You are allowed to enjoy this…

This picture just made me laugh. I think it is that dark vein of politically-incorrect humour that runs through me marrow. So some wag thought it would be a laugh to send poor old Stephen Hawking up into the stratosphere in order that we could see what the world’s smartest disabled man looks like while weightless. Well now you know…

Yesterday, while opening the shed door, I noticed that I was adopted father to what seemed to be hundreds of little yellow baby spiders. Each was unique and each had a solitary black spot on its thorax. Look, here’s a picture:

Not got much to report. Just been slopping the white gloss paint around Chez Lock in an attempt pull the place out of general shabbiness. The other night I was approached to play some guitar on a track for a fellow called Matt Love. I contributed some guitar to a track of his a long time ago. He writes the most peculiar music under many different pseudonyms. I basically spurted electric guitar all over his track. Not sure if he’ll use it but he said we should to it again, so it looks like I have a collaborator of sorts. Of course, if anyone else out there in InterWebLand wants me to ruin your songs with my guitar playing, please get in touch.
Back to YouTube and here’s Kevin Ayers performing “May I?” – probably his signature song. Ayers is one of those people who fell through the cracks in the music biz. Not as iconic as Syd Barrett, nor as prevalent as his peer Robert Wyatt, Ayers remains one of the great unknowns whose style has been ripped off by others. The interesting thing about this track is the bass player, who turns out to be a very young Mike Oldfield:

In the mid 1980s, Oldfield returned the favour and used Ayers on his “Islands” album. He sings the track “Flying Start” which seems like a nice jolly tune, but the lyrics deal with losing your career to the bottle. I always thought this was a bit close to the knuckle as I am sure Ayers himself may have had some trouble with the sauce.

I was lucky to see Ayers perform as one of the opening acts for the “21st Century Schizoid Band” back in 2002 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was a great thrill for me. He is still performing and you can download a free live gig from his website:
http://www.kevin-ayers.com/tibet.html

I’m not one for faux sentimentality or for making birthday wishes to strangers as I am a cold-hearted beast, but I read the following news story and thought “Good for you!”. Alec Holden has reached his 100th birthday today and I am really glad for him. Why so? Well Mr Holden put a £100 bet on his 90th birthday that he’d reach his centenary at odd of 250/1. This means he pockets £25,000 as a nice birthday present.
His secret of longevity is that he eats porridge for breakfast and “you have to remember to keep breathing”. Mr Holden said that he’s been very careful lately and on the lookout for any hooded men from William Hill (the bookmakesr who made the bet) who might be out there wishing to do him a mischief. I like his sense of humour.
Read the story here.

I just wanted to post this clip of Boris Yeltsin because he won’t be dancing no more:

I have to say that he was my favourite dancing Russian president. Gorbachev did a lot to end the Cold War, but he just didn’t have the moves…

…that a tiny little computer made a big impact on a generation of young people. The BBC celebrate the ZX Spectrum with this little report and boy does it make you feel old…

I can categorically state that the music CD is now worthless. How so? Well us folks in the UK are used to getting free CDs and DVDs with our newspapers, but the Mail on Sunday has raised the stakes somewhat. You see, while we are used to getting awful music compilations, the MoS has actually given away a full album and it is a corker. Yes, today I hold in my hands a copy of Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” that I got free with my copy of the Mail on Sunday (no, I am not a reader, I just bought it for the CD). What does this mean? This means that other newspapers are going to have to compete now.
Similar parallels can be drawn with the various DVDs that are given away. A few years ago, these free video dscs were limited to single episodes of comedy programmes and compilations of comedy clips. I can’t remember when the transition happened, but it wasn’t long before entire DVD movies were given away and now I own a few of my favourite films, albeit in freebie format, this way. Highlander, Dune, Conan the Barbarian, The Wicker Man have all been given away as freebies and it must have had some effect on the commercial DVD industry. If you’d have told me 10 years ago that I’d be able to pick up an uncensored copy of “The Evil Dead” given away free with a newspaper I would have laughed in your face and called you a whey-faced loon. The same could be said of this here free copy of “Tubular Bells” – it would have seemed unfathomable 10 years ago, even 5 years ago perhaps.
So now we have “Tubular Bells” being given away for nowt. The psychological effect of this is to completely devalue the tangible product and I am kinda glad that I sold the bulk of my CD collection when I did. Other newspapers are bound to follow suit and it won’t be long before we’ll be seeing other classic albums given away. Now I am not sure if you’ll ever get “Sgt Peppers” or “Dark Side of the Moon”, but I am sure some other classics might be slipped inside the pages of your favourite Sunday newspaper.
The funny thing is that this CD is pretty good for a freebie. The audio quality is up there with my original version and when I put it into my PC Windows Media Player tells me the CD is encoded as HDCD, which shows that this isn’t some cheapo copy that the newspaper has squeezed out at the lowest price. This is a quality bit of compact disc.
The only sad thing is that the psychological value of the music album has been rendered worthless, a cheap commodity to be given away. So sad…but conversely, I suppose it gives people the chance to hear an album they wouldn’t necessarily buy. Is this good the music industry though? I seriously doubt it.
Anyway, here’s an interesting article about the album from the Mail on Sunday.
And here’s the TV advert that almost had me choking on my rich tea biscuits last night: