23 July 2009

Daily Chat 23/07/09

On this day in 1829, William Austin Birt filed for a patent for his typographer machine, a precursor to the typewriter. In 1914, Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to Serbia for the determination of who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In 1962, Telstar relayed the first transAtlantic television signal and in 1986, Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson. Celebrating birthdays today: David Essex, Graham Gooch (oh look, another cricketer I've heard of!), Slash, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Alison Krauss and Daniel Radcliffe. Rastas will be getting closer to Jah today as they commemorate the birthday of Emperor Haile Selassie.

65 comments:

  1. Stanislav monkeyfish23 July, 2009 08:55

    Went with the kids to see Harry Potter the other night. No strong views on the film's overall merit. Seemed kinda functional to me...got through the story etc and set up the next flim/films. What really pissed me off tn sthough was Daniel Radcliffe. The lad's a fuckin piece of wood...a shortarsed, guerning gimp with the emotional range of a paving slab. The rest of the cast have all developed; he's been caught in some kind of Neverland,timewarp, perpetual, puberty wormhole gizmo.

    Phillip French is away.

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  2. "What really pissed me off tn sthough was Daniel Radcliffe."

    Dunno what this means. Should be...

    What really pissed me off though was Daniel Radcliffe.

    the 'tn s' is silent

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  3. Personally, I preferred this to Bidisha's critique.

    Did you know that you get deleted for abbreviating her moniker?

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  4. elementary_watson23 July, 2009 09:12

    "The lad's a fuckin piece of wood...a shortarsed, guerning gimp with the emotional range of a paving slab."

    Sounds like the way I imagined the Harry Potter in the books.

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  5. Alison Krauss *spit*

    Has permanently ruined my enjoyment of Robert Plant's music.

    Sealion - great post yesterday re the disconnect between what the Graun wants out of Cif and what we do.

    Montana - read that jaw-dropping Texas piece this morning. Unfuckingbelievable.

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  6. @thauma:

    You'll also find a lot of people who think Robert Plant shouldn't have been allowed within three miles of La Krauss.

    Just saying...

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  7. Who are these people? Obviously they have no taste in music. ;-)

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  8. @thauma:

    I know Raising Sand sold a shedload of records, but it really didn't do it for me. Planty's got a top set of tonsils on him, but the arrangement of the songs on that record didn't suit him. Krauss, likewise, has a wonderful voice, but again, the songs just weren't right (Gene Clark and Townes van Zandt notwithstanding, and T-Bone Burnett's involvement as producer). The whole thing ended up as "neither nowt nor summat", as we used to say in Yorkshire.

    I'm a big fan of the Zep, and also AK & Union Station, so was disappointed with it.

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  9. Swifty, I went to see the show and was horrified. But then I hate (most) country music so that was only to be expected, I suppose.

    She did do one impressive song and does have a set of lungs on her. The show was weird - there didn't seem to be any chemistry between them - they didn't even look at each other.

    Krauss, the only time she spoke, went on about 'praise jeebus' which was met with a shocked silence!

    Plant's done a lot of interesting collaborations and explorations of music genres. This wasn't one of them.

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  10. @thauma:

    I didn't bother going to see them, I knew I wouldn't like it.

    But I'm surprised you don't like country - given your (I think?) Irish heritage. I don't mean Billy Ray Cyrus country and the rest of the rubbish pop country "hat acts", I mean proper country music - that wonderful lonesome blend of Irish-Scottish Appalachian songs and po' black man's blues and spirituals.

    I've been to Nashville three times in my life so far (twice with the wife), and we've now decided that we're moving out to Tennessee when I retire in god knows how many years. We've never had a life plan before, but we've got one now...

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  11. Nah, not keen on the Appalachian stuff, although I do like blues. Gimme Robert Johnson over the whiteys any day.

    Some artists generally classified as 'country' I do like: Lyle Lovett, Emmylou, kd lang.

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  12. Q What happens when you play a country song backwards?

    A Your truck gets fixed, your wife comes back and the cows come home....

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  13. Or as Harlan Howard once said - "three chords and the truth"...

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  14. elementary_watson23 July, 2009 10:24

    Trouble is, your wife may decide toi leave again if you don't quickly turn off the song, be it played forwards or backwards.

    As might the cattle ...

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  15. @elementary_watson:

    Trouble is, your wife may decide to leave again...

    Doesn't work, unfortunately, and God knows I've tried. My missus now actively likes country music. Bah. Mind you, so does my daughter. Like she's going to have any choice in the matter as she grows up. "Kanye West? That's rubbish, that is, that's not music, it's just talking. Townes van Zandt, now that's proper music" etc etc.

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  16. elementary_watson23 July, 2009 10:38

    If you go more "pop" and play, say, "Achy Breaky Heart" for six hours in a row, possibly backwards, it should do the trick.

    You might also want to kill yourself after the first hour, but still ...

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  17. Perhaps she's just being stubborn, I'm sure that my husband was trying to make me walk when he made me listen to Frankie Teardrop.

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  18. @Vari:

    You should've shopped him to the coppers for that, he'd have got sent down for a long time. Alan Vega's bonkers.

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  19. Would have been playing right into his hands Swifty, instead, I recite the Gruffalo when he's driving.

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  20. Clever, very clever. Silly old fox, doesn't he know, there's no such thing as a gruffalo?

    My daughter still enjoys Charlie Cook's Favourite Book, Room on the Broom, and The Snail and the Whale at bedtime, although she now thinks the Gruffalo is "for babies". She's five and a half - sigh.

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  21. All still classics Swifty. Although no doubt Bidisha, as she prefers to be called, would manage to find a misogynistic, homophobic subtext.

    I regularly offer up thanks to Julia Donaldson and Mr Tumble.

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  22. @Vari:

    They are great books. And we're in good company - the PM, no less (Gordon Brown, not Peter Mandelson, oh er hang on) rates The Snail and the Whale as one of his favourite books, apparently.

    And if I was being unkind, I'd suggest he'd based most of his foreign policy on it (small mollusc hitches a ride on the tail of a mighty leviathan to far-flung corners of the world), but I'm not, so I won't.

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  23. Kizbot says head over to the spencer ackerman thread, very amusing apparently.

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  24. But the snail saves the day in the end....

    Which is somewhat unlikely I admit. Still, if its good enough for Gordon its good enough for me. Thats what I tell myself when I'm actively encouraging the hatred of everyone.

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  25. @Vari:

    Well, the snail persuades all the other snails to get with the programme in the end, so agreed, entirely unlike GB, but still...

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  26. I shall probably get crucified for this, but occasionally and only briefly I actually feel sorry for him.

    There. I've said it.

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  27. The Spencer thread is funny, but so too the thread on breasts. Once again, Ally F makes me laugh out loud.

    Interestingly, Jessica Reed has posted on the article. Did you know that she is French, no?

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  28. @Vari:

    Interestingly, Jessica Reed has posted on the article. Did you know that she is French, no?

    Strike me down with une plume! She's never ever mentioned it before, n'est-ce pas?

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  29. Mais oui.

    I can't believe that she's said 'I would love for everyone to stop projecting their excitement du jour on my breasts' and nobody has taken this golden opportunity. CiF just isn't as smutty as it used to be.

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  30. @Vari:

    I passed on it. The thought of my projecting anything onto JR's knockers made me feel a little bit ill, to be honest.

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  31. elementary_watson23 July, 2009 13:25

    Swifty: Don't you think this could hurt Jay if he reads it?

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  32. Knockers, a great and woefully underused word.

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  33. @Vari:

    True, you don't hear it as much as you used to. Oh, for those golden summer days before the war when you could compliment a woman on her "Great knockers love" and she wouldn't go all PC mental on you and get you banged up for sexual harassment. We've lost so much in our constant striving to be modern...

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  34. Country ? Get your hearts broke here... I like Alison Kruas, and old Planty obviously rocks the world, but Lucinda Willams... makes my heart ache.

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  35. Hi BW - yes, I like Lucinda too! Unfortunately can't youtube @ w*rk.

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  36. Has something happened to the Ackerman thread? Suddenly no updates for around 40 mins....

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  37. @thauma:

    Disappeared up its own arse, maybe, like its author?

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  38. Bad luck thauma, nor can I. I can't even blog safely..

    Lucuinda's playing Cambridge folk festival, would love to see her live, if just to hear Sweet Old World.

    By the way, I'm a very dangerous, wealthy and handsome bluesman.

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  39. Is that Jan Ackerman from Focus ?

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  40. BW - now as it happens, the lovely Lucinda will be playing around here next Weds. I don't have tix tho.

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  41. Swifty - lol!

    BW, no, it's one Spencer Ackerman. A Yank version of young Gogarty, it would seem.

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  42. Oh. I'll have a wander over.

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  43. My theory is the mods' Delete button has broken so they've somehow managed to hobble the comments.

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  44. Thank God for crazy, mixed up Libby Brooks. She's quite brightened up my day with that extraordinary article on feminism.

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  45. Funny, the last one of hers I read was quite rational. This one was not.

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  46. Not to worry though - Cath's immediately come to the rescue with her "Great article, Libby!" And Amazon bodyguards Natalie and Jessica will be around to make sure any dissenting voices are tackled with the usual unashamedly intellectual, rigorously conducted, unflinchingly honest put downs.

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  47. Jessica's already had a go at me....

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  48. Its bizarre indeed, expect BTL to hit 200 comments from the usual suspects hotly debating why their strand of feminism should be the definitive and only ideology, and anyone disagreeing is not a feminist.

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  49. Oh, what a frustrating morning. Internet went down while trying to post a comment on the Ackerman thread. At first, I thought it was Cif, but when I tried to come back here it told me the page wasn't available.

    I think calling Ackerman a wanker just might be praising him a bit too much. But who the hell thought that shite would make interesting reading?

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  50. Nice image Swifty,although you've not included BTH bringing up the rear, so to speak.

    Its one of the great mysteries of CiF MW, I'll try and post and see if they're disabling it....

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  51. @Vari:

    No, it's working. I've just corrected your typo.

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  52. Thanks Swifty, as its my only comment remaining one would prefer it to be correct.

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  53. @Vari:

    I doubt mine will be around for long, to be honest.

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  54. He must have just got up, judging by the timing of the deletions.

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  55. Well, the comment that I allegedly posted successfully just before my internet went down is gone completely. Whether it never posted or whether the mods disappeared it is a mystery. The comment was: I reckon he's Anna's cousin.

    I seem to have become embroiled in a discussion of Ally's "assets" with Millytante over on the Cadwalladr thread...

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  56. Evening Untrusted Ones

    I am so tired I don't know if I am going to manage to finish this senten...zzzzZZZZZzzzz

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  57. BB
    Have some beer !

    It's so much more than a breakfast drink !

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  58. LOL Bitterweed!

    I'm sat here with a pint of Greene King IPA as I type. It certainly refreshes the parts shite dutch beer cannot reach, that's for sure...

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  59. Who's DrugBoxingAntichrist - anyone we know? Just LOL'ed so hard at one of his posts:

    "I hope the next nuclear waste dump gets built over your piles clinic and you can't get a taxi home."

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  60. "Not to worry though - Cath's immediately come to the rescue with her "Great article, Libby!" And Amazon bodyguards Natalie and Jessica will be around to make sure any dissenting voices are tackled with the usual unashamedly intellectual, rigorously conducted, unflinchingly honest put downs."

    Please post that on the actual thread, Swifty.

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  61. Talking of kid's book classics...
    The Cat and The Hat was my first, and still favourite, anarchist text...

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  62. in the hat says the wino...

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  63. 23 July, 2009 18:47
    BeautifulBurnout said...
    Who's DrugBoxingAntichrist - anyone we know? Just LOL'ed so hard at one of his posts:

    Perhaps you should inquire over on Politely Homicidal?!

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  64. This night I have mostly been to a beer festival with a stunningly equipped lock in. I have mostly been drinking "What's Occuring" and "Gravitas", have met a deeply intelligent pair of women, an intuitive fighter of racism, and seen a terrific blues band called the King Snakes or summat.

    Not bad for an auld feck.

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