Category: Archive

JonnyB’s “Post 8” protest song, now available as an MP3 download, is quite clearly the greatest moment ever in the history of blogging. If you care about the future of the rural postal network, then you owe it to yourself to take a listen. (And if you couldn’t give a stuff about the rural postal network, then JonnyB will show you something to make you change your mind…)

I used to do this sort of stuff all the time, you know. Before I had an Internet (and an Excel) to keep my idle fingers busy, that is. These funny little fellas flew out of my pen last Sunday, whilst I was trying to cook up some reviews for the Stylus UK Singles Jukebox. As they have become such a rare occurrence, I thought I’d share…

In this week’s Stylus UK Singles Jukebox, I have deigned to furnish the world with my opinions on just three songs: from JoJo (R&B freeware plug-in?), Saint Etienne (never has “form” been returned to so gloriously) and LCD Soundsystem (spare room in six months’ time).

Of the remainder, I can recommend the new singles from John Legend (schmaltzy piano ballad, but I can be quite a sentimental old sausage), M83 (shoegazing electronica, heavy on the effects pedals, and ergo a good thing) and Ralph Myerz & The Jack Herren Band (Saint Etienne goes jazzy/funky beach house). I also think that the Stylus panel have been unnecessarily harsh on The Ordinary Boys, and their really rather likeable Madness pastiche.

As someone who likes to start his week with a good chuckle, I was heartened by this morning’s Today programme (BBC Radio 4), which included a discussion on the increasingly recognised problem of back pain in the workplace. (Has your office insisted you attend a course on How To Lift Things, called “Manual Handling”, even though your job involves lifting nothing heavier than a new pack of A4 paper for the printer? Because ours most certainly has. Insert “nanny state” rant here.)

Eventually, the discussion touched upon Michael Jackson’s recent hospital treatment for back pain. Feeling the need to clarify the situation, the “expert” figure on the discussion panel helpfully explained that this would have been caused by stress, rather than by any “manual handling”.

As the studio descended into uproar, I once again remembered my favourite Today howler of all time. This occurred around 1996-97, when the gay activist Peter Tatchell was being interviewed by John Humphries about differing attitudes within the gay community regarding what constituted acceptable and/or effective forms of protest. At the time, there was still a lot of controversy surrounding the overtly confrontational media-grabbing stunts of Tatchell’s Outrage! organisation, as pitted against the impeccably courteous “softly-softly” lobbying approach of the establishment-friendly Stonewall group. This led Tatchell to suggest that for many British gay men, the distinction was irrelevant, since only a particular section of the gay community took an interest in gay politics in the first place.

In a dangerous rush of blood to head, Humphries felt a new theory coming on. Unwisely, he then proceeded to launch into it. (And, needless to say, I paraphrase from memory.)

“So, perhaps we could say that the gay population divides into two groups? The “active”, and the…”

Long, agonising pause, in which I imagined Tatchell sitting there, imperiously poker-faced, waiting to see how Humphries would dig himself out.

(dismissively, somewhat crossly) “…well, let’s not get too bogged down with categories here.”

Sadly, they never mention this one on the “blunder” compilations. But I don’t forget these things in a hurry.

1. Look, is it OK if I whinge for a bit? Because I’m feeling a bit flat, if truth be told. I’ve been in a state of constant tiredness for the last few days; a sort of trashed-out fuzziness, both physical and mental. It’s been getting in the way of life, leaving me feeling lethargic and unenthusiastic, viewing every small action as a major chore.

2. I know where it’s come from: I’ve been keeping overly irregular hours. Too many late drinks (oh go on, just one more), late nights (I’ll just swing by the study and check my mail), grudging early starts, just-another-half-hour lie-ins… no pattern, no discipline. Manageable for a while, but ultimately unsustainable.

3. It’s a Nottingham thing, as well. The one snag with escaping to the cottage every weekend is the shadow that this casts over the rest of the week. And with three nights over there to four nights over here, there’s little spare time/energy/motivation for improving things here. To-do lists stay undone; the paper mountain in the kitchen stacks up; whole evenings are glumly mooched away, parked in front of the telly, on the uncomfortable leather sofa, in the stark, gloomy, high-walled, awkwardly-shaped sitting room that we’ve never managed to get quite right.

4. We should move, of course. We know that. We’ve been here far too long already: almost thirteen years, and we only ever meant to stay for five. What looked fresh and new in 1992 now looks tired and stale in 2005. Things have got tatty round the edges. Walls need painting; fixtures need fixing; clutter needs clearing. (All that accumulated detritus: too old to need, too good to chuck.) With all of our entertaining taking place at weekends, nobody comes round any more. Not ever. So why bother, when no-one even sees the place?

5. We should move, of course. But the timing is never right. Can’t do this until this happens. The flood-damaged flooring still needs replacing, but progress is slow. Dithering over what to do in the abandoned and overgrown yards outside, which would put anybody off before they’d even made it through the door. Waiting until things settle down with K’s new company, so we can plan ahead with confidence. Trying to work out what we want – how much or how little space, what price range, what area – looking around, but never finding anything that feels right. Because, underneath it all, we’ve grown weary of Nottingham itself – and no smart new gaff is going to change any of that.

6. Ten years ago, at the height of my mad-fer-it hedonistic days, I lived for the freedom and release of the weekend. Ten years on, with pre-occupations and priorities so radically revised, I find myself slipping back into an oddly familiar dichotomy. For every Friday night, when the car gets the other side of Derby, and we bear left onto the minor road, instantly swapping pinched suburbia for lush open countryside, I feel my entire sense of self shifting. And by the time we get past Carsington Water and onto the tiny, winding Bradbourne road, and the hills start rising around us in the early evening light – reassuringly familiar and yet stimulatingly different, as we take in all the subtle seasonal developments, unseen since the previous week – I have shed my city skin entirely, giving my Nottingham life barely another thought until Monday morning rolls around again.

7. Sorry, what was I saying earlier on? Oh, that. Well, never mind about all of that now. There are clothes to be folded, bags to be packed, a boot to load up, our journalist friend to pick up… and we don’t want to hang around any later than we have to. Perhaps we’ll call in for a quick pit-stop pint at The Gate along the way. Anyway, nearly there now. Nearly there.

(Because I never got round to publishing them all before. Thanks to Debster for the reminder.)

Courtesy of Watksi and The Long Lost Lagomorph, here’s a potentially cracking new blog-stunt thingy: Big Blogger 2005. Fifteen bloggers; various tasks; voting; elimination; and one eventual winner.

OK, so something similar has happened here before… and something similar is happening here right now… but I don’t think there has ever been a UK-based version before. And I think that this has the potential to be a complete hoot.

The organisers are currently looking for contestants, and have put out a call for nominations. As there’s nothing in the rules against it, I have duly nominated myself. So if you too have a ruthlessly competitive streak and are best motivated by fear of failure/enjoy creative collaborations with like-minded souls, in a nurturing and mutually supportive environment (I’d say “delete as appropriate”, but in my case I actually think that both apply), then hurry on over and pimp your ass! Or somebody else’s!

I once received a very pleasant and thoughtful e-mail from a passing stranger, which critiqued this site to a comfortable level of detail (just enough to show that he had been paying attention; not so much as to raise my Stalker Alarm), and in agreeably favourable terms (i.e. at a suitable mid-point between dutifully polite and queasily sycophantic). Then, right at the end of the e-mail, he revealed that he had stumbled across my site by typing “tony parsons is a twat” into Google.

Never having used this phrase – such brutally derogatory invective not being my usual stock in trade – I was initially a little taken aback by this. (Besides which, my views on Tony Parsons are not a matter of public record.) However, since the phrase “is a twat” occurs on every one of my archive pages, I could hardly be too surprised for too long. Sometimes, you get the Google traffic you deserve.

All of which is a very roundabout way of letting you know that I’m currently guest-blogging on Zoe’s site, along with fellow guests anna, vitriolica and auntymarianne. One can only guess at the sort of Google-trade she has to contend with – but I bet it ain’t pretty. Anyway, HELLO BELGIUM! Your Top Ten’s rubbish, your Eurovision entry was worse, but who cares! Luvyatabits anyways!

Still suffering from Eurovision withdrawal symptoms? If so, then here’s a chance to relive the glories of Saturday May 21st all over again, as Stylus magazine’s panel of observers (including myself) offer a blow-by-blow “as live” commentary. Part Two Three follows tomorrow.

Also on Stylus today: this week’s UK Singles Jukebox, in which you’ll find my comments on new releases from Faithless (brutal desecration of lovely old album track), MC Lars (clever-clever music biz satire), Groove Coverage (I *heart* crappy low-rent Euro-dance cover versions!) and Ben Adams (former boybander strives for “maturity”).

Because I abhor waste: here’s a fifth review, which didn’t make the final cut.

In May 2004, I compiled a Top 50 chart of the most linked UK weblogs, using data culled from Technorati. A year later, I’ve decided to do the same thing again, with the list expanded to a Top 60.

As you’ll see, there has been a lot of movement, with 19 new entries in the Top 50 and some significant climbers. Inevitably, the bar for inclusion has also been raised. A year ago, the #50 blog only needed 114 links to qualify; this year, it needs 218. As a result, all of the blogs which have dropped down the chart have actually gained significant numbers of new links.

The usual caveats apply. Links are only counted if they come from other weblogs, so there is little indication of popularity in the outside world. A high number of links does not necessarily mean a high amount of traffic, and vice versa. As “political” weblogs tend to have much longer blogrolls than other weblogs, the chart is therefore weighted in their favour to a certain degree. Blogs which have changed their URLs in the last year lose all their old links, and have to start again from zero. (Like this one, in fact.) Blogs with two completely different URLs suffer, as I can only include one of them. (If I added the two figures together, then there would be too many duplicates.) And – most importantly of all – there is not necessarily any meaningful correlation between popularity and quality. So no tears before bedtime, OK?

My definition of a “UK weblog” – which might well differ from yours – is that its author should be currently resident in the UK. If it’s a group weblog, then the majority of its authors should be living in the UK. Actual British citizenship doesn’t come into it; residency is all that’s required. This also means that I’ve excluded weblogs written by ex-pat Brits who are living abroad.

As always, there are bound to be some omissions. If you know of a blog which should be included, then please let me know.

(This was partially inspired by a new site called Blogebrity, which has attempted to codify the whole A-list / B-list / C-list thing for real, but which – so far as I can detect – has only included two UK weblogs on its lists. Apparently, there’s also a glossy “blog celebrity” magazine in the pipeline. Yes, that’s what I thought.)

Continue reading “The most linked UK weblogs, May 2005.”

No sooner do I say this, than Timothy pops up in my comments box to tell me what it is: namely, a web-based project entitled 40 artists, 40 days.

This blatant, blatant hijacking of my pioneering and celebrated 40 In 40 Days Project is a wheeze cooked up by The Tate Gallery, in support of London’s 2012 Olympics bid. Working rather like an Advent Calendar, a brand new artwork will be revealed on the Tate website each day, from today until July 6th. (There’s more information here.) Today’s first work is a portrait by Sam Taylor-Wood, with future contributors including Antony Gormley, Mario Testino and Norman Foster. My kind of thing, if you ignore all that sporting nonsense.

Two weeks ago, I was still struggling with them. Some would end up in the bin, scrunched into cross little balls, messed up beyond redemption. The others would go to a proud little trophy pile at the edge of the desk, too perfect to chuck.

About twenty minutes of concentrated graft would generally do it – providing I swapped to “large” before printing, as I had a strict, sequential system which necessitated a lot of minuscule scribblings and crossings out along the way.

Today, faced with a supposedly hard one, I found myself abandoning the system for a looser, more holistic methodology. In not much more than ten easy minutes, it was done; tossed onto the pile with a triumphant flick of the wrist. Hard my arse.

The lesson – that an experientally acquired holistic approach will beat a painstakingly applied sequential approach, once the necessary leap of faith is made – is one I could do with bearing in mind, linear thinker that I am. But enlightenment has its price. Today, that flick was triumphant. Tomorrow it will be casual. Soon it will be indifferent. And then my fun will be over.

Bored now. Next craze please.