pootling

you see, i used to be rather a strong christian. there’s one person left who makes me think that i might have been wrong to have left it all behind - and now he’s got a blog - check it out.

he’s a wonderful person - we started off our online careers together - me here, him there (although there’s only a sort of existential statement left of his site) - i can’t recommend his site and, more importantly, him himself enough. hey, maybe he and i don’t quite see the world the same way, but when we chat there’s more agreement than disagreement…

it’s lucky i live where i do, because there can’t be many countries in the world that feel the need to point out that a packet of cashew nuts “contains nuts”.

some people may think that the fact that this is a packet of “large cashew nuts” may be a bit of a giveaway - but not the uk. no, we need to inform the wide collection of brain-donor nut allergy sufferers that something that is made entirely of nuts does, actually, contain nuts.

personally, i think that people that can’t work out that a packet of nuts contains nuts deserves to die to cleanse the gene pool of their idiocy. also, the sort of person that can’t work out that a packet of nuts contains nuts is pretty unlikely to be able to read at all.

it’s also great that i’m told that “small children can choke on nuts” in case i couldn’t work that out for myself too. the fact is that this sort of warning is going to have to spread to a greater range of products since, if they put their minds to it, children can basically choke on anything smaller than their mouths.

where would we be without this useful information?

in exactly the same place we are with it, i would guess.

feeling somewhat full of cold, we trooped off to the barbican. frankly, there’s not a better place to see a gig than the barbican if you’re not feeling on top form - it’s nice and comfy and you can settle back in your seat and enjoy the show, still being able to see everything. a little too comfy in fact, since towards the end (and this is no reflection on the performers) since i was beginning to drift off a little towards the end.

ms peyroux is well towards the better end of the surfeit of jazz-lite performers around. highlights of the night were the beautiful cover of between the bars by elliot smith and the final song smile.

her band were fantastic, a great selection of jazz players. unlike the recorded versions, the group often took their turns to do solos.

all in all it was a lovely, relaxing evening’s entertainment - perfect for coughing and sneezing through.

the starfish and i have been enjoying the always amusing euphemism generator this morning (via linkmachinego). personally, i like using the word “euphemism” itself. as in “i’m just off to use the euphemism” or “and the then the dirty old man just slapped her on the euphemism”…

following a recommendation by one of the starfish’s co-workers we went to see road to nowhere, a performance by the young at heart chorus - a group of men and women from america aged between 72 and 92. they do various songs ranging from road to nowhere itself, various rolling stones songs, some beatles and a corking version of hey ya by outkast.

the thing that struck me the most was the different dimension brought to a lot of the songs when sung by older people. for example, when the opening lyrics of road to nowhere were being sung, they sounded like they’d been written especially for the chorus:

“Well, we know where we’re going, but we don’t know where we’ve been.
And we know what we’re knowing, but we can’t say what we’ve seen.
And we’re not little children and we know what we want,
And the future is certain; give us time to work it out”

the whole performance was like this - there was some humour (some of which rather dark), some poignancy some aspects downright heartbreaking. i have to say that hearing ruby tuesday sung by an octagenarian sounds one hell of a lot more moving than by mick in his twenties.

this was a fantastic performance. they brought to life a lot of my favourites songs (a highlight for me being fake plastic trees by radiohead) and showed me a totally new way of looking at them. i love people that can bring me to music, and i love people that show me a new dimension of music i already adore - this group brought both in equal measure and i can’t recommend them enough for that.

and while we’re on the subject of famous dead people called john in minifig form (as, i’m sure you’ll agree, we regularly are) - here is a minifig of the man in black himself. you can also view all of the minifig collections on my flickr set where you’ll get higher-quality versions of these pictures for your own delectation.

it’s not been long since john peel day and the anniversary of his death, so i thought it would be right and proper to start off the “famous people” collection of minifigs with the one and only john peel.

i could really do with a chair, a microphone and a tiny pair of lego headphones, but you can’t get everything that you want in this life…

apparently my blog is worth money - i find this hard to believe, but i did rather enjoy the site, even if i didn’t quite manage the $9m that boing boing is currently worth:

my heart goes out to my friend caliban today - there’s not really a lot more that could have gone wrong. anyone that can help - drop him a line. and you know that you’re always welcome for a meal round our way. as tom coates pointed out on a recent post - there’s no shortage of fuckwits in the world.

what can i say - she lived to 92, but it’s still a huge loss to the world that rosa parks is no longer with us. there are few people that add to the world in the way that she did. i drink to you tonight.

i know i’m basically the last person to find this (well, i certainly am at the moment), but chris’ daily mail headline generator is keeping me occupied for ages. at first i thought “these are all a bit samey”, then i thought “ah yes, but this is a daily mail headline generator”. and i’m sure as hell not giving those b*stards a link…

i’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and it’s kind of down to this one as to whether i carry on and do some more: but here it is, my very first minifig band: the village people. they haven’t been chosen due to any particular affection for the band, but merely because they’re one of the more recongnisable bands possible.

i realise that this is far from perfect. the picture’s rather shoddy, the army guy needs a green, rather than blue hat, and the construction worker would ideally have sunglasses and a ‘tash, but for a first attempt, i’m reasonably happy with it.

if you have any comments, please post them, including if there are any bands that you would like me to try in particular (try and make them reasonable recognisable - athlete aren’t going to cut any minifig mustard) then drop me a line.

i find ambulance blogs truly fascinating, and a couple of my favourites, neenaw (a dispatcher) and random acts of reality (an rru - find out more about what that means on the site) have particularly annoying posts on them today. this isn’t because i’m annoyed with the writers, let’s get that straight, but because i’m constantly depressed by the stupidity of humanity (although i feel that “human”’s a bit of an exaggeration for these sub-monkey fools).

firstly, neenaw’s expected to answer questions about bird flu (is this an emergency? - let’s get this straight, unless you’re a bird from the far east you don’t have it you brain-dead idiot) and then respond to a call where some university students have thrown a firework into a crowded train carriage. let me repeat that university students. not some life-with-no-hope 12-year old that, although would have to pretty stupid to do such a thing, you could almost understand. but damn university students. in my world these people would not only be chucked out of uni, but then hung, drawn and quartered and then have their brain-free heads placed on spikes around the tower of london in the tried and tested fashion. the post finishes off with a woman who was being beaten by her boyfriend, so clouted him around the head with an iron. all credit to her, i say. if he can think at all, he’ll think twice next time he messes with her. (all of the above stories are in the same post linked at the beginning of this paragraph).

secondly, tom from r.a.o.r. is sent to an “emergency” of a guy whose leg’s been twitching a bit since june. since bloomin’ june. who when their leg’s been a little twitchy thinks “blimey, what i need is an ambulance”? a bloody fool - that’s who.

grr. these things make me very angry indeed.

yesterday, as a surprise, the starfish took me to kew gardens to see the dale chihuly glass sculptures they are currently exhibiting there by night (in’t she lovely?). and wow, what an experience.

just before 6, they clear the park out, then start letting people back in at 6, just as it’s beginning to turn dark. first we went to the temperate house which seems to have hundreds of these sculptures growing out from amongst the glass. some of them are huge glass balls that look like mutated out-sized christmas baubles, some are like tall glass shoots growing out of the ground - between all of them, every single colour and shade seem to be covered, and every texture that one could possibly imagine from glass (and a few that you couldn’t) are there.

as part of the experience, there are fire-eaters and performers around the park which add to the atmosphere - and are duly pointed out by all of the parents bringing their particular lucinda or tarquin out for a late-night experience.

on the lake, there are some pieces that look like multi-coloured gourds in front of a large boat that is packed solid with every shape and colour of glass under (in this case) the moon. beautiful.

in the confusingly-named princess of wales conservatory (is this because she had about as much personality as a plant?) there were more of these wonderful structures poking out amongst the greenery. right at the end of the building there’s the exhibition’s piece-de-resistance a huge sun made out of yellow, orange and red glass (not really done justice by the picture above).

all i can say is go there - and quickly - the night-time openings only run until wednesday - you won’t be disappointed.

and thanks to the starfish who constantly reminds me quite how lucky i am to be with her…