BlandSongs LocalRadio Day4

Why didn't I choose this as one of the obvious songs! It must get played three times a day, virtually the only place it does get played is in fact on local radio, and in Tarantino retrospectives.

Stealers Wheel - Stuck in the middle with you.

A light hearted tune, often heard accompanying film of athletes tripping over each other in those sporting compilations hosted by orange former footballers, or in scenes where a smartly dressed sadist cuts off an ear with a straight razor while jiving around.

The pedal steel guitar, cowbells, and chaotic cymbals, and the syncopated and slightly funky line contribute to the humorous feel.

And if you watch this video the loon-pants add an additional, unintentional, comedy touch.



Gerry Rafferty's teeth hark back to an era before flossing, and before his collaboration with Bob Holness on that other classic that I expect to hear soon.

Another humorous tune is the Italian National Anthem, music for a benign dictatorship, except less stern, a great tune. Like a football chant crossed with opera, fittingly created by a nation that brought us the Big Mac, Liposuction and stripping newsreaders.

I like both Stuck in the Middle and the Italian national anthem.

Day4
6.38AM LocalRadio
BlandSong
Stealers Wheel - Stuck in the middle

BlandSongs LocalRadio Day3

Another treat today, had to wait until the end again to hear the band and title, Boyzone with No Matter What. My lack of recognition means I'm either a) too young to be the target audience, b) too old to be the target audience, or c) just not very familiar with any of this music.

This is the sort of song that will almost certainly have had one of those guest appearances on the lottery show. The 10 minute show with no audience but for the stick-thin woman presenter and the other two more normal sized women that are the independent adjudicators, not forgetting the disembodied voice chap. Am I taking this too seriously?

Written by Jim Steinman, a man famed for writing either extraordinarily bland and hugely overblown songs, or extraordinarily camp and hugely overblown faux-rock songs. Bat out of Hell sits firmly in the latter category, enjoyable, ridiculous and only needing to be heard once every 4.5 years.

Day3
6.38AM
LocalRadio
BlandSong
Boyzone - No Matter What

BlandSongs LocalRadio Day2

Early days, no repeats yet but another classic LocalRadio Bland, Mike and the Mechanics. Where members originating from other more, and less, successful bands gather together, er, for some reason.

Never mind the eponymous bloke from Genesis there's Paul Young, no not that one, but the one from 1970's Manc' band Sad Cafe. The 'Caf', as I don't remember them ever being called, were played an awful lot on Piccadilly Radio, while they didn't play so many other Manc' bands such as the fantastically great Buzzcocks.

I must have heard this before but had no memory of it at all and so listened through to the end (cripes!) to hear the title.

Day2
6.40AM
LocalRadio
BlandSong
Mike and the Mechanics - Over My Shoulder

BlandSongs LocalRadio Day1

Brushes off some blog dust. Coughs. Carries on.

Turned on a radio this morning that had been left tuned to local radio. It could equally have been T'Pau with China in your Hand or one of the thousands of versions of Wind Beneath My Wings, but on this occasion they were playing Chicago with If You Leave Me Now.

Right, I thought, here's a pointless study I could do. Given the constraints of the breakfast show play-list on local radio how long will it be before the same songs start coming round again, and indeed how long before it's China in your Hand or Wind Beneath my Wings.

I'm well placed to make such a judgement about how bland this music is as I'm an international superstar, I've played Worksop, twice, put that in your pipe so called Mick Jagger. Ah, just had word from my legal team and apparently he is called Mick Jagger, fancy that.

Anyway, until I forget to do this, here's number 1:

Day1
6.40AM
LocalRadio
BlandSong
Chicago - If You Leave Me Now

Graffiti art 2

It appears that a day after my previous graffiti blog last Sunday that a nascent Mondrian, in the early stages of development as an abstract artist, has overwritten graffiti on the same wall. And in a hat-tipping reference to the self referential nature of the previous graffiti they have written 'wet paint' on the pavement. Clever stuff.

Clearly it wasn't an effort to make the wall look better as they didn't paint over the peeling or dirty areas. Perhaps this is a reference to the nature of art, art highlighting the difference between our context of reality and that of the perfection of geometric designs, a juxtaposition directly related by its appearance on the imperfect façade.

Although it would have been better if they'd used a decent straight-edge.

The Amazon Kindle

Some pictures of the Amazon Kindle.

Electronic ink, very easy and pleasant to read. Being used to touch screens meant repeatedly trying to select and scroll through the pages with futile finger-sliding attempts.

The keys are hard to press cleanly, navigation through and selection of the text feels odd using the joystick.

There's a cumbersome multi-step process to retrieve annotations to save elsewhere as it isn't possible to pull them directly from the device, and annotations will be lost if Amazon wipes-out your book collection. There's a limit to the amount of annotation (Amazon calls them clippings) available on some books controlled by DRM, it's not possible to check what this limit is other than by hitting it.

It's thinner than I expected at about a centimetre, and it looks better than the advertising and review pictures portray it.

It needs a wave of the Apple design-team magic-wand but a viable alternative to carrying a bookcase with you on to a train.

Graffiti art

I keep walking past this giant chap on the way to work, it took some time to work its way through my early-morning lack of consciousness but eventually, over this last week, it sunk in enough for me to take a photo.

It looks too neatly structured to be a free-form spray work, not sure if stencil or masking was used. Is the text to the left to do with the picture, it looks too amateurish, like the tag behind his backside? But the text has been written by the chap himself, the paint brush in his hand answers the question, although the tag would still be by someone else. Above the tag there is what looks like a signature in the more stylised form of the picture itself. It's on this wall on a main road.



Here's another one that's around the University campus, this appears to be a stencil although the spectacle frame over the right eye might suggest otherwise.



I don't think these examples are detrimental to the environment, I'll keep a look out for others, if I'm awake.