Goldfrapp, Seventh Tree

CD of the week: Goldfrapp, Seventh Tree | Pop | guardian.co.uk Music

This week I have mostly been listening to Seventh Tree. You can hear it here. Nice. Looking forward to the gig in April. It's at the RFH this time so should be a bit different to this gig.

Moby

'I long for that sober connection' | Electronic | guardian.co.uk Music

Wise words on celebrity from Moby:

The stars are miserable because they're 'insecure narcissists' driven by 'inadequacy and self-loathing', desperate for fame and attention because it validates them as human beings. The people buying the celebrity magazines are miserable because 'they see Puff Daddy and Jessica Simpson on a yacht in St Bart's and think it's a fantastic life. It's not. It's a depressing life. They're not attractive in reality because they spend hours with stylists making them attractive. The only people happy in it are the ones that aren't very bright.'

Likely lad

Likely lad of too many own goals | News | guardian.co.uk Football

Apparently 'something snapped' in Gazza when he was at the Newcastle Malmaison the other week. I wonder if it was because they were doing some redecorating, overnight, directly below his room, as they were when we stayed there. I would have snapped too when that happened if I hadn't been so tired after being constantly woken up by workmen hammering away.

Digested read: My Favourite Wife by Tony Parsons | The digested read | guardian.co.uk Books

Digested read: My Favourite Wife by Tony Parsons | The digested read | guardian.co.uk Books

Excellent.

Eels

The Times has reviewed the show we went to see on Monday. E is an interesting chap.

How depression makes you stronger | Society | The Observer

How depression makes you stronger | Society | The Observer

In that case, I should be tough as old boots!

Sarkozy

'Casse-toi, pauvre con.' Hilarious. And fair enough, wouldn't you say?

Last night

So this is why Ade missed that chance!


UPDATE: actually, perhaps it was not that surprising.

Circus

It's 'become' a circus? At what point was it not one?

Expletives

Mmm. I wonder if this 'technique' would help me become more productive:

“Once he had started work on a script he disliked ever having to stop; he wrote as he thought, and if he came to a place where the right line failed to emerge, he would just jab a finger at one of the keys, type ‘FUCK IT’ or ‘BOLLOCKS’, and then carry on regardless. The first draft would feature plenty of such expletives, but then, with each successive version, the expletives grew fewer and fewer, until by about the tenth draft, he had a complete, expletive-free script…”

Janusczcak

Waldemar Janusczcak, I feel your pain:

Like you, reader, I have had it up to here (I’m trying to touch the ceiling now) with goddamn slebs and their problems and addictions and mental illnesses and divorces and custody battles and trips to Africa and accidental overdoses and spells in rehab and flabby bottoms and corrective surgery and problem parents and the whole grotesque and disfigured rest of it...

Max, 19, hits the road

If you like a spot of vitriol, you'll love this.

QHA

A good review for the Queen's Head & Artichoke, which is where I proposed to K. That was over five years ago though so maybe the food now is very different to what it was then:

After the grimmer than grim effort at Waterloo Brasserie, I'm pleased to say that my faith in soupe de poisson has been almost instantly restored. The example I had at the quirky Queen's Head & Artichoke just off Regents Park was among the best I've had, certainly outside France. The soup was gloriously warm, both in temperature and in colour, the saffron not overpowering, the fish base long and satisfying and the pre-loaded rouille and Gruyere toasts just the ticket. See? It's not that hard...

Other highlights from this long and slightly boozy Sunday lunch included an immensely satisfying plate of roast beef that only suffered through a slight gravy shortage, a fish tank in the upstairs loo and a well-priced wine list that boasted some very entertaining three-adjective descriptions. All of which I've completely forgotten. The roast, incidentally, included some of the finest roast potatoes I have ever eaten.

Highly recommended.

Queen's Head & Artichoke, 30-32 Albany Street, London NW1 4EA 020 7916 6206

Obama

I have nothing against Barack Obama particularly but how can he keep a straight face when he comes out with crap like this?

'Out of many we are one and our destiny will not be written for us but by us, our time has come.'

Have you ever heard a more pompous, meaningless piece of verbiage?

Perhaps this is why the Tories lost the 2005 election...

... it was because their marketing director looked like this:

Mapmyrun

This looks interesting - I'll use it to show you some of the routes I use for my training runs (it also calculates the distances for you, which is useful).

Beck's Odelay is utter nonsense

Just as we always suspected. Excellent lyrics all the same. Anyway, as the theory goes, now the lyrics are "out there", they can mean (almost) anything we want them to! Down with the intentional fallacy!

Anatomy of melancholy

Some interesting stuff here:

The person who is in mourning knows, more or less, what he has lost: his wife, his job, the argument he's been conducting all his life. The melancholic cannot easily name what's missing. When we are bereaved we lose ourselves, forfeit our identities, as it may be, as wife or daughter or sister. It is a simple point, but one often forgotten in dealing with those whom loss has invaded and deformed. The melancholic person has lost self-regard; he can no longer see his own shape.

The 1.99 chicken

Looks like Hugh FW's efforts were all in vain...

China in London

This starts tomorrow, might be worth checking out.

Disturbing baby photo of the day

A desperate father spectacularly saved the life of his baby yesterday after he dropped the infant from the third floor of a burning building into the hands of a fireman.

Mason

I’ve now finished Nick Mason’s book on Pink Floyd. I really enjoyed his account of the early years of the band, savouring his very dry humour, but became increasingly disaffected as the book moved into the 1980s and 1990s. As I thoroughly disapprove of pretty much everything the Floyd have done during this period, this was to be expected. Here's a passage which made me laugh towards the end though (along with many other Floyd fans no doubt):

Roger [Waters] also made his own distinctive contribution to this book. Towards the end of its gestation, after he had finished reading the manuscript, we met up in a London hotel to talk through his comments. He had gone to a lot of trouble to make corrections, and to question some of my interpretations and emphases. These observations had been made in green ink, and as he flipped through the pages I was occasionally alarmed to see sections where the use of green ink was remarkably liberal. On one page Roger had simply scrawled ‘Bollocks’ across the whole page.

Good old Roger - well over 60 and still fuming.

Mrs Thatch

So Mrs Thatch would have backed the EU Reform Treaty. I wish she would come out and say so now - it would be amusing to watch as the so-called "Eurosceptics" wet their pants in confusion.

Rowling

She really does make me want to vomit:

Some readers, and a fair few rival children's authors, might have been glad to see the back of the boy wizard, but a teary-eyed JK Rowling yesterday confessed to terrible anguish at parting company with Harry Potter. Collecting an award for outstanding achievement, she told the audience of her awful distress at bidding farewell to her world-beating fictional offspring.

When is she going to give this pathetic oh-woe-is-me Harry-Potter-is-so-special act a rest? (erm, "Jo", it's just a kid's book, OK?) She was already at it when the book came out last year:

She finished the book alone in a hotel room. "I was sobbing my heart out -- I downed half a bottle of champagne from the mini bar in one and went home with mascara all over my face. That was really tough."

Yes, Jo, really tough to have to get a hotel room just to finish a book in and to be swimming in champagne. And you even smeared your precious make-up. Poor you. Do any other authors take self-promotion to such ridiculous lengths?

UPDATE: Good to see someone agrees.

Bennett

Some good Alan Bennett action here. Hat tip: Petrona.

Kington

Miles Kington RIP.

(note: at last the Indie has a half decent website. Still a long way behind the other papers, but a big improvement on the pathetic previous version)