Fringe - I Want To Believe

Just before I start off on my rambling, I should pass a warning that I will be discussing series one and therefore this entry will include spoilers, especially concerning the final two episodes. Saying that I wonder when you are allowed to not caveat possible spoilers...how long after a series/ film has aired are you allowed to forgo spoiler warnings. Is it still too soon for Battlestar Galactica? Buffy? The Usual Suspects? The Sixth Sense? M*A*S*H*? I wonder if there is a criteria somewhere....

Anyway enough of that, I was going to talk about Fringe.

I started watching because of the involvement of Abrams, the production values and the early hype. I was pretty disappointed after the early episodes which appeared to point towards something resembling X-Files-lite. I quite enjoyed Joshua Jackson's somewhat rebellious (though cliched) character but the other characters appeared boring or unlikely to develop. I thought I would give it a few more episodes and slowly it appeared to be more engaging and the development of the main characters, especially John Noble's Dr. Walter Bishop really came on leaps and bounds. From a textbook eccentric scientist to a confused, frustrated genius trying to come to terms with his past, and with some excellent dark humour.

A lot of the individual storylines would certainly seem familiar to watchers of the X-Files, but it was the overarching storyline, a necessity for modern day TV series, that kept me watching. Initially it seemed the series story arc revolved around "the pattern" a series of unusual events which were being investigated. Then around two thirds of the way through the series talk of a war against denizens of an alternate universe caught my attention. I am sucker for epic sci-fi, especially one which has spent a series with such a slow build. The last two episodes offer a brief glimpse into the alternate world and a taster for future series.

Alternate worlds have provided a lot of fodder for science fiction TV since Star Trek's 'Mirror Mirror' offered us a barbaric version of the Enterprise (including a bearded Spock).

It has been used across a myriad of stories, almost rivalling time travel as a platform....from Back To The Future to Fatherland to the O.C.

Anyway the signs are good and I will certainly be tuning in for series 2.

Guantánamo, Grandaddy and Kal Penn

I was thinking this week about Guantanamo, not the individuals held there so much but the base itself. How was this, the most controversial 'prison' on the planet actually located on Cuban soil? Given the ongoing enmity between the two nations this seemed a pretty odd state of affairs.

Nowadays you don't have to go too much further than Wikipedia to give the lowdown on such matters, along with links to supporting information.

The story behind the base goes back to the Spanish-American war at the end of the Nineteenth Century. After the war, in 1903, the new American-born President of Cuba offered a perpetual lease on Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. Now since Castro took over, the Cuban authorities have disputed the legality of the treaty and the terms of use on the land.

Only one of the annual cheques from the US has been cashed, apparently in the confusion after the Cuban revolution in 1959. The rest lie uncashed, but the U.S. have claimed that the cashing of the one cheque signified an acceptance of the lease. Guantanamo Bay also has Cuba's only McDonald's but it is not open to the Cuban public.

I am not a fan of Harold & Kumar but I was aware of Kal Penn from watching House. I was pretty surprised to see this week that he has joined the staff of Barack Obama after supporting him vigorously during the election campaign. He left the cast of House to become an associate director of the White House Office of Public Liaison with an aim of reaching out to different parts of the American public. This follows on from being a visiting lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania last year.

I was also wondering what had happened to the band Grandaddy, this could be a 'beard' connection with Guantanamo inmates.... The album 'The Sophtware Slump' impressed me in 2000, not only for a song that laments the death of an alcoholic robot but the fantastic single 'The Crystal Lake'. You know, the one with the flying house....

Anyway, they broke up in 2007 after the band members wanted to pursue different paths. The frontman Jason Lytle is due to release his own album and you can check his MySpace page here.

Astoria, Sparklers and Counting Crows

Having last week walked past the redevelopment taking place at Tottenham Court Rd tube station I was reminded about the closure of the Astoria. This was a great music venue with the Astoria 2 downstairs and was previously a theatre, cinema and pickle factory.

There is an excellent website, arthurlloyd.com which has a detailed history and photos of the site for those who wish to find out more. Unfortunately I have not been back here for quite a while, and I believe seeing Teenage Fanclub there a couple of years ago as one of the 90's revival gigs was my last visit.

Anyway, this site is being demolished to make way for the expanded TCR station which will include a Crossrail connection, though this will not be up and running until 2017....There is supposed to be a replacement for the Astoria but there seem to be some doubts about this.

This also reminded me that I have tickets to see the Counting Crows at Brixton in May which I am very much looking forward to, though I am yet to find a friend to come along. I have taken quite a lot of stick for my loyalty to this band, and I am used to being labelled 'stuck in the 90s', but I have to say they are one of my favourite bands . For some reason I vividly remember first reading about the album 'August and Everything After' on the old Channel 4 teletext service (4-Tel, I believe) music reviews and then buying and loving said album shortly after.

I have not been to many gigs recently, partly due to lack of time and partly due to getting older. Whereas I would be happy moshing my way through gigs in the past I now find myself concerned about getting burned by drunk people with cigarettes. The smoking ban doesn't hold much sway at the Brixton Academy as far as I can tell....this definitely means I might be' getting too old for this shit' as the saying goes. I think my dislike of cigarettes at gigs is driven from an earlier incident where I did get burnt and surely smoking in a tight-packed area is not sensible and pretty selfish...

In fact it is a bit like something else that I very much dislike: sparklers. Who on earth thought it would be a good idea to invent a form of entertainment that consists of playing with red hot metal rods that burn at over 1000° Celsius? And then aim that entertainment primarily at children - crazy talk.

Puppets, Bushes and Abbreviations

I like to think that part of the reason I followed a heavily mathematics bias is because of strong role models like Johnny Ball and 'The Count' from Sesame St. Perhaps this is not realistic, but I see that the puppets on the Street are tackling the issues of today with Cookie Monster and Ernie tackling the Madoff Ponzi Scheme in this clip. Please be aware there is a slightly upsetting ending to this clip. On the maths theme, I do wish we could put a global ban on anyone who claims to be giving 110%. Could journalists not at least attempt to cut down on the usage of this ridiculous phrase...?

I have also noticed the quite unsubtle Wilkinson Sword advert that has an interesting use of visual imagery of ladies walking past untidy bushes and the bushes become very well manicured as part of the advert for their new ladies 'trimmer' product.....oh dear. I know shaving adverts are terrible (Tiger, Roger, Thierry....really?) but this is an unusual departure.

Randomly I also found out that the term 'lb' for a pound of weight comes from the Latin Libra, which was an ancient unit of weight of approximately 327 grams.

RocknRolla vs. Nellie The Elephant

Greetings all (forgive my optimism). Do not worry, I have not fallen foul of Professor Bassa....baby duties have proved to be slightly overwhelming recently but I hope to get back on track here.

Anyhow, this week I noticed an uncanny resemblance between Michael "Olga" Algar, lead singer of the Toy Dolls and Johnny Quid, the eponymous 'RocknRolla' from the movie of that title. I found this while looking for a Youtube rendition of 'Nellie the Elephant', which The Toy Dolls performed on Top Of The Pops in December 1984 as they took it to Number 4 in the UK charts.

I did surprise myself by enjoying RocknRolla quite a bit, primarily due to Mark Strong's verystrong performance as character Archie who underpins the movie. Obviously if you disliked Richie's earlier movies you are unlikely to want to see this but I thought it was worth a viewing....

Mark Strong is playing Sherlock Holmes nemesis in Ritchie's new film about the Baker Street resident. Though a lot of people have serious misgivings about this movie I think the participation of Robert Downey Jr (as well as Strong) should certainly pull in the punters. Shots from the movie are here.

Professor Bassa

I got this leaflet from my car window recently. Slightly concerning that there can be much of a business in theses areas nowadays...Couldn't find many online reviews for the Professor and his services, maybe because "My work is serious with confidentiality and Quick".

What I like about it is the sheer range of services that he offers to provide; from help with exams and problem with children to sterility issues and protection from Jealous Enemies. Obviously I am not a fun of the somewhat dark undertones hinted at by the last subject nor am I a fan of the wayward grammar and use of capital letters.... I am not even going to ask for details of the professorship....

BBC Outrage

I do appreciate that nothing more really needs to be said on this matter but I just want to address a few points. I just cannot understand how this has become such a big news story, two high profile 'comedians' insult an old actor on his answerphone on a BBC radio show.

OK there are a few reasons why thousands of people who haven't even listened the show have complained to the BBC. The main reason has been the ridiculous media coverage, this can be attributed to a) a slow news week and anything to get the impending recession off the front pages and b) a concerted attack on the BBC establishment and two easy targets in Ross and Brand.

I also understand the argument around the vulgarisation of the world around us and that tax payers money should not be paying for this. Well, the world is becoming more vulgar but I don't believe this is the breaking point nor should it be the main battleground to fight this issue. In terms of misspent government money I think people need to wake up and remember the recent wars waged, NHS IT projects, council investments in Icelandic banks and a thousand other examples I cannot be bothered to name. The BBC may not be perfect but again it should not be the focus for concerns about our wasted tax monies....

I have decided that the real reason behind this furore is the involvement of Andrew Sachs. Perhaps people are just trying to stop this bullying because they remember the years of abuse he suffered at the hands of Mr. Fawlty.....

My TV

I watch a lot of TV. Too much TV by most standards I am sure. This has been recently exaggerated by the fact that I don’t get out much (as they say) at the moment since my daughter was born.

Anyway I think this leads me to a little bit of analysis of what I have been watching recently…..

1. Dexter series 2.

Yes I have been a bit behind and I watch a lot of TV from downloads. Well I wasn't sure how they would follow up the strong first series but this has been great. Further character development, interesting new twists with Dexter having lovelife troubles and the FBI on his case, all maintaining the dark tones previously established; very impressive.

The series hangs on the impressively restrained performances of Michael C. Hall, who at least gets to show a little more emotion in the second series as he continues to learn more about himself. The ending of the season, though clever seemed almost too neat, but in a world of series-end cliffhangers it was more than welcome. I thoroughly look forward to season 3 which has just started screening in the US, especially with Jimmy Smits entering the fray as the new assistant D.A.

2. Soap update. Yes, I still catch bits and pieces of both Coronation Street and Neighbours. Corrie enters it's 'Week of Death' this week and though this is not a Dexter crossover it should see Tony up to some more eye-popping acting as he seeks to bump off his love rival Liam, the palest man in Manchester. I have to say I don't really pay attention to many of the sub-plots and I don't really care where the terrifyingly contact-lensed Rosie Webster has gone to unless it is that taxi-driver's boot. And that would only be interesting if the writers managed to have two would-be killers at work simultaneously in the soap.

As for Neighbours, there are many weak storylines taking place here. The key one has been the capture of Jay, the arsonist/ fireman (another idea picked up from Dexter?) who has upset the residents of Ramsey Street by starting a fire that ended Marco's life and left Kirsten in a very bad way. Luckily after stabbing Steph, he has been apprehended. Yes murder is the order of the day in these two soaps at least.

The tone, storylines and filming have become increasingly bizarre since the move to Five. Scene sequencing has become almost impossible to follow unless the characters have secretly developed teleportation powers and the clash between scenes of Kirsten with her serious burns, Jay stabbing Steph and the light-hearted word of Harold, Declan and the kids has become jarring. Oh, and Sienna's acting really is poor, even by these standards.

3. The Story of Maths on BBC4 appealed to the Mathematics graduate that lurks within. Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy leads us through a historical journey of Mathematics and how important it was to the ancient cultures in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece. The history of quadratic equations, the 'number' zero and the base-60 Babylonian system that still drives our timekeeping are all explained here clearly and in context.

I found the programme interesting, available to non-mathematicians and definitely worth watching. Some of the graphics were annoying and unnecessary and there was a worrying description of irrational numbers, but overall it was a decent programme, and the sort of thing one should expect to see on BBC4. Still available here on iplayer for those interested....

Well that is enough for now. Next up Heroes series 3.....

The Sebastopol Uprising Of 1905

I am no history buff, and I certainly didn't cover this in my History GCSE, but I do have most of the scripts of ‘The Mary Whitehouse Experience’ and ‘Baddiel and Newman In Pieces’ indelibly etched on my mind. Having recently been reading about the problems in the former USSR I had a brief flashback to this period the other day that left me asking myself the question: Was the Sebastopol Uprising the birthplace of the Russian Revolution?


Well it appears that city of Sebastopol is a port in the Ukraine on the coast of the Black Sea. Sebastopol has been a key naval base throughout history from the Crimean War through World War Two and even today. The port is currently leased to the Russians and they used it to stage part of the August assault on Georgia. This has led to the Ukrainians stating that the lease will not be renewed after its expiration in 2017.

As for the Russian revolution it does appear that the Sebastopol uprising in 1905 can be seen as a precursor to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In October 1905 a part of the Russian fleet rebelled against the Emperor and led a fleet only slightly smaller than the remainder of the government forces. They were roundly defeated and the ringleaders executed (see more here).

It was earlier in the year that the Battleship Potemkin had suffered its own uprising that was later to be dramatised in the film Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei Eisenstein in 1925. This was designed as a piece of revolutionary propaganda and contains the famous and incendiary scene on the Odessa Steps where women and children are killed by Russian forces. Of the sailors on board the Potemkin in 1905, Ivan Beshoff made it to Ireland and set up a fish and chip shop, Beshoff's.

I think that is quite enough for now.

Missed September and Roger Ramjet

Well, I am sorry I have been off the radar for a month, don't worry I was not kidnapped by Scientologists. One week was spent very pleasantly in the South of France but the month has been dominated by the needs of my baby daughter whose sleep patterns have severely affected those of my wife and I.

Anyway my quick recap of the month involves a relaxing time in France, dinner at a corporate do on a table with Max Clifford (who came across as a pretty decent chap despite fielding questions including "Do you have a conscience?"), witnessing a friend's stag walkabout around Earlsfield in a mankini and my aforementioned daughter's one metre projectile vomiting at 6am....

I have had a little sleep but have noticed too very disturbing news stories today that do make you ask what is going on. Firstly the seven year old boy in Australia who embarked on a killing spree in a zoo near Alice Springs. He killed 13 animals and fed them to a crocodile and this included smashing a turtle on the concrete.....

Secondly, closer to home, in Derby, a number of people in a crowd encouraged a teenager to jump to his death.
I obviously don't want to come across all Daily Mail, but I find this very depressing....


On a random aside, do people remember 'Roger Ramjet', the cartoon? I am pretty sure it was shown during the Saturday morning BBC kids shows here in the UK, and I seem to remember a troubling propensity for him to be pill-popping...

Scientology Protest

Yesterday I have to say that I was very pleased to see that there were a small group of protesters outside the Scientology centre on Tottenham Court Rd.

There are quite a lot of things that annoy me and Scientology is quite near the top of the list. Now I do not have a lot of first hand evidence, but my impression is that it is effectively a grandiose 'Pyramid Scheme', whereby people are sold products (mainly relating to dianetics). I am assuming that most people are aware of Scientology so I do not need to go into detail here. My main problem with the Tottenham Court Road 'store' is the aggressive nature of the people working there, I am used to people coming up to me and asking me annoying questions in the street, but I have only ever been grabbed by the arm by Scientologists. This sort of behaviour lends weight to the belief that they are an aggressive group and there are many people claiming to have been harassed by them , not least the BBC's John Sweeney.

Anyway, there was a small group of protesters who I neglected to take a photo of, but they were dressed in the 'V for Vendetta' Guy Fawkes masks. The protest was somewhat noisy but very non-aggressive and had even encouraged the Scientology workers to stay off the street. I congratulated them on their good work in denouncing the Scientologists and claiming that they were only after money.

After a quick search on the Interweb I discovered that there is an organisation called 'Anonymous' who spend a large part of their time trying to bring down the so-called 'Church of Scientology'. It would appear that this group have gone a little far in trying to point out that they think that Scientology is dangerous and possibly criminal in its operations.

I didn't realise there was such an underground battle going on. Though I think that Scientology is a self-serving, secretive business that should definitely not be using the term 'Church', I am not sure I can condone all the activities that appear to have been perpetrated against them. Saying that I very much like the Scientologists to leave the UK at least.

Maybe I should take one of their ridiculous personality tests and find out what is going on. Surely only people having a laugh can seriously go in there to have their happiness measured....

If you want to see the worst case on what some people think Scientologists get up to, click here. Slightly alarmist to say the least.

Tottenham vs. Sunderland

It is not that I at all underestimated the whole-hearted manner that Roy Keane and his troops would bring with them to the Lane, but the result yesterday surprised and disappointed me. From the moment I arrived at the West Cornwall Pasty stand at Liverpool Street station that had been annexed by a red and white shirted army and faced the screaming chants of the Mackems, I knew that there would be no shortage of spirit in the Sunderland team or support from the corner of the South stand. Having once been to Watford vs. Sunderland a few years back and seen the Sunderland fans effectively seize control of the city centre I knew how seriously these guys took their football.

Buoyed by the recent signings of Cisse and Healy as well as the Ramos rejects, it was no wonder they were in good heart, it is probably the best position they have been in since Mr. Kevin Phillips was at the top of the Premiership scoring charts...

Anyhow, after making our way to the ground I remembered there was another bad omen in the form of my only being able to get seats in the West lower. This was an annoyance that due to the privilege of my Bronze membership I got to get my ticket a day early. The downside was that I ended up in the West stand (rather than the South) and paying a lot more for it. I won't go into my many issues with the club and the ticketing policies....

The bad omen was in the fact that the last time I was in the West stand we lost 4-0 to Chelsea in the cup, with only the privilege off seeing Le Saux being sent off to show for that trip.

Everyone was talking about Berbatov's non-appearance, but the worry about this was offset by the fact that King and Bale were starting. This in turn was offset by the fact that BAE was also starting. Surely Bale should be playing left back with him on the bench (if not dispatched).

The sun was out, I had supped a calming beer and positivity was slowly returning. Surely we had to win...Sunderland didn't even have a decent striker on the pitch (though they did have four strikers on the bench).

It is quite difficult to describe the first half except to point out that it was boring. Sunderland didn't really threaten, Woodgate and King looked relatively solid, and though we had conceded a few too many corners things looked OK at the back. Up front unfortunately there was hardly any action. Bent was starved of the ball, Modric and the rest of the midfield were hounded and kept very quiet. Bentley looked the only spark and his set-pieces provided the main threat without worrying the solid Sunderland back four unduly. Half-time arrived and the crowd seemed left mainly bemused by the lack of action, not something I have grown used to at the Lane.

The second half opened with some glimpses of goalmouth action, Bale and Woodgate should both have scored before Richardson made some space and curled one into the top corner. Sunderland's shooting had previously been woeful and this pearl of a strike surprised everyone and left the crowd in shock. The Sunderland fans went mad (as they had done for pretty much every touch and certainly all their corners) and the Spurs faithful took a little while to recover.

Huddlestone and Gio came on and though they added a bit of spark, Steeeeeeeeeeed still seemed to be the most effective midfielder on the pitch (he had also hit the post in the first half). Then the almost anonymous Modric burst into life and into the area, shooting for Gordon to parry out to Jenas, who tapped home.

Relief burst out of the ground, and a belief that the game was there for the taking. A few stuttering attacks took place and the lively Dos Santos certainly caused some trouble for the visitors' defence, but then the hammer blow. Zokora failed to cut out a cross from Murphy and our vaunted centre back pairing was left to gape at Cisse as he powered a header past Gomes. Absolutely shocking defending from all involved. With finishing like that it adds further to the recriminations over the recent lack of Spurs signings.

I am certainly not saying Cisse was the man for Spurs, but he would certainly be useful in the current situation. To be fair, given our current plight, we should have snapped up Dave Kitson as a backup striker. He may not be fast or prolific, but he has a footballing brain (apologies for the cliché), he can score goals and he is a real Spurs fan. He certainly seemed to enjoy scoring two goals at the Lane in the goal-laden Reading match last season. As for defenders with Kompany joining Coloccini and Cuellar as recent Premiership recruits, Ramos really better have someone up his sleeve before the transfer deadline...

As for the rest of the match, there were some spirited attacks but as with the rest of the game no clean cut chances. The layers left to jeers and everyone was left to worry about the trip to Stamford Bridge next week. Without doubt we will perform with spirit, up the quality of play, put up a fight but ultimately lose.Villa at home now looks like key match which Spurs will have to win, if only to get out of the bottom three...

Counting Horses and Talking Dogs

I am afraid I am a big fan of the random and "Clever Hans The Maths Horse" would appear to tick all the boxes. In the early 20th century a horse named Hans travelled around Germany performing arithmetic tasks and reading German. If only "That's Life" had been around. The story is also covered in Wikipedia (where the image is from).

The "Damn Interesting" website is well worth checking out (even if you aren't interested in mathematical equine adventurers).

Talking about That's Life, who can forget Prince, the dog who says "sausages". He was an inspiration for millions. Check him here on Youtube.

Tottenham's New Dawn (again)

Another season, another opening weekend of disappointment for Spurs fans. The Berbatov problem needs to be the first addressed, but though I read criticisms of the board for their failure to act, what else can they do? They cannot sell him without first securing at least one but hopefully two new strikers. To do otherwise would be a ridiculous act of negligence.

It is finding these strikers that is the biggest problem. As Manchester United, Everton and many other clubs are finding out it is very hard to find top quality strikers. Certainly David Villa would be great but he was never coming to Spurs. I am not sure Pavlyuchenko is going to be a Premiership success, but he would be worth a shot for £10-12m but this deal seems unlikely. Other names like Milito and Owen would work for me but both of these have also been refuted. Kanoute could be a short term solution but he is over 30 and though I am a big fan of Dean Ashton, he cannot be worth more than £10m. A fit Louis Saha would even have been a welcome addition but unfortunately it looks like his whole career is going to be marred by injury.

Arshavin makes a decent Keane replacement but he is not worth €25m and Levy should stick to his guns, even if he comes it does not nearly solve our central striker issue. Klaas Jan Huntelaar is probably the best Spurs can hope for, but again this is very unlikely given that he is being monitored by a host of Champions League teams. I can only assume that we will be bringing in some relatively low profile European or South American striker or else Roque Santa Cruz will be allowed to leave Blackburn.

The best I can see is that Arshavin and RSC join for £35m and Berbatov ships out. On top of this Tottenham need cover at centre-back and right-back where Corluka would be an excellent addition. Having seen his lack of celebration after scoring on Sunday (though this could be to do with Man City's two defeats this week) I am hoping that this deal is completed this month (though I see there is now an extra day as the 31st is a Sunday. On top of that, rumours of Veloso from Sporting Lisbon are still around but I see this as unlikely, especially if Moutinho does leave there for Everton.

All in all, life as a Spurs fan is rather frustrating, especially when we see Cuellar and Coloccini being signed up in the last 10 days by rivals. These were both players linked with Spurs and you would imagine Ramos knows what these guys are about. From what I have seen, either would be an improvement on Dawson at CB, at least on his 2008 form. Barcelona are also now linked with Capel and it would not be a surprise to see him go there, and knowing our luck Arshavin would end up joining him.

As for the match, it was classic Tottenham, not holding on to the ball (even with Modric), conceding at set pieces and failing to get the ball to the striker. The fact that our three best players, King, Berbatov and Bale were on the bench did not help. Saying that, Spurs only conceded after Bale and Berbatov came on. We have to hope for better, starting on Saturday with a win against Sunderland....but I wouldn't bet against Steed nicking a goal. Onwards and upwards.

National Anthems

A quick post for any of you that missed the Guardian's review of national anthems. This is certainly worth checking out even if you aren't following the Olympics. I also quite like the Haitian anthem which didn't make the top ten.

I don't think Haiti are likely to hear their anthem playing in Beijing, though they did get a silver medal in the Amsterdam 1928 games in the long jump....

While looking at this I saw that town planning, sculpture, painting, music and literature got Olympic medals up until 1948. This led to the oldest Olympic medallist, British graphic artist John Copley who was awarded the Silver medal for his design "Polo Player" at the age of 73.

The IOC no longer includes these within it's medal tables unfortunately, so the oldest sporting medal winner is counted as Oscar Swahn, who won two golds in shooting London 1908, but followed that up with a Silver in 1920 when he was 72 years old. This was in the team double shot running deer contest.

Enough stats for now.

45 King

Slightly offbeat musical entry for today as I slowly recover from a round of alcoholic exertions on a Sunday.

I don't avidly follow Sky Sports' Soccer AM show, but I did catch the Showboat reel yesterday and was enjoying the accompanying music enough to find out that it was "P-Y-R-A-M-I-D" by 45 King vs. Wale. Certainly it was reminiscent of some old school hip-hop along the lines of De La Soul.

Anyway I looked it up (handy music section on their website) and there is a free "mix tape" mp3 download zip file here which I think is worth checking out. It actually appears that P-Y-R-A-M-I-D" is performed by 45 King vs. 4th Pyramid, but there you go.

Also watch out for the track "The 900 Number" which includes the killer sample from Chad Jackson's "Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked)", certainly a classic tune from my youth and if you want to see what CJ looks like (something of a surprise to me) you can catch up with him here. I don't know why he has a flower in his mouth. "Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked)" got to number three in the UK charts in June 1990, FYI. While I was at it I found this: Missy Elliott vs Chad Jackson on youtube, nice.

Hip-hop is not really my niche (I am not even sure this is the strictly correct classification of these 45 King tracks), and I will have to put together some kind of desert island disc song or album picks so that I can be roundly ridiculed, pitied and admired in turn....

Fighting Animals

One of my favourite random discussion topics concerns hypothetical fights between different animals. Things like Hippo vs. Black Bear, Gorilla vs. Great White Shark...as yet National Geographic channel has not picked up this concept, and in reality I don't want to see a grisly gore show of creature violence, but it is the concept that appeals and finding out who would win. This would obviously depend on which particular animal was fighting, their size, the terrain and many other factors.

I am going off point, but I was interested to see that due to the shrinking Arctic ice Polar Bear vs. Greenland Shark may well become a more common battle. Here is the link (I won't spoil it by saying who won).

Two Oddly Placed Advertisements - Orangina & Condoms

I happened to be watching UKTV Food channel yesterday, for possibly the first time, watching Gary Rhodes cooking his way across China. I will freely admit I am not a fan of Mr. Rhodes (he never comes across as the nicest of people but he appears to be held in high regard by the food cognoscenti), but I am a fan of Chinese food.


Anyway the programme was OK, interesting insight into regional dishes, food street vendors being slowly cleared out of Hong Kong and no mention of any civil liberties being curtailed.


More importantly I saw two very unusual adverts during the programme. The first was for Orangina....Apparently this furry advert has been around for over 6 months but perhaps it is not deemed appropriate for the main terrestrial channels as it appears to show humanoid animal figures dancing and what some might call acting lasciviously. Whatever you want to call it, it is pretty weird, check it out for yourselves if you really want, here. I would like to know what the average viewer of Rhodes across China made of this, though I can just about see why this would be on UKTV Food channel.

The second advert was a standard advert to encourage young adults to wear a condom to gain respect and had some kids talking about sex. Fair enough, but it was really just the targeted demographic that I felt might be somewhat out of sync with the viewers for this programme. I just hope taxpayers money was not being spent broadcasting safe sex adverts to middle-aged foodies...and Gary Rhodes stalkers.

Anyway I thought it was odd, but maybe I am out of touch with young kids today and their enjoyment of culinary travel programmes....

Cowon iAudio Q5

I really really want one of these.....

I am not generally that crazy about gadgets, I am not exactly an 'early adopter' and have no inclination to get myself an iphone, but this little beauty appears to have a lot going for it. 5 inch screen, compatable with most video codecs, touch screen scrolling and runs a basic version of windows to view documents. Could replace my Creative Zen: Vision, though that does have the advantage of an external battery pack...

Anyway the Q5 has been around for over 6 months and though available on Amazon and at Advancedmp3, it costs £350 which is a lot. I cannot really spend that sort of money without seeing one first hand but I am as yet to find a London stockist and owner reviews on the net are pretty limited.....If anyone has one of these please let me know!

Actually the Cowon website has just directed me to a stockist less than 500 metres from my workplace...ah.

New Kid In Town

I heard about this on the BBC last week so thought I would have a look at a new search engine that has been launched: Cuil.

Apparently named after the Gaelic word for knowledge with a game plan of being 'different to Google' the site launched last week with a few issues. The main points of differentiation are that it references a larger number of sites than Google, it attempts to categorise the results and has some nifty loooking column layouts and rollover effects.

Pretty sure they will not be taking over as the number one search engine any time soon but sometimes it is good to try something different....