… Linda showed me this via her friend’s facebook. We think its Danish. There’s something bewitching about its stillness. I was hooked.

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(my) Angel In The Snow

… unless it’s download a certain song only and only from a given date. But other than that… Yeah! Fuck em!

Not that there was, for even a second, any doubt that I’d be partaking and downloading Rage this week. Any look at my record collection (or even tshirts) would tell you that. Or any common sense really.

Some may say it wasn’t a personal attack on Simon Cowell but I would gladly find a souvenir from Milan Cathedral and give him a Belusconi smile if I could. He’s admitted he doesn’t like, care for or appreciate music. Yet he’s producing and hosting a show supposedly giving fresh musical ‘talent’ a shot at the big time (well, a 5 minute shot at the big time). Why? Well he’s also admitted to being in love with money, wanting as much as he can get. So he really is only there to manipulate the common populus for his own gain.

That’s why I downloaded this…

.. and that’s why I hope he doesn’t start looking at Poland with a bit of a longing look.

Saturday:

Monet's Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil

I’ve long loved Monet and, until yesterday, claimed the various paintings he did (I think there were 17 in all) of his beloved garden pond of water lilies and the Japanese bridge he built over them as my favourite. I was accordingly blown away when I saw my favourite at the Orsay in Paris with Linda last year but yesterday I saw this one in the canvas for the first time at the National Gallery and I do believe this is now my favourite.

I still want to head to Giverny now and see if there’s any way of seeing Monet’s garden itself.

Sunday:

Car...

...and house

And, yes, it’s still that cold.

I blame the over abundance of all these “reality” shows. Where real life consists of episodes that have been rehearsed and reshot (or ‘dramatized’ as the small print reads, deliberate with the Americanisation there) in order to make the ‘real life’ in, say, a tattoo parlour, a cake store, the family of someone only famous for a leaked sex tape or having once lived by a beach, seem so glamorous and picture-perfect.

God forbid that the reality should really be shown. After all, nobody would want to watch someone spending hours doing very little. So create a show where it’s all wonderful happening greatness 24/7 etc.

Accordingly, it’s impossible then that anyone could also be seen to have a flaw. So bring in the airbrush. Like faded, plastic ex-Baywatch stars appearing in pantomines having to use a picture from 5 years ago when they weren’t looking like so much mutton past its prime. Or fucking PETA airbrushing their latest “I’d rather go naked…” campaign spokeswoman into a model-like appearance. Oh the irony there is too easy to touch.

And today, while walking back through the snow (I know) I see the poster for some Hugh Grant and Sarah Horse Parker film. How does Hugh Grant manage to look 15 years younger the second he’s on a poster? Jesus, it’s ok to age. And as for ol’ Saggy Horse Parker.. blimey. I never thought it possible but with all that editing and tweaking in the poster they’ve managed to make her look even worse than she normally does:

Look at that. It looks like her face has either been pulled back and she’s gone boss-eyed or ol’ Hugh has shoved one up her back door. For the record I’m using our new Mac so have been unable to photoshop in a horse instead of SJP. Not that you’d tell. Instead just go here.

Do I sound a little bitter today? Even with the wonderful snow. Well I am, only slightly. For I had booked today off. This was my day off work to head down and try and kick some life back into BrokenOrchestra and hang out with Dan. Then it snowed.

And snowed.

And snowed some more. So much so that they closed the office anyway. Nor can I retrieve my car from the drift that imprisons it.

On the plus side it meant Linda didn’t have to go into the office either and we’ve had a very nice day together I couldn’t ask for better company. I’ve got the last of my shopping done for Festivus and enjoyed the last episode of Band of Brothers – so, so excited about The Pacific – and am still putting pieces into place for a story I’m writing but… I still can’t help get the feeling I’ve been cheated out of a free day.

I feel old. Last night made me feel older. It was the company Christmas meal and watching the younger members of the team get drunk beyond compare and throwing themselves all over the dance floor and each other… I just feel like I’m no longer part of the “lets get drunk till we can’t feel feelings anymore” at EVERY opportunity brigade. Don’t get me wrong, I like a drink. We all know that. But lately… it just seems…. tacky.

Something that doesn’t seem tacky. The fantastic second half of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love album (oh go on, then – download it). You go through a cracking first half of quality, accessible pop songs and then get to the second half. A concept sequence about a young woman lost, floating out at sea and trying not to drown. Sounds cheerful huh? Well, it’s actually an exquisite listen and strangely suited to sitting here watching the snow from the near-warmth of a Christmas tree-lit front room while Linda naps.

I think, with the time at just gone five I should put the kettle on..

YES!

It was “how some people are built to a slightly different scale”

You can’t steal it, it’s my phrase. Conisider it my “proximity infatuation”.

Also – enjoy http://rosbeefs.wordpress.com/

There’s something great about Last Action Hero… it’s one of those films that requires very little attention having seen it umpteen times already but always delivers a laugh or a smile or two. As much as I love sitting down and watching the more…. challenging and engaging films (I really have to recommend 12:08 East of Bucharest) I’ll always have a grin on my face if Uncle Buck is on infront of me.

Same with music really. I was trying to think that, as the year begins to wrap itself up again, there’s been a lot of new music filtering through my otherwise empty head and I’m already compiling my Top 5 and Top 10 album list of 2009. But as much as I sit in awe at the sounds of Riceboy Sleeps or Songs of Green Pheasant or, today,  Lykke Li  but when I find myself singing lately it’s “who’s gonna save you when the stars fall from your sky… I won’t lie, I wish that I, could be your Superman tonight” from the new Bon Jovi album. And, the sad thing is while neither are likely to make my Top 10 list, The Circle would by far out-rank the dogs-dinner of Radditude. Oh good lord, rarely have I been so disappointed by a once-great artist. WTF happened to Weezer?

Perhaps it’s because lately I’m worried that I’m losing a lot of things to memory as they slip from this world to the next, like losing my favourite cat the other week after easily 15 years of having a doting and adoring friend waiting for me with a purr  every time she saw me. Finding comfort in the older, simpler pleasures.

Blimey, this blog is music, coffee and cheesecake not Psych 101. Still, it is the end of the year and don’t we all look inward a little more when the leaves are nowhere to be seen and the glimpses of the sun are more frequent than pigs taking to the air?

It’s possibly been the most eventful year of my life, 2009. Which is odd as I distinctly remember saying at the start of it that this was going to be the year where everything happened and I do love being proved right

Though it’s odd how affected I’ve been by the whole Aerosmith and Steven Tyler’s departure news. I continually follow Joe Perry’s twitter and to me it was like getting nuggets into the near daily life of one my favourite guitarists and having loved what I’d heard of his solo stuff (I recently dropped a very unsubtle hint to Miss Romania toward Christmas presents and she’s now buried in her laptop possibly festive shopping) and was anticipating a great new Aerosmith record. It shouldn’t really bother me that it’s not likely to happen anymore but perhaps it’s because this was the first band I really got into and it’s strange to consign that to memory too.

Why do I always get inspiration to write and the flow of thought that I need when it’s time to go to bed and I’ve been hammering away at a short story to no end for hours before hand?

Band of Brothers is still the best thing on TV. Or the best thing that was on TV.  Every time I see a trailer for the latest series of Lost I feel like puking, how many more episodes can they eek out from that? Surely they’d all have died from lack of decent food, eaten eachother or gone mad from no access to facebook? Or 24. I mean, saw Kiefer Sutherland is legendary but since when was Doc from Young Guns a government agent? Plus, if we’re going to be accurate shouldn’t it be 22.5 when you factor in adverts?

There’s a show on now asking how many people can live on planet Earth. I can think of a few that, if pressed, could be culled for the good of the rest of us. Do it by groups I say – murderers, rapists and child abusers, thieving bankers, lying politicians and then the lying and thieving politicians.

I guess there’s no getting mellower as I get older.

Especially if I have to deal anymore with local authorities. I called the council today to try and make sense of my council tax banding as it seems ridiculous to be in band ‘b’ paying 1200 a year for a single-bedroom flat and could I get any sense out of the guy on the ever end of the line? Could I balls. It’s like there’s an IQ test you have to fail before you can work for them. I swear he couldn’t even understand the question as he kept answering a different one.

Oh – and add the Black Eyed Peas to that list! Seriously, do you not even own a dictionary or a  rhyming dictionary Will I AM or whatever your poncy name is? How many times can you repeat the same thing in one song. And Fergie?! Surely I’m still not the only one who thinks she looks like a man. A man in drag. Woody Harrelson in Anger Management – Remember?!

GET A DICTIONARY!!!!

Blimey, I’m rambling more here than I do in my column…. bring it to a head. OK, back to where I started – almost – I wish that I… could be a little less cheesey but, hey, it’s not Livin In Sin

I’m off to read what promises to be an amusing take on the British from the eyes of a foreigner and then back to the Jeff Abbott book that’s been stuck to my fingers when they’ve not been dancing across keys.

If only I could remember the phrase I used earlier to describe someone’s build….

Right now I’d say it’s closer to the latter. Especially since I finally got my lazy arse around to watching Band of Brothers. That something this great – in terms of television and historical portrayl – passed me by makes me feel pretty stupid.

It’s still not about the gung-ho blood and guts, the fascination with WW2 is still focused on the individual stories. Whether this be swallowing autobiographies and accounts from those that fought (on both sides) or digesting documentaries with glee, it’s the personal stories that get me. Mainly because it seems so hard to imagine given the way we live today. While the world is hardly in what you’d call a state of easy peace, it’s impossible to drive to work and fully realise that the same skies above me would’ve been the biggest hunting ground for Spitfires and Hurricanes during those fateful years in the very early forties. Nor – in such a consumer driven society could the mind lend itself to everyone and everything being dedicated to the war effort.

Still. It’s not a shared passion, I know. Linda recently said that since she came to this country (oh yes!) it’s been nothing but “the war” so I’ve started restricting my indulgence in such things to the times when she’s taking a nap or a bit of beauty treatment time in the bathroom. It’s gotta be healthier than porn :p

Strangely, though, while I watch these documents of harrowing time – often unflinching in the most graphic of details  there’s a calm to my mind. It’s not because I long for a war or find any kind of salvation in conflict. Far from it. It’s because my Miss Romania is off in another room of our shared flat rather than off in an altogether different country. I know it’s a very soppy thing but there’s a giant weight removed from my shoulders knowing she’s here with me now.

Somehow I (we) won our own war. A war of distance, logistics and bloody government forms and now we get to enjoy the spoils – whether that be a Sunday roast, joining a gym and living a whole let better than ever – bring it on. I’m not complaining. Everything I wanted all at once? Yeah I’ll take that. Oh, already did

Not very well really. I love Spotify, I know I’m late in the day talking about it but it’s not like I’ve blogged here for a bit. Yeah there’s annoying ads and it doesn’t have everything but it’s got enough to make sure I’m never stuck for tunes at work and it does have a surprising amount of rarities. It also means I can keep play lists and it recommends artists accordingly.

Why then does it recommend that I listen to this:

Seriously Spotify? Do you really think I’d want to listen to Jibbs? Or a minuiature version of Scooby-Do’s nephew? Perhaps it’s what I’ve been searching for and the playlists I’ve been creating that make you think that:

Yeah, looking at it I can see just how Spotify came to the conclusion that by searching for Dinosaur Jr that I’d want to listen to Hurricane Chris (who???!!).

It’s almost as bad as Amazon basically recommending certain albums to people regardless of what they’d actually been looking for and buying – out of curiousity I’d searched for Nashville Pussy, Slayer and Pantera only to be recommended the John Barrowman album as people that listen to Vulgar Display.. also like showtunes?

Sort it out Spotify

This blog seems to get updated pretty rarely. Just as well I have a direct line to its main audience.

Thing is, I’m becoming increasingly positive and therefore suffer less from the need to vent in blog form. Things are, seemingly suddenly, falling into place and I may very soon have everything I could ever want.

Accordingly, I’m in a state that’s close to bliss. Things are looking like they’re falling into line and there’s only good things on the horizon and all of them with my own Miss Romania by my side. It means I’m happy beyond reason and have to keep checking I’m not dreaming when I realise how good it’s looking to be.

There’s also a great summer to look forward to with a trip to Barcelona. I get to explore more of the world and to do so with the best possible company. Not so long ago I’d barely travelled outside of my home county. Now I’ve been up and down that Eurostar track, seen a wonderful chunk of France and am soon to see Spain and Romania and experience the thrill of my first air travel and it’s all down to the same wonderful person that saved me from the black dog. I hope that I’m able to continue saving her too.