Like a 48k Spectrum emulating a Commodore 64 with a broken power supply

Correspondence of Things #1

2012-02-09T23:47:00.001Z

You know, like the excellent Letters of Note except this one is an email and not actually noteworthy in any real sense. But still, here's a thing;

02 February 2001
 
 
 
Dear Mark
 
 
Congratulations on winning a place for you and a friend to see Gary Numan
play live into the John Peel Show on Wednesday 7th February.
 
The show will take place at the usual time, 22:00 to 00:00, from our studios
in Maida Vale where all the BBC sessions are normally recorded.
 
You will need to arrive at the BBC building for 21:30, doors close at 21:45.
Please wait in reception to be shown to the broadcast studio.
 
The address is:  BBC Maida Vale Studios
   Delaware Road
   London
   W9 2LG
 
If you are coming by car we cannot guarantee a parking space on the road.
The nearest tube is Warwick Avenue (Bakerloo Line).
 
Unfortunately the BBC cannot pay for any travel or accommodation expenses.
 
Kind regards
 
Anitatheproducer

I should note that I didn't eventually attend the performance and feel slightly guilty about not letting them know so some other people could go instead. (But not that much as the set was comprised of Numan's more recent, noisily horrendous material.)

Also I cheated at the competition itself by "Yahooing" the answer to the question about pilot Gary Numan being arrested for spying in his plane. (the answer was "India".)

Also I've no idea where the tape I made of John Peel saying my name on the radio is.

Concerted effort/monkey tennis

2011-05-25T07:32:00.004+01:00

On the way to work yesterday, I thought of something to write on here. I couldn't write it down as I was walking pretty quickly to avoid being late so eventually forgot the thing I was going to write about. The idea of using Twitter as a clipboard to store ideas for fleshing out later also came but since the three or so people who ever read this are also on Twitter, given the delay between tweeting and bloghhhhhhgging, that's ample time for anyone to extrapolate from a sub-144 word note exactly what the later blogggghhhhggg post will be about rendering it obsolete.

Surely there's a way of posting a snappy cuss-up on Twitter and having Google take the gist and automatically rehash it into a 750 word forced angry rant against buses, the lesbians who walk their vile dogs through the industrial estate, people on buses, people on trains, trains being late, buses not turning up, children paying for sweets using the automatic checkout at Tesco Express, the woman in Tesco Express not giving me a bag for my pasta bowl so I have to ask for one and even after I've said that I'll put the bowl in the bag myself so I can do it on the way to the bus which will turn up any second insist on struggling with the immensely difficult act of putting plastic bowl full of pasta into a small plastic bag and taking five times as long to do it standing still than it would have taken me whilst walking at double speed.

And if not, why not?

KEMP

2010-12-04T09:14:00.001Z

Child Robot

2010-05-26T19:04:00.000+01:00

Ill by The Indelicates

2010-04-29T20:28:00.002+01:00

e&oe

You got sweetheart
And you got precious
You've got starlight
And pretty wishes

You got sisters who sing on the radio
And vessels to possess on the radio
Your sex is a sickness
Yeah, your sex is a sickness

And you got time
Yeah, you got time to lose

Because you'll never take enough of those pills
You know you're too clever to be mentally ill
You'll never fashion your damaged soul
Because you're too clever to lose control

You got doctors
And you got stitches
You've got lovers
And you've got well-wishers

You've got vapid love in a couplet
Two thousand words and a side-bar
Your sickness is your shibboleth
Your sex is your sickness

And you got time
Yeah, you got time to lose

Because you'll never take enough of those pills
You know you're too clever to be mentally ill
You'll never fashion your damaged soul
Because you're too clever to lose control

This is such a tiny world...

Allo, Darlin' session

2010-04-28T07:43:00.002+01:00

Hello, it's only the most amazing group currently in existence, doing a session for Steve Lurpak just the other day.

I would like to work out how to procure these sounds for portable ipod playback.

Take the tube to archway

2010-04-01T14:18:00.001+01:00

This is me, trying to be arch.

Me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me him her hat.

Oh, me!

"James Brown" and "The Charvelles"

2010-02-07T09:28:00.002Z

May have to run off to the shops for some more inverted commas. I'll keep you posted.

But yes, I spotted a poster on the side of a theatre in Northampton for a Blues Brothers tribute show - itself a weird, point-missing concept - featuring support from a James Brown tribute act. I've obviously not seen the show, but here are the pictures of "James Brown" from the poster.

"James Brown"

"The Godfather of Soul"

"The Funky President"

The backing singers, The Charvelles, look normal, though maybe the name is somewhat questionable. They're not wearing baby pink sweats in their promo pictures, that is.

Walking Birds Rides Again

2009-12-15T08:00:00.003Z

No mention of the similar mailshots that went out last Xmas etc.

Get ready to baste those birds, seasonal music fans! Why not buy a discounted (insert name of artist) t-shirt or keyring?

The final end... of Digitiser!

2009-12-06T11:43:00.003Z

As already Twatted on the Twitstons, this is Biffo's own, final self-tribute, several years after Alex Garland's tribute to Digitiser went out on Digitiser itself. But y'know, this is straight from the skank's hole!

As the ability to take direct snapshots of Teletext pages seems to be a lost art, and save for some recreating the pages pixel by pixel in MSPaint, here are the pages as snapped on my mobile telephone and emailed to myself. Hopefully they'll be a bit clearer than the pinched fuzzy ones Twunter allows you to post.

There ends the final prose of P.Rose. We fully expect his bloated corpse to be found floundering on a fjord sometime in February, being "gibboned" by a man called "Hairy Noam".

Leaves On The Line

2009-10-25T20:51:00.004Z

Probably, anyway.

Arriving at the train station in order to go to Birmingham to buy some new jeans - mission failed, incidentally - I find a rail replacement service going from Redditch to Selly Oak. With no direct service. Luckily this turned out to be erroneous, with rail services running from Kings Norton but this still meant the bus journey included the dreaded Alvechurch-Barnt Green-Longbridge-Northfield section, which is officially a Right Fucking Nause.

Oh, and I took some pictures.

I assume that is the correct Welsh spelling of "clart".

Moc moc a moc.

There was a sliding door like this on one of the factories at the top of the road I grew up on. On way home from school it read, "NPRIG".

And on the way into town it read, "OAKN".

Little aquatic vestibules underneath a building.

I was listening to a radio interview/spoken work programme with Mark E Smith from 1983 as I passed through this area.

Echoes of the past and that.

There was a couple approaching from my left as I took this one. Hopefully I didn't look too weird taking photos of pillars of rotten concrete.

Not actual photos, obviously. All taken on my phone camera though, lack of zoom lens notwithstanding, is technically higher quality than my actual digital camera. Note the can of Carling bobbing perfectly upright in the centre of frame.

MES was talking about the Hanley brothers at this point. In celebration, here are some bricks.

Is that like the Blue Peter plaque at the Black Country museum? Or is it Ironbridge?

Sluice gunk.

Look! A tiny little shed! And a door that opens onto a rusty ladder that goes nowhere! Fucking Escher!

Self portrait.

A new building under construction. Imagine that.

OMG Spoiler!

Turns out that, despite being marked as 34 waist, the jeans I bought were more like 28 waist. The shirt fits perfectly though, thanks.

"Hello, I'm Bernice Summerfield."

2009-09-07T21:27:00.001+01:00

"Friends call me Benny."

Well, that's as far as I got in this month's Big Finish Doctor Who.

Man, I hate Bernice Summerfield.

Watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off

2009-08-31T19:31:00.001+01:00

Didn't laugh once. Plenty of laughs from other people. I have no idea what I'm missing.

Poor dead John Hughes.

Mraket Research

2009-08-30T13:25:00.002+01:00

Not quite a record, but a fairly amusing conversation with "Kevin" regarding the NHS and my biggest fear were I do receive treatment - a full six minutes of which was me making elongated "ummm" and "errrrr" noises, punctuated with various tuts and sharp intakes of breath.

I refused to give my age and "Kevin", a suspiciously named Indian sounding man, tried to pin me down to various age brackets. Such things are clearly defined so as to skew the results in whatever favour the researchers actually want the results to read, so again I refused, partly out of deliberate truculence but also because he rattled off the numbers so quickly, any attempt to interpret them would have been useless. (In retrospect, at this point I should have calmly asked him to repeat the numbers, over and over in order to prolong the call and increase my own mental score - it is really hard to think on your feet when these calls happen and you're out of practice)

After I refused to confirm whether my house was owned or rented, came the first proper question, as above about the NHS. This was clearly an initial leading question, so I figured the most obviously anti-NHS answer would be best in order to later flip-flop and vehemently defend the NHS. However, "Kevin" did not provide any multiple choice answers, but did ask me to speak slowly... for some reason.

"Okaythenpleaseletmethink."

Thus followed noises.

"Kevin" interrupts and I scold him for doing so. Not rudely, just matter of factly. I'm trying to think.

More noises, tuts.

He interrupts again, "Hello?"

"Hello, yes."

He repeats the question.

"Yes, I heard you. I am THINKING. Can't you hear?"

"Pffffffffffffffffffffffft."

"Husssssssssssssssssss."

"Klak klak klak."

This goes on for several minutes, noises, interruptions, noises, until he asks me if I want to proceed. I say yes, but confirm that I AM thinking about the question. Again in retrospect, I should have tried to flatter him by saying it was a very complex question and needed careful consideration. Stupid noises come easier.

After another minute or so, "Kevin" gets fed up and tries to end the conversation so I ask if I can speak to his supervisor - a quiet Indian sounding woman - and inform her that "Kevin" has been very rude and kept interrupting me. She put me on hold a couple of times and apparently "Kevin" had apologized but with no actual conversation barring a repeated, "Okay, sir?", I accidentally ended the call by making my, "YESSSSSSS" sound a little too final.

Next time, I will try and escalate to the next level. And then the next, all the way up to the top. Eventually, I will find out who is responsible for these places and all cold call centres will fall.

YES.

Rendering the modern obsolete

2009-08-03T21:04:00.002+01:00

Blog now has feed of recent Twitter posts. I type more on that than this but am aware that this still exists so it makes sense synergize that on this somewhat. Do you see?

It's easier to post little things from out and about on t'Twitter, including little pictures etc. Last month I took photos of the telecom towers in London AND Birmingham, both times making reference to the dread 1966 Doctor Who serial, The War Machines, in which a computer based atop the London tower tries to subjugate the human race with balsa wood tanks made in the fruit and veg market. I am so clever to have watched this on numerous occasions, clearly.

Meanwhile, in this season of Monkey Islandity; THIS

Ultimate e-cultural nerdgeist

2009-07-04T08:07:00.003+01:00

Even celebrity technicians are asking the question-du-jour.

Steven Wells

2009-06-25T13:21:00.001+01:00

He died.

Tick another thing off the Helen Love "Long Live the UK Music Scene" list of things that are no longer relevant. *sadface*

Google Google Google Google Google

2009-03-19T21:06:00.003Z

Bad Draft Thursday if you will. I chopped this out of an email to someone because it made the email long and boring and I prefer to save all my long and boring things for this blog. Ha ha! Zing. With minor funstering, this was actually the bulk of the email. Can you imagine the kind of stuff I left in?!

But anyway. This starts here;

My new phone is the Google G1 phone and can do all kinds of neat stuff including receiving email to my Gmail account immediately, which makes the three day delay to my replying to ("a certain person"-Ed) something that ("said person"-Ed) should be questioning. I am typing this on a MacBook now though and Google has clearly scanned the text of this email and found references to laser eye surgery (a procedure that a certain person had performed on their person recently-Ed) and placed strategic adverts for laser eye surgery along the right hand side of the page.

But anyway. During the power cut (There was a power cut! Which I established in the first paragraph of the email this was snipped from! It lasted for about 15 minutes! And I was in the middle of watching Lost!-Ed) I was browsing on the Googlephone and found a Blogger site (Blogger being owned by Google) which included some information regarding how to connect your Googlephone to your laptop and use it like a G3 USB Internet dongle, of the kind you cannot open a newspaper without seeing a million and nine adverts for.

However, helpfully, Google had also scanned the text of this helpful website and found reference to the Googlephone and placed a bar containing links to places you can buy the Googlephone, get better deals on the Googlephone etc. etc. on the left hand side of the page, which constantly follow your browsing, covering up the text of the page I was actually trying to read. I already HAVE a Googlephone. I need to USE it to work out a way of connecting to the Internet with another device not currently connected to the Internet due to a power-cut USING the Googlephone but can't because the information I need is being hidden behind a giant stupid immovable advert for the ("blessed"-Ed) Googlephone.

(I did actually write "blessed" here, but it's fairly out of character so I've Ed-commented it here-Ed)

But I heard that Google have a free restaurant for their employees and they gave TV's Richard Herring some free chocolate which makes all their minor blood-pressure affecting transgressions worthwhile.

Don't say 'Plinky' around me

2009-03-06T07:46:00.001Z

Plinky
Go fig.

Another year (in pictures)

2009-03-01T15:49:00.004Z

The year in question being probably between June 1996 and Autumn 1997. Though it may have been between June 1995 and 1997.

Anyway, I was given a novelty camera for either my 15th or 16th birthday which took four pictures in quick succession on a single frame of film. And I took a roll of picture with it. These are those. (when there is little movement, I've mostly cropped down to the clearest sub-frame)

Trying to fake a UFO sighting by swinging my bedroom lightshade.

Ezz vs. Elonex

The view out of the school library window.

The view out of the other school library window.

SHARPS.

I think that's Ezz in the darkness. Or maybe Ant.

A damaged chunk o' neg'.

The next shot - and it's 6Music's Marc Riley talking to a member of the public on the Radio 1 breakfast show. That wouldn't last long.

The Shirehorses tour bus/radio studio.

Lardy-boy getting the lunchbox out. (or something - I forget)

Lard doing the pixie-dance and some guy really getting into it. I had to put my finger over the lens to contain the excitement of the moment.

Lard doing something exciting.

Lard talking to another member of the public.

I think this is my face. Possibly sticking my tongue out.

Another attempted UFO shot. Or at least some pigeons in flight.

I took a picture of "Riley Industries" merely minutes after meeting ex-Marc Riley and the Creepers frontman, Marc Riley!

What a year!!!111oneoneoeneeleven

Hello!

2009-01-18T08:41:00.001Z

"Wow(!) Begone with ye now and please do not bore us with this turgid dross again."

Probably karmic, if I believed in such things, but this rubbish blog that maybe only 4 or 5 people even look at, let alone read, has attracted an anonymous commenter. As illustrated with the quote above.

I have no idea who this is, though the Royal "us" marks them out as a cunt.

Thanks.

x

One day left

2009-01-15T20:48:00.004Z

Mr Painter turned up early and did the painting of the woodwork and ceiling and reattached the radiator so the plastering done yesterday would definitely be dry by tomorrow.

Also, a new guy, Mr Flooring, turned up to measure the floor. A quick job. In and out in less time than it took for me to work out a way of looking industrious upon his return.

And that's it. No-one else came.

I was expecting the electrician first thing to do the extractor fan and refit the electric fittings, but he didn't turn up and now Mr Painter is coming first thing tomorrow to paint the walls, so how Mr Sparky is going to do this with a freshly painted wall and ceiling I've no idea.

And now I feel fat. Anyone who says it's because I ordered a pizza because I couldn't be bothered going to the shop is lying.

The nocturnal vapours do nothing for my chest

2009-01-14T10:15:00.005Z

Sneakered hero defeats criminal scavengers who work outside of the law to the detriment of his own health.

By which I mean I chased after the "old iron" skangers in their pick-up truck after they took my old bath without asking or even acknowledging my "Do you really want to be doing that?" glares. Clearly I need practice. And by working "outside of the law" I mean that a Google search of "old iron+Redditch" didn't turn anything useful up, at least not on the first page of results.

Thing is, I might have let them get away with it but the anachronistic call of "OLD I-URRRRRRN" is now played electronically on a loop since as I peered outside in my slippers, the driver of the pick-up was chomping on a huge cigar like he's Al fucking Capone or something while his bleary-eyed boys heaved the weather stained bathroom furniture into the back. The looped sound crackled off sinisterly before they drove off as I was tieing my laces so I resigned myself to having lost the bath and I'd have to have the difficult discussion with the official contractors regarding its disappearance.

However they stopped at the next left turn to pick up what looked like an abandoned piece of an exhaust pipe, so I made chase but they had already pulled away before I could catch up.

Running back to the house, I quickly Googled them to no avail. But then why would they have a website if their main business is picking up bits of scrap from the side of the road?

Taking a chance on chances, I grabbed my coat, not buttoning it up to subconsciously affect a dramatic flowing superhero-style cape effect, and made chase through the back of the estate in an attempt to cut them off and confront them. Of course, if they'd have turned right at the end of the road, this would have been a pointless task. But anyway.

Luckily I heard the looped recording and, renewed by the reminder of their vocal laziness, cut down an alley in the direction of the sound. I managed to stand heroically in the middle of the road in order to stop the van and asked the driver politely if they could return the bath. I'm guessing the guy knew what they had done was wrong, or at least opportunistic if quasi-legal, so obliged. I dashed back through the estate and managed to arrive before they did and made a show of re-lacing my shoes on the stairs with the door open so I could make sure they could see that I could they'd returned, before closing the door as they unloaded the bath.

I'm glad he didn't argue anyway as he had tattoos on his face. And not even proper tattoos, just a couple of random dots, so I'm assuming he went to get a spider scratched onto his flesh at some point but bottled out a few minutes in. So he'd have kicked my arse but used his filthy underlings to do so.

Anyway, it's a Phyrric victory since the running in the freezing fog has really aggravated the whole chestal area and I'm all out of Venos.

Banana Ubbs

2009-01-13T17:01:00.002Z

Like lightning in the sky
She pierces my very eye
With her left ubb which protrudes
Through her woollen garments
Like a banana under a towel.

Or that trick where you use
A spoon behind a hankerchief
To create the illusion of levitation.

Luckily her ubbs were not
As firm as a banana
Otherwise I'd have been in right trouble.

Week Off Work Day 2 - fit the first

2009-01-13T09:20:00.004Z

Tile Guy arrived at 9.15 and went upstairs. He left at 9.20 to go and get some more "stuff".

News as it happens!

Week Off Work - Day 1

2009-01-12T20:03:00.006Z

Actually Day 2, since I had Friday off. But here's me expecting a week full of noise and workman-related hijinks.

Friday was busy. Everyone was busy on Friday.

Today though, having arusen at 7am and ready, washed and dressed for workmen to arrive at 8am, I waited until about half past 9 before a knock at the door. Unlike Friday when I was descended upon by a brood of loud reprobates and old timers, smoking outside my house or flicking through my stack of Retro Gamers at the top of the stairs, reminiscing loudly about such titles as "OutRun" and "FIFA International Soccer on the Mega Drive" while about two squeaky voiced blokes did all the actual work, it was just one guy today. He introduced himself, "Bathroom, mate?" to which I replied, "Yes, hello. It's upstairs. Hello." before going back to my pretending to be working but really just looking for trainers on Ebay.

He worked for somewhere between 40 and 45 minutes before coming back down and going back to his car so I took the opportunity to sneak a look at what he'd been doing, which sounded like it involved sawing a lot of wood. Indeed, the back panels behind the toilet and sink looked to be coming along, so I went back down and checked my turnip stocks.

It was roughly quarter to mid-day when I received a phone call from "the council", in reality just a man, regarding my boiler, saying he could come round either today or Wednesday. I guessed it was the guy who'd called me in a meeting a month ago to arrange a check on the subsequent Friday but then not turned up, so agreed and he said he would be round in about 15 minutes.

Sure to his word, it was probably about half an hour before he turned up, but he wasn't, as I'd assumed from "the council" nor from the company which installed the boiler, rather a company who used to do the yearly boiler servicing. I say "used to" because I had the boiler serviced by a man on Friday from another company seperate from both the other companies. Ho hum.

He asked a bunch of questions about the installation, some of which I could answer. I corrected the number of radiators they'd installed thermostatic valves upon from 8 down to 7 (though only six of these radiators actually have thermostatic valves) and mentioned that no carpet-protecting dust guards had been laid, and noting this information had already been given to the woman from the installation company at the time and in the presence of an electrician who in fact had put down protecting dust guards. I did mention that, after the boiler was installed and broke within two days, the engineer from the boiler manufacturing company had noted that the intake pipe should be 30 cms from the flue whereas this was no more than, switching measuring schemes, 2 or 3 inches. He muttered something about this being more than adequate but he'd go and check. In retrospect he may have thought I'd said 30 millimetres which would have been a hilarious misunderstanding of Spinal Tap proportions were my house to subsquently blow up due to an improperly placed intake pipe.

During the conversation about the workmen from the installation company however, I heard rumblings from upstairs and it seemed the guy who was working up there had beaten a hasty retreat. Indeed, when I took the second guy outside to check the flue, his car was already gone. Expecting him back, and smelling the wood glue from upstairs quite strongly I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But no return was made.

So now it's late and I need to get some shopping, having not been able to go earlier as I was busy waiting, so Tesco Express is the only option, and I also don't know if it's safe to use the bathroom, what with the freshly glued balsa wood and that.

There's also a gaping hole in the wall leading directly outside, I expect waiting for an extractor fan or something to fill it, which means I can't sing in the bath.

Old

2009-01-03T18:01:00.002Z

My love, we are old.