It was one of those days yesterday. First off, the problem of the Missus’s PC not being able to connect to the wireless network reared its head again. Despite buying a load of new gear, I am beginning to think that this is an issue with Windows ME and that maybe I should upgrade her to XP.
Then some little herbert decided to hack one of my other websites. It wasn’t too serious but it meant that my evening was taken up with putting it all back together again.
Another problem I have been having is with my bank, Abbey (or Abbey National as my card and chequebook still calls them). I ran out of cheques and urgently need a new chequebook. I ordered a new chequebook from the ATM machine a fortnight ago but nothing has arrived, so I called their help line to find out what was going on. Unfortunately, Abbey has outsourced to an Indian call-centre and so this makes communication a little difficult. I am pretty good with accents, having been raised in the East End of London and going to school with children from many different ethnic groups, but the woman I was dealing with spoke so fast and had such a strong accent I had to ask her to repeat everything. Then she couldn’t understand what I was saying…
So it took me about 10 minutes to get through the security clearing, before she told me that there was a block on my account meaning that I can’t have another chequebook. This completely stuffs me and makes my bank account with the Abbey useless. So I ask why? She can’t tell me. She says I must go to my local bank to find out. I don’t want to do this, I just want a new cheque book and carry on with my business unaffected. I wouldn’t mind if the Abbey had sent me a letter or phoned to call about this block, but instead I have been left in the dark and to worry that my chequebook has been stolen in the post. So now I will be withdrawing my money and going elsewhere, partly because the Abbey never warned me about this, partly because of the Indian call centre. I am going to take my cash to the Nationwide Building Society, which has vowed never to outsource their telephone operations.
Then Alex the Wonderdog decided to throw up on the stairs at midnight and I did a bit of a Jack Douglas and spilt the bowl of disinfectant/puke water all over myself.
Moan, moan, moan…will this man ever stop? 🙂
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Firstly, I am a big fan of Steve Hackett and of all the big progressive rock guitarists, I think it is his influence (by osmosis rather than obsession) that has affected my own guitar playing. While I know his electric stuff really well, I am not as familiar with his acoustic work, despite owning the albums. My problem is that I have a mental block when it comes to pleasant instrumental music – I never remember the titles. The same goes for the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. I know all the albums, but if you ask me to name their songs by rote, I would fail. Strange innit?
Anyway, we were running a little late, but it was a lovely Spring evening, with the rays of the setting sun illuminating the South Bank as we walked briskly to the gig. We literally arrived with seconds to spare before Steve Hackett took the stage to applause. He talked about the evening and how he was going to be his own opening act, playing solo before being accompanied by his brother John on flute and Roger King on keyboard.
I recognised some of the tracks: Bay of Kings, Calvacanti, etc and there were a sprinkling of songs by other people: an interpretation of Classical Gas and Tales from the Riverbank and a piece as a tribute to Segovia. There was also an obligatory outing of “Horizons”, which was rearranged for this performance. There were a few issues with tuning and Steve explained how the heat from the audience caused the strings to have a mind of their own, but I didn’t hear any major problems. Again, he fluffed a few bits, but I wasn’t complaining. I was held spellbound for 50 minutes as his fingers worked the fretboard. This was the first time I had witnessed this kind of music being played this close-up. It made me feel very inadequate as a musician and I realise that I am just a chancer compared to someone of this calibre. I felt like going home and selling my guitars after that session.
When the first half finished, I turned to the Missus to ask for her opinion and I noticed the man sitting next to her was wearing a very peculiar hat. It was a standard baseball cap, but on the top was a stereo microphone…yes, we were sitting next to a bootlegger. So when SH finished his opening and left, this man took his hat off and hid his minidisc recorder. Oppositely, I put my hat on to hide my bald head and headed out to buy some goodies from the merchandise stall. As usual, it was a bit of a scrum but I picked up the new Hackett album “Metamorpheus”, John Hackett’s “Checking Out of London” album and a DVD “Once Above a Time”. Then we returned to the concert.
For the second half, he was joined by his brother John and Roger King. The first track their played together was “Jacuzzi” one of my personal faves from the Defector album. In a stripped down form, it was bright and bubbly and very summery for this Spring evening. They even wheeled out some old Genesis tunes – “After the Ordeal” was performed live, which was a big thrill because I don’t think this was ever performed by Genesis in a live context. The highlight for me and the Missus was a sublime performance of “Hands of the Priestess” from the “Voyage of the Acolyte” album. The flute playing was amazing and Roger King’s keyboards really complimented the song, and this was sequed into a section of “Hairless Heart” from “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”, which kind of caught me by surprise. The trio also played some Eric Satie numbers including Gnossienne #1, but I felt the energy began to ebb through some of the weirder Satie stuff.
I really enjoyed this concert and it was quite different for me as I am used to rock gigs where the music drives you along. In this context, I think the energy and concentration of the audience drives the music. It was nice to hear some old stuff, some new stuff and some stuff I had never heard before. It was a real challenge and I enjoyed it very much.
But thing is that the man in seat D11 didn’t enjoy the gig that much. No he sat for the entire evening with his hat recorder on his head with his face pointed exactly at the PA system, whereas we had to turn 30 degrees to watch the stage. Imagine paying for a ticket and not actually watching the performance…? I couldn’t do that!
Well I really enjoyed last night’s Doctor Who episodes. It was good escapist fun. My only issue is that this stuff moves a mile a minute and it could have easily had been a two-parter with a little more character development. But hey, that’s the nature of TV now. Over on BBC4, I watched some TV from the old school. They did a live performance of “The Quatermass Experiment”, an old sci-fi show from the 1950s. The whole thing was live and it was really good, but I noticed how plot development was a lot slower. It made me realise that the way we tell stories on TV is very different now. The slow-winding tension of Quatermass has been reduced to a white knuckle ride courtesy of Doctor Who. Shame that.
Meanwhile, I also saw the second episode of “The Office – An American Workplace”. The episode was called “Diversity Day” and you saw Michael Scott (the lead character) being rapped for performing an edgy Chris Rock sketch in the office. I liked it, but I doubt anyone else will. The Michael Scott character is a cross between David Brent, Basil Fawlty and Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm. It is delightfully un-PC, but I doubt it will keep the viewership. It’s only enjoyable to those of us who like edgy, “watch-through-your-fingers-with-embarrasment” kind of TV.
Anyway here’s a clip. This is Michael Scott being reprimanded for making racist comments in the office.
Meanwhile, the Pope is dead. Thinking of the Pope always reminds me of Newsround in 1978 when we got through three popes in one year. John Craven explained the significance of the different coloured smoke coming from the Vatican and I remember seeing a picture of the white smoke on the cover of the tabloid. Being only seven years old, I must have impressed my folk when I told them what it all meant. I hope the new Pope is more progressive. While the old Pope was a humanitarian, he didn’t quite graps the contraception issue, which is a shame when it comes to sexual diseases and stuff. He could have done more. Well, I expect Bono will be made the next Pope…well he should be just so he can’t make anymore terrible records. 🙂
The really good news is I am off to see Steve Hackett play in London tonight. It is an acoustic gig and while I am a big fan of Hackett, I am woefully ignorant of his acoustic work. Don’t get me wrong, I own all the albums and I play them, but I don’t study the songs. I know of them, but I don’t know their song titles because these are instrumental pieces. I have a mental block with instrumental songs and tend not to remember their titles. It’s the same with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, I know their songs off by heart but would have real trouble naming them. Anyway, not knowing all the song titles for Hackett is going to give me trouble when it comes to writing a review. Maybe, I can wing it. Who knows? 🙂
Forgot to mention that I am a bit upset with the recent Doctor Who news. Yesterday, I was excited because the BBC announced that because of all the favourable feedback there was to be a second series of Doctor Who. Then late last night it was announced that Christopher Eccleston had quit as Doctor Who because of typecasting fears. What a selfish sod. What a total selfish sod… Now the BBC are looking for a new actor to play the role and it occured to me the ideal candidate to replace Eccleston…Sean Pertwee. He’s the son of Jon Pertwee, by the way. 😉
Oh man, my Doctor Who geek gene has revealed itself! (Though I don’t actually own any Doctor Who DVDs or merchandise – I just enjoyed it a lot when I was a kid).
Been a good boy and working hard. Writing news, writing news..a-ha.
I came across this clip courtesy of another website and decided to have a copy of my own. So now, whenever I feel down or a little blue or just need some good ol’ laughing medicine, I can come to my own website and fire up this clip and get a tonic.
And so I present, William Shatner’s “Rocket Man”:
The man truly is a god amongst men…
Every couple of years or so, I have a major falling out with technology. Usually something goes wrong with my PC to the point of distraction and I spend hours trying to fix it. I have just been through one of those phases at the moment.
It all started when I decided to simplify my setup. I was sick of have computers all around the place and I wanted to ditch the little PC I had in the living room and replace it with a dedicated media server. The idea was that my music collection would be held upstairs on my main PC, affectionately known as “The Beast” due to its sheer size and weight, and this would be beamed wirelessly downstairs to the media server.
This didn’t work out too well and it seems that the media server I had purchased wasn’t actually fit for human consumption and so did a little modification, changed the software upstairs and now it is working. However, to get to this point, I upgraded my wireless network. It is now faster. Whoo-hoo! To accommodate this, I bought a new wireless network connector for The Missus’s PC and one for my laptop. The Missus needed a new network doo-dad because her one was playing up and on the verge of breaking, so no problem there. Because it was Belkin brand adaptor, I bought a Belkin brand one for my laptop.
Firstly, I couldn’t get the damn thing to work with my PC and decided to reinstall Windows XP. I needed to do this anyway, so it wasn’t a problem. When I did get the card to work, the signal strength was minimal. I only got a strong signal when I was sitting right next to my wireless ADSL router. Downstairs it wouldn’t even connect. I tried new drivers, adding a better antenna to my router and searching on the WWW for a solution. Anyway, I’ve reverted back to my old adaptor and I have realised that I have pissed my money up the wall with this particular piece of equipment. I just hope I can get some money back on it from eBay. I should really take it back, but I bought it at PC World and I can’t face going back in there again!
God – that was boring, wasn’t it?
Spent last night noodling around on my bass guitar – a good hour with a drum loop and the bass just noodling and getting lost in the noodling. Despite there being no recordings done, I was somehow satisfied by this noodling. This seems to be my main mode of operation at the moment.
As the days pass, as the time marches on, I realise that as you grow older, you lose some of that “brilliance” you had in your youth, the drive that kept you interested in a project for any period of time. Instead, I am turning into a drifter, just drifting in and out of things. It annoys me that I used to have so much focus. I was like a laser beam, but now I am just a drifter, an amorphous blob of a man. I know I should finish that novel that I am halfway through, but I just can’t be bothered. I know I should get my stuff together and finish the artwork for “I am Not Your Enemy” so I can put that CD on sale, but again I can’t be bothered. I just don’t see the point. I go to bed every night aware of my mortality (like I have done since I realised that we have a brief time here when I was seven years old) and totally unable to make proper use of my waking hours. All the time I know that tomorrow it could all be over and instead of grasping the day and not being so afraid of the world and of people, I continually waste my time. On my gravestone it will read: “Failed to live up to his potential”. I realise that by being creative I am trying to stave off the decay that comes with the mortal life. I live in the misguided belief that I’ll leave something behind – either a pile of crappy CDs that no-one wants to listen to, half-hundred weight of manuscripts no-one wants to read and god knows how many magazine articles that I’ve written. Unfortunately, I know that this isn’t going to work. We are all worm food in the end, right? No one gets out of this alive!
I just wish I could have been a bit more confident when I was younger, a bit more sure of myself, but it’s just not me. If I ever have children there’s only one bit of advice I would give them: “Don’t ever be afraid.”
Anyway, I digress. I apologise, dear reader, for that stream of consciousness nonsense. You didn’t come here for that, you came here for wacky Darren. You came here for the funny man to make you laugh and tell you about the infinite minutiae of my daily life. 🙂
Yesterday, cooked a fantastic Easter Sunday lunch of roast chicken. This was topped off by Christmas pud and custard and washed down with some expensive champagne. I like to celebrate our Lord with food and booze. Hurrah! In the afternoon, a DVD showing of “The Incredibles” – I enjoyed this much more than when I saw it at the cinema. I still think that Mrs Incredible is the best character and the whole story should have been centered around her.
Today, working in the front garden, mowing the lawn and tidying up. Then I played at being the good son and mowed my mother’s lawn. But we spent a good chunk of time just chatting and gossiping.
Tonight, who knows? The remnants of that chicken need to be devoured (though Alex the Wonderdog has dibs on all the mucky meat we don’t want) and we have some Christmas pudding left. I’ve got “A Mighty Wind” stored on the box, so that might be tonight’s viewing.
Joke of the Day: there is no joke of the day.