You are allowed to enjoy this…

Lookee – someone has used my music in a short animation piece (mine is from about the 45 second mark). Yes, my stuff does make for good atmospheric film music! The track snippet is from “Descent of the Fallen I” from the “Empty Spaces” CD.

Going through all the old data folders for my archival project, I sometimes come across some audio gold in there, tracks that have been forgotten. In this case, I have found a 10+ minutes ambient guitar piece that I must have recorded close to the 9/11 Twin Towers attack (because the file was title “Twin Towers” and upon listening to it does have a certain cinematic quality relating to the events of that day).
This was recorded back in the day when I was using a Roland GR-1 as my guitar synth and in terms of looping I think I was using a Line 6 DD-4 digital delay pedal. The great thing about the DD-4 was that with a little bit of cheating, you could coax 20-seconds of decaying sound-on-sound stereo delay.
Twin Towers was recorded in this fashion with the guitar going straight into the delay pedal and everything being played live with no overdubs later.
Enjoy!

Of course, we all know that Christmas is really just about the kids and this year Verity has shown more interest in the festive season and can ably articulate her thoughts. Because she’s only three-years-old and she likes any excuse to stay up a little later, we often have extended chats about this, that and the other. Tonight, we talked about Christmas and she was so on-target, I grabbed the video camera and captured her thought process.
It sounds mawkish and sentimental, but it is times like these that you understand why you have children. They transport you back to a more innocent time – heck, I’ve never look forward to Christmas so much since we’ve had the kids!

Someone has been raiding my dreams, for verily there is beach where all your favourite celebrities from TV, Film and music jig about lip-synching to “Let It Be” by the Beatles. This video is just brilliant on so many levels and features some of my faves too. I dare you not to sit through this without pointing at the screen at couple of times and saying “So that’s what xxx looks like now”.
Plus, it’s got John Nettles – the mighty Bergerac – in it… Sweet!

As a newsagents we deliver to an old people’s home and, obviously, from time-to-time customers in their twilight years pass on, leaving us with a bill to collect. Not a problem usually as we often get a relative come down and thank us for the service and the matter is settled.
One of our customers from the old folks’ home passed away a good few months back – not a problem, I think, it will be settled. The unusual thing about this customer was that I was forwarding the bills onto their relative in town who would come and settle the bill. Of course, being the nice guy I am, I didn’t even charge them for the stamp. Hey, I’m Mr Wonderful.
So after the passing I send out the bill to the relative expecting them to pay up and forget about it. Bills get sent out, reminders, etc but I think they might be busy dealing with the bereavement. No problem – it will settled, eventually. These things take time – be gentle – death is involved, etc.
Imagine my surprise when I get a letter from the company dealing with deceased customers probate and I am to apply as a creditor to them to get the bill settled. I was a little bit flabbergasted. Couldn’t the relative just settle the bill like they had been doing previously? It’s not a huge amount. But no – we have to apply to get our money back.
This place never ceases to amaze me…

Hey, guys! Welcome to the Big Society! We’re all in this together. We all need to tighten our belts and pull together to get this fair isle out of financial woe…
That’s the official line, anyhow. I’ve been quiet about the “Government” of late because I am completely apathetic to it. Mainly because it is a government no-one actually voted for. It is a government that represents no-one and speaks for no-one. It is a bastardised attempt to hold onto power where compromise can be non-existant and those who are hungy to hold the reins of Great Britannia are those who prostitute their own ideals themselves.
Today, we have a great example of how the coalition can only ever fail. Vince Cable, poster boy of the Lib-Dems, has come out to say that he might abstain on the bill to increase student charges, despite himself being the architect of such policy. This is a political first and underlines the fact that those at the top of the Lib-Dem power souffle are those most willing to twist and turn like a twisty turny thing in order to appear right-on with the voters.
Yet they want to please David Cameron at the same time. How can they? How can they ship out their core beliefs while staring lovingly into Cameron’s doe-eyes and promises of an equal lick of the spoon yet appeal to those who voted them into third place at the same time? They can’t. And this is why the coalition is a waste of time and why the Lib-Dems are bankrupt as a political party. It really is game over for them and if anyone out there wants to waste their vote at any election by putting their cross by the Yellow Tories, they really deserve a smack around the head to knock some sense into them.
Meanwhile, WikiLeaks has been dribbling sensitive information all over the place like an incontinent terrier. One piece of information that caught my eye was the different ways Gordon Brown and David Cameron have handled the Gary McKinnon hacker case. El Gordo did the political thing by keeping it low profile and trying hard to negotiating a deal with the US in order that McKinnon, if found guilty, serve his time at home rather than being extradited.
On the other hand, that ratfink Cameron has basically thrown up his hands and said to the US authorities that McKinnon is guilty and they can ship him off whilst telling the Great British Public that he is working hard to get McKinnon freed. So the two-faced toe-rag is basically selling a British citizen out. No wonder the US don’t take him seriously.