October 2004 Archives

Like everyone I'm saddened by the recent death of John Peel. I think it's the suddenness, his relative youth (a very young 65) and the loss of an inspirational creative talent.

You didn’t have to listen to Peel’s R1 show every week to recognise his passion for music and his ability to bring new bands and songs to a wider audience. Inevitably it was always a bit hit and miss, but the number of careers who benefited from this exposure is huge, and the number of other forums that did what Peel did are increasingly few and far between.

Not only was Peel passionate about music, he was a consummate broadcaster full stop. His mastery of Home Truths showed that. His ability to produce and deliver a wry and witty script week in week out showed there was more to the man than a passion for The Fall.

I saw him in the flesh twice. Once in Ozer, a Turkish restaurant by BBC Broadcasting House (where no doubt someone mistook him for Bob Harris - a regular occurence apparantly,) and then last Christmas at the Radio Academy Patrons lunch where he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

His interview with Victoria Derbyshire was by far the funniest (Tarrant at your heart out,) and the man’s ease and laid backness was perfectly summed up by the fact that he was wearing trainers with his smart suit. It seems an apt metaphor in many ways – professional to the last, but with a hint of being anti-establishment at the same time. It made for a great and memorable mix.

RIP John - you will be missed.

Great idea this - taken from and contributed to on Dina's site. So good I thought I would share it here too.

1. Take five books off your bookshelf (or in my case the coffee table).
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph:

"Precious Ramotswe was sitting at her desk at the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Gaborone. 'I could make a stew at the start of the week,' the wife was saying, 'and it would keep. Do you like stews?' As you read this book 2.5 million red blood cells are being made every second within your bone marrow, in order to keep your body cells supplied with oxygen. If they are saying this thing, announcing it, then they feel that logically they have to present it in speech marks, because it's all them talking. And if you are wondering why this piece is at the end of the book instead of appearing as the usual foreward, preface or introduction, well, it is called Inside Out..."

The Full Cupboard of Life - Alexander McCall Smith
The Blackpool Highflyer - Andrew Martin
The Optimum Nutrition Bible - Patrick Holford
Eats Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss
Inside Out: a personal history of Pink Floyd - Nick Mason

I read this a while ago when I in jured my head a couple of months ago, but it's taken me a while to get round and blog a review of it. This is the prequel if you like in that it was written before The Dan Vinci Code and features the same lead character, Havard Don Robert Langdon (to be played in an upcomingmove by Harrison Ford if the rumour mill is true).

Like TDVC it features a religious conspiracy and the action again takes place over a twenty four hour period. It also contains plenty of laughable interchangeable dialogue which could easily be said by pretty much any character in the book. However, once again, this doesn't really matter - the book rips along at great pace with plenty of twists and turns which are enough for you to overlook Brown's literary shortcomings.

It also helps that he sets his stories in great locations and paints these very well. Angels & Demons is predominantly set in Rome, and just as Brown did with several London locations in TDVC, he's made me want to go to Rome if nothing else. The Italian tourist board should be very proud of him.

The only downside is that his editor didn't persuade him to ditch the last hundred pages as they're superfluous and self indulgent. Shame really, until then there was little to fault for a book of this type.

I'd certainly recommend reading it - but just skip the last bit, or read through it like an airport novel and that way the page turning brilliance of the first four hundred pages wont be tainted.

Email down here - so making use of the time to catch up with various bits and bobs including getting my photographs up to date.

I've put up some pics of little James Harrod who we saw at the weekend. He's gornw a lot since the last time I saw him in August last year...

Some nice pics from both my birthday proper and my party now up (including a bit of fun with Photo Editor to hide some of my less good efforts).

It already seems like ages ago....

The colour selection is now up.

Much lamentation here at Radcliffe Towers as Rain heads off tomorrow to the States for 2 years as part of her attachment to the IMF in Washington. As I discovered the other night when I was waxing lyrical about the places to go to in DC and the places to avoid, the girl has never actually been there before. You have to admire her bravery or her stupidity to up sticks and go live and work somewhere you don’t know – not sure I could do it…

Rainbow is one of the original Staircase 6 posse from Trinity – a group of loyal travellers who stick together and remember just how weird everybody else on our floor was during that heady first year at Univeristy. We of course were totally sane and normal - we never tried to cook pasta in the kettle for starters...

Have a great time in DC Rain (see you for dinner somewhere near Dupont Circle next month!) – there’s a few nice pics from last Friday’s leaving do here.

Now up.

More to follow.

Does what it says on the tin. Random pictures of people and iPods from all over the planet. Strangely addictive... thanks to Menace for the pointer.

Dina has been putting me to shame with lots of new photos on her site, so I thought I best put up the photos of the city that I promised earlier. The best ten pics are now up - enjoy!