Be prepared

It is July tomorrow, I should be thinking what Christmas single I am going to put out in December

A la  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Eck6rox0s  I am thinking along the lines of ...

White Christmas - I wanna Christmas
White Christmas - a Christmas of my own
White Christmas - I wanna Christmas
White Christmas - a Christmas of my own

Black people gotta lotta presents
But they don't mind throwing a snowball
While white people go to school
Where they teach you how to program in Cobol

An' everybody's singing
Gloved hands to hold too
An' nobody wants
To go to bed!

White Christmas - I wanna Christmas
White Christmas - a Christmas of my own
White Christmas - I wanna Christmas
White Christmas - a Christmas of my own

All the love is in the air
no one's rich enough to buy it
While we walk the streets
singing carols even as we mince pie it

Everybody's singing
Gloved hands to hold too
Nobody wants
To go to bed!

White Christmas - I wanna Christmas
White Christmas - a Christmas of my own
White Christmas - I wanna Christmas
White Christmas - a Christmas of my own

Are you taking orders?
'cause if you're taking orders
I will have some cocktails
and please bring me some h'orderves

athlete

The Bomber had his last primary school sports day yesterday. He won every single event except the javelin and he came second in that by a centimetre.

The Thursday before that he won the long jump and ran the final winning leg of the relay as his school won the Merton Primary Athletics Championships 2012.

This term he's training at the school running club with Vicky Griffiths, who represented Great Britain at 800m at the World Athletics Championships in 2010, and was also a GB Senior International at 4x400m Relay and U20 at 400m.

I am sometimes astounded that he's related to me.

Plumbing the depths

Don't ask me how, but the Bomber's mate Jonnie managed to mess up the flushing mechanism on the upstairs toilet last night.

I stripped it down and shut the water off, and I've been doing a little online research this morning; it looks to me as if I will have to replace a Gerberit Impuls260 dual flush valve.

It seems that Facebook's heuristics have been misled by my intense interest in faulty plumbing however; they're promoting a "discreet male catheter" to me in one of the adverts on the left of my stream. Stream! Geddit? Geddit? Funny!

ExCeL

The British Olympic Association (BOA) announced the 14 athletes that will represent Team GB in the men’s and women’s judo events at the London 2012 Olympic Games, yesterday.

Winston Gordon (35; born and lives Tooting) got the men’s -90kg berth for his third successive games.

I sometimes feel like I go on and on about this, but I am awed by the physical (injuries and rivals) plus the political (last August, Margaret Hicks his original mentor, was sacked as the BJA's elite performance director) obstacles he has overcome with this achievement.

90kg Men Olympic Judo - Wed, 1 August.

Lil' Pulp Fiction

It is never too early to introduce one's offspring to the Tarantino universe.

Gamblers Anonymous

Mum and Dad met the owners of Black Caviar a couple of weeks ago when they were cruising down the Rhine. She won the Diamond Jubilee Stake over the weekend, so here  they are being presented with the trophy by the Queen; extremely cool.

P.S. I bet £20 on Black Caviar at 2 to 7 so I won £5.71 on the race myself. I then reinvested the £25.71 at 15 to 8 for England to beat Italy in the Euro-footy last night, so I am back down to nothing.

Go Kart Mozart

The sleevenotes for Go Kart Mozart's third album take almost as long to read as its 18 tracks take to play. There is a reading list, containing books on sociology, music and mental illness, many of which appear to be made up: you'll search Amazon in vain for Sanitary Ramblings: Women With Their Knickers Down by Dr Ono Powers. There is a playlist, which reveals that On the Hot Dog Streets was made under the influence of both Wiley's Avalanche Music 1 and Thing, a flop 1972 novelty single by Edwina Biglet and the Miglets. And there is a list of potential band names for anyone inspired by the album itself and "thinking of having a go": Doughnut Corporation, Female Rejection, Unlikely Pub, Bing Bong Crosby.
.....read the while thing...

I read the review above in a chanced-upon Grauniard, waiting alone early at the bar and genuinely cried and snorted with laughter, all on my Jack, to the evident bemusement of the other customers. Without hearing a note, I have a new musical hero.

alike in dignty

To the Albert Hall last night to celebrate the 50th anniversary of West Side Story with a high definition film screening that had the score played live by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.

The movie's fifty and I'm fifty one. Unlike other classics we grow younger.

Something's coming, I don't know what it is, but it is gonna be great!

Happy Birthday to me

Here's the present I got myself.

In Patagonia

Argentina turns to Wales for help with Falkland Islands

Buenos Aires is thought to have been trying to capitalise on historical links between Wales and Argentina.

In Patagonia, in the south of the country, a dialect of the Welsh language is spoken among thousands of expat descendants of Welsh ancestors who first settled there in 1865.

The settlers built Welsh chapels and their descendants even organise a regular cultural festival. In 2004, the Welsh speakers in Argentina asked to access Welsh television programmes to encourage the growth of the language.

During the Falklands War between Britain and Argentina 30 years ago, there were Welsh language speakers in both sets of troops.

That last sentence is as sad and poignant a thing as I've read in a long time; Kirchner's and Cameron's UN grandstanding are equally distasteful if you want my opinion,

Ho ho, very satirical

I took this picture lunchtime yesterday. If you can sit on the the shelf labelled BUTTS and get your laughing gear around the hole labelled GUM you are more flexible than I am and I've been to one hundred and seventy odd yoga classes.

Breaking the surface

Prodnose: Very pretty, General. Very pretty. But, can they fight?

Myself: It is interesting that Microsoft displayed ARM and x86 versions of the hardware.

Prodnose: Not to me it isn't.

Awesome!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman recently participated in a live chat with The One Ring's Cliff Broadway. During the discussion Kevin revealed that Michael Bay's Ninja Turles will draw inspiration from the fighting styles showcased in The Raid: Redemption (See Icons passim).

You can see said revelation 1:32:55 into this video.

"Michael Bay's Ninja Turles will draw inspiration from the fighting styles showcased in The Raid, " is too much weird in one sentence for me (they want a more credible fighting style for mutant turtles perhaps?), but it has to be acknowledged Mr. Bay can laugh at himself as well as at us.

Furtherst Day

I was genealogically adrift last week in the run up to Father's Day as the Bomber was away camping in Ashdown Forest with the school, while my mum and dad were cruising on the Rhine.

Everyone's back now, and I am taking Ben and Raybs out for Chinese food later so so order is restored to the universe.

I broke the Tarantino code

More revision above for the cinema round in Monday's increasingly esoteric quiz. (It turns out that the guy who sets the questions used to be a film student. He gave me a point for Bubba Ho-Tep last week. The actual quote was from Army of Darkness, but he grokked that they referenced it in the Elvis v The Mummy movie;the technical term, I believe, is a second order Bruce Campbell differential.)

The McKitterick Prize

Ginney Bailey (sister of Greg with whom I've had many a drink in the Gower and the Claude) has won the 2012 Society of Authors' McKitterick Prize, for first novels by writers over the age of 40.

Isn't that great? (Sometimes I feel like almost everyone I know has published a novel or made a movie.)

Only a few minutes until lunch!

Call me anything but (don't call me) late for dinner.

Leveson Inquiry: Winners and Losers

As Rebekah Brooks appears in court over phone hacking 'cover up' claims, her well orchestrated PR fight back begins:

See Icons Passim

There's a city in the Ukraine (see Icons Passim) that was founded in 1869 by a Welsh businessman, John Hughes, who constructed a steel plant and several coal mines in the region; the town was named Yuzovka (Юзовка) in recognition of his role in its founding ("Yuz" being a Russian or Ukrainian approximation of Hughes).

In the Soviet era it was renamed to Staline,and then Stalino.

Today it's called Donetsk, and it is where England drew with France in Euro 2012 last night.

Isn't that great?

O.S? Oh Yes

I am finding Safari Reader which "displays web articles sans ads or clutter so you can read without distractions" to be a huge boon reading web content on the browser. It is also one in the eye for megalomaniac graphic designers, which can't be a bad thing.

By way of contrast with regards to usability, I couldn't even work out how to log off from Windows 2012 Release Candidate Datacenter from the dreaded Metro interface.

QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM

(Note to self: Brushes is the iPad app that David Hockney has used to such acclaim. That has got to be worth £5.49 to try out at some time.)

Noob Training

I play minecraft with my Dad. It's funny because he is new and fails miserably!

The Bomber and I watched a great deal of this last night. I can't help but feel I'm being subtly guyed.

Not you, fat Jesus

"Not you fat Jesus," being one of the quotes that defeated my in last week's quiz (Icons passim), I watched The Hangover via iTunes last night as gross-out-comedy homework. Hand on heart, it was actually pretty funny.

Myself: You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack. But when my sister brought Doug home, I knew he was one of my own. And my wolf pack... it grew by one. So there... there were two of us in the wolf pack... I was alone first in the pack, and then Doug joined in later. And six months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys, I thought, "Wait a second, could it be?" And now I know for sure, I just added two more guys to my wolf pack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. So tonight, I make a toast!

Prodnose: I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.

Myself: Leave me a message, or don't, but do me a favor: don't text me, it's gay.

Prodnose: Young, young man. Did anyone ever tell you you look like a young prince out of the 'Arabian Nights'?

Myself:: Would you please put some pants on? I feel weird having to ask you twice.

Prodnose: Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Myself: Paging Dr. Faggot. Dr. Faggot!

Prodnose: Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable! It is the one unforgivable thing, in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty.

Two cheers

Microsoft released a preview of Windows Azure Virtual Machine yesterday.

Virtual Machines give you application mobility, allowing you to move your virtual hard disks (VHDs) back and forth between on-premises and the cloud. Migrate existing workloads such as Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft SharePoint to the cloud, bring your own customized Windows Server or Linux images, or select from a gallery.

To deploy the inelegant jargon, this makes it a provider of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) as well as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

That it has taken this long to announce a competitor to Amazon's EC2 is brain dead quite frankly. "The service is expected to move to General Availability by the end of the calendar year," so its not as if we can use it in anger until 2013.

Two cheers only.

And I beheld ...

Cardiff City confirm change to red kit from traditional blue.

1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

"Red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword." Friggin' awesome!

blah blah blah

Violent peace
blah blah blah
buy it right now
blah blah blah
we are the world
we are so huge
blah blah blah
johnny can't read
blah blah blah
I' can't see
blah blah blah
tuna on white
guns all night
blah blah blah
Saying nothing with Iggy and the Writers' Guild of America.

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Hubris and imperial overstretch last night as our three week reign as winners of the Monday night quiz at the Antelope in Tooting came to an end.

As a rule it is my imperious form in the final round of film quotes that puts the foot to the enemy's neck. Classics and indie fayre are where I generally make hay but last night's tone was a little, shall we say, broader.

To take one epic fail at random,  I've never even seen Pineapple Express far less committed its screenplay to heart.

"Has anyone seen my bigger knife?" is the deathless dialogue I couldn't identify.from that.putative Library of Congress' National Film Registry candidate.

If there is a bad-taste-comedy genre, I'm pretty much with it up to Porky's. But after that nothing, and it's 30 years old now.

This week I will be mostly rentin' and watchin' Talladega Nights::The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Knocked Up, Superbad, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,  Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Drillbit Taylor,  Step Brothers,  Pineapple Express, Year One, Funny People, Get Him to the Greek, and Bridesmaids.

Expect a coarsening of sensibility and a steady decline in IQ points.

On blogging

Myself:

I have resolved on an enterprise which has no precedent, and which, once complete, will have no imitator. My purpose is to display to my kind a portrait in every way true to nature, and the man I shall portray will be myself.

Prodnose:

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately.

Hot Chip

It was an iTunes download I grant you, but I have bought a single for the first time, as far as I can recall, since Love Track by the B52s all those years ago, and Hot Chip's Night & Day is my official Bank Holiday Weekend soundtrack.

Player of the Year

The Bomber won U11 Player of the Year at the Old Ruts Awards night yesterday. He got a trophy and a specially monogrammed jersey he can wear to make himself a marked man all next season.

I am over the moon. (If I had my time again though, I'd pay more attention watching the award than to trying to take a photo of the award #mindfulness.)

The job for this afternoon is to work out how I can watch the Wales Barbarian game. On Facebook, the WRU say I can buy the programme on iTunes; on Twitter the Barbarians say the game will be aired live on BBC 2 Wales and on the BBC website, kick off at 2pm so I ought to be able to work something out for all I am in London.

Accordian to Hoyle

Improvising on his accordion, he clucks, shouts and screeches, while looping in audio samples: the result is a sound that is orchestral in its power and range, delivered in a style that is inherently theatrical. Four years ago, he put together a project called Earth Machine Music in which he sampled farm sounds – principally tractors – and weaved them into a concert. Then he worked on a project called Iron Lung, in which performance artist Ville Walo made sculptures out of old accordion bellows while Pohjonen played. Now he is bringing a show to the UK that may even top that for eccentricity: accordion wrestling.

In the show, Pohjonen plays his souped-up, electronic accordion while wrestlers from Helsinki grapple with each other. It is extremely Finnish. How did he get the idea? "Around 15 years ago, I was in the north of Finland and an old accordion player told me he used to play for wrestling matches. I thought it was a joke – but I discovered it was true. It started in the 1920s and was common in the 40s and 50s, when wrestling was the most popular sport in Finland. That was also when accordion players were stars."

This is as mad as a box of frogs. I demand that you read the whole thing.

Look at http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=12898. It's sold out. My faith in human nature is restored.