From the planet Gong

Deadman @ my birthday bash

2009-04-24T10:05:00.003+02:00

After The Plant She Killed it was time for my new band Deadman to take the stage. We played a short 4-song set before giving way to my friend Javi's new band, Our First Date. It was nice to have a captive audience and I think the songs we played went down pretty well.

The Plant She Killed @ my birthday bash

2009-04-22T16:57:00.002+02:00

A semi reunion of my old band, The Plant She Killed, specially for my birthday party at Triskel Tavern on 17 April, 2009. Thanks to everyone for putting up with us :-)

Coldplay vs. Joe Satriani

2009-04-12T12:58:00.002+02:00

Coldplay are being sued by Joe Satriani for plagiarism and I think after seeing this video it's clear they've ripped him off. I'm surprised that Coldplay even listen to Joe Satriani though, given the disparity in styles between the two.

Coldplay's defence is that Satriani's song isn't very original. But what does that say about them? They're so unoriginal they rip off something that itself is unoriginal. So much for them being the pinacle of britpop, the twats.

Fuck yeah!

2009-04-05T12:15:00.006+02:00

It's refreshing to see that Britain's most liberal broadsheet is using API technology in the right way. I'm curious about why 'cock' was big in 2000 - and glad to see that the paper's editorial policy prohibits the use of fucking asterisks!

More in The Guardian.

Holiday in Cambodia Redux

2009-04-02T09:07:00.005+02:00

Foo Fighters with System of a Down's Serj Tankian playing the Dead Kennedys seminal classic at some MTV thing in 2007. Awesome, though I'm not sure if Jello would approve of changing "nigger" to "brother" in the first verse. Just not punk, is it? Another sign of the PC times we live in....

Orgasm Addicts

2009-03-12T10:55:00.003+01:00

Buzzcocks playing in El Sol in Madrid on 4 March. Their current tour is to promote the re-release of their first three studio albums so they were playing all their old stuff in this gig.

Amazing energy from both Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle.

Låt den rätte komma in (Let The Right One In)

2009-03-10T12:07:00.005+01:00

Last weekend we went to see this fantastic film in one of Madrid's big old cinemas. I hadn't been to Cine Palafox since seeing Pulp Fiction there and I was surprised by how big it is. Most cinemas are small roomed multicines these days so it was refreshing to see a film literally on the big screen.

The film itself was part of a festival organised by the Sci-fi TV channel and also contained the premiere of Watchmen as well as recent horror classics like Eden Lake and The Midnight Meat Train.

I haven't seen such a tender vampire movie as this before. It was a cool story that told of the friendship between a bullied young kid and a vampire girl. It focused on the predator's difficult fight for survival in the modern world and the boy's alienation in society.

Låt den rätte komma in was a true breath of fresh air in the horror genre - and it contains the best cats-attack-vampire scene in cinematic history!

Deadman in the studio

2009-02-23T10:03:00.004+01:00

Last weekend my band Deadman went into Estudios Corleone with Jaime Zamora to start recording our debut album.

We laid down the drums and bass for the 9 tracks that will make up the album. Next weekend, guitars and vocals... and hopefully a few more photos.

Football and politics

2009-02-03T17:57:00.006+01:00

Andrei Arshavin, Russia international and Zenit St. Petersburg playmaker, is on the verge of a £15m move to Arsenal but some Russian polititians are not best pleased about it.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the "Liberal Democratic Party" of Russia, thinks Andy is wrong to sell himself to an English club. But why?

"England brings our country only harm. They have incited revolutionary feelings all over the world."

Nothing to do with sporting issues then. Of course, some may put forward a pot-kettle-black argument at this point, and they'd be right. I'd also be the first to admit my country's mistakes in the past though, however irrelevant they might be to this argument. But Vladimir's not finished with England yet:

"Our thieves run there and our fugitive oligarchs who took Russia's money hide themselves there. "

Abramovich anyone? Romanov? Gaydamak?

And of course Dmitry Piterman in Spain.

Vlad's got a final plea though:

"If you've had enough of playing for Zenit, there are a lot of other clubs like Spartak, CSKA, Dinamo, Lokomotiv. Think again Andryusha!"

Myself I'm also against the transfer. Why? A guy called Arshavin joining the Arse - it just sounds too silly.

Legends of (indie) rock

2009-02-03T11:43:00.002+01:00

Here's my band Deadman playing at La Leyenda Rock Bar in Madrid on Saturday 24 January, 2009. I'm also showcasing the second t-shirt I bought in Dario Argento's shop, Profondo Rosso, in Rome late last year.

Guitar nipple vs. cello scrotum

2009-01-28T09:58:00.003+01:00

As opposed to tennis elbow I guess.

After reading about some medical hoaxes this morning on the BBC I was struck with what is probably a pointless-but-at-the-same-time-curious question:

What would be more painful - guitar nipple or cello scrotum?

Ouch!

Down on the upside

2009-01-16T15:50:00.004+01:00

No, not the Soundgarden song.

Last week in her FT.com column, management fad and bullshit bingo columnist Lucy Kelleway unveiled her twaddle awards for 2008 - and, as usual, there are some real gems in there.

2008 was a great year for economists getting it all entirely wrong and then being spectacularly wise after the event. But here's a World Bank economist hedging his bets so cleverly it's impossible to know what the fuck he thinks.

He told those fine upstanding defenders of the English language, the BBC: "In our base case simulation there is an upside case that, er, corresponds on the flipside of the downside case in kind of an adverse direction."

She also gave an award for the best new job title. Now this is something I've noticed where I work as well - the higher up some people get the longer their job title becomes. But, of course, more is not always better.

Late in 2008 Diageo put out an announcement saying Darren Jones was joining "the Diageo Way of Selling team as Design Director for Customer and Channel Profitability and Trade Investment." Nice.

One award I particularly is the Nouns Moonlighting As Verbs category, which was so popular that the judges gave out three gongs. The 2008 Olympics introduced the world to the verb 'to medal'. This entry medals with a bronze. The Silver medal in this category goes to 'to auspice', while gold goes to the verb 'to sunset'. AOL used the verb to great effect last summer in declaring that it was canning some products. "Bluestring, Xdrive and AOL Pictures will be sunset. [They] have not gained sufficient traction in the marketplace or the monetisation levels necessary." In other words they were bollocks.

Another category was Improving Existing Jargon, which featured 'to cascade around'. Lest anyone be offended at the idea that a cascade falls from top to bottom, this new preposition makes the idea less hierarchical. There's also the outstanding phrase 'strategy staircase', which represents a step change on the existing strategy tree, and ladders the concept to a whole new level.

Don't you just love this stuff?

Sneak preview

2009-01-15T17:07:00.003+01:00

Here's a sneak preview of what's cooking in the Deadman kitchen (or rehearsal room). We'll unveil this new song officially at our next gig in La Leyenda on 24 January with the excellent Hendrix-in-a-stoner-band-esque June Mack.

Check out the Deadman Youtube channel for some more new goodies!

A dying god coming into human flesh

2008-12-17T11:01:00.006+01:00

I think I posted this video in my old blog back on Live Spaces. After seeing the new Metallica video the other day with its living dead and eastern bloc coolness I went back to have another look at the mighty Frost.

I was fortunate enough to see them live in Madrid after the release of their comeback album Monotheist. This song is from that album.

From the gig I'll never forget bass player Martin Eric Ain's "There is no god!" speech which most of the audience didn't really understand. For example, he asked "Do you believe in God? Do you go to church?" and all the crowd were yelling "Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhh". Duh, this is black metal dudes!

Empty stage

2008-12-16T12:12:00.004+01:00

The observant amongst you may notice that I'm wearing my new giallo t-shirt from Dario Argento's shop Profondo Rosso in Rome.

Out of my Head

2008-12-16T11:27:00.004+01:00

Another gem from Deadman's 15 October set at Gruta 77. My wife thinks this one could be a big hit...

Rock the kasbah II

2008-12-11T12:14:00.006+01:00

I haven't really published much from this year's trips so here are a few pics from our summer long weekend in Marrakech, re-treading the steps of Plant and Page when they were recording their Un-led-ed album.

I'd previously been there in May on a work trip when we'd stayed in tents in the desert and painted a school.

I took my wife there a few months later for a long weekend. We stayed in a fantastic riad with a lovely central patio and rooftop solarium.

It was hot (50+ degrees) in the city but we had a great time shopping in the souks, eating in the main square (and avoiding the multitudinous snake charmers) and visiting the famous baths.

Sunshine Lies

2008-12-04T15:33:00.005+01:00

This looks like the same (or very similar) lineup that I saw in Madrid a few years ago. This guy truly rocks. I love the wall of sound the guitars produce and the lead guitar almost constantly soloing is a real hallmark of Matthew Sweet.

Profondo Rosso

2008-12-01T19:08:00.004+01:00

Here I am outside Dario Argento's shop Profondo Rosso in Via Gracchi in Rome last weekend.

Thanks to an amazing slice of luck the shop was actually in the same street as the hotel my wife and I stayed in on our romantic anniversary weekend in the city.

I'd first heard about this place on an extra feature on the DVD of Phenomena where Dario was seen in his own shop showing Tim Burton around.

The shop itself is pretty small with surprisingly little memorabilia (though I did buy a couple of cool Argento t-shirts). Downstairs, though, is a kind a brick cellar which has been turned into an Argento museum. It costs 2 euros to go down there and they play a commentary (in heavily-accented English for us, which kind of added to the feel) where they've got piles of framed posters and loads of props and FX from Argento films - both directed and produced as Lamberto Bava's Demons and Michele Soavi's The Church are heavily featured.

I really enjoyed the mirror/picture piece from Profondo Rosso itself where the killer's face is pictured as part of a hideous painting which David Hemmings sees in a mirror as he enters the scene of the first murder in the movie. Wonderful.

Seropram Summer

2008-11-19T10:30:00.005+01:00

Another uplifting track from our gig at Gruta '77 on 15 October, 2008. Does anyone think it sounds a bit like Ash?

Time off for good behaviour

2008-11-14T14:57:00.004+01:00

Time off for good behaviour. You know, be good in jail and they'll let you out earlier. That's what prisoners normally get.

But not Michel Lapointe, aka Big Mike. This drug gang member was released from jail this week because, at 250kg, he was just too large for his cell.

Put him in a bigger cell, I hear you say. And I agree. Why not? Montreal state and a couple of other prisons in Canada clearly disagreed, so they let him go free.

Apparently Big Mike couldn't fit on the chair in his Montreal prison cell and when he went to bed, his body protruded six inches on either side. Wasn't there something about prison being a place to pay back society for the ills you've caused it? Isn't it supposed to be uncomfortable?

So that's it then? For anyone else who wants to get out early the solution's obvious: Eat like a motherfucker!

So what did Big Mike have to say on his release: "I'm going to have a proper bed and finally have a chair I can sit in."

That's nice then. Anything else you want? A full body massage? A tumbler of malt whisky? A new Armani wardrobe? I'm sure the taxpayers would go the extra mile just for you.

In search of the marxist child

2008-11-14T10:30:00.003+01:00

Part of an interview with popular scientist and clear thinker Richard Dawkins, author of - amongst others - The God Delusion.

Some say that his views are just another brand of 'faith' - that atheism is a belief system like christianity. Judge for yourself...

A Tim Burton soundtrack

2008-11-06T17:11:00.004+01:00

"...un recital soñador, donde la siniestralidad nos envuelve en un humo denso..."

"...potencia controlada..."

Full review of the gig at Musiqueando.

Sarah Palin: Is Africa a country?

2008-11-06T16:41:00.007+01:00

Sarah Palin is the Republican "hail mary" that went wrong!

I'm not surprised, though. Americans are generally completely clueless when it comes to the rest of the world. Add to that the fact that she believes the world in less than 10,000 years old and what do you expect?

The stories of her abuse of power to try and fire her sister's estranged stage trooper husband seem like child's play compared to all this.

It's Halloween and I feel like dancing

2008-11-03T11:25:00.001+01:00

Without Me You're Nothing

2008-10-30T14:43:00.004+01:00

Another video from the deadman gig at Gruta '77 on 15 October, 2008.

Love like Semtex

2008-10-29T16:06:00.004+01:00

Infadels just keep getting better and better. I first saw them, randomly, at Benicassim 2005 and then again in Madrid a couple of years ago. Now with two albums under their belt and an energetic live show they're obviously going from strength to strength. Motherfuckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photo from the Infadels gig at Moby Dick on 27 October, 2008.

More cunts - Engrish re-revisited

2008-10-23T15:31:00.005+02:00

These guys from engrish.com crack me up!

Horsing around

2008-10-23T10:00:00.002+02:00

Who knows what the fuck Gracie was thinking about when she did this!

Hating

2008-10-22T12:17:00.003+02:00

Our opening number from last week's gig in Gruta 77. More videos to come later!

You are what you search for

2008-10-08T12:14:00.006+02:00

Frank Zappa recorded an album in 1981 called You Are What You Is. If the great man were still alive today, maybe he'd give it a slightly different name.

I've quite often wondered who reads my blog, and why. What do they find interesting? The barbed attacks on organised religion? The tongue-in-cheek reporting of ridiculous news and non-news from around the world? Do they like the videos I post from Youtube and my related comments on them?

Some time ago I read a report about how Google had analysed search trends in the US. They took a group of internet users and monitored their search activity over a 6-month period of time - and they discovered something quite interesting.

People try to solve their problems using Google. They type a question into the search engine as if it was some kind of agony aunt. How can I make my boss appreciate my work more? Why doesn't my girlfriend love me any more? Stuff like that. It's an interesting discovery and if you give it a try you'll probably find some "answers" to your nagging questions.

Of course at work we also analyse this kind of thing for our website. We do Search Engine Optimisation to try and improve our ranking on keywords that we think people are looking for - and that relate to us - in order to get increased traffic to our website.

So I thought I'd do a little analysis of my own based on all of this. I had a look at my blog stats and the keywords people had searched for in Google when they found me.

So what did I discover? What were they looking for? My barbed attacks on organised religion? My tongue-in-cheek reporting of ridiculous news and non-news? The videos I post from Youtube?

Nope.

"Tattoed cunt" and "laxative challenge" (and derivatives thereof) both figure at the top of the list.

My question is: Does this say something about them or me?

Back to the thematic drawing board I think.

Welcome to Saudi Britain

2008-10-07T18:25:00.004+02:00

This video was recently banned and then reinstated by Youtube. Apparently lots of muslims find it offensive. I think the fact that some people say they are 'offended' by something is never a good reason for censoring it. Indeed, if you listen to what this guy has to say, it's actually quite scary - and something that I wouldn't like to see happen where I live.

The definition of light-hearted

2008-10-07T15:02:00.004+02:00

According to the Reverend Dr Peter Mullen, homosexuality is "clearly unnatural, a perversion and corruption of natural instincts and affections, and because it is a cause of fatal disease".

Mullen, who is rector of St Michael's Cornhill and St Sepulchre without Newgate in the City, and looks suspiciously like actor Steve Pemberton from The League of Gentlemen, blogged these words the other day.

"Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals," he went on to write, "to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS."

The rector, who has also written for The Torygraph, insists that he meant no harm: "I wrote some satirical things on my blog and anybody with an ounce of sense of humour or any understanding of the tradition of English satire would immediately assume that they're light-hearted jokes."

Light-hearted indeed. The very definition of, if you ask me.

Midnight in Madrid

2008-10-03T11:31:00.003+02:00

A couple of shots from my band's gig last weekend in Sala Midnight. Deadman will be back on stage on 15 October in Gruta 77's concurso de rock. And it's free.

What's your favourite colour, baby?

2008-09-24T12:50:00.005+02:00

Living Colour live at Sala Heineken in Madrid on 23 September, 2008. Rock gods.

Free speech for the dumb

2008-09-18T18:20:00.008+02:00

In the spirit of healthy debate and "teaching the controversy", a Turkish court has banned internet users from viewing the official Richard Dawkins website after a Muslim creationist claimed its contents were defamatory and blasphemous.

It's amazing how people like this can exist in the modern world.

I guess Dawkins must get called blasphemous a lot, considering his somewhat radical views and reputation as Darwin's enforcer. But I don't think he'd ever advocate banning, gagging or silencing his critics.

In reality though it seems that Adnan Oktar thinks that Dawkins has insulted him in comments made on forums and blogs. Check out Dawkins' "insults".

Istanbul's second criminal court of peace banned the site earlier this month on the grounds that it "violated" Oktar's personality. I've had a look at the story and subsequent comments and I'm not really sure about the allegations.

True, a lot of people mention how Oktar has been found guilty of creating an illegal organisation, and a lot of people speculate about the actions of that organisation, including rape and extortion. He is appealing the verdict. Does this mean he should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, or is he just doing what everyone does when convicted - appeal to slow down the legal process?

Oktar, a household name in Turkey, has used hundreds of books, pamphlets and DVDS to contest Darwin's theory of evolution.

In 2006 his publishers sent out 10,000 copies of the Atlas of Creation, a lavish 800-page rejection of evolution.

Dawkins, one of the recipients, described the book as "preposterous". On his website the British biologist and popular science writer said he was at "a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the 'breathtaking inanity' of the content."

It is the third time Oktar and his associates have succeeded in blocking sites in Turkey.

In August 2007 Oktar persuaded a court to block access to WordPress.com. His lawyers argued that blogs on WordPress.com contained libelous material that the company was unwilling to remove.

Last April, he made a libel complaint about Google Groups, which was subsequently blocked.

He failed to ban Dawkins' book The God Delusion in Turkey after a court rejected his claims that it insulted religion.

So, free speech for the dumb anyone?

Holiday in Cambodia

2008-09-16T18:20:00.004+02:00

Weird how one train of thought leads to another. Having posted the snippet below I had the line "But your boss gets richer off you" going through my head. Then the melody came, then the next line: "Well you'll work harder / With a gun in your back / For a bowl of rice a day," and who else could that be but the truly amazing Dead Kennedys?

I first got into these guys when I was like 15 - I still have a clear vinyl of Fresh Fruit For Rotten Vegetables sitting in my parents' loft - and I've never looked back since. It's intelligent music. I only wish I'd seen them live when Jello was still involved....

The rich get richer

2008-09-16T18:09:00.004+02:00

A little factoid that jumped out at me off the screen as I was reading the latest Lucy Kellaway column from the FT:

When CEO pay in the US was made public 15 years ago, they earned about 70 times the average worker’s pay. Now they earn 300 times as much.

Higher education

2008-08-29T13:02:00.004+02:00

Given that I like to laugh at the misfortune and mistakes of others, this piece of non-news I found yesterday made me chuckle in a particularly pedantic kind of way.

University students, it seems, have been shamed with a list of exam blunders they've made. And we're not talking errors in quantum equations here - more in the way of spelling your own name wrong kind of mistakes.

One student, for example, claimed that railways were invented to relieve pressure on motorways.

Another gem is from an economics student at City University in London who attributed Northern Rock's downfall to "laxative enforcement policies".

An English literature student from Bath Spa University wrote that Margaret Atwood's book, The Handmaid's Tale, shows how patriarchy treats women as escape goats.

A University of Southampton student concerned by global warming wrote that: "Tackling climate change will require an unpresidented response."

So much for universities taking the crème de la crème of Britain's youth and giving them a higher education!

Is it a dolphin? Is it a crocodile? No, it's the Virgin Mary!

2008-08-29T12:34:00.006+02:00

Thanks to globalisation and the Internet, news travels fast these days. But that's not always necessarily a good thing, is it? There are thousands of pointless non-stories out there that are reprinted or replicated ceaslessly by a whole plethora of channels, blogs and sites - this site being no exception.

Indeed, I've probably been guilty of adding to the useless information overload by giving publicity to the kind of bollocks that should be consigned to the computer trash can - and just so I can make some lame joke, or cutting comment about it.

Hell, I'm not proud.

The Torygraph yesterday reported something else I found mildly amusing. Yes, another apparition of the Virgin Mary - this time in Canada. I'm sure that before the days of the Internet nobody outside of Toronto would have seen this piece of news, as it surely wouldn't have been picked up by anyone apart from the local rag. But now it seems that everybody publishes everything so I'm jumping on the bandwagon here as well.

Basically somebody cut the branch off a tree in a garden in a leafy suburb of Toronto and a drunk guy thought it looked like the Virgin Mary. His mother-in-law cried and said it was a "blessing" and the owner of the garden in which the tree lives says she doesn't want people trampling on her garden when they come to look at the "virgin".

What news!

Whatever next? A decade-old toasted cheese sandwich will be said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary and be sold on eBay for $28,000? Oh hang on....

A disgusting piece of trash

2008-08-28T13:55:00.009+02:00

'A disgusting piece of trash' is probably quite close to the truth when describing the Catholic church.

The ever-progressive Pope is once again in the news as he battles to have a modern art sculpture in Nothern Italy banned.

Pope Benedict has called the work blasphemous in a letter to Regional president Franz Pahl.

Pahl is working hard to get the sculpture removed. "Surely this is not a work of art but a blashphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people," he said.

Clearly unpursuaded by his own arguments, Pahl went on hunger strike and had to be hospitalised in his efforts to get his views heeded - and the work of art removed from the Museion museum in Bolzano.

The wooden sculpture, called Zuerst die Fuesse, is by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger and depicts a 4-foot high frog about nailed to a brown cross and holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in another.

It wears a green loin cloth and is nailed through the hands and the feet in the manner of Jesus Christ. Its green tongue hangs out of its mouth.

I'm not much for it myself. I much prefer the Dead Kennedys album cover of In God We Trust, Inc., which features Jesus Christ crucified on a cross made of dollar bills.

Kippenberger's work has been shown at the Tate Modern and the Saatchi Gallery in London and at the Venice Biennale, and retrospectives are planned in Los Angeles and New York.

Freedom of expression, anyone?

Shameless marketing

2008-08-28T10:16:00.006+02:00

We give these away free at our gigs. To find out when and where we're playing, have a look at our myspace page.

Ping Pong is coming home

2008-08-25T11:19:00.002+02:00

Boris Johnson - buffoon or comic genius? Whichever he might be, is he really the kind of guy you'd want as your leader?

PC quote of the day

2008-08-21T13:42:00.007+02:00

Said John Molony, Mayor of Mount Isa, a quiet mining town in the Queensland outback:

"With five blokes to every girl, may I suggest that beauty-disadvantaged women should proceed to Mount Isa.

"Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face. Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness."

What the fuck is this guy on?

Shit taste in music

2008-08-18T10:53:00.006+02:00

My car was broken into this weekend when it was parked on the street near to my house. The bastards broke one of the little side windows to open the door.

The weird thing was, they stole absolutely nothing.

There were a couple of euros on the floor amongst the shards of broken glass from the window. The back seats were pulled down so whoever was in my car could look in the boot. There was nothing there to steal apart from a couple of old t-shirts that belong to the drummer in my band. He wraps his drums in them when we take them to a gig so I guess nobody would want to steal those. The front seats were both reclined a bit and pushed back. I could hardly reach the pedals when I got into the car to drive it to the police station to report the break in. There was a woolen hat that belongs to my wife left on the driver's seat (it had also been in the boot - weird).

The glove compartment, which the thieves left open, was full of CDs. They didn't take a single one. Not even Hawkwind, Dead Kennedys, Weezer, Bauhaus, Matthew Sweet, Queens of the Stone Age, Metallica, Frank Black, Pixies, Voivod... Nothing gone.

Clearly they thought I had a shit taste in music. It was probably a couple of nietas who only listen to reggaeton on their mobile phones. The little shits.

Some of those CDs are actually quite valuable. Voivod's Nothingface hasn't been re-released on CD for ages and people on Amazon are selling the fucker for over 250 euros! This is one time, therefore, I'm quite happy to have a shit taste in music.

Tribal Convictions

2008-08-05T09:39:00.003+02:00

What a band! What a song!

Rock the kasbah

2008-07-30T12:21:00.001+02:00

The fantastic Rachid Taha covering The Clash classic! Taha is a long time collaborator with another fave of mine - virtuoso guitarist Steve Hillage, once of Gong, who has had a successful solo career of his own - and more recently fronted the electronic project System 7. There's a great documentary on Taha that came with the CD that the Rock the Kasbah cover appeared on. Called Kienes, it follows Taha around on his tour of Mexico and shows him backstage, on the radio and even shopping. All the time Taha plays the joker, laughing at one raido interviewer who asks him whether he considers his music Rai by saying he loves Ry Cooder. He's always said he's more of a punk than a world music guy, and says the first album he bought was indeed by The Clash.

Culebrones

2008-04-30T13:16:00.001+02:00

Brilliant!

Rainbow

2008-04-30T13:11:00.005+02:00

A never-aired episode from the famous 70s children's show - apparently written by a pissed-up script writer who'd previously worked on Carry On... films. Hilarious! I used to watch this when I was a kid and never got any of the innuendo or double entendres.

Jerry and me

2008-04-24T10:43:00.007+02:00

Jerry Only congratulates me on a great gig last night in Madrid's Sala Copernico. Kind of.

Lip up fatty

2008-04-21T12:16:00.004+02:00

Forgot to take the camera to the gig last week. Buster Bloodvessel's lost a bit of weight - though he still makes all the "you fat bastard" comments. I'm not sure how much of the line-up was original, though they certainly put on a good show from a very cramped stage (8 in the band) at Gruta '77.

All together - YOU FAT BASTARD!

Do Nothing

2008-04-21T11:35:00.004+02:00

Much-covered classic from the UK ska revival in the late 70s and early 80s. Most recently I saw Bad Manners covering this is in their encore in Madrid last week. Another stand-out cover is Frank Black's from the b-side of one his Catholics singles.

Pavement

2008-03-28T12:01:00.002+01:00

The perils of crucifixion

2008-03-24T12:39:00.008+01:00

The Philippines government issued an Easter public heath warning - on the dangers of crucifixion.

Did it read, Don’t do it, it’s nuts?

Did it fuck.

Instead of warning people against self-harm in the name of the Catholic church, it simply advised them to get a tetanus jab first and "use clean nails."

Well fuck me, I think rusty ones would be better for people with the (lack of) brains to crucify themselves. In a kind of Darwin Awards way, it’d give them more chance of removing themselves from the gene pool.

It’s good to see corporate social responsibility alive and well and living in the Catholic world too. The crucifixions in San Fernando City – where 23 people, including two women, were nailed to crosses at three improvised Golgothas – were sponsored by Coca-Cola.

Ahem.

The grapes of wrath

2008-03-18T11:40:00.005+01:00

The world’s gone mad – we all know that. But this story proves that there’s still a modicum of common sense left in it.

An accountant who tried to sue Marks & Spencer after he slipped on a grape and injured himself has lost his case and been ordered to pay legal costs.

Alexander Martin-Sklan, 55, sued for more than £300,000 over the 2004 incident in which he said a squashed grape from the store got lodged under the sole of his right sandal, causing him to slip and fall.

He said he suffered a ruptured quadricep, adverse psychological effects and depression following the incident, which meant that his business suffered and he could no longer ski or play tennis.

No longer ski or play tennis? The poor fella.

But the judge ruled against him, determining that while there may have been a grape or some "crushed fruit or similar" on the sole of Martin-Sklan's sandal, he was not persuaded that it "caused the claimant to slip."

The judge clearly has his head screwed on. He said: "In my judgment it was one of those accidents that could happen to anyone." Too many times these days – and especially in the USA - “accidents that could happen to anyone” result in legal action.

Martin-Sklan, who represented himself in the case, was ordered to pay the retailer's legal fees of nearly £20,000. Could he also have been fined for wasting the court’s time?

He refused to comment after the judgment. I wonder if he’s planning to appeal?

So, my question is this: Are grapes like banana skins - we all hear about people slipping on them but have never known anyone who's actually slipped on one?

Awareness test

2008-03-18T11:22:00.002+01:00

Manowar

2008-03-07T15:12:00.003+01:00

We've all had our fashion faux pas. The only thing I can say in their defence is... maybe Moses gave them a bit of whatever he was on.

Guyana

2008-03-07T12:41:00.003+01:00

Joey deMaio - what a genius!

Moses on drugs

2008-03-06T11:26:00.005+01:00

Moses was high on Mount Sinai when God spoke to him. Literally, according to a story in The Guardian.

An Israeli researcher claims the prophet may have been stoned when he set the Ten Commandments in stone.

Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says that psychedelic drugs formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times.

Concoctions based on the bark of the acacia tree, frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, contain the same molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.

"The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a people in an altered state of awareness," says Sharon.

He adds: "In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation, the seeing of light is accompanied by profound religious and spiritual feelings."

According to the researcher, references in the Bible where people see sounds, is another "classic phenomenon", similar to religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to see music.

And Sharon should know about this - he's tried it more than 150 times. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," he said.

He also thinks Moses was high on mind-altering drugs when he saw the "burning bush".

No shit.

Here's my question. How many other great works of fiction are a result of the consumption of mind-altering substances?

The perils of texting

2008-03-05T18:28:00.003+01:00

An amazing six million Brits were injured last year while texting and using their mobiles.

More than one in ten people were hurt after stumbling into lamp-posts, bollards and litter bins in the street.

The story's from The Daily Star so it must be true.

The Postal Service

2008-02-29T12:17:00.008+01:00

Jimmy Tamborello wrote and performed instrumental tracks and then sent the DATs to Ben Gibbard (from Death Cab For Cutie), who edited the song and added his vocals, then sent them back to Tamborello via the United States Postal Service. Hence the name of the band.

The United States Postal Service later sued the band for use of their name. After negotiations the USPS agreed to let the band use the trademark in exchange for promotional efforts on behalf of the USPS and a performance at its annual National Executive Conference. Which was nice of them.

Anyhow, the album Give Up is a nice mix of electonica with some indie guitars thrown in by Chris Walla, also from Death Cab For Cutie and who also produced the album.

In January 2006, Josh Melnick and Xander Charity, who had produced the 'Such Great Heights' video, created a similar looking TV spot for Apple. Gibbard said: "It has recently come to our attention that Apple Computers' new television commercial for the Intel chip features a shot-for-shot recreation of our video for 'Such Great Heights' made by the same filmmakers responsible for the original. We did not approve this commercialization and are extremely disappointed with both parties that this was executed without our consultation or consent."

Right on.

Check it out.

A threat to America

2008-02-07T11:16:00.002+01:00

Lydon again

2008-01-28T16:38:00.001+01:00

From Leftfield's wonderful Leftism album from 1993, Open Up features Lydon and his characteristic vocal style. Wonderful.

Rise

2008-01-28T16:37:00.001+01:00

Another blast from the past.

Vampira RIP

2008-01-16T17:32:00.001+01:00

Maila Nurma 1921-2008

Political Correctness

2007-12-18T16:48:00.002+01:00

BBC Radio 1 has banned the word 'faggot' from this 1987 Christmas hit to avoid offence. The word, sung by the late Kirsty MacColl as she trades insults with Shane MacGowan, has been dubbed out for the radio - to preserve listeners' delicate sensibilities no doubt.

What a load of fucking bollocks.

Copperhead Road

2007-12-17T11:34:00.001+01:00

Steve Earle. I saw this guy a few years ago in the now-defunct Aqualung in Madrid - and I was very impressed. Country rock at its best and this song is, according to my very good friend (and excellent guitarist) Tom, the best song ever written....

Sex Gang Children vs. Edith Piaf

2007-12-06T15:44:00.002+01:00

Sex Gang Children at the Dark Hole's 11th anniversary party in Madrid. Andi explains how his love of music came about and the band cover one of his mother's favourite songs. I was on hand to record it for posterity.

Where is my mind?

2007-11-30T16:46:00.002+01:00

Frank on stage with Placebo in Paris as they cover the Pixies classic - which was also the backdrop for the closing scene in Fight Club.

With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself

Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind

Way out in the water
See it swimmin'

I was swimmin' in the Caribbean
Animals were hiding behind the rocks
Except the little fish
But they told me, he swears
Tryin' to talk to me, coy koi.

Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind

Way out in the water
See it swimmin'

With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
If there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself

Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind

More insidious behaviour

2007-11-28T17:30:00.001+01:00

If you thought yesterday's tale of the nazi handbag invasion was ridiculous then brace yourself for today's installment of relgious stupidity from the Middle East.

A British teacher in Sudan has been charged with inciting hatred and insulting religion - and could face 40 lashes, a fine or six months in jail if convicted.

And what heinous deed has she committed to warrant this? Did she vandalise the mosque? Burn a copy of the Qu'ran in front of the local cleric? Get drunk and play poker in the town square?

No, something far far worse than that.

She named a teddy bear Muhammad.

Fear not people of the Sudan, it's safe to go out into the streets of Khartoum again for Gillian Gibbons is safely behind bars and no longer a threat to your national security.

An insidious fascist plot

2007-11-27T13:08:00.001+01:00

The fashion chain Zara has withdrawn a handbag from its stores after a "shocked" customer pointed out that the design featured swastikas.

You can just imagine the neo-nazis carrying these things around, can't you? They're just perfect to keep their flick-knives in.

Clearly from their design, these bags have nothing to do with peace-and-love or tree-hugging religions like Buddhism, in which the swastika is also a meaningful symbol. Indeed, swastika comes from the sanskrit word svasti which means well-being.

I'm just glad that Zara managed to thwart this insidious fascist plot before the whole of the UK was overrun with nazi handbags.

Pushing the envelope

2007-11-26T16:02:00.001+01:00

I've mentioned before my liking for Lucy Kelleway's weekly column in the FT, where she hilariously pokes fun at management fads and jargon and celebrates the ups and downs of office life.

Her latest column features a company of solicitors called Eversheds which has come up with a list of personality types to embody what it is looking for in its trainee lawyers. Finding the English language inadequate, the company has pushed the linguistic envelope and thought out of the vocabulary square by inventing new words, including:

Knowlivators Knowledgeable motivators
Logithizers Logical empathisers
Proactilopers Proactive developers
Winnowmat Winning diplomat

As Lucy says in her column, this is old hat. Martin Lukes, Kelleway's FT alter-ego columnist and another favourite of mine from the FT, invented these hybrid concepts in 2000 with his leading edge Creovation™, which was 50% creativity, 50% innovation – and 120% bollocks.

Brilliant!

Making a mountain out of a molehill

2007-11-23T17:32:00.003+01:00

The British singer who sang the Croatian anthem before England's ill-fated match with Croatia apparently got the words wrong and accidentally sang My penis is a mountain.

And I thought the Croats were laughing at the team put out by Steve McLaren.

The line which singer Tony Henry slipped up on should have been "mila kuda si planina" (You know my dear how we love your mountains). But what he actually sang was "mila kura si planina" which means Dear Penis, you are a Mountain or My Dear, my penis is a mountain.

The hardest job in football

2007-11-22T15:23:00.001+01:00

If being manager of England is, as many would have us believe, the hardest job in football then you'd think that possible candidates for the now vacant position would have the right kind of experience and the necessary skillset to guide our now-not-so-golden golden generation back to the path of glory.

Fabio Capello says he's interested in the job. Good. Ok. He's at least won some trophies - unlike the previous incumbent. So what does he say his credentials are?

"I'm the right age."

Oh dear.

Man's best friend

2007-11-21T10:52:00.002+01:00

Sounds like some typical lads conversation down the pub at night.

Man 1: Is Selvukmar's new bird fit, like?
Man 2: She's a right dog, she is. Wouldn't touch her with a barge-pole...

So when I saw the Man marries dog headline on the BBC a few days ago it didn't strike me as being particularly out of the ordinary. Why is this one of their most read and most mailed stories, I wondered. Then it hit me.

Man marries dog. Literally.

India's been the source of quite a few From the Planet Gong stories recently, and this one perhaps takes the biscuit - the dog biscuit of course.

P Selvakumar married a female dog, hoping to atone for stoning two other dogs to death. He'd been cursed since the killings, suffering paralysis and a loss of hearing.

The wedding took place at a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu state. The 'bride', who is called Selvi, wore an orange sari with a flower garland and was fed a bun to celebrate.

I don't get this at all. Does the guy have to consumate this marriage to cure his curse? And how does the dog say "I do"?

Another amazing little fact is that this kind of thing is not uncommon in India. Superstitious people in rural parts of the country sometimes organise weddings to animals in the hope of warding off curses.

They say every dog has its day so let's go back to that pub conversation:

Man 1: So what's Selvukmar's new wife like?
Man 2: She's a right bitch, she is.

The IT Crowd

2007-11-16T10:28:00.000+01:00

:-)

North American Scum

2007-11-15T16:45:00.000+01:00

LCD Soundsystem - one of the highlights from this year's Summercase festival in Madrid and Barcelona. James Murphy plays everything on the albums and then puts together the band for touring.

Clearly a very talented bloke.

Though not talented enough to do the female vocals on the albums he's still very impressive :-)

A Scotsman and his beer goggles

2007-11-15T10:19:00.000+01:00

Beer goggles can turn the most hideous crone into something approaching shagable but Scotsman Robert Stewart has really pushed that particular envelope in this story.

He was caught – whilst under the influence - trying to have sex with a bicycle and has been sentenced to three years probation for his sins.

The story brings a whole new meaning to the idea of shagging the town bike.

Sheriff Colin Miller, who sentenced Stewart, said: "In almost four decades in the law I thought I had come across every perversion known to mankind, but this is a new one on me. I have never heard of a 'cycle-sexualist'."

No shit.

Full story on the BBC

The reincarnation of Vishnu

2007-11-07T10:52:00.000+01:00

Lakshmi Tatma's mother Poonam Devi says of her daughter: "She is a miracle, a special blessing from God."

Obviously not that special though, as she goes on to say: "But she is my daughter and she cannot live like this."

The girl was born on the celebration day of the Vishnu, the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity after whom she was named.

It's strange that Vishnu is the goddess of wealth when the parents only earn 50p a day as casual labourers.

Someone's certainly going to make a packet out of her though, as the operation to remove the parastic twin - which has no head - costs £100,000.

The numbers game

2007-11-06T16:16:00.000+01:00

Camelot, which runs the lottery in the UK, has been forced to scrap one of its new games because punters couldn't understand it.

It's hardly Mastermind, but the Cool Cash game - launched on Monday - was taken out of shops yesterday after some players failed to grasp whether or not they had won.

To qualify for a prize, users had to scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on the card they'd bought. As the game had a winter theme, the temperature was usually below freezing.

However, the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for many and Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6.

Tina Farrell, from Levenshulme (near Manchester), called Camelot after failing to win with several cards: "I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher, not lower, than -8 but I'm not having it."

And who said that standards of education were slipping? Fantastic!

Demented Are Go

2007-11-02T11:30:00.000+01:00

Demented Are Go are apparently psychobilly, but they're nothing like the old school psychobilly I know. The double bass is cool though! And they put on a good show at Gruta 77 last night.

They look quite scary up there on stage but when you realise it's just two Welshmen, a Yorkshireman and a German - and you see them after the show, and they're not that tall at all - it kind of takes the sting out their tail.

Still, I'm glad I wasn't anywhere near the front.

On a related note, I noticed that the Demented Are Go drummer didn't have a hi-hat as part of his kit. Instead he spent most of the time using the floor tom or the ride cymbal. Maybe this is a psychobilly thing as I remember in my old band, our drummer Jeremy loved psychobilly music and more or less refused to ever play anything on the hi-hat, which he called "the bitch". Curious.

This the sound of a Deadman's song

2007-11-01T10:06:00.000+01:00

My band Deadman played our first concert on Halloween.

At the last minute we were asked to play with the highly experimental (but very cool) Proyecto Moi at La Leyenda - a place I've played at many times before with my old band The Plant She Killed.

We're still polishing some material so we only did a short 25-minute set of 6 songs:

Hating / Looking away / Without me you're nothing / Seropram summer / Out of my head / Hear this

Deadman will be back on stage on 24 November in El Juglar (c/ Lavapies 37), supporting Estereotypo, a britpop band from Santander. Can't wait!

(And I'm glad I resisted the temptation of using the easy title Deadman walking!)

Ring a Ring o' Roses

2007-10-31T17:44:00.000+01:00

After last night's Gruta 77 concert farce I submitted a comment on The Posies' MySpace page. My comment was:

"What the fuck happened in Madrid last night? I've seen you guys twice before and felt very let down by last night. Struck me as a lack of respect to all the people who'd paid money to stand around in a packed, smoky venue - and for what?"

I got a reply a couple of hours later. It said:

"Hey there. This Jon's wife, Michelle. I handle the Posies page when they are on the road.
I spoke to Jon last eve after the show. He explained that the paperwork they had had a different start time than what was advertised on the tickets. So they thought they were only running a few minutes behind schedule when they showed up. Imagine the surprise when it turns out people had been told it was starting hours earlier! He said they felt really terrible about it.
The guys are very professional. I've been watching them play shows for the last 12 years and have never heard of anything like this happening before. They don't have internet access right now, but when they do I will make sure you get a proper response from one of them. I know they are just as dissapointed that it turned out that way. Jon sounded really bummed about it last night. They love Spain. It is one of their favorite places to play. It was simply a really unfortunate administrative error. I'm so sorry for the inconvienence.

xo
Michelle"

Which is nice.

On The Posies MySpace page, comments are regulated. This means that all comments have to be approved by the artist - or the artist's wife in this case - before publication. My comment was not approved but another comment was. It says:

"OK, you were very late last night in Madrid, but the show was grrreat!!"

Now what does this tell you?

Maybe they don't like swearing and never actually wrote a song called Everyone's a fucking liar!

Taking the piss

2007-10-31T15:54:00.000+01:00

My wife and I went to see - and I use the term in the broadest of possible senses - The Posies last night in Gruta 77. Jon Auer is a member of the band and we literally saw him.

The evening started well enough - my new band Deadman played the miniset we're going to perform tonight to a small group of spouses, friends and girlfriends. They all seemed to really like it and it makes me feel confident about the future of the band.

Things went downhill from there.

Gruta 77 was sold out for The Posies, who played in a much bigger venue last time I saw them in Madrid (Sala Heineken). There was even a queue of people at the ticket office, waiting for it to sell tickets they didn't have. Looking back on it, maybe all those people had some kind of weird future sight and knew something we didn't at the time.

The doors had opened at 2130 and, after our short performance in the rehearsal rooms upstairs, we went in at 2210 or so. It was packed and smoky but we managed to get drinks from the bar and find a place near the back, in the middle where we had a good view of the stage.

And we started to wait.

And we waited.

And we waited.

And the DJs ran out of stuff they'd prepared to warm the crowd up and just put on the whole of Dolittle. Twice.

It was now 2250

People were starting to get very pissed off when the DJ started speaking over the PA. He explained that the band had disappeared - they'd not gone to the restaurant that had been reserved for them and had gone somewhere else. He apologised, all the time stressing the fact that the delay had nothing to do with the sala. He also said they were on their way back and would be playing soon.

So we waited.

And we waited.

And we waited.

At 2345 the DJ piped up again, telling us that one of the guitarists had arrived and that he said the others were on their way. The crowd were now very pissed off and when Jon Auer came onto the stage to try and placate us and say they'd be playing in 10 minutes tops he got booed off. Gruta 77 offered us our money back and as we had to work today we took it and went home.

I think it's a complete lack of respect towards all the people who'd paid their hard earned cash - €18 a pop - to leave them hot and uncomfortable for over 2 hours without any explanation or any justified reason. Jon Auer tried to say they thought they had to be there at 2300 - but by then it was already 2345 so I don't know where that argument was either coming from or going.

The Posies go on about how much they love Spain but they certainly haven't shown any respect towards all the Spanish people who went to their gig last night.

2130 doors. 2230 band. I could accept some delay, if there was a good reason for it (none of your Guns 'n' Roses style delays, you hear). 2300 would be fine if they'd had a car crash or something. But no. These guys went to fucking dinner. Probably had a few beers. Maybe thought they had to be there a bit later. Probably thought, oh fuck them, they can wait. They're our fans. We're fucking rock 'n' roll stars. We can do what we fucking want.

When we left at 2350 there was a queue at the ticket office - people waiting to get their money back from the overworked girl in the office. It was quite a long queue - about the same as the queue waiting to buy non-existent tickets when we'd arrived.

I hate queues, and I'm quite impatient sometimes, so what did I do? I rehearse at Gruta 77 so I went to the side door of the office and got my money back straight away, thus avoiding having to queue. See, I'm a fucking rock 'n' star too, and I can take the piss in my own little way.

Hurdy gurdy man

2007-10-25T12:29:00.000+02:00

Steve Hillage. This guy really is incredible.

Not only is he an amazing guitarist whose solo work and the stuff he did with 70s psychedelic gods Gong still sounds great to this day, he is also at the forefront of underground dance with System 7, a band he started in the 1990s and which continues today.

Hillage played with The Orb after hearing them mixing his album Rainbow Dome Musick (an ambient piece created for the 1979 Festival for Mind-Body-Spirit, dedicated "to the universal spirit of New Age synthesis", which played continuously in a rainbow dome) in one of their DJ sets and going over to say something along the lines of "hey, that's me, that is!"

But that's not all. Hillage is also heavily involved in world beat music. After producing the 1, 2, 3 Soleils show - and album - with Faudel, Khaled and Rachid Taha he went on to work as co-writer, producer and guitarist with algerian punk-rai star Taha.

Here he's covering Donovan somewhere in Germany.

"I am a cunt"

2007-10-22T16:33:00.000+02:00

Whenever I see people with Oriental characters on their t-shirts I always wonder if they've been duped - told that the t-shirt says peace and love in Chinese when really it says I am a cunt.

So it came as no surprise when I read about a guy from Watford who'd been proudly showing off a tattoo he'd had for 26 years thinking it said his name in Chinese. It actually said Coca-Cola.

What a plonker!

Vince Mattingley had asked staff at his favourite restaurant to write his name in Chinese symbols.

But the waiter, who was obviously a bit of a wag, drew the symbols for Coca-Cola. Vince obligingly went off and had that etched onto his chest for life. The spaz. I'd have definitely got a second opinion on that one.

I'm actually quite surprised it took him 26 years to discover the ruse. And that's only because when he recently travelled to Thailand a barman asked him why he had Coca-Cola written on his chest.

Vince said: "I thought it was a joke then I found out that's what it said. The restaurant staff must have had a good laugh about it."

Of course, the expression once bitten, twice shy doesn't apply to Vince and he now plans to get another Oriental tattoo to cover up first one.

"I'm going to go with something Japanese this time."

Maybe this time they really will tattoo I am a cunt on the twat.

In a similar but entirely unrelated story from the UK press, a teenager who thought she had mum tattooed on her back in Chinese letters was horrified to find it really said friend from hell.

Brilliant!

How the fuck she could have believed that I don't know. Friend from hell has one or two more letters in it than mum, I'm sure. Even in Chinese!

Apparently Charlene Williams only found out something was wrong when a passing Chinese woman shouted at her: "Evil, evil, very bad."

Her dad had smelled a rat as well. Says our Charlene: "He joked it said chicken chow mein. It was worse than that." No shit.

At least Charlene's not tempting fate another time - she's now covered the insult with a leaf design tattoo.

Method writing

2007-10-17T11:00:00.000+02:00

In all the books I've seen giving advice on how to write fiction, experts always bang on about how you should write what you know. A Mexican guy I read about the other day has taken this advice a little too literally.

Jose Luis Calva, an aspiring horror novelist, has been arrested after police discovered his girlfriend's torso in his closet, a leg in the refrigerator and bones in a cereal box.

Nearby they found the draft of a novel titled Cannibalistic Instincts.

Flesh found on a plate and frying pan in Calva's apartment corresponded to parts missing from the corpse of his 32-year-old Alejandra Galeana.

It certainly sounds like a case of writing what you know, though Calva claims he only boiled some of his girlfriend's flesh but that he hadn't eaten it.

One witness said Calva was fascinated by witchcraft and explicit and sadistic literature. No shit.

A surviving girlfriend - who was no doubt glad she got out sooner rather than later - told police that Calva was initially charming, winning her trust with poetry. But he soon turned jealous, controlling and obsessive, and once attempted suicide.

Calva was arrested last week but tried to escape when police came for him by swinging down balconies from his upper-floor apartment. Unsurprisingly he fell and is currently being treated in hospital.

I guess that'll give him an escape scene to write in one of his future action novels.

Engrish

2007-10-11T16:59:00.001+02:00

Childish giggle of the day from www.engrish.com. Somehow I'd lost touch with this site but my wife reminded me of it on the phone today. I quickly dived back in and it had me howling with infantile glee once more. So thank you, my love, and than you www.engrish.com.

Tears of a clown

2007-10-11T10:26:00.001+02:00

The Beat covering Smokey Robinson and the Miracles with a song that was co-written by Stevie Wonder. A fantastic bit of ska dance that my old band The Plant She Killed also managed a fairly decent cover of. This song actually remained in our repertoire for quite a lot longer than many other covers we did.

Now if there's a smile on my face,
It's only there tryin' to fool the public,
But when it comes down to foolin' you;
Now honey, that's quite a different subject.

But don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression.
Really I'm sad.
Oh, sadder than sad.
You're gone and I'm hurtin' so bad.
Like a clown I pretend to be glad.

Now there's some sad things known to man,
Bbut ain't too much sadder than
The tears of a clown
When there's no one around.

Oh yea, baby....

Now if I appear to be carefree,
It's only to camouflage my sadness.
In order to shield my pride I try
To cover this hurt with a show of gladness.

But don't let my show convince you
That I've been happy since you
Decided to go.
Oh, I need you so.
I'm hurt and I want you to know
But for others I put on a show.

There's some sad things known to man,
But ain't too much sadder than
The tears of a clown
When there's no one around.

Just like Pagliacci did,
I try to keep my suface hid.
Smiling in the public eye
But in my lonely room I cry
The tears of a clown
When there's no one around.

Oh yea baby,

Now if there's a smile on my face
Don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression.
Don't let this smile I wear
Make you think that I don't care

Really I'm sad
Hurtin' so bad......

Niños de mamá?

2007-10-08T16:45:00.000+02:00

Today I'm going to write a short novel and I'm sure I won't cover everything that this topic deserves. This one will definitely exceed the word count for web-written stuff.

But here goes.

Italy's economy minister has sparked an uproar by offering tax breaks to so-called bamboccioni (big babies) if they let go of their mother's apron strings and leave home.

According to Reuters, over a third of Italian men over the age of 30 live at home with their parents. This phenomenon is blamed on sky-high flat rents and bleak job prospects as much as a liking for mamma's cooking and clothes washing prowess.

Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa offered to come to the rescue with a €1,000 tax break for 20- and 30-something Italians who rent.ç

€1,000. Now there's something!

It was Padoa-Schioppa himself who used the term bamboccioni, which evokes images of clumsy, overgrown male babies. It sounds pretty condescending to me and has unsurprisingly caused a bit of an uproar in Italy.

The comment was immediately condemned by politicians from all shades of the political spectrum. They asked: Can young Italians be blamed for a sputtering economy and high rents?

"This absurd gaffe shows how he's probably not clear how precarious is the situation afflicting an entire generation - the first generation that has to deal with social conditions worse than those of its parents," said Francesco Caruso, a communist from Romano Prodi's coalition.

Rome mayor Walter Veltroni said the comment was an 'unhappy quip' and that problems facing Italy's youth were the country's biggest challenge.

Isabella Bertolini of the Forza Italia party said Prodi should reprimand his minister for the "offensive epithet."

Right now in Italy there is a broader debate going on over the country's increasingly geriatric society where the best jobs are often occupied by those over 50, thus squeezing out the young and ambitious.

Many Italians do not graduate until their late 20s and end up in poorly paid internships or with short-term contracts.

A sharp rise in the cost of living since the introduction of the euro has not helped, and even a €1,000 tax break will not be enough to help young Italians stand on their own feet, said Guglielmo Epifani, who heads a major Italian union.

"Renting an apartment 30 years ago cost a quarter of the salary of a worker," writer Aldo Nove who has penned a book called "My Name is Roberta, I'm 40 years old and earn 250 euros a month," told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

"Today, it costs more than the salary of a young apprentice. What else is there to say?"

In many ways you could substitute Italy with Spain and this story would still ring true. Lots of people live with their parents until well into their thrties, good jobs are hard to come by for well qualified university graduates, and those that do find jobs find themselves earning next to nothing compared to their middle aged bosses who are raking it in and do no work.

House prices have also sky-rocketed in the past decade and lots of young professions have found that without the help of their parents - who probably own two or three houses themselves, one in the city and another family home or two in the pueblo or playa - there's no way they can afford to buy anything decent themselves.

The €1,000 euros they're offering as a tax break in Italy seems quite significant to me as the mil euristas in Spain are basically the generation that earns one thousand euros a month. I kid ye not. If you earn more than that then you're in a well paid job.

This what El País has to say about them: "Pertenecen a la generación más preparada de la historia de España. Rondan la treintena, son universitarios y saben idiomas. Pero los bajos sueldos, la sobreabundancia de titulados y los cambios sociales les han impedido llegar a donde pensaban llegar. Comparten piso; no tienen coche, ni casa, ni hijos y ya se han dado cuenta de que el futuro no estaba donde creían."

Sad, isn't it?

Between us my wife and I earn what would be considered in Spain to be small fortune yet we can't afford to buy a decent house in an area we'd like to live.

How do people manage it?

They must all be bankrolled by their parents or some other rich relative, otherwise it just doesn't make sense. And you can't ask anyone about this - nobody is going to tell you that the house isn't entirely theirs, that el suegro has paid for part of it. It's a question of face.

Then again, I'm not sure I really help the situation, being a foreigner working in a multinational company in Spain. Many of my foreign colleagues and I are taking away the Spanish people's jobs - and we earn higher salaries than they do in Spanish companies for the privilege.

You could say we're more qualified, or we have certain advantages like speaking English. But you could also say that there are enough jobs in our more industrialised, lower unemployment countries and we should be sent back there post haste. Would that be racism or plain economic nationalism?

It certainly reminds me of Enoch Powell and his rivers of blood.

If you ask me the whole situation in Spain and Italy is completely unsustainable and sometime during this generation it's all going to go pear-shaped somewhere. Tits up. I'm not sure how that will manifest itself but it won't be nice for anyone involved.

Arnold Judas Rimmer

2007-10-03T14:43:00.000+02:00

Writing the story below reminded me of an exchange from Red Dwarf. The crew have landed on a world populated by wax droids who've broken their programming and are fighting a war. It's the nazis and the rest of the world's evil against a bunch of philosophers, artists and scientists - which includes Gandhi, Einstein, Marilyn Monroe and Oliver Hardy. Rimmer becomes a Full Metal Jacket Sergeant Major, putting his troops through their paces, with a "Don't eyeball me, Gandhi!" and to St. Francis: "There's only two types from Assisi; steers and queers. Which are you, boy?"

Lister: Rimmer, what's going on out there? Is that Mahatma Gandhi? What's he doing practising hand-to-hand combat with a nun?
Rimmer: That's not a nun, Listy. That's Lieutenant Colonel Mother Theresa.

Absolute genius!

The spirit of Gandhi

2007-10-03T10:18:00.000+02:00

2 October was Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday in India to mark the birthday of the father of the nation. It is one of a very small number of holidays observed in all states and union territories.

The holiday, also called the International Day of Non-Violence, sees prayer services and tributes all over India, especially at Raj Ghat, Gandhi's memorial in New Delhi where he was cremated.

On this day, due to Gandhi's abstinence, alcohol cannot be bought anywhere in India.

So, the day before Gandhi Jayanti most Indians go out and stock up on the stuff so they have something to drink on their day off.

In the spirit of Gandhi, India's shopkeepers duly double the price of all the Kingfisher beer they sell.

Well, I guess it's a form on non-cooperation.

In the Political Compass self quiz I was quite proud to find myself sitting right next to Gandhi on the axis, firmly in the area of left libertarianism.

I don't think I'd have survived his fasting, vegetarianism and abhorrence of alcohol though. So, whilst wanting to celebrate his legacy and the many things he achieved through non-violence, I'd be in the queue with the rest of the country buying double-priced Kingfisher to toast the spirit of Gandhi.

Bloodlust

2007-10-01T16:32:00.000+02:00

Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon - inventors of black metal. When these guys speak it sounds like Biffa Bacon, when they sing it's more like Beelzebub.

And I love Cronos' bass.

God in the dock

2007-10-01T16:24:00.000+02:00

There are a lot of things - most of them incredibly dumb - that can only happen in America and last week I read about another one of them.

God sued over pestilence and terror, the headline screamed.

The story originally came from the Associated Press and reported that a court in Nebraska is being asked to cast judgement on the ultimate judge - God himself. Fantastic, I thought, but only in America could something like this happen.

State lawmaker Ernie Chambers filed a lawsuit, which also claims that God uses a number of aliases, against the Almighty for causing "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues" and other alliterative catastrophes.

These are actually quite clever alliterations and that made me think he must be taking the piss!

Even more brilliant are the claims that because God is onmipotent then this gives Douglas County District Court jurisdiction in the suit. Similarly, God's omniscience eliminates the need to issue a formal notice of the lawsuit, which is handy, and reminds me a little of the babel-fish-and-God-disappearing-in-a-puff-of-logic sequence from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Chambers vs God asks the court for a "permanent injunction ordering defendant (God) to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terrorist threats."

Of course, this whole thing is a publicity stunt by the authorities to draw attention to the fact that in the US a lot of frivolous lawsuits are served.

Is it a case of if you can't beat 'em, join 'em? I think was I right earlier and he's just taking the piss.

Thank god for that!

An Iranian in New York

2007-09-28T17:40:00.000+02:00

Not Sting's orginal, or even Shinehead's ragga adaptation - A Jamaican in New York - this time we have a real snake in the city, as one US congressman described this guy.

It's been a busy week for me and my scribbling hand, hence the lack of updates here. A couple of things have caught my eye in the news in the last couple of days, though, that I wanted to allude to, or comment on, or rip the piss out of, or whatever it is I do.

First up is an old favourite of mine, the guy into whose mouth the CIA put "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah" in Wikipedia. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in the US this week and, needless to say, his visit didn't pass by surreptitiously.

Speaking in front of Ivy league students at New York's Columbia University Ahmadinejad began well enough, asserting that Israel persecutes Palestinians. No arguments from me there.

It was only later he came out with a line that had his audience howling with laughter. After being asked about why Iran had recently executed two gay men, Ahmadinejad said: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon,I do not know who has told you we have it."

This really is laughable. It also reminds me of some copy I was editing at work this week which said that one of the negative effects of tourism was that it "increases social vices such as prostitution, crime rate, lesbian and gay practices." Neither of these two will win any diversity awards in the near future!

Apparently lots of people thought it was a bad idea to have the Iranian president speak at Columbia. I personally don't see the problem. It's a free country - insn't it? - and this guy seems to be capable of shooting himself in the foot every time he opens his mouth, if you'll spare the almost mixed metaphor.

Case in point is what he went on to say after his gay denial (not to be confused with his holocaust denial, of course).

He tried to crack a joke, but I think it was a case of you had to be there. Either that or his interpreter was the one taking the piss.

"Let me tell a joke here," Ahmadinejad said. "I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, or testing them, making them, politically they are backward, retarded."

Thinking about it, maybe the "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" reference in Wikipedia wasn't too far wide of the mark.

Full story on Reuters

Big exit

2007-09-26T15:37:00.000+02:00

Not only does PJ Harvey sound like Patti Smith on this track, she even looks a bit like her, I think. Awesome opening track from the Mercury Award winning Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea.

I will run after you

2007-09-25T14:14:00.000+02:00

If you went away
Called it all a day
Say that it was through

'Cause a new man
Or an old friend
Or a guru

'Cause you got a bit tired of me now
That I could believe
Yeah but if you do

If you leave

Wouldn’t even cry
Wouldn’t even try
Wouldn’t even stew

Wouldn’t look for another love, no
Listen if you leave
Tell you what I do

If you leave
I will run after you

Celtic tigers

2007-09-25T12:30:00.000+02:00

The British may take the piss out of the Irish a lot but The Economist has just named their country the best place to live in the world - for its "quality of life".

Factors such as health, freedom, unemployment, family life, climate, political stability and security, gender equality and family and community life were all taken into account in order to come up with the list, which covers 111 countries.

Ireland supposedly combines new with old very well and despite having a crap football team came out on top of the pile, though researchers admit that not everyone will agree with the findings - except in Ireland no doubt.

One thing I'll say on their behalf - the Guiness is good!

And the worst place to live?

Zimbabwe, where according to The Economist "things have gone from bad to worse under Robert Mugabe." No shit.

My country of residence came out in 10th, a good 19 places above my place of birth. It's strange that Europe's major industrial powers - France, Germany and the UK - are all in the twenties (25th, 26th, 29th). Despite high incomes in these countries there are a number of quite serious social problems.

So no more Irish jokes then?

Well, maybe a couple of old groans....

Did you hear about the Irish shoplifter? He was found dead under Woolworth's....

and

Did you hear about the Irish woodworm? He was found dead in a brick....

Groan

The seven year itch

2007-09-21T15:26:00.000+02:00

Gabiele Pauli, arguably Bavaria's most glamorous politician, has shocked the Catholic state in Germany by suggesting that marriage should last just 7 years.

She says: "The basic approach is wrong... many marriages last just because people believe they are safe. My suggestion is that marriages expire after seven years."

After that time, couples should either agree to extend their marriage or it should be automatically dissolved.

There's something really fucked up about this story.

Maybe it's the fact that the woman proposing these measures is a Christian Democrat. Surely she should be talking about the sanctity of marriage and all that, no?

And what do her party colleagues say about it? "She is diametrically contradicting our Christian, ethical values," says Ingo Freidrich (Christian Social Union party and European lawmaker).

But that's nothing. [Her ideas are like] "...the dirt under your fingernails," adds Peter Ramsauer (Head of CSU in Germany's parliament).

Indeed her ex-boss and former Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber says she does not even belong in the party. But then again neither does he, it seems, as Pauli helped bring him down by revealing how his office had launched a snooping campaign against her, trynig to obtain details about her lovers and alcohol consumption to use against her.

Then again, after deposing Stoiber, she is now running for leadership of the party. Hmmmmm, the plot thickens.

But hang on, apparently she's got no chance of winning that, so are her words just desperate measures?

According to Reuters Pauli is viewed as a party rebel - no shit sherlock! - and the leadership contest will be fought mainly between Bavarian state economy minister Erwin Huber and German Consumer Minister Horst Seehofer.

Like the good Christian he is, 58-year-old Seehofer - a married father of three - has also been having an affair with a younger woman who recently had his baby.

The dirt under the fingernails anyone?

For me all this is just typical politics.

In other words, bollocks.

At least Pauli has a bit of cool, posing on her website in motorbike leathers and appearing in magazines wearing long black latex gloves.

As an aside I'd just like to say that in many places in the world common law marriage starts after seven years.

Jah, Boy & Sinead

2007-09-19T15:46:00.000+02:00

An unholy trinity if ever I saw one :-)