amsterdam weekend
Heh heh! We know plenty about that little subject!

the sixties band THE LOVE AFFAIR lyrics to the song EVERLASTING LOVE
Open up your eyes, then you'll realise, here I stand with my EVERLASTING LOVE! Need you by my side, girl you'll be my bride (?), der der der der der EVERLASTING LOVE!
Or words to that effect.

actress Susan George
She went out with the singer Jack Jones, and they made a very peculiar single together (That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be) which nobody bought, nobody remembers, and only I seem to like (it was a featured MP3 on this site a few months ago). Other than that, she was in Straw Dogs with Dustin Hoffman, which sounds like a very sick and nasty film indeed - there was even a mini-riot by an shocked and appalled audience at the premiere, wasn't there?

dj otzi
Oh, be off with you! But not before you've read my spirited defence of Hey Baby.

CHRIS ANDERSON & DJ ROBBIE last night lyrics
Boo-hoo! There are singles coming out which I have never heard of! I'm getting oooooold!

dermot o'leary
Step this way...

disco diva birthday cards
A fine idea. I'd like Jean Carn on mine, please.

sahlene naked
Sahlene was the singer of "Runaway", this year's Estonian Eurovision entry. One of the better tunes, and performed to a home crowd (and me!), it romped home in third place. I wrote about her at length here. But no naked pics, natch. Don't be daft...

mum mp3 "finally we are no one"
It's a quietly lovely album, and recognisably Icelandic (i.e. if you like Bjork and Sigur Ros, chances are you'll also like Mum). But you really should be buying it.

naked schoolteachers
But if they're naked, how do you still know that they're schoolteachers? Do they have to keep a mortar board on, or something? Or do they have to pose in a classroom? Is that how it works? I'm quite curious now.

hear sample angel interceptor
The last time I heard Ash's "Angel Interceptor", it was live at Rock City last December. I reviewed the gig, but the review then got sidetracked by tales of posterior agony, which are not for the faint-hearted.

bastard cartel communique
The Cartel Communique did a very clever video cut-up thing, starring that poor kid with Tourette's Syndrome, but I'm not sure that he ever used a word as mild as "bastard".

sandpit
My earliest memory involves a sandpit. Is that enough for you?

dermot o leary
Step this way... (sigh)

dust bar Clerkenwell Felix
Goodness, I'm not that hip.

ok magazine dermot o'leary
I can't bring myself to buy it any more, especially after I realised it was part of Dirty Desmond's stable. Heat is a much better read (though not nearly as much fun as it used to be, when it was all witty and irreverent, with people like David Spedding writing for it).

disco tits
Mine sag a wee bit at the sides, I'm afraid. My muscular definition is much better below the waist. Woo-hoo!

travis fimmel gallery
Isn't he a bit "three months ago"?

Julie Wright: Eurovision
I know that name! We were both on the same Eurovision mailing list. They all called her "Bossyboots". Chig has met her.

dermotoleary
Step this way... (yawn)

circle wank
Never done one of those for real, only on stage (so that's all right, then). I worry that the pressure of competition might adversely affect my performance.

queeny love
You don't see it very often, do you? Two out-and-out screamers who are also an Item, I mean. In fact, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single example. Can you?

concept albums
Sadly thin on the ground these days (or if they are concept albums, then they know better than to advertise themselves as such). I blame the Alan Parsons Project; they dragged the genre into the gutter!

how to wank
You put your right hand in, your right hand out. In, out, in, out, shake it all about.

the first time
Rather messy and painful, I'm afraid.

wank
I'm very high on Google for "wank" these days. I prefer the term "free creative expression on my personal site".

mp3 opus "fine day" free download
Opus III actually, featuring Kirsty Hawkshaw on vocals. A nice little early 90s dance tune, and I even remember the acapella original by Jane from the 80s (was it on Cherry Red?). However, I don't own a copy, on any format - something of a major omission, now I come to think about it.

jermaine stewart gay
What - Jermaine "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off" Stewart? Jermaine "hasn't had a hit since 1986" Stewart? How strange that someone should wish to know, a full sixteen years after his brief brush with fame.

big brother 3 masturbating
I dare say it must have happened. PJ would be my prime suspect on that score.

ms dynamite biog
Love the album, but I know next to nothing about the singer. Sorry.

drag "club 82"
I first went to a drag club in 1983. It was a place in Berlin called "Dollywood", I think - which was been better known in its previous incarnation as Romy Haag. Good show, sinfully overpriced cheap Sekt.

schism "counter culture" glam
Fascinating. Whoever typed this in: you sound like my kind of person. Let's get together over a drink and talk pop.cult.studs.
(Popular Cultural Studies, silly!)

pictures of gareth gates naked
Look no further! I think I can truly lay claim to having the only naked picture of Gareth Gates on the entire Internet. But I can't draw feet.

"a ring of endless light" sound track
Never heard of it. Ring Of Bright Water was quite good though. That poor little otter.

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" MB mp3
It's the MB which mystifies me here. Didn't Brian Eno cover this as a solo single in the mid-70s? Also known as Wimoweh, of course. Off the top of my head, I can think of versions by Karl Denver, Tight Fit, Nanci Griffith and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Elements of the song were also incorporated into REM's The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight. I'd go for the Tight Fit version myself, because I'm trashy like that.

chirpy chirpy cheep cheep
The song that turned me on to rock and roll! True!

tango advert
I liked the one which ended up with the boxing ring on top of the White Cliffs of Dover, with Felix's Don't You Want Me blaring away in the background.

caprio
We nicknamed our tour leader in Vietnam Leonardo De Caprio - although he reminded me more of a younger Damon Albarn, circa Parklife. Only more athletic. And tanned. Did I mention that he was handsome?

molly parkin gallery
One of my favourite quotes of all time comes from Molly Parkin, when talking about the relief she felt at the eventual abatement of her (previously rampant) sexual appetite. "Like being unchained from a lunatic", she said. I've quoted this frequently at people over the years.

anthems of the night lyrics diva
My favourite Diva Anthem Of The Night has to be Self Control by Laura Branigan, which always takes me back to my subterranean/nocturnal existence in Berlin nightclubs, circa Summer 1984. I, I live among the creatures of the night, I haven't got the will to try and fight. I must believe in something, so I'll make myself believe that this night will never end...

wank
Google doesn't index pr0n, does it? Which is why all these would-be wankers keeping finding Troubled Diva instead. Or maybe there's a filter you have to switch on, or something. I can honestly say that I've never felt the need to investigate this. Aren't I the high-minded one?

warner village cinema timetables nottingham
Yes, I can help you there. Here's the link.

love poem by jessica goss call wish list
I'm sure it's perfectly lovely.

diva
Fragrance, lesbomag or Eurovision winner? Please specify, caller.

You must read this. I insist. A classic.

A commonly observed phenomenon in the Blogosphere: on returning from a nice holiday somewhere nice, many bloggers seem to suffer from a temporary lack of mojo/oomph/will to post. Having gained a fresh perspective on their daily lives, the habitual act of firing words off into the void can suddenly strike them as a bit pointless and unnecessary.

I seem to be suffering from an equal and opposite reaction. Right now, I can't stop bloody posting. Hit the ground running, that's me. Remember my name! I'm gonna live forever!

So last night, I went out and got absolutely blasted until 2 in the morning. And now, it hurts. Maybe this is what I need to shut me up. Or maybe not. We shall see, eh readers?

OK then, content syndication evangelists...I've installed Headline Viewer, and I've visited Mo Morgan's list of UK blogs with RSS feeds, and I've dragged and dropped a few blog feeds into the viewer - but all I get is stuff like this (you'll have to click for the screenshot). Is this what it's supposed to look like, and if so, why is it useful? Wouldn't I just be better off clicking down my blogroll, or using a watchlist, or something?

I know what you're all going to say. You're all Mac users, and you've all got much better software at your disposal, that we Windows users can't access. It's all a dastardly plot, isn't it!

By my humble standards, I'm having quite a techgeek day. Why, I've even installed that new-fangled Mozilla browser on my home PC!

There was only one reason for doing this, mind you: to check whether Troubled Diva looked OK for Mozilla users. As it turned out, I only needed to make one slight template twiddle: Mozilla does not recognise CSS class titles with numbers in them. Or at the very least, it doesn't like CSS class titles which begin with numbers. Did you know that?

One other thing (which I think Meg pointed out a while back) - Mozilla only recognises link titles up to a maximum of 88 characters (on Windows 98 at least). Anything more is just lopped off the end. Did you know that?

If I were feeling "provocative", I'd call these "design flaws" - but something tells me I'd better not (grins sheepishly round the room).

Oh God...someone's going to tell me about Validators next, aren't they?
Nooooo! I don't want to get sucked into a Tech Vortex!
Honestly I don't!
I'm...I'm...an artist!

As soon as Blogger Pro2 deigns to let me publish (which might not be for quite some time, if previous experience is anything to go by), I shall be the proud possessor of - gasp! - my very own RSS/XML feed type thingy!

It's so exciting! I'll get to join the cool kids!

(Hence the introduction of separate titles for each posting - it's the rules, don't you know?)

Update, for those who care: Over 18 hours later, Pro2 still won't let me publish. Oh, it says it has published OK, and the posts do get saved away on my bottom frame, but they never actually make it to the page itself. Hey ho.

Second update, for those who maybe care just a little too much: Several days later, Pro2 still won't let me publish. Nor will tps.blogger.com. Ergo, no RSS feed just yet.

Remember how I was bleating recently about the apparent absence of any liberal/left-wing blogs, in amongst the ever-growing plethora of libertarian/right-wing blogs? Well, guess what. Thanks to a link on Samizdata.net (one of the latter kind), I have now found The Lefty Directory: A Guide To The Blog Left. Case solved, then.

Leonardo de Caprio has researched, written up, copied and distributed a “suggested walk” round the narrow streets of Hanoi’s Old Town, so K and I give it a whirl. It’s a revelation – especially the street markets, which are so easy to miss otherwise. Everywhere you go, families are sitting on the pavement on those dinky little kindergarten chairs, tucking into the freshest looking, most exotic, most delicious food you’ve ever seen. It’s a nation of food lovers. It’s our kind of place.

Before the holiday, I read an article about Hanoi titled A Day in the Life of Hang Bo Street, which perfectly sums up the experience of walking through the Old Town. In particular, I am struck by the way that entire streets are given over to shops which all sell the same merchandise: paper lanterns, Chinese medicinal herbs, cooking implements, motorcycle seats. It must have been the same in medieval England.

For although the country now appears to be largely Communist in name only (they have had their own glasnost/perestroika), and although the spirit of free enterprise clearly prevails, there is still a strongly overriding spirit of co-operation to be found. No-one seems to have thought of opening a paper lantern shop on a different street, to corner the market in a new part of town. It just wouldn’t be fair play. What’s more: if a storekeeper has run out of a certain stock item, it is more than likely that a neighbouring storekeeper will lend him some of his own stock to sell, until the next delivery. How strange and wonderful is that to a Western sensibility?

Vietnam is also a country of artists. There are art galleries everywhere we go. To our surprise, most of the paintings are heavily influenced by the old French school – Gauguin, Chagall, the Impressionists. The period of French colonial rule has clearly left an impact – and of course, a French street scene must seem as exotic to a Vietnamese sensibility as the Far East does to the likes of us. However, these influences are generally a little too heavy-handed for our liking (although we do eventually start to “get our eye in”).

Therefore, we seize upon the works of Le Thiet Cuong (hanging in a chic little galley on To Tich street) with particular delight. He is part of a new generation of Vietnamese artists, who are at last finding their own visual voice (if you, er, see what I'm saying). True, there is a marked Paul Klee influence, but there is also something identifiably Vietnamese about Cuong’s work (this becomes more apparent as the trip progresses). We buy a canvas, which is taken off its frame and stretcher, and securely rolled up for us, as well as his monograph.

In the afternoon, a long coach drive up to Halong Bay, and our first real experience of Vietnamese road etiquette. Of which more later, but suffice it to say for now that, if you have ever been in a car in Malawi, then nothing that Vietnamese traffic can throw at you can make you so much as flinch. While the rest of our group gasp and cover their eyes at each fresh potential "incident", we sit there stoically, keeping faith.

I am going to have to learn how to eat fresh crab better than this. Meat is flying everywhere, except into my mouth. My fingers are stinging with the juices, and from repeated jabs from stray fragments of claw. I am getting stressed out with the effort, while next to me, K is doing a superbly professional job. Smug bastard!

I also appear to be back on the cigs. Oh well, it’s a holiday. Over here, Marlboro Lights are anything but light. In fact, they’re delicious. Long, stong and pure, with none of that horrible rancid chemical aftertaste. Could this have anything to do with the multinational tobacco firms seeking to penetrate new markets by first getting them all hooked on the decent stuff, before downgrading it to the shit that the rest of the world smokes? I really couldn’t say.

Jump to next day.

Labels: vietnam

My fave Sashinka column to date. Someone give this girl a gig!

Conceptually, Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum is very much like the Lenin mausoleum in Red Square. You stand in line for ages, and eventually you’ll get to file reverentially past a recumbent waxwork, in 30 seconds flat. Except that the Lenin mausoleum looks like a mere Portakabin compared to Uncle Ho’s vast edifice. I guess this means that - when it comes - Fidel Castro’s will be the size of a football stadium. Gotta keep up, boys!

Actually, I shouldn’t be too sneery. Filing past the body of the spiritual father of modern day Vietnam was a surprisingly moving experience. I definitely felt some sort of ocular pricking sensation, as I thought to myself, “Well, Ho old boy – you did it, didn’t you? You saw off Uncle Sam! Respect!”

This serves me right for never researching stuff in advance (I like the thrill of surprises too much, you see – nothing to do with congenital intellectual laziness at all, honest). As I later found out, Uncle Ho actually popped his clogs in 1969 – well before the routing of Uncle Sam in the mid-1970s. So the ocular pricking was a tad misplaced after all. Ah well, plenty more chances for that sort of thing later in the trip.

As for Hanoi’s Ho Chi Minh museum: never before have I visited a museum that was quite so stark, staring bonkers, albeit in a wholly endearing way. They had clearly given some Vietnamese Stephen Bayley type complete conceptual and artistic freedom to do whatever he wanted, and the result was…bizarre. Instead of a boring old chronological biography of the great man’s life and times, various attempts had been made at “symbolic representations” of the preoccupations of his era. There was a lot of badly reproduced Dada/Surrealism – giant fish, that sort of thing – on account of Ho’s early years in Paris. Unfortunately, it all looked like a poorly executed GCSE art project. There was a giant bowl of artificial fruit, resting on a wonky table, to represent “the spirit of the youth of Vietnam”, or some such. No, me neither. Great fun, anyway.

In the evening, we sit on tiny plastic kindergarten chairs on the pavement (these are ubiquitous, throughout the entire country), and witness our only street brawl of the trip. Predictably, it involves a drunken Englishman watching the football on TV (English soccer is big in Vietnam). No police arrive, and the brawl soon sorts itself out. We never really see many police. The country is so peaceful, and so crime-free, that they don’t seem to be needed much.

Jump to next day.

Labels: vietnam

In amongst all this endless recent talk about RSS/XML feeds (or are we supposed to be calling it "content syndication"?), there was one glaring omission: a clear explanation, in simple layman's terms, of what the bloody things were supposed to do in the first place, and why people might want to set them up on their own sites (apart from keeping up with the cool kids, of course...)

Until now.

So, it's like, all the stuff from your blog gets automatically splurged out in, like, this weird code that looks a bit like HTML but isn't, and then these other things called "readers" come along, and they can read your splurge, and anybody else's splurge, and they can turn it back into nice looking text, and then you can read all your favourite people's latest stuff all at once, in the same place, without having to open up dozens of sites just on the offchance that there's something new on them, and it saves time, and keeps you better informed, and you might even get more traffic?

Well, why didn't you say?

Anyway, you can't do it on Blogger Pro (yet), so that's me ruled out (for now).

Also, you have to install special software. However my company has a strict policy on not installing your own software, then that's me ruled out again (partially).

But, y'know, it's the future, right?

Techy Update: In my comments, Meg points out that you can set up RSS/XML feeds on Blogger Pro after all. To do this, you have to be using Blogger Pro2, not Pro1. Unfortunately, in my case Pro2 doesn't let me publish very often, which is why I stick with Pro1. Today is a case in point. However, it's all set up and raring to go, and once it works, I'll alert the necessary authorities (Mo Morgan).

One more thing: in order to play the RSS/XML game, you have to set up Blogger Pro to generate proper titles for all your postings. Which I'd rather not have to do in an ideal world - but hey, you've got to play along, right? Hence, from now on, all my postings will bear titles.

Oh, for a technology maven to call my very own!

Because I just couldn't resist. And because I really do have a lot of time on my hands. But mainly because this is the first statistical ranking that actually includes Troubled Diva - and really, what more reason could one possibly want?

This time, the rankings have been collated from the rankings on Blogstreet, which - so far as I can tell - are constructed from the numbers of links to each site.

To construct the rankings, I used the GBLogs list, Fraser's Blogpop chart, and my own previous Top 40 list, as extracted from Blogdex at the end of June. I set a cut-off limit of #2000 in the Blogstreet rankings, which very handily generated a Top 50 (well, 52 to be precise).

The first figure in brackets below indicates that site's Blogstreet ranking. The two bracketed figures at the end represent the site's corresponding rankings on Blogpop, and on my previous Blogdex Top 40.

One confession, before we go any further. I was a tad selective when working through the GBLogs list. It's too long, and I'm not clever enough to build scripts. Basically - if I recognised the site name, I searched for it. Not foolproof, I grant you. So if you spot any glaring omissions, let me know and I'll correct the list as soon as I can.

Finally, I've illustrated each of the sites with a sample sentence of my own choosing.

Here goes then - and I don't want tears before bedtime, OK? This is just for fun, remember? And you know you don't have to be Big to be Beautiful...

1. plasticbag.org (87) (7,1)
I've been quite outspoken about the Guardian's Best British Blog award.

2. natalie solent (89) (-,8)
All I want is air, warmth, food, water and effortless free access to marvels of technology unknown to even the emperors of yesteryear.

3. not.so.soft (111) (11,2)
"this is how a woman. Brilliant."

4. Samizdata.net (115) (-,-)
And finally, they came for the Pate de Fois Gras, and there was nothing left worth eating!

5. The Edge Of England’s Sword (178) (-,25)
Give a Brit a uniform and chances are he'll become a power-crazed petty dictator, making up rules on the spot.

6. Linkmachinego (338) (12,3)
'I must say there are few things that irritate me more than the car-crash that is her private life with no old-school network a drag queen made bitter by a real woman's breasts.'

7. Junius (349) (-,-)
Whatever their (many) faults, I find it hard to associate Mary Robinson, Giscard, Chris Patten, and assorted Guardian readers with Gramsci or Pol Pot.

8. Swish Cottage (374) (17,18)
It is quite unnerving, yet strangely liberating, standing at the urinal, dick in hand, while shirtless tattooed young blokes scramble about on the scaffolding alongside.

9. B3ta (403) (1,33)
However ideologically sound putting your money into good causes may be, it simply doesn't offer the return you get from tobacco, alcohol, gambling and war.

10. Airstrip One (513) (-,-)
Africa displays enough examples of national ruination to dispel any short-term hopes of a post-Mugabe era but the time will come when he cannot feed his own supporters.

11. benhammersley.com (532) (16,13)
I'm getting all techy today.

12. lukelog (543) (-,5)
Ultimately, nothing came of the relationship (all three-ish weeks of it), though I do remember that it was in [insert name here]'s car that I first heard "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", and thinking that yes, Moz understood exactly what I felt.

13. Wherever You Are (568) (33,11)
Worrying about your weight when you're already a size 8 and working on an account where free Botox isn't uncommon seems somewhat hypocritical when compared to the sudden urge to steal my chocolate.

14. Plep (604) (-,6)
Living coral reefs are the foundation of marine life, and thus a crucial support for human life, yet all over the world they are dead or dying because people are destroying them—killing them—at a catastrophic rate.

15. brainsluice (642) (14,4)
Mixing it up with the muscled and maryed at the Fulsom Street Fair was ... well, say no more (I still can't believe that it's held in an area called the Meatpacking District (fnar, fnar)), and imbibing with Dan and friends from west to east across Greenwich Village became an interesting exercise in contrasting food, beverage and patron styles.

16= acerbia (674) (23,10)
So if I have one conclusion to draw from all of this it is that it is incredibly difficult to replace a lightbulb in the dark when you risk standing on glass spikes and the only illumination available to you is something as distracting as a television.

16= dutchbint.org (674) (30,9)
Why not let off some steam by picking up leprechauns and hurling them at a darts board: BouterDart.

18= troubled diva (730) (-,-)
Superficial, pretentious, over-priced, and very slightly past its peak.

18= minor 9th (730) (19,27)
so far: pissed-in beds, head-hitting and a night in casualty in milan, days and days of eating bread and cheese and we're in slovenia.

20= the Haddock Directory (773) (6,15)
OK, I admit it. I'm going to join The Pipe Club of London.

20= New York London Paris Munich (773) (-,12)
Somewhere in my memory banks (or in my imagination) drifts an ultimate mix of "Two Tribes", with all the best samples, the best builds, the blackest jokes - and of course the disco-pocalyptic nugget of the 'song' itself.
Mike adds: It does indeed exist, and it's the mega-extended cassette single mix, and it will be popping up in my curious old box sometime in the next few weeks.

22= overyourhead (828) (26,27)
I sat next to a woman who used to be in Climie Fisher and the DJ used to be the older boy in the Oxo Family.

22= interconnected (828) (8,37)
Could it be that a mere television programme is teaching humanity that we all have our own reality, that there is no absolute truth?

24. life as it happens (926) (-,27)
What sort of sick person cleanses their cucumbers with cream, eh?

25= blackbeltjones (972) (4,-)
Winnowing down tasks to those that a user can follow on trammels, making language and location unambiguous, communication clear and concise - and all the other good stuff we practice every day when making online experiences have their place for the majority of applications, but not for social-software.

25= Parallax View (972) (24,20)
It takes a lot to render Parallax View almost speechless in the morning but this picture of Serena Williams in a leather-look lycra outfit at this year's US Open (taken from The Sun) had me spluttering on my Sugar Puffs.

27= Bifurcated Rivets (1020) (-,7)
Natural yoghurt and a little houmus makes for a rather nice dressing for pasta salad.

27= kookymojo (1020) (-,36)
when was the last time anyone made a mainstream programme that was genuinely mature, yet loved across generations; that had an atmosphere of sheer malevolence, and was whimsical without being twee?

29= iamcal.com (1071) (5,15)
Radiohead Radiohead Radiohead Radiohead Radiohead Radiohead Radiohead

29= mad musings of me (1071) (-,-)
You may well laugh, but trust me, when people are mugging each other in the street for bottles of mineral water, you lnow that crisis point has been hit (well, okay, it was me pretending to mug Ned, but it happened).

29= Dave, Live In London (1071) (-,-)
You’ll just have to try and direct that pile of tedious work you were about to dump on me to someone who might actually give a f**k – I’ll be too busy lying on a beach, surrounded by nubile young Spaniards, and sipping cocktails in the sun.

29=. DJ Martian’s Page (1071) (-,-)
The sound of a kick drum banging on the door of post-structuralist philosophy, it's a full on celebration of the hyper-plasticity of sound and the joy of rhythm.

33. orbyn.com (1114) (-,17)
... whirr, click ...

34= So… (1171) (-,-)
And then at our digs in Derby the landlady was so embarrassed by the company's name that when forced to refer to us (and she did her best to avoid this) she called us Grey Sweetshop or Grey Sweatshirt.

34= Here Inside (1171) (-,-)
I lived 200 yards from Prince Edward and never met him once.

36. S A S H I N K A (1230) (-,-)
It's not often you go to a gig and get a pre-gig knitting class with free wool and needles.

37. blogjam (1291) (9,18)
They finish with a rousing version of the only David Bowie song I truly love, 'Five Years,' by which time the audience have invaded the stage, strangers are hugging each other in the pews, and the theramin player has leapt fifteen feet from the pulpit, executed a perfect forward roll upon landing on the stage, and bounded to his feet with a mile wide grin before falling into the arms of the trombonist.

38. Onlineblog.com (1435) (18,35)
In an earlier post I may have mistakenly given the impression I thought NTL was improving its standards of customer service.

39= Nick Jordan (1501) (36,30)
It's good to have some jeans that actually fit me properly; usually I have a lot of trouble finding trousers which are long enough, but we managed to find three pairs - a definite result.

39= Mo Morgan (1501) (25,-)
As Daypop has probably already told you, I've built a thing that lists the UK weblogs that have RSS or RDF feeds, and it lives here.

39= little.red.boat (1501) (-,-)
Between the cold refreshing water of my own political beliefs, those of my friends and those of the place in which I work, and the heavy heavy footsteps of my sense of humour, the ice is very thin indeed.

42= VoidStar (1582) (21,38)
It's going to look more and more unfortunate that IM is a proprietary protocol mess with competing standards rather than IETF RFC driven sanity like smtp, pop3, irc, nntp, http et al.

42= pop-up toaster (1582) (-,-)
Are Harley Davidson boob tubes, Levis and stillettos now common uniforms for weather girls? Even for LA, this seems, well... common.

42= Sore Eyes (1582) (-,32)
If Channel 5 are looking for a quality US cop show to buy and broadcast from the start they could do a lot worse than Homicide.

45= blogadoon (1692) (40,22)
White guys that go there (and plenty do) find themselves putting on a rapidly changing series of mental masks, from Guardian-reading We-Is-One, through I-find-your-culture-so-fascinating and right out the other side to get-outa-my-face-sistah I'm-just-here-to-dance.

45= Grayblog (1692) (28,22)
Roots Manuva - file under "R" or "M"?

45= Venusberg (1692) (-,-)
After a hot, grim, bad news sort of a weekend, what I think the nation needs is a drunken rag-n-bone man in a feather boa and a mutton-chopped Marxist who wants him to die.

48= Chains of Daisies (1799) (-,-)
Ok, so I now need a lung machine but at least I'll never die of food posioning from using a dirty cooker.

48= not you, the other one (1799) (-,-)
How quaint, the council have individual phone numbers you can call for "trees (removal)", "trees (protection), "dead animals (removal)" and the Victorian-sounding "Gypsy Matters".

50= As Above (1912) (34,-)
I'm still amazed that they haven't done anything about Bush's smirk; the way that his proclamations on war and corporate responsibility are completely undercut by the dull grin of a schoolboy who thinks he's getting away with something.

50= digital trickery (1912) (-,33)
If you want your freedoms to continue, switch to a platform that's built on freedom, not on ever-increasing restrictive licensing designed to line the world's corporate bastards with yet more filthy lucre.

50= Gina Snowdoll (1912) (-,-)
"Yes! I like it. It's our initials - forgetting that we had to add the UK at the end to make it work - and it also looks like a naughty word spelt wrong! Brilliant!"

Good grief! Someone we used to knock around with quite a bit in the 1980s and early 1990s has now started his own blog. Interesting to find out what Congokid and his partner Mr. T are up to these days.

Background: we first met Congokid when he moved into a flatshare in Maida Vale with K's old friend Nick. After Congokid moved out, his room was next occupied by none other than...The Rent Boy!

Congokid also runs a long-standing and very comprehensive London restaurant review site, which - unlike most others - favours practical, factual information over flowery descriptive prose.

Via Alan, a hauntingly melancholic collection of unposed portrait photographs by Simon Hoegsberg, all taken during a 12 month period, on the same 30 metre strip of pavement on London's Edgware Road.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), which opened just 4 years ago, is quiet, spotlessly clean, and the most beautiful airport building I have ever been to. The architectural design is dramatic and harmonious, and I feel like I’m in a Wallpaper* magazine spread.

In Hanoi, the members of our tour group introduce themselves to each other. This is our fourth trip with Explore Worldwide, and it becomes immediately apparent that this is the best group yet. We gel almost instantly. If there is any animosity between any of the group members over the next two weeks – which I doubt – then it is kept very well hidden.

During the second week, we all cast ourselves in the film version of the holiday – a classic murder mystery, with group members disappearing one by one in grisly circumstances. The cast list reads as follows.

Leonardo De Caprio (tour leader). Best tour leader we’ve ever had, by miles and miles. Handsome (very), friendly, easy-going, personable, sensitive to the needs of the group, committed, organised, efficient, knowledgeable, and did I mention handsome?

Brad Pitt (pop music TV producer) and Jennifer Lopez (teacher). Pop music celebrity gossip ahoy! Actually, I was admirably (and uncharacteristically) restrained in this area (sorry, Chig). I did find out this much, though. More friendly, genuine and down to earth than you’d ever expect them to be: Victoria Beckham, Steps. Demanding prima donna bitch from hell: Suzanne from Hear’say. Worst case of acne you’ve ever seen in your life: Ricky Martin.

Steve McQueen (architect) and Nicole Kidman (teacher). We bonded over art and design type things.

Gabriel Byrne (cattle farmer) and Demi Moore (GP turned public health policy maker). From Western Ireland, and on their honeymoon with 11 complete strangers.

Brenda Blethyn (teacher) and her colleague Bette Davis (teacher). Living in North West London, Jewish, gregarious, hilarious and razor-sharp, Brenda reminded me so strongly of a certain London blogger that I actually had to drop the blogger’s name into the conversation, just to check whether they knew each other (they didn’t). Bette Davis came down with a nasty eye infection halfway through the trip, and had to spend the second week wearing dark glasses at all times; this gave her an appealing “woman of mystery” allure.

Terry-Thomas (army major). Took him a while to twig that K and I were a couple. Don’t think he’d spent much time in the company of gay blokes before. Didn’t make a scrap of difference in the long run – the three of us remained firm drinking buddies throughout the entire trip, usually the last to bed most evenings.

Jeanne Moreau (former Bolivian revolutionary, now a schoolmistress at a top girls’ boarding school). One of our most consistently fascinating and well-informed conversationalists.

Ralph Fiennes (systems developer) and Richard E. Grant (company director). Two drunken poofs who liked their food.

Leonardo De Caprio takes us outside, onto the busy street, and shows us how to cross the road. This is basically a triumph of faith over instinct. As there are never any gaps in the traffic, you simply have to step out into the road and keep walking at a steady pace. Miraculously, the traffic will somehow weave round you. It's counter-intuitive, and initially fairly terrifying - but it works.

Jump to next day.

Labels: vietnam

Via Philo, some musical entertainment for y'all. Speakers on...and click.

I'm fully aware that this is no more than displacement activity (all those 'Nam notes to write up!), but I really am hugely enjoying playing Blog Catch-Up today. Nowhere more so than at Wherever You Are, where Vaughan has initiated a series of "Blog Consequences" from guest writers. The quality of each and every one of the 18 entries (to date) is quite superlative, and I particularly like the way that they all, in some obscure fashion, somehow match Vaughan's pre-exisiting site style.

In fact, guest blogging seems to be catching on. Stuart Hydragenic stood in for Sasha Sashinka, and - similarly adapting to her own site style - produced a highly entertaining set of postings, which showed another, lighter, more anecdotal side to his writing. He has now helpfully indexed them here.

Well, let’s make it official: we have now completely had it with so-called “boutique hotels”. From now on, give me comfort and service over style, every time. For although The Hempel was undeniably stylish to look at – in the main lobby, jaw-droppingly so – there was very little of any substance behind any of this. The staff were good on smiles and sartorial smartness, but fairly hopeless at actually doing what was required of them. And at these prices, I feel fully entitled to be pernickity...



Item: Part of the deal on our room meant that we would be greeted with a complementary glass of champagne in the so-called “Zen garden”. This was never offered. Eventually, after several requests and a long wait, we finally managed to secure a couple of glasses of indifferent fizz in the bar. Unfortunately, banging on about a couple of poxy free glasses of champagne in a “boutique hotel” is not a good look, and we should have been spared the humiliation.



Item: After half an hour or so in our room, we received a courtesy phone call asking if everything was all right, and whether there was anything we needed. All very impressive, except we made the mistake of actually asking for something. Firstly, where were our free glasses of champagne? Oh, you’d have to ask reception about that. Secondly, could we have an iron and ironing board (our finery needed a good zhooshing)? Yes, of course. Half an hour later, still no iron. Another phone call to housekeeping – would it be much longer? Twenty minutes later, a very un-Zen like iron and ironing board are delivered – both battered to buggery, and coated in black gunk. We leave the iron and board outside in the corridor when we’re finished. The next morning, fourteen hours later, they’re still sitting there, completely destroying the whole minimalist design shtick.



Item: The small hotel bar is one of the most uncomfortable places I have ever visited, and filled with the sort of shrill nincompoops that I would normally go to great lengths to avoid. It is almost impossible to get served. I ask for the hotel’s speciality cocktail: the Sakepolitan. The barman has never heard of it. Later, it is completely impossible to settle the bill, so K sorts it out at reception and we leave for dinner downstairs, already half an hour late. The barman catches up with us in the lobby, flustered and breathless with the exertion, to extract payment – even though we had already given him our room number when securing the glasses of cheap fizz earlier on.



The hotel restaurant is Italian/Thai fusion, if you please. It’s dark, uncomfortable and quite loud, with an annoyingly harsh acoustic. The service is big on smiles, but low on polish – our initial order for mineral water is completely bungled. The food is imaginatively and immaculately presented, but so rich that I am unable to finish my main course, and end up suffering from indigestion during the night. Credit where it’s due, though: the wine turns out to be excellent, and surprisingly good value.



And to be fair: the room itself is absolutely gorgeous (despite K’s initial plaintive wail: “I’m sure there are better rooms than this!”). In particular, the bed linen is a masterpiece of artful fabric folding, and the bed itself is one of the most comfortable I have ever slept in. However, the trouble with High Minimalism is this: it is also High Maintenance. If you’re not prepared to rigorously keep up that pristine appearance, then the ensuing scuff marks, chips and cracks are sadly all too obvious. Having said that, we actually quite liked the slightly faded, battered appearance. There was something a bit Raddled Seventies Glamourpuss about it, which seemed rather appropriate (all we needed was the suspended wicker basket chair). The bathroom was fairly grim, though. The shower was poky and claustrophobic, with one of those annoyingly over-friendly shower curtains which sticks to your skin, and the loo wouldn’t flush properly - at least, not without sustained and vigorous tugging.



In one of the cupboards, there are oxygen canisters. For sale. At twenty quid a pop. Fine, if you're Michael Jackson. You can also avail yourself of the Hempel’s special “treatments” – aromatherapy, reflexology and the like – for eighty-five quid an hour. We are not tempted.

In summary? Superficial, pretentious, over-priced, and very slightly past its peak. But having said all that, quite good fun. I’m glad we had the experience, but we won't be back.

100 things about 100 bloggers in 100 days? Now, this is a m*me which I couldn't possibly resist...If you want to participate in this, then the instructions are here.

Labels: 100things, myself

I'm back from Vietnam (at last), and it was fantastic (naturally), and there's lots to tell (of course). Rather too much, if truth be told. As I'm not a very adept pruner of prose, this might take some time - so please bear with me.

Item 39.
Mick Micheyl - Mon Petit Mecano (1963)

As we reach numbers 39 & 40 in my curious old box, let's have a couple more tracks by two artists who seemed to find particular favour the first time round.

Long standing readers will already have thrilled to Mick Micheyl's L'Amour, C'est Comme Le Cafe, so here now is another delicious offering from the same EP. This time, the mood is more mellow, more sultry, more cocktail lounge, as Mick seductively purrs of her affection for her penniless beau.

Item 40.
Cristina - Disco Clone (1978)

The debut single from the gal who gave you Is That All There Is?, and the first ever release on New York's groundbreaking Ze label. This might have had something to do with Cristina's boyfriend (Michael Zilkha) being the owner of the label - indeed, without this connection it is debatable whether we would ever have heard Cristina's uniquely wobbly tones at all. Let's just say that she's not the most naturally gifted of singers, shall we?

But then, that's part of the gauche charm of this single: an attempt to satirise the disco boom, made by people who didn't quite understand how disco records were put together. In subsequent interviews, both Cristina and Zilkha have referred to this single as a failed experiment and a mild embarrassment. I think they are being overly harsh; by getting it wrong, they have accidentally created something really rather marvellous. I love the episodic nature of the production, which throws musical ideas into the stew almost at random. The song itself is rather a hoot, as well (and not without relevance even today - been to a gay "circuit party" recently?) Sometimes, it's the mistakes which work out best of all.

Cristina went on to make one of the greatest Christmas singles of all time: Things Fall Apart. I'll try and remember to post it some time in December.

Update: Sorry - you weren't quick enough. These MP3s are no longer on my server. I generally make them available for a week or so (sometimes less) before substituting them for new ones. Better luck next time!