Category: words

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Getting rid of stuff…

Back in 1985, I graduated from buying comics to buying music papers such as the NME. Being someone who (seemingly) can’t throw anything away, I gradually accumulated quite a pile of them until – in 1993 or so – I moved on again (this time to ‘The Wire’ magazine).

Some years ago, my parents moved house and asked me to collect together my stuff since they didn’t want to store it in their new house; fair enough. Of course, in all of that stuff was my collection of NMEs, Melody Makers, and Sounds.

Now the time has come, and I need the space. Several large boxes of papers – which I doubt I will ever look at again – need to go somewhere. I am very reluctant to simply throw them in the recycling (besides which the collectors would probably get hernias), but it seems that nobody actually wants to give me any money for them (I personally believe that they have a value, but perhaps I’m looking through rose-tinted specs).

Anyway:

Ad on Gumtree
Ad on ‘Pre-Loved

Or contact me through the website…!

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Apologies…

Sorry to anyone who tried to view this site (or email me) between July 1st and 3rd – I had missed the email telling me my hosting account had expired. It’s fixed now (well, I can post this at least).

Sorry for the inconvenience! Please resend any emails – they will have bounced.

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Holy crap. I swear the clocks just struck thirteen…

I refer you, dear reader, to these abominations. I am, quite simply, speechless with rage and anger. This is several steps up from their previous scare campaign.

This is ridiculous. I feel like the entire UK is being run by the f***ing Stasi. When’s the wall being built?

Are they trying to provoke a civil war?

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen”
Opening line of 1984, by George Orwell.

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Cartel-forced censorship won’t be accepted here…

Just in case my ISP decides to bow to IFPI pressure and censor the internet, rest assured that they will find me an ex-customer PDQ. I would urge each and everyone to do the same…

See:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/03/telenor_wont_block_pirate_bay/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/23/irma_demands_irish_isps_block_access_to_piracy_sites/

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Things that are Uplifting

Jack @ Bristol

We went down to Bristol recently for my brother-in-law’s wedding (my wife’s brother for those who are trying to work it out), and we had a great time – seeing lots of people who we hadn’t seen for a while. Our children were the only ones there for the whole day (there were a few present at the ceremony, but not for the meal/party), and it was also nice to have people tell us how well-behaved they were (phew!).

Between the lunchtime reception and the evening party, we went for a walk around the refurbished dock area, and happened upon a nice big open space with large stone steps around it which was being used by a whole crowd of lads on BMXs, mountain bikes and skateboards. We stood watching for a while and then got to chatting with Jack – one of the mountain-bikers (actually ‘bike trials’ we found out). Having thought that these were local kids, we were somewhat surprised to find that some had come down from Reading and Swindon.

Anyway, I had my Yashica-Mat (1950’s TLR camera) with me and took a shot – my father-in-law had his G9 with him and took a few as well I think. Watch this space, and I’m sure I’ll upload something soon… 🙂

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These Ephemeral Times

We live in an increasingly transitory society; in our race to be current we are in danger of becoming lost to future historians. Our pictures nowadays are taken on digital cameras, (which are often replaced every two or three years), creating ‘images’ which end up being stored on a computer’s disk somewhere, which in turn fills up and is subsequently replaced…

What would happen to your pictures if you were no longer around? Would your children have the patience to trawl through hard-disks full of images, or would your computer be recycled/resold and your archives lost?

Even our lives nowadays leave no traces – there is no longevity any more.

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BBC’s ‘Lab Rats’ series…

It would appear, after doing a bit of a web-search, that BBC2’s Lab Rats sitcom is not being very well received – apparently it isn’t funny. Well, in an attempt to even the balance a little, I’ll just go on record to say that I find it extremely funny (i.e. laugh-so-much-that-tears-run-down-my-face funny). The last one (the subterranean lab) was rather a slow builder I must admit, but the punchline was superb 🙂