You are allowed to enjoy this…

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:

I love YouTube. Yeah, I know a lot of musicians and TV companies moan about it because they see it as impinging on their copyright (I think it’s more because they lost the jump on the Internet and couldn’t figure out how to turn their creative endeavours into a successful revenue stream) but I love YouTube purely for the fact that clips turn up that I will never get the chance to see anywhere else. Little snippets of TV, performances from musicians I am never going to see, music videos that are long forgotten and not commercial enough never to be given a proper release.
And so I present Anthony Phillips. Mr Phillips is a big influence on me and I love his approach to the 12-string guitar. HIs claim to fame is that he was the original guitarist from prog-rock band Genesis but he bailed out with chronic stagefright early in the band’s career to be replaced by Steve Hacket (another music influence). The thing about Phillips is, like Hackett, he’s been incredibly prolific in music and although you’ve probably never bought one of his records, there’s a strong chance you might have watched a nature program (like ITV’s old Survival series) that featured his library music. Anyway, here he is performing one of my faves “Lights on the Hill” from his “A Catch at the Tables”:

I’ve got a new favourite song…

Have you ever had a dream that is told in the third person, in which you do not appear and which is cinematic in scope? I have. Last night’s sleep was notable for the fact that my entire dreamtime was spent stuck in some kind of zombie movie. The undead had risen and were slowly feasting on the occupants of an office building. It was a bit like “Land of the Dead” but with more chrome and white space. I am not a big zombie movie fan as I find the protagonists to be quite dull – more of a werewolf guy, myself, enjoying the duality of the lycanthrope. But anyway, I was stuck watching various people being chomped, eviscerated and turned into the shambling walking dead. It wasn’t particularly fun, it was particularly gory and I woke in a bad mood.
So this evening was the finale of the TV series “Life on Mars”. Though I was a big fan of the first series, I found the second series much better written and still love the initial premise. However, there were moments when I lost interest in the stories and the 70s shtick wore me down a little. As a kid from the 1970s, it wasn’t that great. Yes, life was a lot more simple and things weren’t as complicated or as shallow as they are now and this was borne out by the ending. Without giving it totally away, at one point I thought I was heading for the most depressing end to a series since the bloodbath at the of “Blake’s Seven” but the inanity of modern times weighing on Sam Tyler made the real ending somewhat predictable. On the roof, I heard the Missus mutter “Oh no, here comes the ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ ending…” If you know that pop video, you’ll know what she was getting at.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed parts of “Life on Mars”, but it didn’t play around with the format enough. I wanted it to get a little wacky or as I kept saying “When’s it going to go all Dennis Potter” – alas, it never really bothered with the surreal and that’s a shame because I think it had the potential to strike out in similar areas that “The Singing Detective” or “Cold Lazarus” did. Still, it was an interesting premise and I look forward to the return of Gene Hunt in the 1980s, with a female partner from the 21st century in the follow-up “Ashes to Ashes”.
Meanwhile, much has been written about John Simm appearing in Doctor Who. Some say he is going to turn up as the Doctor’s nemesis: the Master, despite being billed to appear as the politician Mr Saxon. Funnily enough, last week’s “Life on Mars” featured “Master of the Universe” by Hawkwind and tonight’s show clashed with a show on Channel 4 hosted by Harvey Goldsmith in which he tried to improve the fortunes of ailing heavy metal band Saxon. Whoooo…spooky – do you see the synchronicity there?
And here’s that “Owner of a Lonely Heart” video, so you can understand what The Missus was hinting at. Scroll to the end if you have to.

There’s been lots written out there in the general blogosphere about how to control people who post offensive remarks on blogs. This all stems from someone called Kathy Sierra getting “death threats” on her own blog after she managed to tick off members of her particular online community. This gives me much food for thought, as I don’t think I am too offensive on this blog, nor do I suffer such nastiness by those few people who visit and post messages. However, on another site I am not so nice and for a while, deliberately set out to piss off as many people as possible – the rationale being that it was my site and if I put a big enough warning on the door, you could express yourself as you wanted. The whole thrust of the net is that should be able to express yourselves freely, as long as you stay within the limits of the law.
However, offending people is subjective and once I remember calling someone “a big girl’s blouse” in jest and then found myself being accused of being a homophobe. So there you go. The thing about words is that if you string enough of them together, you can offend just about anyone. Sure – death threats, racism, sexism and all manner of -isms are bad, but a good old fashioned slanging match never hurt anyone. But like most things in this world, the march of the feminisation of the media marches onwards, now coming to the net. While I have never wished physical harm on anyone, I have been threatened myself and I scoff at it. It’s all just words.
The downside is that there are many people out there who can’t distinguish between reality and this ‘ere virtual reality. When I first started on the web, I got talking to someone who gave me a lesson. They basically said that none of this was real and to trust none of it. For all I knew, the person I was chatting to at the time could have been a prisoner on death row or an eleven-year-old at the library…such is the blurring of reality. I took this lesson to heart and subsequently have taken none of this too seriously.
Unfortunately, later users of the net have increasingly swapped the real world for the virtual one and now the lines are truly blurred. They see every posting on a blog as reality and true. Every word, line and sentence is the equivalent of a real action or deed. I find this incredibly bizarre. For example, when you read an opinion column piece in the newspaper, do you really believe that the writer is 100% committed to those words. No, many writers delliberately heighten their experience to make their opinions even more reactionary, to get a response, to shake things up a bit.
For example, I tend to listen to Iain Lee on the radio when I do the evening meal and he can be quite sharp when he wants to be. I remember one night an irate caller got on the line and berated him for something he said and Iain Lee replied something like: “Do you really think I am like this? Do you really think this is what I am like? This is a performance because if I was really me, it would be incredibly boring.” And that kind of sums up many webusers contributed to the blogosphere. Some are genuine, while others create personas are somewhat removed from their own real life. That really is the insidious nature of the web and I am guilty of being a contributor.
Now what you get here is 99.9% me. But on that other website I run, I play up a bit. It is deliberate. Yes, it is childish. Yes, it is immature. But so is becoming reliant on the Internet for your social network and many other strange character traits the web seems to nourish. But I don’t get easily offended by words. I think it is because they are the tools of my trade and words are cheap and virtuous actions are like spun gold. I can understand why people might get offended at certain things I’ve posted, but the Internet isn’t a place for the weak minded. I wouldn’t even let my own children use the web without adult supervision because I believe it is an open sewer.
But this new “Blogger Code of Conduct” that has been proposed just makes me shake my head in disbelief. You can’t control people. Dictators and fascist regimes have tried and (mostly) failed. So this code of conduct is a supreme waste of time. It is really simple. All you need to do is delete what you don’t like and make sure posters stay within the laws of the land. Easy. I agree with maybe posting warnings, but you won’t be able to root out fake accounts and anonymous posters. It is an impossible task. Now to end on a quote:
“The Internet is not for sissies.” (1994) Paul Vixie, computer programmer