Random sightings in London

In a city like London, stumbling across a celebrity while out and about isn't all that difficult - Rupert Penry Henry here, Krishan Guru-Murthy there.

This says not only a lot about the city, but also a lot about what constitutes celebrity these days.

The much harder game to play is stumbling across people you actually know - friends, acquaintances, etc. Meeting up with most people you know can be a logistical nightmare at the best of times, involving calendars, emails, mobile phones and random meet up points, so to stumble across one by accident can be quite refreshing.

This random sighting has happened to me now three times in the last few months. Arguably, they've all been my wife's friends, but they're people I know and can hold a conversation with.

If only all get togethers could be through the medium of happenstance, life would be one wonderful accident.

Working that Long Tail

Having perused the blogosphere yesterday I came upon the fact that an album I loved from the late 80s was reissued recently with a load of bonus tracks, taking the original 10 song track listing up to a value-at-twice-the-price 21 tracks.

So, today and yesterday, I decided to trawl my local record shops in search of "Pop Said" by those Welsh troubadours, The Darling Buds. Shock of shock, as they're not gansgta rap or in the immediate top 10, the CD was nowhere to be seen IN A RECORD SHOP.

I had no option, but to high-tail it from the Zavvi Megastore on Oxford Street and log on the web where myself and other lovers of the long tail can purchase whatever we want whenever we want.

I have to say, if I did find it in a bricks and mortar Video Game / DVD shop (let's face it, that's all HMV or Zavvi are now), I would have probably been forced to shell out around £12. A handy search of the web not only got it for me from Play.com for £7.99 but I also managed to find a number of discount codes dropping the final assault on my wallet closer to £7.00

Target acquired and next week I'll be bopping along to the grooves of The Darling Buds début effort... no thanks to the local record shops.

Depressing as...

Everywhere I look in the news and on people's faces, there's tales of gloom. Inflation here, drain on that, it's enough to make you give up.

Having read the paper today, there was a tale that blended the sky-high price of petrol with the sky-high price of food materials, with the conclusion that nothing is coming down in price any time soon. Farmers' costs are up, not enough food is being grown for food (thank you bio-fuel) and the end supermarket price is enough to make you cry.

£1.10 per litre of petrol, a loaf of bread is now over £1. It's just purely depressing, especially at a time of property depression and uncertainty in the market in general.

If this were a video game, I would have given up months ago and hit reset. Maybe the outcome would have been different.

Deal or no deal?

Sometimes you come across something so shocking, it takes your breath away.

Recently, I bought some Sainsbury's basic coffee. It was a whopping 79p for a 227g packet. How bad can it be I asked myself. It's not instant, it's the brewable stuff.

Well, I've answered that question today. It can be really really really bad. I'm not sure there's any phrase I can use to describe it, like a wine lover would describe wine, but I can bandy about terms like burned ash or disgustamundo, and that seems to aptly sum up the taste of this vile creation.

I have to say that although it was only 79p, it was 79p badly spent. I will be ditching this vile excuse for a morning ritual, and sticking to stuff that costs, looks, smells and tastes more expensive.

The Heat is on!

Made it to Melbourne to see my old flat mate Lambros.

We took in the sites and sounds and bottled water shops of the city centre and surrounding subdivisions and areas, which they call suburbs here.

The nasty thing about the day was the weather. It got up to around 35C during the day with no real wind or anything. Even in the evening, coming out of shops and restaurants, it was so warm it felt like someone slapping you in the face with a warm towel. I'm used to the UK summers where it cools down enough in the evening it gets nice. Here it goes from 35C to 28C in the evening. Not good.

I think I can personally put my hand up and claim responsibility for the drought, what with all the water I drank yesterday. It's a dodgy situation, this heat, a drought and humans needing to stay lubricated.

Today apparently isn't going to be much better, as it's scheduled to get up to 36C. I guess I've got another day of squinting and headaches ahead of me. Who, in their right mind, ever claimed this was the favourable type of weather? They must be mad!!

Mobile worries

When Sue and I signed up for new phone contracts, we both opted for 3 as you can use your monthly minutes abroad, as long as your on a sister 3 network. As Australia has a sister 3 network, we thought it would be quite handy for x-mas.

I've been using my 3 mobile to call the UK and Canada via a UK number and unfortunately my alloted minutes hadn't been going down as I was checking them. This, obviously, was leading my imagination to believe I would arrive back in the Uk to a bill rivalling the price of a flight to Australia.

Behold, when I woke up this morning, my alloted minutes had dropped by about 55 minutes and all seems well. A number of emails to the 3 customer help people seems to confirm this, so I am free to call the UK without incurring any international charges.

Hurrah!

Flight East

Arrived this evening in Melbourne, after a 59 minute Virgin Blue flight from Adelaide.

Having done the recent epic flights, 59 minutes was nothing! Didn't even take my shoes off or need the night nurse.

Virgin Blue now has satelite TV on their flights. Oddly, you can watch it free for about 15 minutes then you have to pay $5 for the rest of the flight. Good if you're flying more than 59 minutes!

During the free preview, I managed to catch a classic Arsenal match between the Gunners and Southampton. Of course, true to form, Soton lost 4-1 with LeTissier pulling out the solo Saints goal. Tickled me that I could be so far away and still feel so close to home.

Lambros met me at the airport in his much talked about over the years white Mazda 323.

There were loads of people mingling at the gate waiting for loved ones (a real oddity for me as I usually ... well always travel international and that would be a no-no!) and I was a bit concerned that I might have sailed past the guy. Not to fear, he was waiting for me near the front door.

We've got plenty of fun in store for the next few days, having consumed a couple of beers (Coopers, naturally) and a souvlaki already tonight!

Hoping to catch a Melbourne Victory football match but I have my suspicions this trip doesn't coincide with a home game.

In Oz (incorporating my frying adventure)

We made it to Oz last Wednesday and have a nice relaxing time since we've arrived.

We went down and stayed at this little fishing town called Kingston which is making it self over as a tourist attraction. It's a stone's throw from another town called Robe.

We went for lunch in Robe at this "Seafood restaurant" which got the old taste buds tingling before we even got out of the car. I love fish and seafood and all that. To my dismay, the Aussie use of the word seafood restaurant apparently means chippie to us Brits. You could have seafood cooked one way - deep fried.

Choking back the tears, I ordered a spicy chicken wrap, expecting succulent bits of nice chicken. I got deep fried KFC style chunks of chicken. Not my day.

Later we went out for a pub meal. About the only non-fried thing on the menu was a Caesar salad which I duly ordered, only to be told it was a lunch only thing (apparently no one wants a non-fried meal for dinner). I then ordered the salt and pepper prawns, and in my ignorance was delivered a plate of breaded deep fried crustaceans.

Is it so hard to grill or BBQ a nice piece of fish? What is the fascination with the deep fryer?

The other meal we had was steak. Fair enough. It came on a bed of chips with a baked potato. The veggie table then had a 3rd type of potato if you weren't carbed up enough already.

I don't actually ever remember anyone waxing poetically about Aussie cuisine, and the only remembrance is the old "shrimp on the barbie". Maybe I can amend that to "shrimp in the fryer".

Coffee in Oz

We're currently in Oz, visiting Sue's friends and family for Chrimbo.

It's an oddly warm time of the year, and every now and then a carol or a Christmas light will remind you what time of the year it is.

We just got back today from visiting friends down south in the fishing towns of Kingston and Robe.

Whilst there, I stumbled across this place called Mahalia Coffee. It's like Monmouth in London, in that they do their own roasting. According to their pamphlet, they send the roasted product across most of the country, either for retail sale or by the cup. I bought a bag of Australian Bundja Double Pass at around $18 for 250g (spot the guy on holiday!!!) Figured if you've come this way, why buy what you can get anywhere else.

In an ice cream shop in Robe, they were selling Robe Rock as confection. That just tickled me pink as I imagined oriental people describing it to a police officer.

Rooftop Illnesses

You know when you have something wrong with you and you automatically fear the worst?

I did a search on Google for my symptoms today and it looks like I don't have neck cancer, which is what I thought I had. Turns out it may be shingles, or adult chickenpox (according to the symptoms and the rather graphic images). Apparently you can only get it if you've had chickenpox, so check on that one.

I read the wikipedia entry as well as webmed.com (I think) and from what I can tell I won't die, but I might be contagious, so I guess it's a good time to FINALLY register with a local doctor. This week's gonna be fun!

Oink RIP

Ok ok, I know the news is about a month old, but I do miss the old piggy. That's not really the point of this post though. Since the demise of the pink palace (or actually, slightly before I think), I'd started getting into the phenomenon known as the mp3blog. This is basically where people offer tunes to download to backup a bit of editorial copy they've written.

So, for instance, if I was waxing poetic about a new remix of Duran Duran's latest single "Falling Down", to punctuate my musings I'd post a link to the mp3. Some of the new versions of music players actually allow you to subscribe to these blogs and scrape the tunes from them (ok, I mean Winamp 5.5).

Now my forte is currently 80s remixes that are harder to find than duck's teeth. Most of the collections around take the popular stuff, sure, but no hits collection will give you 9 mixes of a track, or the b-side or the b-side remix or the promo only remixes. This used to be where Oink excelled and now I'm happy to say that apart from the stuff I'm looking for, I've actually discovered a few new mixes of tracks I didn't know about and am actively searching out new artists when I pop into HMV.

Getting it out there!

I've found this amazing web site called Music Nerds.com where you can write reviews of album with track by track commentaries and they'll actually pay you for you contributions! The amount is not much, but if ads on your page are clicked on, you get more.

Anyway, I've written two so far - one for Weird Al's "UHF" and one for Pet Shop Boys' "Actually". I posted the Weird Al one to Digg and just got an email from Music Nerds that it also appeared on Fark, which is just awesome.

So I'm going to write a few more, submit a few more and hopefully have a fun time talking about the music I love. If I make a few bob in the process, well that's just dandy!

Can't stop the Fopp!

Walking through Covent Garden today, I was over the moon when I discovered Fopp has reopened. Rumours of HMV having difficulty with landlords, etc. have proven to be unfounded and the best record shop in town is back in business.

Can't wait to devote a nice lunch time to perusing the DVDs, books and CDs and coming away with a few winners.

It's ain't easy being green

Trying my darndest being a greenie, as I want a planet for my kids to grow up on.

Everywhere I look it just depresses me how much waste there is and how no one seems to care. At work, everyone prints EVERY THING out! Talk about your horrendous waste there.

Then there's the kettle situation. I saw a great ad years ago that said you can really reduce the electricity you use if you just boil the water you need for your drink. Every time I'm in the kitchen some "Good Samaritan" is busy boiling away two full kettles for no one. Next person comes in for a cuppa and reboils BOTH full kettles.

Out and about, all the bins near work are full of easily and OBVIOUSLY recyclable materials - paper, paper, paper, plastic bottles, etc. Why are these not being dealt with properly? I read about a guy in Ottawa actually getting busted for recycling glass and other materials in peoples' trash. It should be them getting busted for not-recycling, not the homeless man trying to make 10c/bottle and saving the planet from us.

I just wonder if we, as humans, should actually be here. We're turning this planet in to our own private rubbish tip and not a lot of people seem to care. It's the whole "not my problem" and "someone else will deal with it" situation. I don't think so and the next few years will prove me right.

What year is this?

I got a newsletter from Ticketmaster in my email and have to question what year it actually is.

Lead off news is tickets for Buzzcocks go onsale soon. Not content with them? How about Teenage Fanclub or Spice Girls.

Man alive. I guess it proves the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Actually I think it proves how out of touch with reality record labels are becoming that people are still flocking to bands who broke up YEARS ago!

I can't see bands like Hear'Say selling out their 30th anniversary shows in 38 seconds for some reason.

Radiohead's new pay what you want album

I know you need a fan base before you can go it alone, but I'm really enjoying Radiohead's new attitude, now they're free of the shackles of EMI (so would argue it was those shackles that allowed them to get the place they are today).

Their new album In Rainbows is getting set for release either on 2x12" vinyl/2xCD or download. The vinyl/CD box is quite pricey, but comes with LOADS of stuff. The intriguing option though is the download.

As the band are basically label free, they can do what they want and what they want is to offer the album for download on a pay what you want basis. Essentially, you can get the new album, DRM-free for free (if you want to be really mean).

Canadian musician Jane Sibbery did this a couple of years ago and found that given the option of setting your own price, people actually did.

I have to say that 99p/c/whatever a track is a bit steep, and I enjoy picking up the odd CD at Virgin or HMV for £4.99, and would be comfortable paying that. Why CDs were ever £15 is way beyond me.

I'm intruged enough by the new Radiohead proposition that come 10 October, I'll be over their site downloading it and giving them what I deem a proper amount of coin for an album.

Link: RadioheadLP7.com

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Now playing: Depeche Mode - Flexible (Remixed Extended)
via FoxyTunes

Death

One of the crappy things about getting old is that your friends start dying off. When you hit around 70-80, you start to look like last man standing. This I've seen first hand from my grandparents.

There's a crappy step in between that I forgot about until recently - when your mates' parents start dropping off. C's dad died in 99, R's dad died back in 2001, and now F's mum last week and I just found out about L's dad today.

I'm always in shock when this happens, as a) it's a crappy thing to happen to my mates, b) I knew their folks and it's a loss and c) it drums home that it could happen to me (or you).

The most shocking thing I think is that I've kinda prepared myself to be the Last Man Standing^TM when I'm 84, but this death of a mates' parent thing sorta sideswiped me.

Preparation is all well and true I guess for the expected, you just gotta handle the curve balls when life throws them at you.

Hockey Night In ... England??

When I moved back to the UK in 2000, I wanted to re-embrace my heritage and discard all that was North American. How foolish. Britain in the naughties is more American that probably even Canada now.

Having shed that idea, I decided not to turn my back on several decades of Canadian upbringing and actually relish the things that I held dear to myself over the years. This went from music - like Platinum Blonde, Pursuit of Happiness, Chalk Circle, etc. to Tim Horton's coffee and even hockey. I used to be a mad hockey fan, watching Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday on a small 10" black and white telly in the family room.

It was a colliding of lives when the NHL announced that for the first time ever, two of their teams would play regular season games outside of North America. Where oh where would they go? To a hockey loving, NHL feeding country like Sweden or Germany or even Russia? No. They're playing in England, the country where the word hockey evokes images of girls in skirts and curly sticks. To be more precise, they're playing at what used to be called the Millennium Dome.

The two teams involved are both West Coasters - the LA Kings and the Anaheim Ducks (nee Mighty Ducks). The Ducks just won the Stanley Cup in June, so we get to arguably see the best hockey team in North America.

I'm pretty psyched, a lot more so than I would have been in 2000.

Goes to show time doesn't just heal all wounds, it also makes you grow up.
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Now playing: The Pursuit Of Happiness - I'm An Adult Now
via FoxyTunes

Morosey

Sometimes when the demons aren't taking up all my thoughts, I wonder why we are here and what the point of it all is.

Bear with me.

Everyone know that global warming, climate change and an incredibly dumbfounded apathy on most people's behalf is going to turn this planet into Venus' SLIGHTLY cooler neighbour sooner than later. The fact is I feel my hands are tied and any changes I try to make are a drop in the bucket when colleagues leave PCs on for extended periods, the rubbish bins in parks are full or recyclables and supermarkets just over package like crazy. Still I plod on.

Also entering my consciousness is a worry that the economy is eating itself from the inside. In another generation or so, people will wonder why there was ever a high street or shopping precinct when everything is either downloadable or purchasable off the internet. This came roaring home during a rather limp walk around Virgin Megastore today. There's nothing inspiring there, no "wow! gotta have it". There's used to be. All the time. Now everything's moving to the internet and these shops on life support limp on, blissfully unaware that their time is almost up.

The thing that got in a funky mood today was an article in the The Ecologist magazine about soft drinks and bottled water. Basically, whatever goes in my mouth is going to kill me. From sweeteners like Aspartame (which breaks down into some amazingly carcinogenic ooze) and Sucralose (which is better, just) to the fact that reusing plastic water bottles (you know, recycling the home way) is liable to get you ingesting all sorts of evil chemicals that were present in the making of the plastic bottles.

Here I thought the do not reuse warning was a sly attempt at bottled water people to just get you to buy more bottles. I wonder, as I reuse the same bottle about 4 times a day at work, what the option is. I guess pint glasses.

Stopping to wonder why I get out of bed sometimes, I guess the only solace is that as much as I try to better myself, I am slowly killing myself.

What's the story, mourning tory

I originally became a Tory because I believed their core principals - laissez faire economics, small government, lower taxes, let the market sort itself out, etc. etc.

It was with a stunned and dropped jaw that I was reading the Times today where the Tories, under David Cameron, want to impose more legislation and taxes onto shops and stores, infringing on their core beliefs all the way to the bank.

"Firmly committing the Conservatives to raising taxes..."

The first headline grabber was the imposition and creation of a car park tax for large out of town supermarkets. Tories and tax creation do not go hand in hand - EVER! Then there was public scolding of shops like Tesco selling goods below cost. If they're taking a drink every time they sell a product, that's their bottom line and their problem.

I know it impacts on the little guy and his ability to shift product, but the more specialised shops will always come out trumps over the shop that has a spotty 16-year old as the most knowledgeable person in the place.

Having said that, society today doesn't cater much for the person who can't buy all their needs at one shop. We don't have time to go to the bakery for our bread, the butcher for our meat, the green grocer for our veg. Those of us who strive to get home to our families before 8pm are already having a hard enough time of it.

"The Tories are at sixes and sevens on tax."

We've suffered years of Labour's regime, promising us a better place, yet raising taxes each and every year (with not a lot to show - better hospitals, lower crime, better road conditions? Nope).

The only light at the end of the tunnel has been the intrinsic Tory policies. Sadly, with Labour shifting more to the right, it looks like the Tories have shifted a bit too far to the left.

Times Link