Ain't it just like a human
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Chocolate Socialist's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Friday, March 30th, 2012 | | 1:34 pm |
Once upon a time...
there was a band who disliked their fans. And, by extension, the whole scene they were in, and their position in it, art-school posers slumming as floppy-haired nihilists. The clock was counting down on the whole business, and something needed to be done. So they wrote a song for a single between the first and second albums, and decided they'd try their hand at pop. The signer/lead songwriter sat down with his influences and found out, to what we can later assume to be some horror, that he was really really good at a) writing catchy pop songs and b) despising people who liked these songs. The song itself is a monument to Despite, but the video is a fascinating straight-on view of it - in the moments where it can be bothered to meet your gaze. There is barely a second when the singer isn't sneering or mock-idioting or staring unsmiling at the camera (a trick he was to grow fonder of). The scope is (ahem) universal - these are idiots in the song and you are idiots for liking this and he's an idiot for doing it, and he's really an idiot for doing it well and don't you agree that he's doing it well? From one point of view it's a death note of an indie band, the stare before the morphine kicks in - from another it's a birth scream of one of our great pop bands for a few years, arriving already aware that irony is not a balm - but that neither is this knowledge. Unsusprisingly, it wasn't a hit. More surprisingly, it's one of my favourite songs, a punchy up-tempo number that I will happily jump around a room to at the drop of a hat. Anyway, you are 20 years older than you were when Popscene was released. Enjoy! | | Friday, March 23rd, 2012 | | 2:05 pm |
A cluster of links: John Carter
is a film which is out in the cinemas here, which I think I'd quite like to see. The AV Club seem to quite like it, and they things they don't like, I think I might. NY Mag has an article about why it's going to go down as one of the biggest flops in history, on which there is some characteristically smart thinking by Tom Ewing. And here are the trailers that doomed it, if you would like to see. | | 1:58 pm |
| | Sunday, March 18th, 2012 | | 1:12 pm |
| | Monday, January 2nd, 2012 | | 1:41 am |
| | Sunday, December 18th, 2011 | | 8:20 am |
festive
hello friends! I am andrew, and my beard is very fuzzy at the moment. I am excited about christmas and presents and all sorts of exciting things, also socks. Sock are lovely, especially when they are all friends together. look! in the photo it is tiny festive me, how far I have come since I was a callow-faced youth, marching the streets of London town in my santa hat looking for work. today I will see my lovely friends, and eat chicken. then later in the week I will go to ireland and be festive there. with my lady. who is kind and generous. also short. | | Monday, October 10th, 2011 | | 1:34 pm |
Cycling around London
Yes, obviously the post-every-day was a dream too good to be true. But what the last day would have brought was an account of the previous Saturday (a Glimpse into the Future by the standards of my usual lackadaisicality), when I resumed my habit of a few years ago of taking a day to cycle 100 km around London. ( Findings are )In short, that was fun, should do so again. | | Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 | | 2:17 pm |
The Alternative Comedy Memorial Society
I'll be hopefully getting back to my (possibly now doomed) list of Stuff To Do This Year, but one thing that's muscled it's way on is "Go to the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society 5 times". It's a late substitution - I suspect that when I came up with this list, the ACMS wasn't even a twinkle in the eye of its founders, Thom Tuck from the Penny Dreadfuls (who I must see at some point) and John-Luke Roberts from The Behemoth (who I really must see since they were possibly my favourite double act, and now they're back back back!). I heard about it inevitably from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) diamond_geyser, my source of at least 50% of comedic good ideas. I was primed by the universe for seeing them though, as I'd just before that been reading Stewart Lee's great memoir, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, which spends a fair amount of its time talking about Alterative Comedy, and what it meant, maaan, and it's goals of exploration rather than repetition, and where it went off the rails, and how Stewart Lee got back into stand-up. This last phase is both triumphant and familiar, as the same acts that he was finding as kindred spirits were the ones that I was seeing when I started getiing back into stand-up as a punter - support on his first tour back was Josie Long, whose Sunday Night Adventure Club was my first comedy gig in years. In fact, that first gig also revealed to me Robin Ince and Wil Hodgson, both of whom get a mention in the book. And indeed later Adventure Clubs introduced me to first John-Luke Roberts, and later The Behemoth. So when diamond_geyser said that there was a new comedy night, and it was called the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society, I was interested, and oh folks, it is lovely. Let me, unsurprisingly, list the ways: ( also unsurprisingly lj-cut them )Though an easier sampler might be to look through diamond_geyser's tagged photos, as always. And so I enjoyed the first 'season', and said I'd come back when it restarted in the autumn, which is, er, Today. So! If you think you might enjoy it, come down to the New Red Lion Theatre on City Road tonight, doors at 7, comedy at 8. Or come back in a fortnight! If we were to some it up in one word, it would be “Overambitious”. If we were to sum it up in two words: “Overly Ambitious”. | | Friday, June 10th, 2011 | | 9:49 am |
Trailers!
In the interests of me eventually posting stuff that I've been 'working on' forever, welcome to further reviews of film trailers! Some of which are so old that they've departed from the cinema at this stage! ( Arthur, The Bleeding, Heartbeats, Dumbstruck, The Last Godfather, Potiche, Something Borrowed, Hoodwinked Too, Between Notes, The Big Bang ) | | Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 | | 2:13 pm |
Also, while I'm here:
Since there is now a proper bunfight on the meaning of one of the "No to AV"'s campaigns claims, I thought I'd try and help. Here's an example I prepared earlier, in a comment on mrs_leroy_brown's journal. Suppose there are two people that we're interested in (and three parties): - Andrew would vote 1 Lib Dem - 2 Labour
- Dave would vote 1 Tory - 2 Lib Dem
So Andrew has said "I would rather the Lib Dems and if I can't have them I would rather Labour", and Dave has said "I would rather the Tories and if I can't have them I would rather Lib Dem". Now, there are also 50 million other voters, and they also vote, and the Lib Dems come last. Now it's just Labour vs Tory, and Andrew vote ends up being counted for Labour and Dave's for the Tories. But in this second round, they've both still been counted - they've both said which they'd prefer in this situation, and that's what their vote is counted for. This seems to be a language issue that the No campaign are exploiting: because Andrew's vote is re-interrogated to find the second preference, it is in a strictly literal sense being counted a second time. The No campaign are happy to describe it as such, in order provide the illusion that Andrew's vote in some sense outnumbers Dave. But it doesn't - every time that Andrew's preference is brought to bear, Dave's vote is also counted against it. [Edited to take out some editorialising - vote as you see fit, I just wanted to clear this up] | | Friday, February 4th, 2011 | | 2:05 pm |
| | Wednesday, January 12th, 2011 | | 1:05 pm |
| | Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 | | 10:25 pm |
A thing and a thing
You will probably get the idea quite quickly whether you like either of these two different things. I love them both. The first I got from blue_mai, the second from Romany, formerly of this parish. | | Saturday, January 1st, 2011 | | 10:57 pm |
| | Thursday, December 30th, 2010 | | 3:31 pm |
Tab clearance.
Herein is some links that you might find interesting. I have forgotten who I got most of these off, but shout up if it's you: Two takes on Wikileaks: one from Bruce Sterling, and one from Dan Hancox on Bradley Manning and Lady Gaga, which contains two of the most amazing videos I've seen this year (you have probably already seen one of them)*. Speaking of incredible videos, here's Michael Barrymore from 26 years ago: It's a measure of how far we've come that this would never ever be seen on telly today (that said, I haven't seen Come Fly With Me yet) This has obviously been on my open tabs for a while: retro-viral ads for Toy Story 3! Here is (a PDF of) China Mieville with a study of the weird vs the hauntological. The first sentence reads "Taking for granted, as we do, its ubiquitous cultural debris, it is easy to forget just how radical the Weird was at the time of its convulsive birth.", if that helps make up your mind. Amongst the many reasons to regret the Tories being in government, it ruins the end of this article from the Daily Mash last year. And that's that! More actual content soon. No, honest. * Is there a name for the whoosh when something that is already quite good suddenly goes up a level or two into Awesome? | | Thursday, December 2nd, 2010 | | 1:53 pm |
Things and stuff
. Snow! There is snow. It is making the fact that I am too slack to actually do anything about my bike quite bearable. That is its only positive feature. . Also planning a trip to the new Tron with others, where I have seized upon the idea that we must see it in the BFI IMAX in 3D. Which seems reasonable, except that everyone else in London has had the same idea, and now it looks like it'll be after Christmas. . A Christmas which I'm spending in England for the first time! I am working up until the XMas eve, then up to the frozen north from whence G hails. I'm pretty excited about the prospect. . In less lovely news, my washing machine broke the day before yesterday - it does the washing fine, but appears to be unable to stop the spinning and get to the draining. It is getting on a bit, so it might be an idea to get a new one (urgh expenditure in December etc), though in the meantime the laundromat will be receiving much of our business. (Yeah, this is basically writing to be writing, which is about as much as I'm up for at the moment) | | Wednesday, November 24th, 2010 | | 2:08 pm |
Reactions on seeing The Sun's punning announcement that Prince William's wedding would be a bank hol
1. WTF? 2. Oh yes, I see what they've done now. 3. In fairness, it's a tricky business to get down in words short enough that they can be put in 1,000,000 point text. 4. But... 40's/50's depressing jazz singer Billie Holiday, who died a penniless alcoholic under police guard for drug possession? 5. WTF? 6. Also, whatever about the intent or technique of the joke, it does still say "WILLY HOLIDAY" in 1,000,000 point text. 7. WTF? 8. WTF? | | Friday, November 5th, 2010 | | 2:47 pm |
Something I said on a comments thread elsewhere...
talking about how the way you relate to your parents as you get older. I remember a friend (proooobably freakytigger) a few years back reporting excitedly that while looking at the bands that had been left in Abba's shadow, they'd found a Dutch group called Luv', and I thought "Oh yeah, I remember them, they had that song 'Trojan Horse' that starts with bagpipes .. wait, how do I remember them?". And the reason I remember them is that they were on a tape that my parents (possibly actually both of them rather than just my dad) made so they could listen to some of their favourite songs in the car (the tape deck in the dashboard being very exciting). And they made this on their hi-fi that would have been pretty impressive at the time, from the records that they owned (and the singles that they had, including the Pinky & Perky ones that they bought for us, the kids). And there's a jolt as I realised that my parents didn't just have a collection of records, they had a record collection, they were culturally hip. Duuuuuude. Anyway, here's Luv': PS: Hooray, according to Wikipedia: "Jump With Me, a song by Dutch Jumpstyle band, the Sheffield Jumpers, featured a re-sung chorus from 'Trojan Horse' and was released in August 2008". There is literally nothing about this sentence that I don't like. | | Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 | | 12:52 pm |
Everything, but faster.
Hello dudes. Things are generally going well, and the house may now be officially fixed after the insurance sent round plasterers and decorators and electricians, oh my. Though the painter didn't quite get it all done, so I got up at 6:30 this morning to let him in to complete it before I left for work. I can't possibly feel sorry for myself though - dude left Basingstoke at 5am. Anyway, have a thing full of Japan. You can turn the sound off, but you'd be wrong. | | Friday, October 29th, 2010 | | 1:19 pm |
|
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
27 (58.7%)