up the tobacco as well, which is great. Some people do disagree with the ban sure, but most - smokers included - seem to be all for it.

I'm working all this weekend which should be the first real test of the ban. I imagine it'll be just as much of a non event.

damn all the racists

Okay: is everybody suddenly a racist nowadays? I often chat to my regular bus driver on Nottingham's #99 nightbus home, but I only just found out the other night that he's actually a big awful racist. And would vote for the BNP if there was somebody standing in his area.

After that time the other night at Cookie Club, I made damn sure to challenge him. Queue a 40 minute argument on the topic.

Stupid racists. Of course, his mind wasn't changed one jot by my assertions. Racists seem to be like that. Do me a favour please: if you're thinking about becoming a racist, please don't. It's a really really awful thing. Thank you.

a conversation i had in cookie club last night

2007-06-30T14:46:00.000+01:00

Cookie Club in Nottingham last night, I bump into an old school friend of mine on the dancefloor. Conversation continues well enough for a few minutes, before I come out and ask him straight: "So, are you still a racist?"

Yes, it would appear. Some of his highlights of the following conversation include...

"If I'm on the Underground and I don't like the look of somebody that gets on, I get off and wait for the next train"

"Right then", I replied, "so you are still a racist I take it?"

"Look Mark, I might be a little bit racist, but as I see it, it's better to be racist than dead"

Urgh. URGH. What a tosser. When pushed further for his reasoning he said that as I was brought up in Nottingham I had no appreciation for the situation, that he's well versed in being from Bradford. Even the local papers, he says, report the bare facts of the situation where a lot of non-white people are responsible for a large proportion of the crime (I have yet to investigate whether or not Bradford's local press is owned by the Daily Mail).

Would any of our Yorkshire cousins like to comment on these opinions? At that point in the conversation anyway, I simply had to walk away. But I wish I'd challenged him more, instead of him floating along not thinking his opinions are utterly deplorable.

So yeah, in conclusion: URGH.

glastonbury 2007: the review

2007-06-26T17:56:00.001+01:00

Say what you like about Glastonbury Festival, it's never anything less then a huge event. I was there for the forth time in a row this year, and have now written a review of it. For you to read with your eyes and that.

It all starts at 10:20 in Nottingham Broadmarsh Bus Station with Harriet, and the beginning of a deeply unpleasant coach journey. Before setting out we're warned that the air-conditioning isn't working. No big deal when we're getting nice air flow through windows whilst pelting down the motorway, but just you wait for the 2 hours spent at crawling speed once you get near the festival. Sweltering does not even begin to describe it. Still, we're uncomplaining people, and at least Harriet's got a few links on Radio 1 to do to keep us entertained for a bit (which would include us both singing 'The Wheels On The Bus' to Edith Bowman's 4 million listeners, as well as getting Divine Comedy - National Express played, something I'm particularly proud of).

So 2 hours on the swelterbus pass, and we approach the festival's makeshift bus station. Except, in a momentary confusion our silly coach driver mistakes a warden's 'come on in' hand signal to mean 'go that other way please', and the coach makes it's way in the opposite direction despite passenger protest and another long queue that we are now roaring past. The coach has to go find the nearest roundabout before rejoining the queue, and we have to spend an extra hour and a half rapidly dehydrating aboard that humid hell hole. FTO National Express: please stop subcontracting out lucrative festival operations to idiots. Thank you.

Still, we're there, and the next 36 hours are the expected mix of exploring and drinking, and then it's Friday and time for some bands (for most of us anyway, Jess would be throwing up most of the day and only recover in time to see Fatboy Slim's headline DJ set).

We see promising little bits of The Cribs and Modest Mouse in between ducking off to do more links for Radio 1. This time including a rendition of Busted - Year 3000 - truly we are cool - and Lucy giving a big mention to the fact that we're going to try and play some SingStar in The Q tent later. (Actually, if Lucy had been the DJ giving SingStar such a mention, Sony's PR people would've been so pleased they would've sent round a free PS3 to the radio station within a couple of hours. Get in touch please, Sony people.)

All that done with, it was time to see Bright Eyes, who delivered a perfectly pleasant set, which I now have no other recollection of. Not the most memorable performance then, obviously. Then it was over to see most of The Magic Numbers set, who were hitting all the right sunshine-pop buttons, even if their current album is crap. Perfect mid-afternoon festival entertainment, regardless.

The same, however, can't be said of Bloc Party, who fall flat. A poor sound mix doesn't help, but they fail to grasp the logic of playing to festival crowds, with minimal interaction and a refusal to play two of their singles (I Still Remember and Two More Years), which must amount to festival suicide. They still just about manage to get people moving, but this was a lazy and naive performance.

No such arrogance from The Fratellis, who's party-rock vibe is exactly what needs injecting into proceedings. It's an admirable set from a band on only their first album, they're visibly giving it their all, and everybody enjoys themselves.

Arcade Fire are billed as one of the main events of the weekend, but something is missing. This may be my fault: I'm late entering the crowd and have to contend with knocking about at the back where the crowd is middle-aged and the sound is lacking a satisfying level of volume. Then again, Win Butler's taunting of the apparently sedate crowd would suggest blame might lay elsewhere. Any Arcade Fire show is always something special, but this wasn't close to the legendary performance they're capable of.

On a day of two of my favourite bands underwhelming, thank the Lord himself for Damien Rice. One could happily spend the evening with the embarrassment of riches headlining other stages (Bjork, Hot Chip, Damien Marley, Fatboy Slim, Spiritualized or Arctic Monkeys), but at the Acoustic Tent Rice is performing above even his usual standards. It's a blazing, vitriolic show that is impossible not to get caught up in, and away from the technical difficulties of the main stages every beat of sound is perfect. In short: the best set of Glastonbury 2007.

Saturday comes, and The 'somehow-haven't-found-mainstream-success' Pipettes have an early start on the Pyramid stage. They attract a sparse crowd, but entertain them well with their collection of three-minute pop ditties.

Three-minute pop ditties aren't quite what Guillemots excel at. Instead they play with an added sense of occasion and scale layered on top of their already unique gig proposition. It won't help them gain widespread success, but they are very deserving of their cult status.

CSS play to a huge mid-afternoon crowd on the other stage, and rise to the occasion with balloons floating from everything and anything on stage. Ever-dedicated leadsinger Lovefoxx still suffers from a voice that suggests the record company are working her into the ground, but the energy she brings is remarkable, and as it proves, infectious. They will have made many new fans here.

It's a different kind of energy next from Klaxons, namely: drunk energy. Performing right on the edge for the full hour, it's a gloriously chaotic and haphazard set from three guys who are clearly loving every minute.

It's back to the tent for a bit, as I'd rather eat toenail clippings then stick around for Babyshambles and their unique bout of Kate Moss duetting hyperbole.

Returning for Maximo Park is a necessity though. As Paul Smith himself says: "we haven't got special guests, balloons or cheesy moves, all we've got is some songs we think you might like", which sounds like as perfect a summary of the band as is possible. Indeed, Maximo are in danger of getting lost on a bill as big as Glastonbury's, but they just about have the quality of songs to see them through.

Editors are a band moving away from their previous label of indie also-rans, if their new songs are anything to go by. Given that the audience don't know many of the songs on offer here, and that those songs aren't exactly snappy catchy pop gems, they are a remarkable success.

And then it is to the Pyramid Stage for headliners The Killers, who are the four hundredth band to suffer technical difficulties. At times the sound volume is dire, and the rest of the time just irritatingly quiet. The band are performing well, if failing to make the audience connection the legendary headliners of the past have (Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Radiohead, The Flaming Lips). By no means a disaster, lump it with Oasis's 2004 set as one of missed opportunities.

Sunday arrives, and this hungover and sleep deprived festival goer manages to muster the energy to see The Sunshine Underground, who prove to be well worth the effort. They do nothing different from their usual live show, but that show is so good they don't need to. Well worth checking them out if you're curious.

Then it's back to bed, to recuperate for a heavy evening session, that begins with a phone call from my brother - who announces I've got a 2:1 in my degree - just before seeing The Go! Team on the Other Stage. Needless to say, I'm in the party mood, and Go! Team are the perfect accessory to any party. It's a sparse crowd for an evening slot, but those present lap up new songs and old alike, and they are a real highlight.

Then, one of the real events of this year: Pendulum in the East Dance Tent. New live band, rare live performance, and a feverish level of expectation. Which they subsequently rose to. None of us stop dancing for the full duration, and it's the most enjoyable act of the weekend. Only it's brevity - they played for just 50 of their billed 60 minute show - stopped it being the set of the festival. Quite simply, nobody was yet ready to say goodbye.

Chemical Brothers are left to round off the weekend, which they do with all the slickness you'd expect. The sound was still too quiet, but by then everybody was used to the problem and we didn't let it ruin anything.

Then it was to The Park to further celebrate, followed by a 4am walk across the site in torrential rain wearing just a t-shirt and jeans. A mad predicament, but then, it wouldn't be Glastonbury without it.

Right, that was Glastonbury 2007. Who's joining us for 2008?

departing manchester's student scene, my new microblog, and amstell recognition

2007-06-19T02:31:00.000+01:00

There's nothing quite like a link from a proper well-regarded media website to send traffic to your blog soaring. It's even better when it's actual recognition from the website of your favourite TV show (over on the right hand side there). I also thought: I'd better actually write something is this blog then.

And well. it's all going on at the moment. Hence why I haven't really had time to blog. As some know, I'm no longer either a student, or a resident of Manchester. To that end, it was probably high time I changed the name of this here blog from "postcards from the manchester student scene".

Hope you don't hate the new name, I preferred it to "postcards from the nottingham graduate scene"

Also: there's Glastonbury. We're heading down there on Wednesday. I'll probably do a review posting and videoblog upon my return, but in an effort to be more instantaneous (and because Facebook hasn't bothered to set up Facebook Mobile in the UK yet), I've signed up to Twitter.

Not all that many people know it, so basically: I send text messages (or go on the website, less inventively) whenever I want, saying whatever i'm up to. Think of it as micro-blogging. You people can then keep up with it on my Facebook or Myspace page, on my blog, Twitter.com, or even sign up to receive the updates as texts on your mobile straight away, and totally for free. Perfect if you want or need to keep up with my Glastonbury antics.

Go visit me on http://twitter.com/muldoon if you wish to sign up or owt.

Also on the Glastonbury front, today was our first day of talking about it all this week on Edith Bowman's show.

It was all very good fun, I got to embarrass my brother with a story from his stag weekend, get Pendulum played on daytime national radio, and instigate a debate on how best to humiliate someone in front of 70,000 people.

So: you can listen again on Radio 1 Online, but be sure to listen the rest of this week at 1pm every day to hear us all, and especially on Friday where we hear Edith is going to be coming to find us on site, and spend an hour of the show broadcasting from our tents!

clearest evidence yet that i am a radio one whore

2007-06-16T13:20:00.000+01:00

Anybody listen to Edith Bowman's Radio 1 show? Hope so, because all this coming week, me and my Glastonbury-bound friends are on it.

It's a feature they do called Lunchtime Linkup, where every week they feature a group of people, be it from workplaces, uni coursemates, or whoever, and talk to them for the first hour of each show, between 1 and 2 in the afternoon.

Every day you'll hear at least one of us on there charting our Glastonbury preparation, journey and on-site antics, and i'm starting things off tomorrow with a discussion of stag weekends (given that i'm currently on my brother's one in Cork).

Listen in on air, or listen again at www.bbc.co.uk/radio1 if you're curious!

happy birthday muldoon/blog

2007-06-06T19:54:00.000+01:00

Not that I expect anybody to actually care, but today marks the 2 year anniversary of my first internet blog post.

From very humble (read: awful) beginnings as a MSN Spaces blog through on to more regular blogs on Myspace back when everybody was jumping on it's filthy bandwagon around the start of 2006, to then seeing if I could get anywhere with a proper blog when I was living in Dublin and Tenerife last summer, it's been quite a journey.

Lord knows if I'll still be doing this 2 years from now, somehow I doubt it. I'll probably be sitting in Bermuda sipping a 95% alcohol drink, reflecting on my time serving in the Royal Space Army or something. But here's to those two years anyway. And hey: thanks for reading.