My early posts on here were long and frequent. Then they became long and infrequent, partly because I kept getting half way through writing these long posts and deciding they were of no interest to anyone. I feel that if I change my style to short and frequent, I shall be able to post more words per day on average because nothing will be discarded. I might try for the odd long one if the subject grabs me, but I just thought I'd let you (the imaginary reader) know that the switch is intentional.
So.
I heard about a writing competition in my vicinity, with the admirably wide-ranging brief of submitting 1,000 words of poetry or prose, fiction or non-fiction on any subject. Apparently the competition is dedicated to the memory of a local man who wanted to encourage "good readable writing"; I can't help noticing that this phrase should probably feature a comma, and a more proudly pedantic person than myself (if one exists) might well see fit to write his piece on this very subject, but I'm attempting to mellow as I get older and as such am going to assume that the comma was supposed to be there all along.
Anyway, the point was not the comma. That in itself sounds like the start of some silly discussion on punctuation marks. The point was not the comma, and the full stop is not a point. See? But no, I'm being very silly now. The point, by which I mean the reason for this post (besides boredom) was that I haven't yet decided what to write about. Oh, I'm going to enter; did I mention that or was it just assumed? The prize is more than a week's wages for me and hence is certainly worth going for. My current plan is to re-write my post about the alarm clock, perhaps removing the interview with Wossy and generally making it a bit more prize-worthy. Another plan is a short story, though with only a vague idea of how long 1,000 words is, I have no clue if this is sensible. This has stopped being a short post, hasn't it? You know what? Sod it, I'm going to carry on, and not just by going 'and now for something completely different', but by relating the next paragraph to this very sentence (although this sentence is, admittedly, only tenuously linked to the subject of the writing contest, if at all).
Something that has started to bother me slightly (and only slightly) is the number of TV shows that depict the making of a fictional show, such as Extras, Annually Retentive and Studio 60. The thing that annoys me is that they seem to be immune to criticism - if you're making a program in which any material you're unsure of can be jokingly analysed by the fictional characters, you're onto a winner because you always look clever. I rewrote that last sentence a few times before giving up, and this sentence here demonstrates why these shows only bother me slightly: I'm guilty of the same thing myself. I'm always commenting on my blog entries while I write them, partly out of insecurity about my writing skillz, so it's harsh of me to blame Gervais et al for the same thing, though it would be interesting to know if it's for the same reasons. Probably not, he seems like a cocky git. The other reason this issue doesn't bother me that much is that these shows all tend to be extremely good. In fact, scrap what I just said: shows within shows are no longer original but they are very funny and hence should be encouraged, as long as writers realise that they are not necessarily being clever. I talk a lot of bullshit.
Sunday, 30 September 2007
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Cool Stuff Is My Heroin
I try very hard not to get sucked along by the rip tide of consumerism and greed as the human race veers ever further from the animal kingdom in its behaviour but it's not easy. I have a persistent, fuzzy, bassy feeling that the key to happiness is closer to the Buddhist, Lennonist, sitting-on-a-mountain, drinking-green-tea, no-possessions, inane-smiling school of thought than the widely accepted mantra of looking out for number one whilst watching programs about the property market with one eye and surfing the net with the other. Don't worry, I'm not trying to be political or philosophical or anything; I'm merely painting a picture to make sure you understand that I'm a hypocrite. Oh yes, the point. Despite my anti-consumerist leanings, I confess that I think stuff is cool. You know, cool stuff - technology and that. I tend to put up a half-decent resistance against technology, at least for someone who is so fascinated by it (thought this may be because I'm so tight with money). I have not, for instance, ever bought an MP3 player. Well, until recently. After a fashion. I have bought the mother of all musical gadgets - the Boss Micro BR.
Imagine that the iPod (i feel conflicted, being a corporate tool by typing that with the capital in the middle as proscribed by Apple, but I'm such a pedant that I couldn't sleep if I didn't)...sometimes I feel comments in brackets are too long and can distract the reader from what came before them. Again. Imagine that the iPod (this is more acceptable) had been re-designed by yours truly and then imagine that you are, in fact, me. You are fundamentally a singer-songwriter but don't want to be restricted by that. You want to be able to record your songs anywhere, with good sound quality from a built-in microphone, and you want to be able to piss about with weird effects and overdubs. You want more sockets and dials than you can shake a jack lead at and yet you want this thing to fit in your pocket - literally. Oh, and you like shiny things. That light up blue. I realise that this post is probably not interesting to anybody except myself and possibly the odd passing musician, so I'll summarise: if you write songs and have access to £130, buy a Boss Micro BR. It rocks.
Imagine that the iPod (i feel conflicted, being a corporate tool by typing that with the capital in the middle as proscribed by Apple, but I'm such a pedant that I couldn't sleep if I didn't)...sometimes I feel comments in brackets are too long and can distract the reader from what came before them. Again. Imagine that the iPod (this is more acceptable) had been re-designed by yours truly and then imagine that you are, in fact, me. You are fundamentally a singer-songwriter but don't want to be restricted by that. You want to be able to record your songs anywhere, with good sound quality from a built-in microphone, and you want to be able to piss about with weird effects and overdubs. You want more sockets and dials than you can shake a jack lead at and yet you want this thing to fit in your pocket - literally. Oh, and you like shiny things. That light up blue. I realise that this post is probably not interesting to anybody except myself and possibly the odd passing musician, so I'll summarise: if you write songs and have access to £130, buy a Boss Micro BR. It rocks.
Monday, 24 September 2007
Thoughts At Twenty-Three
This will be, if not an intrinsically interesting post, at least one written in an interesting scenario - I am currently 22 years old and yet will be 23 when I type the last word. Admittedly, I wasn't born until about 3am, so it's a slightly silly and arbitrary distinction, but that's what statistics are and, legally, what I said in the first sentence was correct. Oh, for the record, I actually turned 23 during that last sentence. I was hoping to build up to it but I got waylaid.
You know that Beatles lyric, 'and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make' (or something)? I wonder if that works for boredom (or, rather, excitement). If, for instance, instead of just sitting here and writing about writing about writing about being bored, I attempted to brighten your (the reader's) existence in some way, would karma find a way of making my life brighter in turn? Let's see.
List of things you should do to make your life more exciting:
You know that Beatles lyric, 'and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make' (or something)? I wonder if that works for boredom (or, rather, excitement). If, for instance, instead of just sitting here and writing about writing about writing about being bored, I attempted to brighten your (the reader's) existence in some way, would karma find a way of making my life brighter in turn? Let's see.
List of things you should do to make your life more exciting:
- Read Dave Gorman's blog - this man is funny in a subtle, clever, engaging and wise sort of way, and in addition to reading this blog you should read his books and generally stalk him.
- Listen to Just A Minute - admittedly, this is not entirely unrelated to point number one in the list, as it sometimes features Dave Gorman and it is thanks to him that I listen to it.
- Experience a piece of musical history - what a song and what a way to capture it.
- Take a walk up a hill and watch the scenery. Some great things can't be reached via your left mouse button.
Thursday, 20 September 2007
Back
Sorry, that was a longer gap than I'd anticipated. I tried to write a couple of things, one quite ambitious, but I wasn't in the mood so I saved them and slept. Since last week I've been reading a good biography of Bob Dylan ('Down The Highway') and it's made me raid my dad's music collection. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my mum had re-bought him a bunch of Dylan albums on CD so he could listen to them in the car, thankfully allowing me to listen to and rip ample quantities of Dylan in the comfort of my room, rather than resorting to the confusing experience of the downstairs record player.
I'm attempting to travel a musical journey this year. At eighteen I was a folk musician, content with just a guitar and my bad singing voice. Now, as an old man, I'm not happy until my computer is creaking under the strain of a hundred over-dubs. I can't help thinking, as the reversed, pitch-shifted, time-stretched, delayed melodica sample kicks in on my band's latest track, that I've strayed too far from my folk roots. I like to write songs that stand up on their own, and don't have scribbled notes like 'backwards jazz piano solo goes here' in place of verses, a guide-line I have been ignoring with increasing regularity since my band was formed.
My aim, now, is to write an album's worth of good, acoustic songs without thinking about any arrangement beyond vocals and guitar. That's what Dylan would do. One of these days I will post something on here with a well thought-out ending, instead of just stopping half way through a
I'm attempting to travel a musical journey this year. At eighteen I was a folk musician, content with just a guitar and my bad singing voice. Now, as an old man, I'm not happy until my computer is creaking under the strain of a hundred over-dubs. I can't help thinking, as the reversed, pitch-shifted, time-stretched, delayed melodica sample kicks in on my band's latest track, that I've strayed too far from my folk roots. I like to write songs that stand up on their own, and don't have scribbled notes like 'backwards jazz piano solo goes here' in place of verses, a guide-line I have been ignoring with increasing regularity since my band was formed.
My aim, now, is to write an album's worth of good, acoustic songs without thinking about any arrangement beyond vocals and guitar. That's what Dylan would do. One of these days I will post something on here with a well thought-out ending, instead of just stopping half way through a
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Be Right Back
If you finished a chapter in a book you were reading, then turned the page to find a blank space and no indication of when the next chapter would be appearing, firstly you would assume you were inside one of my silly analogies and secondly you would be a bit miffed. Blogs are often guilty of this, with users leaving long gaps without posts for no reason. Admittedly, a blog is only like a book if you suspend reality and pretend that books are never-ending and can be read in real time as the author finishes each chapter, but nonetheless you see my point. Do you? Probably not entirely until the the end of this paragraph, because the point has not yet been fully revealed. It is this: I'm away for a few days doing fun-related, internet-unrelated things. Back Sunday. Don't rob my house while I'm away. Rob a bank instead.
I once had a student radio show which I used to legitimise the act of talking to myself by pretending people were listening. This blog may be its replacement. In the spirit of this blog, that is the spirit of trying only to write about things that are interesting or occasionally to write that I have nothing interesting about which to write, I have deleted what used to be the beginning of an aimless ramble here. With luck, interesting events may occur while I am away from the internet. Wiser men than me might say that that is no coincidence, but I'm not ready to let go just yet. I shall be pining for cyberspace.
I once had a student radio show which I used to legitimise the act of talking to myself by pretending people were listening. This blog may be its replacement. In the spirit of this blog, that is the spirit of trying only to write about things that are interesting or occasionally to write that I have nothing interesting about which to write, I have deleted what used to be the beginning of an aimless ramble here. With luck, interesting events may occur while I am away from the internet. Wiser men than me might say that that is no coincidence, but I'm not ready to let go just yet. I shall be pining for cyberspace.
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Two Teams, No Balls
I watched the first match of the Women's World Cup tonight. I get annoyed watching women's football, because I feel that pointing out how bad a lot of it is will make me seem sexist, and since I believe it is bad whether I say it or not, I suppose that makes me fundamentally sexist and hence a Bad Person. But...while I'm not perfect and probably am sexist in many ways, a situation I think I'm slowly changing, I don't think this is one of the times I am being sexist - I think I'm being objective.
Of course a lot of women's football is bad. Men's football has a culture and a tradition of inspiring young boys up and down the country to play two or three times a day (I sometimes played four or five). Men's football has a professional structure that spans the globe and extends down multiple divisions in many countries. Women's football is so embryonic that it is still struggling to maintain one semi-professional league in England, the country from which football originated. With no tradition and no infrastructure, of course a lot of women's football is bad - a men's sport in the same situation would be no better. But things are improving.
Today I watched Germany, the defending champions, demolish Argentina 11-0. You could hear the embarrassment in the voice of the female co-commentator with every goal as she voiced her opinion that she hoped the score wouldn't get out of hand because it would be bad the image of the game. Why, though? When you get a team like Germany, who were genuinely skilful, and a team like Argentina, who were clearly not, the game should be one-sided. It's what would happen if the German men's team played the Isle of Mann.
If teams were crying when they got hurt, insulting each other's kits and failing to understand the offside rule then perhaps you could label the tournament 'embarrassing', because it would show that women can't play football, full stop. As it is, the teams from countries in which women's football is widely played appear to be much better than those in which it isn't, a scenario you would be foolish not to anticipate. I hope you've understood my logic or this last comment will seem very sexist and patronising indeed: at this rate, the Women's World Cup will actually be pretty good in a decade or two, but men who call it bad this year are like people who criticise a baby who can't yet do long division. The flip side of this is that women who say it's brilliant now are like people who watch their own baby spit up its last feed and shout "Look! My baby's doing long division!". Or something. Hope that made sense.
Of course a lot of women's football is bad. Men's football has a culture and a tradition of inspiring young boys up and down the country to play two or three times a day (I sometimes played four or five). Men's football has a professional structure that spans the globe and extends down multiple divisions in many countries. Women's football is so embryonic that it is still struggling to maintain one semi-professional league in England, the country from which football originated. With no tradition and no infrastructure, of course a lot of women's football is bad - a men's sport in the same situation would be no better. But things are improving.
Today I watched Germany, the defending champions, demolish Argentina 11-0. You could hear the embarrassment in the voice of the female co-commentator with every goal as she voiced her opinion that she hoped the score wouldn't get out of hand because it would be bad the image of the game. Why, though? When you get a team like Germany, who were genuinely skilful, and a team like Argentina, who were clearly not, the game should be one-sided. It's what would happen if the German men's team played the Isle of Mann.
If teams were crying when they got hurt, insulting each other's kits and failing to understand the offside rule then perhaps you could label the tournament 'embarrassing', because it would show that women can't play football, full stop. As it is, the teams from countries in which women's football is widely played appear to be much better than those in which it isn't, a scenario you would be foolish not to anticipate. I hope you've understood my logic or this last comment will seem very sexist and patronising indeed: at this rate, the Women's World Cup will actually be pretty good in a decade or two, but men who call it bad this year are like people who criticise a baby who can't yet do long division. The flip side of this is that women who say it's brilliant now are like people who watch their own baby spit up its last feed and shout "Look! My baby's doing long division!". Or something. Hope that made sense.
Sunday, 9 September 2007
Not Writing
Sometimes I wonder about being a writer. I'm not sure what of; maybe films, maybe novels, maybe sitcoms, maybe non-fiction. It would fulfil this sad part of my personality that craves some sort of fame. I'm never good at following ideas very far, though. I managed to finish a (bad) album with my band because that can be made in unrelated chunks, but whenever it comes to writing I end up getting over-ambitious and trying to write entire novels with no preparation. I've hit the dizzy heights of two chapters a couple of times now before I've run out of steam. I'm actually doing reasonably well on my latest attempt at a novel, having at least thought about researching it, made lists of characters and possible events, sketched out the plot, etcetera, but unfortunately my over-ambition has responded by turning the project into a trilogy.
And that's all I've got to say about that.
You may wonder why I'm updating this thing so often. Well, it's because my social life which, admittedly, was never much more than sitting in the living room with my mates or going to the pub with my mates, has disappeared since university ended. Luckily this week is going to be much better but only from Wednesday onwards. No, must resist temptation to turn this into a deeply boring diary of when I went to the shop and fed the cat and so on. I'm not on form tonight. Too much band planning interfering with my thoughts. Adiós.
And that's all I've got to say about that.
You may wonder why I'm updating this thing so often. Well, it's because my social life which, admittedly, was never much more than sitting in the living room with my mates or going to the pub with my mates, has disappeared since university ended. Luckily this week is going to be much better but only from Wednesday onwards. No, must resist temptation to turn this into a deeply boring diary of when I went to the shop and fed the cat and so on. I'm not on form tonight. Too much band planning interfering with my thoughts. Adiós.
And I Would Bike One Hundred Miles
I just started writing a post, then realised I disagreed with what I'd written. I deleted it and started again. I was writing about my frustration with my lack of ability as a songwriter, but then I found that I actually quite like the songs I've written recently, so instead I'm going to write about cycling.
I'm not a regular cyclist. I cycle in bursts. To be fair, when I have somewhere to go and the situation allows it, I will quite often cycle there, but often I have nowhere to go and, when I do, the situation doesn't allow it. For instance, I live about five miles from where I currently work, but for some reason the office is always hot regardless of the weather (it's not a big mystery, I presume it's something to do with insulation); this, coupled with the lugging-boxes-up-and-down-stairs nature of my job, means that I'm usually pretty sweaty at work and need to be pretty liberal with the Lynx Dry to prevent that stereotypical physics student smell. You may not have realised that a stereotypical physics student would smell bad, since this stereotype is often perpetuated through television comedy shows which have no means of transmitting smells, but I assure you from experience that those students who fulfil the thick-glasses, dungeons-and-dragons-T-shirt, pale-skinned, greasy-haired visible part of the stereotype also tend to smell pretty bad, and in some cases really bad. Like, you have to move if they sit next to you. I'm not claiming never to have been a bit lax with showers whilst at university (and I confess to owning and wearing a deeply nerdy Lemmings 2 T-shirt), but these guys are in a different league. Sorry, I digressed a bit - my point was that cycling to work would make me smell bad, especially since, while five miles might not sound much, it's almost all hills.
However, like I said, when I can make a trip by bike, I do try to. Last month, I cycled from home (Hook Norton in north Oxfordshire) to London to see my mate, and it wasn't the first time I'd done it. The journey should have been about eighty-something miles, but I'm pretty sure my ridiculous navigation pushed it over the hundred barrier, at least on the way back (which, you'd have thought, would be a navigationally easier trip since I'd already done it once). I set off around 6am, which is very disciplined for someone as lazy as me. Since the law had ruled out the M40, I set off towards Bicester and the...well, I was going to type the road name here but I can't be bothered to look it up. Possibly the A431, or A341, or something like that. Either way, it soon became a fairly hairy dual carriageway. Cars were zooming past me at seventy-plus miles per hour, and only the little painted bicycles directing me to safety at the slip-roads told me I wasn't doing something horrendously illegal and dumb. Well, they told me I wasn't doing anything illegal, at least.
After many hours of deceptively fast progress, due in part to the navigational simplicity of following a big road with large green-and-yellow signs to London, I crossed the M25 (by means of a flyover (or something, I can't remember), rather than looking both ways and pegging it). To me, as someone who had stupidly and against all advice packed only a road atlas of Britain in which London was confined to one very squiggly-looking page, this meant I was practically at my mate's house. Indeed, when I rang him in his lunch hour (this was a weekday and although I didn't have a job at the time, he did) at 2pm to tell him I had gone past Watford and was near Barnet, he sounded surprised and reminded me that he wouldn't be back from work until after five. Of course, he was assuming I had some sort of pre-planned route through the city, or perhaps an A to Z of London, or at least the intention of buying one. But I had none of these things; all I had was the vague notion that I should head for the Thames because my mate lived somewhere on the other side of it.
Now, let me set the scene in case you're not familiar with England - London is fucking huge. And dense. And busy. It quickly became apparent that an occasional Cotswold cyclist such as myself believing I could negotiate central London just because it was legally possible was something akin to my pet cat attempting to take down a wildebeest because it had seen a lion do it on the telly. There are buses, taxis, pedestrians, weird traffic lights and, most scary of all, an expectation that I wasn't used to that I should not just stop to look at the map when I felt like it (not that the few square inches of green spaghetti that represented central London on my atlas were being of much assistance anyway). Unfortunately, my own stubbornness chose this point in the journey to kick in, and I decided that it couldn't be that hard to find the Thames. In fact, once I'd realised that every bus stop had a map that featured the river and that going downhill was clearly a sensible thing to do when searching for water, I found it pretty quickly. Unfortunately, this was after about two hours of arseing (arsing?) about in a very large city. Still, the up side (upside?) was that I timed my arrival to perfection, with my mate only overtaking me on the bus about five minutes from his house. Admittedly, as he overtook me he noticed with some concern that I was going what he termed 'the wrong way', but it can't have been that wrong or I wouldn't have found his house.
It's late now. This story doesn't really have an ending, I just wanted to describe my lack of common sense in a cycling context. If it did have an ending, I suppose it was a happy one, in that I spent a lovely couple of days in the company of my friend before safely journeying back to see my family, including my wonderful Aunt, Uncle and cousin on our canal boat, which was moored at such a place that it knocked a good hour off my journey home. In fact, that's a very happy ending. The moral of the story is therefore that cycling is good.
By the way, before this post was about cycling, it started with a moan about how I couldn't write good titles, but I quite like this one.
I'm not a regular cyclist. I cycle in bursts. To be fair, when I have somewhere to go and the situation allows it, I will quite often cycle there, but often I have nowhere to go and, when I do, the situation doesn't allow it. For instance, I live about five miles from where I currently work, but for some reason the office is always hot regardless of the weather (it's not a big mystery, I presume it's something to do with insulation); this, coupled with the lugging-boxes-up-and-down-stairs nature of my job, means that I'm usually pretty sweaty at work and need to be pretty liberal with the Lynx Dry to prevent that stereotypical physics student smell. You may not have realised that a stereotypical physics student would smell bad, since this stereotype is often perpetuated through television comedy shows which have no means of transmitting smells, but I assure you from experience that those students who fulfil the thick-glasses, dungeons-and-dragons-T-shirt, pale-skinned, greasy-haired visible part of the stereotype also tend to smell pretty bad, and in some cases really bad. Like, you have to move if they sit next to you. I'm not claiming never to have been a bit lax with showers whilst at university (and I confess to owning and wearing a deeply nerdy Lemmings 2 T-shirt), but these guys are in a different league. Sorry, I digressed a bit - my point was that cycling to work would make me smell bad, especially since, while five miles might not sound much, it's almost all hills.
However, like I said, when I can make a trip by bike, I do try to. Last month, I cycled from home (Hook Norton in north Oxfordshire) to London to see my mate, and it wasn't the first time I'd done it. The journey should have been about eighty-something miles, but I'm pretty sure my ridiculous navigation pushed it over the hundred barrier, at least on the way back (which, you'd have thought, would be a navigationally easier trip since I'd already done it once). I set off around 6am, which is very disciplined for someone as lazy as me. Since the law had ruled out the M40, I set off towards Bicester and the...well, I was going to type the road name here but I can't be bothered to look it up. Possibly the A431, or A341, or something like that. Either way, it soon became a fairly hairy dual carriageway. Cars were zooming past me at seventy-plus miles per hour, and only the little painted bicycles directing me to safety at the slip-roads told me I wasn't doing something horrendously illegal and dumb. Well, they told me I wasn't doing anything illegal, at least.
After many hours of deceptively fast progress, due in part to the navigational simplicity of following a big road with large green-and-yellow signs to London, I crossed the M25 (by means of a flyover (or something, I can't remember), rather than looking both ways and pegging it). To me, as someone who had stupidly and against all advice packed only a road atlas of Britain in which London was confined to one very squiggly-looking page, this meant I was practically at my mate's house. Indeed, when I rang him in his lunch hour (this was a weekday and although I didn't have a job at the time, he did) at 2pm to tell him I had gone past Watford and was near Barnet, he sounded surprised and reminded me that he wouldn't be back from work until after five. Of course, he was assuming I had some sort of pre-planned route through the city, or perhaps an A to Z of London, or at least the intention of buying one. But I had none of these things; all I had was the vague notion that I should head for the Thames because my mate lived somewhere on the other side of it.
Now, let me set the scene in case you're not familiar with England - London is fucking huge. And dense. And busy. It quickly became apparent that an occasional Cotswold cyclist such as myself believing I could negotiate central London just because it was legally possible was something akin to my pet cat attempting to take down a wildebeest because it had seen a lion do it on the telly. There are buses, taxis, pedestrians, weird traffic lights and, most scary of all, an expectation that I wasn't used to that I should not just stop to look at the map when I felt like it (not that the few square inches of green spaghetti that represented central London on my atlas were being of much assistance anyway). Unfortunately, my own stubbornness chose this point in the journey to kick in, and I decided that it couldn't be that hard to find the Thames. In fact, once I'd realised that every bus stop had a map that featured the river and that going downhill was clearly a sensible thing to do when searching for water, I found it pretty quickly. Unfortunately, this was after about two hours of arseing (arsing?) about in a very large city. Still, the up side (upside?) was that I timed my arrival to perfection, with my mate only overtaking me on the bus about five minutes from his house. Admittedly, as he overtook me he noticed with some concern that I was going what he termed 'the wrong way', but it can't have been that wrong or I wouldn't have found his house.
It's late now. This story doesn't really have an ending, I just wanted to describe my lack of common sense in a cycling context. If it did have an ending, I suppose it was a happy one, in that I spent a lovely couple of days in the company of my friend before safely journeying back to see my family, including my wonderful Aunt, Uncle and cousin on our canal boat, which was moored at such a place that it knocked a good hour off my journey home. In fact, that's a very happy ending. The moral of the story is therefore that cycling is good.
By the way, before this post was about cycling, it started with a moan about how I couldn't write good titles, but I quite like this one.
Saturday, 8 September 2007
The Alarm Clock
What is an album? That is the question I would like to examine in this post. I was lying in bed last night with the room pitch black except for the time, displayed in bright green light emitting diodes, seemingly suspended in mid-air (my alarm clock is black). I'm something of a day-dreamer and my most common way of drifting off is to imagine myself being interviewed by an enthusiastic Jonathan Ross and plugging my band's latest album. Just as I was about to start one of these day-dreams (well, night-dreams, but I wasn't actually falling asleep), I began to think about my alarm clock, and a vision came to me...
(Ekkeko (that's my band) finish playing, to wild applause; I walk over to JR while the rest of the band go back to the green room)
JR (standing up to shake my hand): Matt, good to see you! That's a great song!
MB (with mock sincerity): Mr. Ross.
(We sit down)
JR: So, Matt...
MB: Yes.
JR: You've gone too far.
MB (grinning): I don't know what you mean.
JR: Ekkeko, and I'm speaking to all of you now...
(Band appear on screen in green room, also grinning sheepishly)
JR: ...there is a line when it comes to being silly and artistic and infuriating, and you have crossed it, with this!
(Ross produces an odd-looking red-and-green alarm clock from under his desk and slams it down in mock anger)
JR: What is this?
MB: That's our ninth album.
(Nervous laughter from audience; I press on)
MB: It's called 'In A Month Of Sundaes' and it's out on Monday the 14th on Hazeceterea Records...
JR (interrupting): Matthew Bradshaw, it is an alarm clock, it is not an album!
MB: Why is it not an album?
JR: Because it's a bloody alarm clock! They are two completely different concepts!
MB (I produce a CD case from inside my jacket): Right, this is 'OK Computer' by Radiohead. Would you accept that this is an album?
JR (wrong-footed): Yes....yes.
MB: OK, good.
(I open the case and place the CD, shiny-side-up, on the table. I reach across and place Jonathan's glass of water on top of the CD)
MB: Now would you accept that it is a drinks mat?
JR (with mock exasperation): Yes, I suppose I would, but that doesn't make your alarm clock into an album, does it?
MB: No, but it does show that an album can be more than one thing. I mean, what qualities would you say an object has to have to be classed as an album?
JR: Why are you playing silly buggers?
MB: Just answer the question! What makes an album an album?
JR: OK, well, music. You need maybe forty minutes or an hour of music, on a CD or a vinyl or a tape, but not an alarm clock!
MB: Why not an alarm clock? It's just another, perhaps slightly strangely-shaped, format. I mean, it's a lot more tangible than a download and they seem to count.
JR: But does it have an album's worth of music on it?
MB: What is music?
JR: Oh for fuck's sake!
(Audience laughs)
JR: Is there a button somewhere on here that if I press it will play your new album?
MB: Well, you set the alarm, and when it goes off, it plays for up to 25 minutes which, I believe, makes it eligible under UK rules as an album.
JR: Right, so what does it sound like?
MB: Here...
(I press a few buttons and the alarm starts to beep annoyingly; the audience laughs)
JR: So it just does that for twenty-five minutes?
(The beeping continues)
MB: Yeah. What do you think? Is it your thing?
(Beeping still going)
JR: It's...oh, how do you turn this bloody thing off?!
(JR bashes the alarm clock until it stops)
JR: No, it's not my thing, it sounds like R2D2's had an error! Are you serious about this? Why have you done it?
MB: Well, I've always been interested in definitions. I mean, you go on Wikipedia, you see people have very definitely categorised Radiohead's albums, like 'this is their first studio album', 'this is their second studio album', etcetera. But who made that judgement about what an album is? I guess with those it was pretty straightforward, but I wanted to see how far we could stretch it. Like, you're a film geek, when you saw Casino Royale being advertised as 'Bond 21', did you not think 'hang on, they're not counting 'Never Say Never Again'? I mean, it was made by a different studio but it had Sean Connery in it. Sometimes the definitions aren't that easy to make.
JR: OK, so your core aim for this...'album'....is to get it recognised as 'Ekkeko's ninth studio album?
MB: Well, we want to see how far we can push it. I'd love it if NME reviewed it.
JR: What would they say, do you think?
MB: I don't know, I guess that's what's interesting. Also I want to see how well it sells, whether it's allowed into the album charts if it sells enough, all that stuff. Plus we've put quite a lot of thought into the look of the thing, we properly sat down and designed this like we would the cover art for any other album.
JR: Do you think your fans will be pissed off?
MB: Well, we did think they might be. But...
(I pull another CD case from my jacket)
MB: ...I think this might appease them.
JR (in a mock fed-up-with-all-this voice): Is that by any chance your tenth studio album?
MB: Oh no, we haven't even started writing that yet. This is an album by a side-project of ours called Okekke.
And at that point my night-dream dissolved somewhat. I began to imagine the arguments between Wikipedia users about how to define the Ekkeko alarm clock and the Okekke album. I imagine there would be a dedicated band of Ekkeko purists who would maintain that the alarm clock was an album because I had said so and the Okekke album, whilst very interesting in its own right, was effectively irrelevant when it came to discussing Ekkeko's canon of work. I imagine there would also be sensible people who would move that we were indeed playing silly buggers and that the Okekke album should be recognised as Ekkeko's ninth studio album whilst the alarm clock's Wikipedia page should have a grudging footnote that acknowledged the band's stance that it should be considered an album. Then of course there would be those who accepted the two works as our ninth and tenth studio albums respectively (we would release them a day apart in order to add fuel to this minority interpretation) and those who, perhaps most correctly in an official, UK-chart-rules sense, would accept neither as Ekkeko albums and would wait until the 'tenth' album was released and christen that the ninth.
The real twist, though, is this (let me now step into the future for a paragraph, simply to make the grammar a little tidier). Like Kid A and Amnesiac, the Okekke album had a twin. Whilst recording the back-to-basic, stripped-down rock tracks for Okekke's album, our main focus was actually on writing and recording perhaps the most innovative concept album of the 21st century. Classical scores were played out through warped guitars and confused synths. Jazz drumming pulled the tracks to edge of madness and back again. The lyrical poetry that framed the instruments' melodies and harmonies cut through politics, philosophy and religion to leave only love, despair and haunting beauty. But the world was not ready for this album. Hype would have destroyed it. Only if it arrived, fully formed in the listener's ears, unmolested by reviews and TV adverts and endless promotion would it make sense.
And so, about two years on from that interview on Jonathan Ross, at 7am GMT, every Ekkeko alarm clock across the world sprang to life. A strangely beautiful robotic voice counted 'un, dau, tri, pedwar, pump, chwech, saith', and the album began.
The musical community didn't know what to do. NME were forced to amend their original review of the album, upping it from one star to five. The Mercury Music Prize panel awarded a special, retrospective prize to the album that would easily have won two years before had it not been for the fact that everyone had assumed the twenty-five minutes of beeping was the only musical content of the alarm clock. The album charts were forced to very carefully change the wording of their rules to allow the new surge of demand for 'In A Month Of Sundaes' to be represented. And in a studio somewhere in England, Ekkeko took a short break from recording their tenth studio album and allowed themselves to feel very smug.
(Ekkeko (that's my band) finish playing, to wild applause; I walk over to JR while the rest of the band go back to the green room)
JR (standing up to shake my hand): Matt, good to see you! That's a great song!
MB (with mock sincerity): Mr. Ross.
(We sit down)
JR: So, Matt...
MB: Yes.
JR: You've gone too far.
MB (grinning): I don't know what you mean.
JR: Ekkeko, and I'm speaking to all of you now...
(Band appear on screen in green room, also grinning sheepishly)
JR: ...there is a line when it comes to being silly and artistic and infuriating, and you have crossed it, with this!
(Ross produces an odd-looking red-and-green alarm clock from under his desk and slams it down in mock anger)
JR: What is this?
MB: That's our ninth album.
(Nervous laughter from audience; I press on)
MB: It's called 'In A Month Of Sundaes' and it's out on Monday the 14th on Hazeceterea Records...
JR (interrupting): Matthew Bradshaw, it is an alarm clock, it is not an album!
MB: Why is it not an album?
JR: Because it's a bloody alarm clock! They are two completely different concepts!
MB (I produce a CD case from inside my jacket): Right, this is 'OK Computer' by Radiohead. Would you accept that this is an album?
JR (wrong-footed): Yes....yes.
MB: OK, good.
(I open the case and place the CD, shiny-side-up, on the table. I reach across and place Jonathan's glass of water on top of the CD)
MB: Now would you accept that it is a drinks mat?
JR (with mock exasperation): Yes, I suppose I would, but that doesn't make your alarm clock into an album, does it?
MB: No, but it does show that an album can be more than one thing. I mean, what qualities would you say an object has to have to be classed as an album?
JR: Why are you playing silly buggers?
MB: Just answer the question! What makes an album an album?
JR: OK, well, music. You need maybe forty minutes or an hour of music, on a CD or a vinyl or a tape, but not an alarm clock!
MB: Why not an alarm clock? It's just another, perhaps slightly strangely-shaped, format. I mean, it's a lot more tangible than a download and they seem to count.
JR: But does it have an album's worth of music on it?
MB: What is music?
JR: Oh for fuck's sake!
(Audience laughs)
JR: Is there a button somewhere on here that if I press it will play your new album?
MB: Well, you set the alarm, and when it goes off, it plays for up to 25 minutes which, I believe, makes it eligible under UK rules as an album.
JR: Right, so what does it sound like?
MB: Here...
(I press a few buttons and the alarm starts to beep annoyingly; the audience laughs)
JR: So it just does that for twenty-five minutes?
(The beeping continues)
MB: Yeah. What do you think? Is it your thing?
(Beeping still going)
JR: It's...oh, how do you turn this bloody thing off?!
(JR bashes the alarm clock until it stops)
JR: No, it's not my thing, it sounds like R2D2's had an error! Are you serious about this? Why have you done it?
MB: Well, I've always been interested in definitions. I mean, you go on Wikipedia, you see people have very definitely categorised Radiohead's albums, like 'this is their first studio album', 'this is their second studio album', etcetera. But who made that judgement about what an album is? I guess with those it was pretty straightforward, but I wanted to see how far we could stretch it. Like, you're a film geek, when you saw Casino Royale being advertised as 'Bond 21', did you not think 'hang on, they're not counting 'Never Say Never Again'? I mean, it was made by a different studio but it had Sean Connery in it. Sometimes the definitions aren't that easy to make.
JR: OK, so your core aim for this...'album'....is to get it recognised as 'Ekkeko's ninth studio album?
MB: Well, we want to see how far we can push it. I'd love it if NME reviewed it.
JR: What would they say, do you think?
MB: I don't know, I guess that's what's interesting. Also I want to see how well it sells, whether it's allowed into the album charts if it sells enough, all that stuff. Plus we've put quite a lot of thought into the look of the thing, we properly sat down and designed this like we would the cover art for any other album.
JR: Do you think your fans will be pissed off?
MB: Well, we did think they might be. But...
(I pull another CD case from my jacket)
MB: ...I think this might appease them.
JR (in a mock fed-up-with-all-this voice): Is that by any chance your tenth studio album?
MB: Oh no, we haven't even started writing that yet. This is an album by a side-project of ours called Okekke.
And at that point my night-dream dissolved somewhat. I began to imagine the arguments between Wikipedia users about how to define the Ekkeko alarm clock and the Okekke album. I imagine there would be a dedicated band of Ekkeko purists who would maintain that the alarm clock was an album because I had said so and the Okekke album, whilst very interesting in its own right, was effectively irrelevant when it came to discussing Ekkeko's canon of work. I imagine there would also be sensible people who would move that we were indeed playing silly buggers and that the Okekke album should be recognised as Ekkeko's ninth studio album whilst the alarm clock's Wikipedia page should have a grudging footnote that acknowledged the band's stance that it should be considered an album. Then of course there would be those who accepted the two works as our ninth and tenth studio albums respectively (we would release them a day apart in order to add fuel to this minority interpretation) and those who, perhaps most correctly in an official, UK-chart-rules sense, would accept neither as Ekkeko albums and would wait until the 'tenth' album was released and christen that the ninth.
The real twist, though, is this (let me now step into the future for a paragraph, simply to make the grammar a little tidier). Like Kid A and Amnesiac, the Okekke album had a twin. Whilst recording the back-to-basic, stripped-down rock tracks for Okekke's album, our main focus was actually on writing and recording perhaps the most innovative concept album of the 21st century. Classical scores were played out through warped guitars and confused synths. Jazz drumming pulled the tracks to edge of madness and back again. The lyrical poetry that framed the instruments' melodies and harmonies cut through politics, philosophy and religion to leave only love, despair and haunting beauty. But the world was not ready for this album. Hype would have destroyed it. Only if it arrived, fully formed in the listener's ears, unmolested by reviews and TV adverts and endless promotion would it make sense.
And so, about two years on from that interview on Jonathan Ross, at 7am GMT, every Ekkeko alarm clock across the world sprang to life. A strangely beautiful robotic voice counted 'un, dau, tri, pedwar, pump, chwech, saith', and the album began.
The musical community didn't know what to do. NME were forced to amend their original review of the album, upping it from one star to five. The Mercury Music Prize panel awarded a special, retrospective prize to the album that would easily have won two years before had it not been for the fact that everyone had assumed the twenty-five minutes of beeping was the only musical content of the alarm clock. The album charts were forced to very carefully change the wording of their rules to allow the new surge of demand for 'In A Month Of Sundaes' to be represented. And in a studio somewhere in England, Ekkeko took a short break from recording their tenth studio album and allowed themselves to feel very smug.
Careering Out Of Control
I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song
I'm twenty-two now but I won't be for long
Time hurries on
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
Those Simon and Garfunkel lyrics apply literally to me (apart from the fact that obviously I didn't write that song). I'll be twenty-three later this month, and I'm a little embarrassed to say that I still live with my parents. The thing is, despite being (presumably) pretty employable with my physics degree, I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with my life and didn't want to throw myself into a career straight after university. Also, I never had a gap year after sixth form, so I feel I owe myself one last year of being carefree and irresponsible.
My plan for the year is to earn as much money as I can be arsed to and use it to do fun things. Simple, really. I've got a growing list of these fun things to do, varying wildly in price. Here's a selection:
The problem with this entry is that I've written it whilst listening to music. Specifically, I've been listening to the acoustic duo Show Of Hands' album 'Witness', which has folky, story-based lyrics that actually make sense rather than being wrapped up in bad metaphors, as a lot of modern lyrics seem to be. Mine included. Anyway, the problem with this is that I end up listening to the lyrics and losing my thread whilst typing. This is my excuse for the rambling nature of this and, sod it, all other posts.
One final comment that might be of interest to people: I tried finish a sentence in this post with 'etc', but was told by Firefox's spell-checker (yes, I'm on about this again) that the correct spelling would be 'etc.' (note the full stop). However, since I was finishing a sentence, a full stop was already in place. I attempted to add a second full stop in case this was the accepted behaviour in such situations, but Firefox held firm in its belief that I was missing a full stop. No matter how many I added, it wasn't happy. Investigating further, I typed 'etc' (without a full stop) in the middle of a sentence and was correctly told that this required a full stop to denote the abbreviation. This is where I discovered that I was not to blame - having right-clicked on the offending word and selected 'etc.' as a suitable alternative, a full stop appeared but the red line under 'etc' remained. It seems Firefox is happy to include full stops in its list of correct words, but will not take note of them once they have been added to the sentence. I'm glad I haven't tried to turn on an auto-correct function, or this post might have ended with 'etc......................................' (etc.).
I'm twenty-two now but I won't be for long
Time hurries on
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
Those Simon and Garfunkel lyrics apply literally to me (apart from the fact that obviously I didn't write that song). I'll be twenty-three later this month, and I'm a little embarrassed to say that I still live with my parents. The thing is, despite being (presumably) pretty employable with my physics degree, I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with my life and didn't want to throw myself into a career straight after university. Also, I never had a gap year after sixth form, so I feel I owe myself one last year of being carefree and irresponsible.
My plan for the year is to earn as much money as I can be arsed to and use it to do fun things. Simple, really. I've got a growing list of these fun things to do, varying wildly in price. Here's a selection:
- A week camping in Devon or Cornwall, surfing and writing songs (cheap)
- A month or so in USA/Canada, just generally having fun (expensive)
- A week camping in North Wales, hiking and writing songs (cheap)
- A summer tour with my band (expensive when you factor in the van I'm planning on buying - more info in a future post I'm sure)
- Various trips to see mates who have ended up dotted around the country (cheap)
- A mystery trip, possibly to New Zealand or somewhere very exciting like that but I'm leaving this one open (expensive)
The problem with this entry is that I've written it whilst listening to music. Specifically, I've been listening to the acoustic duo Show Of Hands' album 'Witness', which has folky, story-based lyrics that actually make sense rather than being wrapped up in bad metaphors, as a lot of modern lyrics seem to be. Mine included. Anyway, the problem with this is that I end up listening to the lyrics and losing my thread whilst typing. This is my excuse for the rambling nature of this and, sod it, all other posts.
One final comment that might be of interest to people: I tried finish a sentence in this post with 'etc', but was told by Firefox's spell-checker (yes, I'm on about this again) that the correct spelling would be 'etc.' (note the full stop). However, since I was finishing a sentence, a full stop was already in place. I attempted to add a second full stop in case this was the accepted behaviour in such situations, but Firefox held firm in its belief that I was missing a full stop. No matter how many I added, it wasn't happy. Investigating further, I typed 'etc' (without a full stop) in the middle of a sentence and was correctly told that this required a full stop to denote the abbreviation. This is where I discovered that I was not to blame - having right-clicked on the offending word and selected 'etc.' as a suitable alternative, a full stop appeared but the red line under 'etc' remained. It seems Firefox is happy to include full stops in its list of correct words, but will not take note of them once they have been added to the sentence. I'm glad I haven't tried to turn on an auto-correct function, or this post might have ended with 'etc......................................' (etc.).
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Musical Boat
I briefly hinted yesterday that I am a musician, or at least that I wanted to be a rock star. Twelve years ago, I started learning piano, reaching the dizzy heights of Grade One before ditching the instrument for guitar, which I considered cooler. Had I understood the subtle dynamics of cool and realised that a guitar is in fact a cool-polarising device which will make a cool person appear much cooler but will significantly reduce the coolness of a short, shy, pre-pubescent 14-year-old with a bad haircut if he insists on playing his songs on it in public...I might have reconsidered. However, I don't regret my decision. Come university, I accidentally found myself (I think) just on the happy side of the cool threshold which, once I had joined a band, finally allowed my guitar to fulfil its destiny as cool-booster. I won't pretend for a second that I was cool in comparison with other musicians, but amongst my particular social subset of badly-dressed, socially-awkward science students, I was punching well above my weight.
But the issue of cool is not what I wanted to discuss. I wanted to tell you something interesting about my band. After making one mildly promising but fairly shit home-recorded album, we decided to make another. We ran out of time before we graduated, but got bits and pieces of four tracks recorded. Now, faced with the daunting prospect of employment, we're having a stab at finishing the songs - on a canal boat. Being embarrassingly middle-class has its many down sides, but these are offset by my parents' ownership of a barge, which we are going to use to finish recording and mixing the songs in question. In the past, our recording process has been fractured and unsatisfying, with various band members flitting in and out of my room to record a riff or pass judgement on a mix and my time in between these encounters spent blindly fiddling with the tracks without any input. Plus, a crisp-packet-and-audio-cable-littered room in a student house with a view from the window of a concrete garden and the back of another house is not an inspiring environment. A tranquil, tree-lined stretch of water with bunnies peeking out from the tow-path ought to be an improvement. My only concern is whether the boat's electrical system is designed to cope with our guitarist's fearsome usage of sockets.
Perhaps in future I should think through my posts a little better before committing fingers to keyboard. Oh, while I remember, here are some ideas for future posts, which I have labelled with the names of my favourite Manchester United footballer to wear the corresponding shirt number:
1 (Peter Schmeichel): Why Harry Potter is just so bloody good
2 (Gary Neville): A review of Ricky Gervais live (got tickets for Wednesday 12th)
3 (Denis Irwin): My many piss-poor attempts at writing a novel
4 (Steve Bruce): My complex relationship with jazz
5 (Lee Sharpe): Why I'm so excited about Radiohead's new album
6 (Gary Pallister): The monotony of my job
7 (Eric Cantona): Why football is great and why supporting the England football team doesn't necessarily mean I'm a nationalist or anything like that
8 (Wayne Rooney): Why it's silly to ever say any creative work is rubbish, and why I do it anyway
9 (Andy Cole): Why I'm a vegetarian, and why I wish I wasn't
10 (Ruud van Nistelrooy): Cycling is great and four-by-fours suck - an unoriginal rant
11 (Ryan Giggs): Should I become a physics teacher?
Right, I have a bunch more, but I really should go to bed now, and I'm only continuing the list so that I can reminisce about Man Utd players.
But the issue of cool is not what I wanted to discuss. I wanted to tell you something interesting about my band. After making one mildly promising but fairly shit home-recorded album, we decided to make another. We ran out of time before we graduated, but got bits and pieces of four tracks recorded. Now, faced with the daunting prospect of employment, we're having a stab at finishing the songs - on a canal boat. Being embarrassingly middle-class has its many down sides, but these are offset by my parents' ownership of a barge, which we are going to use to finish recording and mixing the songs in question. In the past, our recording process has been fractured and unsatisfying, with various band members flitting in and out of my room to record a riff or pass judgement on a mix and my time in between these encounters spent blindly fiddling with the tracks without any input. Plus, a crisp-packet-and-audio-cable-littered room in a student house with a view from the window of a concrete garden and the back of another house is not an inspiring environment. A tranquil, tree-lined stretch of water with bunnies peeking out from the tow-path ought to be an improvement. My only concern is whether the boat's electrical system is designed to cope with our guitarist's fearsome usage of sockets.
Perhaps in future I should think through my posts a little better before committing fingers to keyboard. Oh, while I remember, here are some ideas for future posts, which I have labelled with the names of my favourite Manchester United footballer to wear the corresponding shirt number:
1 (Peter Schmeichel): Why Harry Potter is just so bloody good
2 (Gary Neville): A review of Ricky Gervais live (got tickets for Wednesday 12th)
3 (Denis Irwin): My many piss-poor attempts at writing a novel
4 (Steve Bruce): My complex relationship with jazz
5 (Lee Sharpe): Why I'm so excited about Radiohead's new album
6 (Gary Pallister): The monotony of my job
7 (Eric Cantona): Why football is great and why supporting the England football team doesn't necessarily mean I'm a nationalist or anything like that
8 (Wayne Rooney): Why it's silly to ever say any creative work is rubbish, and why I do it anyway
9 (Andy Cole): Why I'm a vegetarian, and why I wish I wasn't
10 (Ruud van Nistelrooy): Cycling is great and four-by-fours suck - an unoriginal rant
11 (Ryan Giggs): Should I become a physics teacher?
Right, I have a bunch more, but I really should go to bed now, and I'm only continuing the list so that I can reminisce about Man Utd players.
A Faltering Start
Already I'm confused. My first post; do I start with something that feels like a beginning, with a run-down of my life up to this point, or just start typing my thoughts and drip-feed the back-story as the blog unfolds over the coming months? I think I'll sit on the fence and do both. Incidentally, the only word that Firefox has highlighted so far as being misspelt is 'blog', a word which you might think would be included on a list of words for a spell-checker inside an application which will be used, by many people, to update their blogs. Also, that last sentence was a lie because by the time I had typed the phrase 'so far', the word 'Firefox' had also been highlighted. At least the creators of this browser are modest - if I wrote a browser, I would make sure that its name was immortalised in the spell-checker's word list, not only as a proper noun but also as a verb and an adjective, just in case. "Using version seven of the Mattatron browser, Matt Mattatronned several websites. The results were most Mattatronistic." In my browser, that sentence would be allowed. Oh, an update: the 'checker' part of the word 'spell-checker' has been highlighted as incorrect, although this may be because of the apostrophe and the 's' that follow it. Still, an internet browser spell-checker that has issues with its own purpose, the name of browser in which it operates and the word 'blog' does seem rather out of touch. Top marks for not pulling me up on my British-style spelling, though.
Sorry, that paragraph got out of control. It was supposed to be a short introduction to an introductory post. Now it's late and I'm going to have to compress my life story into one sentence because I have work tomorrow (well, today). Born in Birmingham, at age two I moved to Oxfordshire where I attended school until I gained good enough 'A' level grades to be permitted to attend Exeter University, from whence (can I used that word there?) I graduated this summer with a Master's degree in physics, despite spending much of my time trying to be a rock star. It's a little depressing that I can squeeze my whole life into a sentence, but then I suppose anyone could. Nelson Mandela got put in prison but then got let out and most people were happy. See? That was even shorter than mine.
Perhaps that will do for today. I'm not a regular inhabitant of the blogosphere (another non-existent word, says Firefox), but I know that I tend to ignore very long posts. I wonder if, as I post more, my style will progress from this slightly pompous and insecure pedantic-about-grammar-and-spelling-despite-not-knowing-that-much-about-it way of writing. I hope so.
Sorry, that paragraph got out of control. It was supposed to be a short introduction to an introductory post. Now it's late and I'm going to have to compress my life story into one sentence because I have work tomorrow (well, today). Born in Birmingham, at age two I moved to Oxfordshire where I attended school until I gained good enough 'A' level grades to be permitted to attend Exeter University, from whence (can I used that word there?) I graduated this summer with a Master's degree in physics, despite spending much of my time trying to be a rock star. It's a little depressing that I can squeeze my whole life into a sentence, but then I suppose anyone could. Nelson Mandela got put in prison but then got let out and most people were happy. See? That was even shorter than mine.
Perhaps that will do for today. I'm not a regular inhabitant of the blogosphere (another non-existent word, says Firefox), but I know that I tend to ignore very long posts. I wonder if, as I post more, my style will progress from this slightly pompous and insecure pedantic-about-grammar-and-spelling-despite-not-knowing-that-much-about-it way of writing. I hope so.
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