time is waiting in the wings

howdy pop pickers


just a sort of quick one, look you see, to be sure.

whereas i might not have been all that impressed with the David Bowie Glastonbury 2000 CD set overall, it's still Bowie. and if the BBC, or anyone else for that matter, are prepared to pump it (or broadcast, i suppose) to my tele, then that's nice.

actually have it on now as i am writing, and maybe my earlier blog post comments were somewhat harsh. oh, no, he's just done Little Wonder. but, the rest of the performances are still pretty good, just not "the best he ever did". this wasn't even the best gig he did in June 2000, never mind of all time.

exactly why am i troubling you with this? well, have a look at the above picture again. quite carefully if you will, see if you can spot the error. a sad error, but an error all the same.

yes, somehow the BBC have this set down as running for (hang on let me count fingers and toes here) seventeen (17) hours. well, in the linear note diary from Bowie in the CD booklet he did mention how annoyed he was that he had to keep the set short.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

rather mixed reading fortunes

hello there


well, right, so, i have read some more novels. as usual this would be two (since my previous post of a similar (as in exact) nature, look you see), and not just one, nor as many as three or five, or seven even. but who is counting. apparently i am, hence me knowing when to do a post a bit like this one.

a word of warning, or caution, though. several words, as point of fact (or to appease the pedantic) both novels feature some rather heavy, dark and disturbing elements. whereas all efforts shall be made to be as careful as i can with wording, the contents of both novels are likely to cause some upset and distress for some readers. yes, sadistic pleasure and psychotic joy for others, but they have no need of warning.

that said (and the title of this post hints at such), one handles i brilliantly, and is one of the best books i have ever read. in respect of the other, poor, crass, one dimensional rubbish which nearly got thrown out before completion, and a strong contender for the worst novel i have ever endured, or to borrow a phrase from a very dear friend, punished myself with.

yes, above is the standard look at what i have most recently read. for a spoiler free overview of each, Cari Mora by Thomas Harris is one of the most engrossing, engaging and splendid reads i have ever had the fortune of experiencing. meanwhile Woman In The Water by Katerina Diamond was, without warning, the 6th (or so) novel in a "series", i had not read any of the others. i am rather glad that this is so, for no matter how good the initial premise is, this novel is just awful in every definition of the word and proved to be a test of will to complete it.

right. in sticking with tradition, a *** SPOILER WARNING *** is in place for just about everything below this paragraph. it is so that i shall take extreme care not to say to much on Cari Mora for i would have no wish to spoil the novel for anyone. not so much for the junk of Woman In The Water, where pretty much all will be given away, just to satisfy the curiosity of anyone tempted by how bad i mentioned it is.

starting where i did, and to get it all out of the way, yes, as the cover makes quite clear (under price stickers), indeed this is that Thomas Harris. going further, sure it has been quite some time since he published a novel (unless he done one or two under a pseudonym that no one has worked out) and no this one does not feature Hannibal, or Clarice, or anyone from those novels. my suspicion is that quite a lot around the internet and beyond shall already have been written of this, so rather let me leave such there.

provenance of my copy? the sticker is not misleading, i did indeed pay £4.50 for this from Morrisons, although they do not keep books by the cigarette counter. it was purchased immediately on sight. as soon as i picked it up, though, yes, it did cross my mind that maybe i should wait, as it would be likely Tesco would have it for less. they did, i found, and i could have gotten it off of them for £3.50. oh well. generally it would be fair (and indeed reasonable) to comment that impulse purchases seldom, if ever, rely on practical considerations for their coming into being, and i suppose the extra £1 paid is a fair evaluation of the excitement experienced by seeing a Thomas Harris novel available to we, the people.

some plot details? why not. in Florida there is a house which is dilapidated and rented for the odd film or television location shoot. within the house is estimated to be US$25 million in gold, hidden there by infamous drug cartel head Pablo Escobar. fiendishly hidden. the value of the property somehow or consequentially exceeds the value of the gold, so more creative ways are sought by those aware (at least partially) of the prize to get it. the only constant to the property is an appointed caretaker, Cari Mora, a Colombian immigrant on unstable legal ground and with a very troubled past.

this novel was a sheer joy, and a delight to read. much like the other works of Harris, the key to engaging reading being unlocked is not to overcomplicate or baffle with language. straightforward, if not simple. yes, i've held back as much as i can of the story, but it is the kind of one you'd love to relate to others, or discuss. well, i would.

looking at reviews after reading this leaves me surprised at the reaction. quite a few seem to think it is average at best. going into these reviews, a common trend seems to be to lash it for its length, be upset that Hannibal is not in it and for some reason believe the black comedy which prevails in all of his novels here is by accident rather than design.

undoubtedly, in this day and age, a key quality of this novel is that it is immensely (and strikingly) visual, with every aspect begging to be adapted into a movie. this, presumably, would be quite handy for Mr Harris, what with in bizarre circumstances the rights to Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling now belonging to two different companies, further royalties from that source seem limited. ideally, a peak James Cameron would make this into one of the best films ever, but alas of course he has retired from proper films, now just doing stuff with Smurfs and that.

make no mistake from comments above. as and when violence and other such brutality comes, it is all that you would expect from this particular author. again, in seeking to give as little away as possible, it remains that the notion, or idea, of such is often the more dangerous and affecting than the actual.

yes, absolutely get this book and enjoy, if you can stomach the dark and the depraved. disassociate all thoughts of what the novelist has done before, enjoy for what it is. i very much did. rather like his other novels, this is one i can see myself one day doing that rare thing with, which is to read it again.

from what i can recall of my musings earlier in the year, in particular those days prior to the grand invisible war against the plague, i believe i need to dig out one i read called The White Road, for it has turned out that it was not the worst book which i had read this year. far from it. that one was a masterpiece if held up to Woman In The Water by Katerina Diamond. pretty much any novel would be, unless of course Sammy Hagar has written one, or that Mr Kim Kardassian or that Ed Sheridan (or whatever).

provenance? certainly Tesco, noticing the lack of a sticker. i would like to think, perhaps hope, that this was when they had novels for £2.50. but, in fairness, the plot and premise did sound good on the back, so if i paid either £3 or £3.50 for it then i did so in remarkably good faith.

and so to that plot. your attention (or intention) is drawn once more to my note that i propose to hide nothing here, for to do so would make it exceedingly difficult, or a bit tricky, to discuss just why this is so bad. then again, it is entirely possible i will get bored of writing about it, or left feeling exhausted and drained from recalling it all, and just abandon whatever limited point i try to make. how much time is appropriate, i wonder, to give to something that was cheap, a waste of time and easily described as something to avoid?

so, from what i recall, a bloke copper (who is dating his lady copper colleague) is driving home, and is drawn to a crowd of ladies. it turns out they are looking down on what they think might be a body, what their kids alerted them to. the copper investigates, and finds what he thinks is a dead lady, but turns out to be alive. later on, another body, of a bloke and is dead, is found further down the way.

now that i think about it, i really can't be bothered with much detail. the author certainly had no such interest, either. basically lady found won't say anything, disappears, trace her home, suspect domestic abuse, bloke copper much against this, engineers to break into house, chins lady's husband, lady's husband construction tycoon and unspecified and never explained big time unchallenged gangster head, lady's husband orchestrates a (most) serious and brutal sexual assault on bloke copper, people stab themselves in the heart rather than speak about big time construction tycoon gangster lady husband, turns out that orchestrating (very) serious sexual assaults on men is something this bloke has done for years, try to dig dirt on him, find something, nasty chap and wife story inexplicably turns into the plot twist of Chinatown, very nasty man gets killed, bloke copper has a list of suspects who worked for nasty man that might have assaulted him, resigns from coppers, very clear that in the next book off he shall go to find them and presumably seek revenge.

obviously there are any number of serious, dark, heavy, brutal and disturbing subjects in this, and i use the word via dictionary definition alone, novel. alas, none of them are handled in any way that one could consider insightful, observational, carefully or intelligently. when i say the novel is one dimensional, there is precisely zero character development, no character insight, nothing. if one allows for a "suspension of disbelief" when reading fiction, then that has to be measured against how realistic the writer wishes us to perceive that which they write. in terms of this, the "big bad" of the novel is absolutely farcical. as, too, is the depiction of the police. and the idea that just one "mr big time gangster tycoon of construction" would rule all criminal activity unchallenged. with everyone he has ever attacked or assaulted over the course of some ten years responding exactly as he intended, with not one approach to the law, or other means of vengeance. bad, bad, very bad.

this is, as i said, either book four, five or six in a series. it is really, really f*****g annoying to pick up a novel which gives no warning that it is even in such a series, let alone which part. and i do enjoy such series novels, but when i am warned that this is what i have, and that i am reading in a relatively correct order. also, the title of the novel, and the description on the back, bear just about the vaguest possible reference to the actual novel itself, and is mostly misleading. with the writing here being below the standard i would reasonably expect of a formulatic, colour by numbers Mills & Boon text, i am amazed the series has gotten numerically up to anywhere over volume two, but there you go. if it is so that i must find something positive to say, the only thing i can think of is that generally the sentence structure in Woman In The Water is a lot more coherent than what i do here, but surely such would be entry level stuff for paid for published works. and well structured sentences which don't actually say anything are not worth too much.

right, well, that's that. once again i am not sure writing all of this has added much of value (if any at all) to the world, or you the reader, but it is done now. and my thanks as always, once again, for taking the time to read.

more reading shall be done and, depending on how i fare in the invisible war against the new plague, which rages still at time of writing, more comments are likely to follow.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

distanced day of release

howdy pop pickers


and so some more vibes purchased within the week of release, look you see, rather than the actual day of it. but i did try to, as we shall see. well, we will if you elect (or select) to read on, i of course know this information. no, this has not started well.

i think (and i could be wrong) that, as we stand here in June (2020), my purchases of "new" vibes for the year is decidedly low. less than the conventional number of fingers (plus thumb) on one hand would be able to count. from memory, i have picked up Morrissey's new album, with that being the only "new" music as such. beyond that, it was Now That's What I Call Music 5 in a CD, and abridged, format, and now Liam Gallagher MTV Unplugged by, let me not shock you, Liam Gallagher.

this equates to a pretty much bad year for vibes, then. once more from memory, i seem to think the last year where "new" music was so limited was 2017. not sure if much beyond Liam's debut solo album and the Kasabian one came out then. since there was neither an invisible war nor a plague at the time, 2017 lacks the excuses of 2020, but anyway, enough, Liam.

so, what's all this then? pretty much what it says on the box. which is Liam Gallagher doing an MTV Unplugged gig, a mere 23 (give or take) years after he was invited to do so, with the band he was in at the time, but in rather (in)famous circumstances (never categorically explained in a way all agree on being the case) opted out of it about an hour before the gig. i suspect this selection, being ten songs and running just south of forty five minutes, is not the full gig, but rather "highlights" of it.

for those of you in a rush and wishing to see me just get to the point, yes. should you be a Liam Gallagher fan, be it passing or full tilt, it is (totes) worth getting. if you are one of them hankering (or even longing) for an Oasis reunion, well, 50% of the tracks here are from that band.

now, then, if you are prepared to extend me some more time, i shall go into a bit (but not a lot) more detail for you consideration. mostly, i suspect, a peculiar number of you will be interested or curious about the provenance of my copy.

yes, in a moment of crowning glory for any rock star, MTV Unplugged by Liam Gallagher is the album of the week, which i did not know they even troubled themselves with, at Tesco. the price was neither south nor north of £10, but rather £10 on the nose. an equatorial tenner, if you will.

efforts were made to purchase on day of release, as in as far as i went to two supermarkets operating on such (12 June) who stocked discs, but alas neither Morrison nor Sainsbury had it. indeed, consideration was given to getting it on the day i did (Monday 15) from HMV, as they were re-opening. and they had it listed for 99p north of £10, but with the selling point of a "free" (ahem) sticker.

switching on the news (provincial and national) on that Monday morning rid me of any quarrel about going to HMV, or town. glorious leader Boris and his chum Rishi pleaded with all to shop on the Monday, and they did, with huge queues and crowds all over. it was very clear that this "social distancing" business was soon thrown out the window as a consequence. so, no, i figured either Tesco shall have it, or i will just order online, but Tesco had it.

that's the tracklisting, then. as you can see, and immediately calculate, 50% Oasis, 50% Liam Gallagher solo tunes, 0% Beady Eye, with the latter being a bit of a shame as they actually did some smart tunes. i happen to like both of their albums, and not just the second simply because it has some nudies on the cover.

of the 50% of songs what are Oasis, 40% of them - Some Might Say and Cast No Shadow - were done by Oasis sans Liam in 1996. better or worse here? well, unlike Noel, Liam had considerably more than an hour (or ninety minutes) to prepare to sing them.

we now then live in a world where both of the more famous Gallagher brothers have done a version of Some Might Say live, and for the life of me i cannot think why anyone would. not that i dislike the song, actually far from it, and if forced to select i may say it might be my choice for the greatest thing what the band done. it's positive, uplifting, life affirming beauty, though, comes from the electric guitar reverberating and bouncing off full tilt, maximum throttle Liam vocals. unplugged, or if you like acoustic, it remains a good song, just not the f*****g great one that it is in its original form.

oh, sure, there shall be more on the Oasis songs in a bit, but let us be fair. despite never wishing to be a solo artist (if i remember right he said that solo artists are "c***s", and in fairness he did announce the fact that he was going at it as a solo artist by saying "now I am officially a c**t"), that he very much is. and a relatively successful one too. whereas the complete mess they have made of the singles chart robbed him of some solid on the record hits, they haven't destroyed the album chart yet, and both his albums have sold (physical copies) many tens of thousands, actually hundreds of thousands i believe.

a deal was done, i believe. we, the people, need a proper rock and roll star. there is no doubt at all that Liam Gallagher is a proper rock and roll star, maybe the last one standing, and it is unlikely he would be much good at doing anything else. of course there are many who do not like him, but there you go.

does the solo material stand up here, as in hold its weight against somewhat more widely known and firmly established songs? reasonably so, but honestly not with any immediate feel of equality. to pick out some moments, Wall Of Glass was a big bold statement of intent as a debut solo tune and it holds up, Now That I've Found You is a beautiful, personal song, Once is arguably his finest (to date) moment as a solo artist, and there's no faulting Gone or One Of Us.

the flaws of the folly in MTV Unplugged? not too many. again i shall speculate that this is truncated or abridged, but it really does fly by fast, feeling even shorter than the running length. i get that he really, really wishes to perform as Oasis again, having never wished the band to end, but this little bit of them, little bit of me might be somewhat distracting. by no means was it ever a given that such will happen, but something of a "hallmark" of the more celebrated MTV Unplugged sets was the presence of one of covers or new material. but, then again, Liam would probably be the first to state that the fans had come for something very specific, and not to hear him "f*** about".

something else that happens (or happened) from time to time on MTV Unplugged was guest stars. the pinnacle of this was probably Ronnie Wood joining Sir Rod for his, with that being the first time the two of them had played together for some 20 years. here, we get Paul Arthurs, better known as Bonehead, the other guitarist in Oasis. no matter how short this record is (or feels), Liam finds the time to tell us that this is the second time what Bonehead has done MTV Unplugged, which certainly puts him in a small, elite bracket.

but, yeah, go on then, the Oasis songs. wisely Liam selects songs only from the "golden" era, the first three or four years, the ones clamouring for a reunion only consider. at the far end of that period comes Stand By Me, a simply brilliant song which might have gotten lost under the mess what it was eventually decided Be Here Now actually was.

every now and then there is a song which can only be done with but one voice. two such Oasis songs feature here, Cast No Shadow and, very much in particular, the closing tune Champagne Supernova. with regards to the latter, well it is i remember the reviews of Morning Glory when it came out, with most dismissing the album as average at best, condemning it in particular for the on paper awful lyrics of this song. but, you know, there was just something about the way it sounded, the way Liam sang it - and still sings it - that makes it all make perfect sense.

indeed Liam Gallagher's MTV Unplugged was recorded in Hull. an immediate thought is that this is not quite the most rock and roll of places, but then there is such a thing as an album called Live At Hull by The Who, and of course Heaven & Hull by Mick Ronson. my understanding is that Liam insisted the gig be done there simply because he heard Noel describe it as a "f*****g sh!thole", and so but of course if Noel doesn't like something then Liam immediately does. i totally get why so many wish for an Oasis reunion, but honestly it's so much fun seeing them apart i am not bothered either way.

at the time if writing this i'd played the album twice through, with no skipping and just the one instance of pause to rather go for a cigarette. i can imagine this getting played a fair few more times, and, oddly, thanks to the reminder, Liam's solo albums being given another spin. generally, i reserve Oasis for when driving, so as to ensure my inevitable "shoutalong" to them affects no ears beyond my own. so, yes, Liam Gallagher's MTV Unplugged may feel short and have every sense of being incomplete, but full worthy is it of owning.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

king of the road

hello


with so many of us (or at least strewth, cor blimey, quite a few) returning to the roads, it is important for us to remind ourselves of some basics of driving. being away from the controls of a motor vehicle, or if you like car, can make one a little rusty, forgetting to remember rules and things what keep us safe. this is, for historians, as a net or direct result of the invisible war on the plague, a formidable battle which many of us were instructed to fight by remaining at home.

one thing i can tell you is that the world out there is not really the post apocalyptic wasteland we were all promised it was. no, it has not gone all Mad Max. there is still, for instance, an expectation for us to get fuel from petrol stations, rather than siphoned out of trucks what has had the driver crossbowed badly to death. also, the constabulary still exist, and frown on one driving around in trousers what have the arse cut out of them.

so as to help you get prepared and ready to be back cruising the streets, alas i can offer no practical assistance in any practical sense. what i can do for you, however, is share an advert for the AA (the car one, and not the drinking one) from 1986.

yes, no, don't you worry, below are some enlarged versions of the above so you may read them a bit more better. and, of course, also have a go at answering the questions, if you are so inclined.

i wasn't driving in 1986, as legally it was frowned upon for someone of the age i would have been then to do so. generally, though, my understanding of the time is that not a great deal else was frowned upon. over the years i have heard it spoken that drink driving wasn't really a thing anyone thought of, and a wide range of traffic violations or incidents could be resolved by making a charitable donation to something called the policeman's secret ball.

but, we are here for the now, not the past. and so here's the first segment of the above, hopefully somewhat clearer in a way that is (much) easier to read. not sure how all this internet stuff works, but if you click on the image (assuming you are on a computer and not a phone thing) it may very well go even bigger. clever, these machines are.

what really strikes me is just how irrelevant a significant number of these questions are. for those interested, or impatient, the answer to all of them (mindful of this being an advert) was to buy the shiny new 1986 AA motorist handbook.

one example of the redundancy of these questions is the second one down on the left. it is the one asking about what junction you need to take off of the M4 to get to a place called Bridgend. in this day and age, the answer to that, or any such similar question, is "whatever the satnav says to take". where once we used maps and that, now we just use them computer things. a tragic incidental consequence of this, if you were to ask anyone but Spiros, is that London cabbies with their skills of what they call "the knowledge" is no longer all that impressive.

moving, or if you like driving, on and here's the second batch of them questions. it seems that a few of these ones are of a more "technical" or car maintenance nature. and also about the possibility of breathtaking views in Leicestershire. someone mean spirited would probably answer that with something like "the most breathtaking view of Leicestershire is when you see it fading away in your rearview mirror", but that is not what i would say.

quite like the direction or map related questions, things like jammed starters are just not really an issue with modern driving. if a car breaks, normally the computer in the car says what is wrong. failing that, you can call the car menders, who come out, plug another computer into it, get the computer to work it out and mend it. unless the issue, of course, is something like the car is upside down, or even on fire.

it is remarkable, really, just how much of what was essential knowledge for using a car has become somewhat totes redundant within 34 years. one can only imagine what we take as a given now shall, too, be obsolete 34 years from now. then it shall probably be all flying space cars, what fly or drive themselves, except maybe no one will still go anywhere due to another invisible war on a different sort of plague.

the chances of this being of any practical use to anyone are, i grant you, limited. but, that said, if some of it has been interesting or entertaining, well jolly good.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

more movies

hey there


well, then. in filling the yards of time afforded by fighting the invisible war against the new plague by staying home (mostly) as instructed, i have had the chance to watch a few more movies, look you see. actually quite a few things, not all of them films, and even of the movies what i watched it is not so that all are reflected here.

if for any general reason someone, or anyone, has anything resembling a passing interest in what i watched and what i may think of such, well then this is going to be a mildly acceptable read for you. should it be so that your interest level sits somewhere below the acute threshold i have mentioned, well, perhaps you might at the least enjoy the pretty, well designed pictures.

one of them "abstract collage" things i like to do, then, even though it is not particularly a collage, or abstract for that matter. random, perhaps, as there is no particular level of sense or thought into the way each is placed. certainly, or mostly, not in any order of watching.

for the sake of polite, rather than ill or uncouth, manners, the common accepted etiquette on nicer corners of an internet suggests that one of them *** SPOILER WARNING *** things is most appropriate here. and so you have such in place, although of course it will be my steadfast intention not to ruin any overt experience for your own watching.

there are several concerns, problems, issues and ostensible 'downsides' to the modern wonders of "streaming services". but, and many would say mostly, it is so that there are many wonderful benefits, indeed advantages to it all. in regards of the latter, a positive would be being able to see films that you kind of wished to, over the years, but never got around to, with considered convenience and no further cost than what you have already paid.

such an instance (or example) would be getting to see any number of "classic" live action Disney films from years gone by, which for reasons unknown never got all that much of a release, or level of availability, around the world. well, at the very least, it was so that the video rental area of the petrol station at marton shops could only stock a very finite number of titles.

it would be due to a Disney+ existing that, at last, then, i came to watch a movie called That Darn Cat. this was one movie that i had a level of awareness of from reading books and magazines, but was never afforded the chance or opportunity to watch. a great shame, as it has that Roddy McDowall in it. but, better late than never, as they say about such matters, and so at last i have seen it.

was the film worth the wait, as in is it any good? rather dated, is my main reflection, which one could easily comment on a motion picture from north of 50 but south of 60 (at time of writing) years ago. the story, or plot, is decent enough, but some of the values expressed are a trifle alarming for a film intended as family viewing. no, i am not one of these "woke" or social justice warrior types, but still, to see Frank Gorshin out of Riddler out of Batman be genuinely scary as he motions and threatens to hit a captive lady is not quite what i would expect of a U (universal, suitable for all) certificate film, especially not with the high propensity for draconian censorship the BBFC has.

but was it worth watching? not, in truth, really. had this indeed been available to me in the early 80s, that era when being able to rent a film of your choice on video and watching seemed amazing and fantastic, then i might have appreciated it more, especially as i would have been in my tens or early teens. me, thirty or so years on, found this film somewhat oddly paced and dragging a bit, and could not really see much that would let me agree with considering this a "classic".

another, or if you will one more, "advantage" of all these streaming things is the ability to watch films that were universally proclaimed to be absolute rubbish and to be avoided at no further cost than the subscription you have paid for anyway. why you would watch such probably comes down to a curiosity factor, and so, noticing it available on that there Netflix thing, i decided to have a go at Eye See You, perhaps better known as D-Tox.

when i say that it was spoken of as to be avoided at all costs, as far as i can remember D-Tox was an early adopter, or instance, of a brand new form of dismissive reviews. the new technology of the early 2000s enable all sorts of new criminal, or illegal, activity, and so it was that people could say of this that it "was not even worth the effort of watching a pirate copy".

yes, i am aware of me not really saying that much of this motion picture with regards to plot, quality, etc, but it strikes me as being more of interest to explore the 'infamous' reputation it has. let me not repeat much of which is known, or which has already been written of. instead, i refer you to this link, with particular emphasis on the comments by Stallone on the film. he deserves a lot of credit for his frank and candid comments, for it gives a clear insight into why it is so that sometimes really, really bad films get released. if you accept, of course, that no one sets out to make a rubbish film on purpose. doing so would strike me as being rather expensive an act of folly, but what do i know.

plot? we find Stallone as some sort of FBI (or similar) detective, on the hunt for an elusive serial killer type. alas, as is so often the case in the cinematic (or straight to video, or on streaming content) tellings of such, the evil serial killer type elects to "make it personal" and engaged in some cat and mouse, or shadow boxing / dancing, with the detective. eventually (again, as is common in such films) the killer strikes a really personal blow. just about slightly bucking the trend of such, instead of going off on vengeance, it leaves our detective broken, and off to a "detox" sort of place to try and recover or recuperate. where, of course, the serial killer follows him.

the intention seems to have been to make a crime thriller which is almost as comfortable as what is expected of the genre to give audiences the familiar stuff they want, yet apply a (slight) spin on it to make it more appealing. it fails, miserably so. ultimately it is really as bad as "Lethal Weapon meets The Thing (or Alien)", which is what it descends into. possible elements of suspense were (in)famously tossed away early doors. if you happened to see the trailer then you got the crystal clear voice of the killer. should you have not seen the trailer, well, early on you get a partial profile view of him; one that matches precisely one of the people who "could" be the killer in the second half of the film.

despite the (very lazy) stereotype, Stallone is very much an accomplished actor and talented director. he knows enough to know when those around him doing either are woefully out of their depth. you get to watch him care less and less as the film progresses, for he is clearly honouring a contract to be in the film despite it being obvious no one knows what they are doing. well, sort of watch. my single biggest issue with D-Tox or if you prefer Eye See You (both are rubbish names) is that it is literally too dark most of the time, and you cannot see a single thing going on for many minutes in a row. avoid this film, don't dabble with it no matter how curious you are.

sometimes, perhaps more often that we would thing, an above average to superb level motion picture "fails" on release. every now and then such garners retrospective success, be it financially or by becoming a "cult classic", whatever the latter actually means.

reasons for this can relate to simply being released "at the wrong time", insufficient marketing taking place or the maker and the studio of and behind the film having a complete brain melt which sees them seek to ruthlessly destroy any chance of success for no apparent reason. it would be the latter two which are of most relevance to Sorcerer, which i picked up on one of them blu-ray discs rather than watching on a "stream".

plot? four men from different corners of the world find themselves on the run after committing unforgivable crimes from which there can be (hence the unforgivable part) no redemption. they all end up in the same variation of a 'metaphor' thing for "hell", hiding and working in brutal conditions for an oil company in an unspecified third world nation in south america. whilst having varying degrees of regret for their crimes (none through to all, via some), each very much regrets where it is their life choices have brought them to. after enduring a considerable amount of time in this place, a task is offered; one that will either kill them or give them a chance of "freedom".

if that sounds interesting, intriguing or a good idea for a film, well, it jolly well does turn out to be so. and yet the film was not at all successful on release. there are any number of reasons for this, but the main one as far as i can see is that it has a title which makes next to no sense. whilst a secondary vehicle in the film is called Sorcerer, it makes little sense to name the film this. nor does the curious reason why director William Friedkin called it so, claiming it all to be metaphorical, having defined a sorcerer as an "evil wizard" and directly implying an evil fate for evil. had it been named something which made more sense - say, for instance, The Wages Of Fear, as was the title of the novel on which it was based - then maybe audiences who would have liked and appreciated the film would have been drawn to it. also, in fairness, it was released around the time of Star Wars, which proved to be tricky to drag audiences away from repeat viewings of.

exactly why the film studio stood by and let the director give the film a name which made little sense, and would prove to be difficult to market, is unclear. in terms of when it was made, well, at this stage in history it was so that William Friedkin was the man who made The French Connection and The Exorcist. two films as astonishing and brilliant as they were financially successful. questioning him would, i suppose, have been a bit like going up to, for a random example, Spielberg after he had just delivered Raiders Of The Lost Ark and then E.T,, telling him, "no, no, let me tell you a better thing to call your next movie, you need help".

all sorts of strange tales from the making of the film exist. these range from Friedkin reportedly trying to very directly undermine the film because he did not like the ostensible star, Roy Scheider, or at the least believed he should not be in the film, through to Tangerine Dream somehow delivering an amazing, perfect soundtrack for the film, despite not being allowed to actually see the film they were making music for. this all adds to the mythos of the film, i suppose. what i would rather just do is suggest that if you've never heard of it let alone seen it, then give you assurance of how excellent Sorcerer is and not hesitate in encouraging you to see it.

on to more "modern" or "recent" cinema adventures, then, with me watching a film made not only this century, but within the last year or so. and one that i really had no intention of ever watching. yes, Guy Richie's return to the area which he undoubtedly does better than anything else (much) he tries, the world of ostensibly London (innit) based crime with The Gentlemen.

my lack of wish to watch it wasn't because the film didn't sound decent, just an at the time lack of time to watch all that seemed interesting took hold. but, the level of time at home due to the invisible war on the plague took care of that. also, Dad wished to see it, hence me getting the film, and he was most insistent that i watch, as he considered it brilliant.

plot? a sleazy, sh!tbag, stereotypical tabloid journalist (Hugh Grant) attempts to blackmail, or solicit a bribe, from London's leading drug baron (Matthew McConaughey) to prevent an expose thing about him being published. complicating matters would be the fact that the baron is attempting to "retire" and sell his business interests on, with varying levels of success, as well as the inadvertent involvement of a quasi Irish boxing coach (scene and film stealing Colin Farrell). cue twists, turns, the inevitable, the surprising, the predictable, a formidable level of violence and the most excessive use of the "c" word which i have ever encountered in any motion picture.

it's not bad, to be sure. basically, this is the kind of film most of us wished Guy Richie had kept making after the spectacular masterpieces of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. this is just as funny, well paced and entertaining as them two, drawing all strength from some stellar performances from the perfectly cast actors and actresses (or actress, in fairness).

well, it feels like i am short-changing The Gentlemen by writing not so much as the other films, but there we have it. one of them films which has a set audience, it is just how bothered said audience can be to muster the effort to watch highly predictable yet enjoyable more of the same stuff.

something of an unexpected (by the majority, at least) thing for these "streaming" service types to do was to go right ahead and make their own products. and not just cheap and cheerful stuff to give quantity over content, but well made, high cost stuff. but, with the streaming market getting saturated and more companies jostling to licence already made content, that is precisely what Netflix has taken a shine to doing.

and why not, in particular if they can make things as polished, smart and perfectly enjoyable as Extraction. i ended up watching this one as young William saw a trailer for it, figured he probably would not be allowed to watch it but all the same asked if i would mind watching to check. indeed, it is not suitable for such a young audience, but i thanked him as i enjoyed it, as i did one other Netflix thing he was keen on but ultimately too young after i had watched it, Death Note or something.

plot of Extraction? standard, stock summer blockbuster material, in truth. a super duper amazing always do good hero, played by Chris Helmsworth out of Thor, is a specialist in rescuing people what have been kidnapped and that. when a young lad who happens to be the son of some sort of drug lord is kidnapped by another drug lord, off he goes to India to rescue him. this all seems straightforward, but lies, deception and that sort of thing all come to be.

what i thoroughly enjoyed about this film was that it was, apparently, not meddled with to meet any set criteria or potential target demographic. it's very much an 18 certificate thing, with no punches pulled. had a traditional major studio got their hands on this, you'd expect them to water it all down, so that a wider audience could potentially be open to it with a lower age certificate, and so dilute the project. effectively, it seems, the likes of Netflix have free hit freedom. they have no immediate worries over the "box office" or receipts for any one film they make, for monthly turnover is more or less a given constant with subscriptions. if it "flops", then no big loss as such, they just know that their customer base wants something different and so doesn't make something like this again.

oh, trust me, there are at least 10 or 12 Netflix originals that i have started to watch and then switched off, for they were rubbish. the "biggest" perhaps was Stranger Things. whilst series one was excellent, it became clear that series two existed just to set up a third, so i tuned out.

so yes, this is exceptionally well made, and is constantly, graphically and splendidly violent. do not claim no warning was given prior to me saying this is absolutely a film well worth seeing. the door at the end of the film is, and i am fairly sure i had a spoiler warning earlier, open to a sequel to this film, if enough fellow subscribers watched it then hopefully they make such. unless i am very much mistaken, this is the first big budget action film predominantly set in India what i have seen since the classic Bond film Octopussy came out. not a fantastic fact, but still, noteworthy.

a Disney 'classic' what the video shop at the petrol station at marton shops did stock was The Spaceman & King Arthur. i can recall renting it at least once, and watching it one morning with my brother and sister, somewhere during 1983 or 1984. with fond memories i hoped to find it in on this Disney+ thing, but got quite disappointed when it did not turn up on a search.

happily, merrily or indeed verily (whatever the latter means), the film is very much available on this service, only under a silly name, Unidentified Flying Oddball, which is presumably what it got released in America as.

the plot? let me try. someone or other is encouraging the American government, or military, to approve a launch for a deep space mission, or maybe one that intends to do time travel. they, as you would expect of American government types, refuse as there is great risk to a human life. so, whoever is pitching the idea gets someone to make an android or robot thing to pilot it, which they do, and so the project gets a green light. but then there is a mix up on launch, but of course, to be sure, and so the android and the bloke what made the android end up getting blasted into space. it is there where they somehow do a time travel thing, and magically end up at what is presumably Camelot, the castle and court of King Arthur.

i watched this with William, as i did That Darn Cat. the difference was that neither of us got bored with this one. for the most part William thoroughly enjoyed the adventure and wonder of the story, but also found the special effects of the time (especially where you could see the wires than enabled flying) hysterically bad. for my part, despite the obvious disappointment and emotional scarring left by the wrong name being on the front, i was delighted to find that my fond memories were right to be, and it was a highly entertaining, fluffy bit of nonsense fun.

yes, you are seeing right. that is indeed the Rodney Bewes, for many the self-styled "thinking man's Derek Nimmo", both on the poster and in the film. he portrays, elegantly so, a sort of monk or squire or servant type character; one easily bribed or coerced into doing stuff on the promise of being given an item of pornography as a reward for doing so. indeed this is an unusual plot device for a Disney film, but there we have it.

do i find this whole Disney+ thing agreeable? mostly, yes, although it does not get used so much, at least not by moi. in regards of the shiny things they sold it on, well, i have seen the original 6 (six) Star Wars films more than enough times, Mandalorian is excellent, Rogue One would be nice to watch again, the three new Star Wars films had some ok moments and never trouble me again with something like Solo. those Marvel films were more or less excellent, but designed to be as disposable as comic books originally were, so there is no compelling wish to watch again.

but, then, the rest of the family like watching the ones i have mentioned above. as for me, well, i am quite content to watch The Black Hole and The Spaceman & King Arthur again and again, plus some other classics what i had not seen. my one gripe, however, would be that the Nilsson music provided, Robin Williams starring version of Popeye is not on the service. quite strange, as it was a Disney VHS and DVD release.

finally, then, and accidentally the most recent i watched, it would be back to that Netflix thing for Polar. it is one of several titles that i have on my "to watch" list, and i finally watched it.

the appeal was that it has Mads Mikkelsen out of Hannibal in it, and generally he is good in all what he is in. also, it had one of them "18" certificate things on, so it promised much violence. with regards to that, i did indeed get a lot more violence than i had expected, considerably more.

plot? Mads is some top level assassin, evidently part of a well organized corporate business of assassins. he has a tidy pension set up, which is handy, as retirement is mandatory at the age of 50, which he is approaching. however, the ostensible CEO of this corporate concern, played (rather surprisingly) by Matt Lucas, has been engaged in embezzlement and general fraud, seeing the pension pot as an asset rather than a liability. to ensure that he can continue using the funds, he has the on paper good idea of simply killing off assassins just before they reach 50, so that their pension defaults to him anyway. as you may well suspect, Mads (whose character name is Duncan something or other) is not really keen or eager on this, and so resists. rather violently so.

this film is excessively loaded with quite significant levels of polished, perverse, graphic and frequent scenes of sex and violence and prostate checks. you have been warned. it is darkly funny and wonderfully entertaining. mostly Matt Lucas was distracting, as he seems keen to play the role in the style of Eddie Izzard, which just had me wondering why, exactly, they did not just get Eddie Izzard to do it. maybe they tried, and he was having none of it.

also of note was a cameo by Richard Dreyfuss. you, if you would be like me, may find yourself sat there going "is that him" when he is on, and eventually going, yes, indeed it is. nice one.

did i mention that Polar is astonishingly absurdly and audaciously violent? well, it is, so audiences should proceed with caution, and i don't think it was intended as a film for all the family to watch. my understanding is that it is based on some sort of comic or 'graphic novel' thing. rather like Death Note or whatever it was called, i neither know nor care how faithful or loyal an adaptation it is, all i know is the film in front of me was very good indeed.

right, well, i think that's enough of my writing for now. but, for the sake of stuff seeming to be complete, yes, here is a 'reverse' take on the "abstract collage" thing from the start. you never know, if you read all of this backwards then it might enable such to make sense.

i am never really sure (for you can never really tell) if anything i put up here will be of any interest to anyone, but if for some reason any of this particular post has been, nice one. many thanks indeed for reading, or just having a bit of a gander.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just like a sacred cow

howdy pop pickers


well, here we are again, look you see. me doing that thing where i said that i would not write something or other related to bowie once a month after completing that whole "random bowie" thing. but here we are.

it was a couple of years ago, or so (at time of writing) that one more previously unreleased bowie recording was announced as going to get released. this instance saw Glastonbury 2000 presented for the consideration of us fans. whilst not immediately bouncing off the walls with excitement at the news, that it would be available as either a 2 CD set or as a 2 CD and 1 DVD set, i went, yeah, will have a look when it comes out.

sadly (or alas), when it came out, it was priced at a level which suggested either greed or no comprehension at all on what would be reasonable was at the fore of thinking. going on other releases of a similar nature (be it CD and DVD or bowie), i had, like many, reasonably expected around £9.99 for the 2 CD set and something like £14.99 for the 2 CD and 1 DVD. so it was quite a surprise, in this era of "streaming" and downloads being easy and convenient, that the 2 CD set came out at £19.99 and the 2 CD and 1 DVD set was an eye watering £34.99.

these were prices which i could, kind of, afford. but i saw no sense in squandering money on something which felt remarkably overpriced, no matter how much of a fan i may be. rather helpfully, it was the bbc who helped me decide to give it a miss. they screened an abridged, or if you will truncated, version of this Glastonbury 2000 set. i watched, and noted with interest how mediocre, dull and very average it was. money saved, then.

how is it that i now have it? well, i have monitored the release. alas the 2 CD and 1 DVD release has never fallen to a reasonable price, as i've not seen it below £24.99. a fee of £19.99 would probably have seen me buy it. no matter, for at the moment, brand new and sealed copies of the 2 CD version, which shall do fine, are all over ebay for south of £7. actually might be south of £6. quite a few "big" titles tend to end up with wholesale buyers and cheap sellers on ebay, especially when sales are not what studios had banked on. to this end, right now there are stacks of brand new copies of Honk off of The Rolling Stones in a 2 CD format for south of £4. no, i have not, for the 3 existing "best of" from 1971 onward sets i have from them are enough for the moment, thanks. but that may change.

at the lower price, then, Glastonbury 2000 became a straightforward purchase. it may well be so that not blindly forking out over the odds for it on release means i am not a "proper" fan, but still, at the least i am enough of a fan to get it at such a price. no, for those satisfied that the provenance is established but all the same wanting a quick review, it is not a very good record or album or live recording, at all.

pictured above is just about the only worthwhile thing from this set, and in fairness if i did pay around £7 for it all then it was worth it for this alone. inside the booklet is a diary what bowie kept, running from agreeing to do Glastonbury through to just before he went and performed. for some peculiar reason i have a feeling (or sense) that i have read this before; perhaps he did it for some magazine like Q or similar, as a promotion for it all. should i be mistaken, and this is simply an extract from diaries bowie kept for his whole life, well then wow, sat somewhere the greatest ever book(s) on rock and roll are sat there unpublished.

what's wrong, or what is the problem, with Glastonbury 2000? it is just not that great a performance of a mildly interesting but not all that inspiring set list. bowie, as mentioned in the diary and as he says during the performance, was struck with laryngitis just before the gig, and so his main focus was a not unreasonable wish to protect his vocal cords from much damage. in quite general, or broad if you like, terms, it is also true that seldom, if ever, does any performance at the Glastonbury festival ever quite seem like it matches the well crafted mythology of the event.

you have to remember that this was then, not now. in 2000 we all reasonably assumed that we would have such a thing as a david bowie forever, always doing whatever he felt was smart. this was also an era in which Glastonbury was not quite as ludicrously hyped up as it is now. an unavoidable truth, then, is that the reactions to bowie playing Glastonbury, as the celebrated "main closing act" on the sunday,  ranged from "meh" to "oh" all the way to "that's nice".

an obligatory gander at the set list for you, then. nothing too wrong with the set as such, except yes, there are indeed two selections from Earthling to endure. actually, they sound ok as proper songs rather than the album version. some of my all time favourites are on there, but apparently done in a quite random, disjointed, no feel of flow to them way. he said that he shuffled the set to do "easier on the voice" songs first, which is fine, but i would not have thought the astonishing requirements of Stay met that criteria at all, and yet there it is as the 4th song.

going back to the time, and it was more or less so that no one particularly seemed all that eager for bowie to "do" Glastonbury. no less than Michael Eavis, the founder, owner or creator of the Glastonbury festival, at the time said he did not want to as he believed Bowie would be "boring". yes, this is indeed the man who booked Coldplay 6 (six) times to play the festival, so let no one doubt his authority or knowledge on what boring is. as explored in the diary, bowie agreed to it, was not quite sure why, got briefly excited by it, became frustrated with the time limitations and such on the set expectations, and then immediately got more excited about what to do after it (which seems to be recording Toy that had to get ditched by the record label and became Heathen).

in the second half of the booklet, you get (pictured below) an "i was there" account from someone of the gig. this is brilliant, frank and honest. essentially it reflects exactly what, with only a few rare exceptions, what a Glastonbury performance is - just another gig. yes, sure, of Glastonbury 2000 one over excited reviewer (probably NME) claimed that this was Bowie's "best, greatest and most important gig since Ziggy in 1973", which is nearly as laughable as the follow up claim that it somehow "was essential in him reclaiming his crown as the king of cool". oh, really?

usually the claim is that Glastonbury is the "biggest, best and greatest" festival of them all. in terms of attendance figures, demand, interest and sheer number of acts, i would absolutely not doubt the first two, at all. i am unsure that equates to "greatest". some quite like to engage in "fantasy festival" stuff, speculating that the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Smiths and The Stone Roses might one year "reform for a one off gig at Glastonbury". i doubt it. playing Glastonbury means you get a small fee for a big gig, generally do not play in front of your own fan base demographics, and sign away lucrative rights to exploitation of your set to the bbc. for what reason would any band do that?

well, to get back to the actual album at hand, the overall sense, feeling or mood one gets from playing bowie's Glastonbury 2000 CD set is "flat". it would be unfair to say that he doesn't sound interested, as he has a fair go. but, if you are battling laryngitis and the audience, who had been there by this stage for 4 or 5 days and were more likely keen to be home than appreciate bowie, are giving you nothing, well.

of course what could have been the greatest moment of the set, a full tilt, in full, done properly performance of Station To Station is marred by the sound going wonky during it, specifically bowie's microphone. but, there are still one or two moments which save this from being a complete write off. for a start, Absolute Beginners here reminds all why it is very foolish to overlook his usually not fondly looked upon 80s stuff. and Under Pressure is always a thing of beauty to hear.

the thing which also distracts from Glastonbury 2000 being considered as any good is that within a week of the festival shenanigans it was so that david bowie did a much, much, much better concert. and there it is, pictured above, Live At The BBC Radio Theatre 2000. not sure if this ever got a separate release, i got mine with the Bowie At The Beeb set, which i paid whatever they asked for. it was also filmed, and i saw it on the tele. a CD & DVD reissue (or first release for the visuals) of this gig would be very welcome indeed.

of the above, latter, not Glastonbury performance, from what i have been able to work out it is so that, at the least, Always Crashing In The Same Car, Survive and This Is Not America were songs he had to cut for time from the festival. possibly Fame too. they are all superb performances, and i am not sure he did This Is Not America all that much over the years. in truth, i had also forgotten what a brilliant song Survive was until playing it again here. should you really for some reason want a recording of bowie live in 2000, then it is this one you want.

it would be pretty safe (i think) to assume that if one can now buy Glastonbury 2000 for around 35% of the price it was originally out for, then the initial sales were not all that they had hoped for. once again, i would suggest that this is down to them having a far too high price on it in the first instance, especially mindful of the fact that it is not very good. my hope is that this venture has not made anyone in control of the bowie estate think it is not worth releasing anything else, for they are sat on stacks of stuff which would be much better to put out, either as a re-release or for the first time in an official sense.

some examples of this? sure. leaving aside tours what have already had a DVD release of, and mindful of that as far as i am aware sadly only some poor quality footage of rehearsals from the 1976 tour exist, there is bowie live in 1978.

as far as i am aware at least two concerts from that tour were filmed, or at the least filmed in an professional way. one of them, i am sure, was put out as a video or laserdisc in Japan only, for Japan seems to get lots of exclusive stuff.

the below picture is from a different gig in 1978, also professionally recorded. for those keen on knowing the provenance of these images, depending on who is asking these might be from the section of my collection which is sourced from rather more independent, non-traditional distributors, but the important thing is that someone somewhere is sat on this footage.

with 2 CD releases covering this tour, Stage and Welcome To The Blackout, it may well be that they feel they have covered the period pretty well. that said, i believe a 3rd set from the 1974 tour is due for release this year, so you never know. sadly i don't believe any full gigs from that tour were filmed, just the bits one can see in Cracked Actor. which would also be nice to have an official DVD release of.

it is so that the two big tours of the 80s, Serious Moonlight and (ahem) Glass Spider, came out on VHS (maybe even Beta for the first) and on DVD too. no need to cover them here, then.

but, yes, the 1990 shenanigans of the SoundAndVision "greatest hits" tour were indeed recorded and filmed, with it being so that (that i know of) no official release has been made. this is a little odd, as the inevitable "greatest hits" sets are what they seem to like to package up the most. in order to sell people like me the same thing again and again throwing in something new helps soften the financial blow, so i would expect this one to get bundled up with a release one day.

no the whole SoundAndVision thing as a tour wasn't all that great performance wise, but still. its purpose was to let bowie feel "free" of having to always play the hits live, as he was well tired of things like Space Oddity, with that song not ever being done live again after this.

one that got a VHS release but has not yet surface on DVD is Oy Vey Baby, which is of course Tin Machine live in Germany at some point in 1992. this was the It's My Life tour, ostensibly in support of the Tin Machine II album. also, the final tour of Tin Machine.

a possible block to the release of Oy Vey Baby as a DVD (other than the incorrect assumption many have about Tin Machine not being good) is, or was, that there was a "rights issue" with the now out of business label which released the Tin Machine II album. further, there are some stories which suggest Hunt & Tony Sales have blocked any reissues of anything Tin Machine over a royalties dispute. but, as Tin Machine II is about to get a welcome reissue, presumably such matters have been resolved.

back to bowie on his own, then, or at least as the only person billed on tour posters and records and that. 1996 was a time what felt like every single thing he did got recorded. this is of course a very, very good thing, but none of the footage (or not much of it) has had an official release as of yet.

to the best of my knowledge some single song performances from 95 to 97 have turned up on various compilations and what have you, but we've not had a dedicated bowie release. well, somewhere or other i have a CD that came with a magazine, Earthling In The City, which had a few live things on it, but that's it.

it is so that there's a stack of fully recorded gigs from this era in audio form alone, never mind video. probably the most widely bootlegged of them is the gigs bowie done with his mate Trent and Nine Inch Nails. that such has been widely bootlegged is not necessarily a barrier to an official release. it was, after all, that Santa Monica 72 was probably the single most bootlegged record in history, but they did give it an official release eventually anyway. the same is true of bowie's 50th birthday gig, which is also up for an official release.

flavour of the month for the bowie estate seems to be 1997, going on the release of is it any wonder a short while ago. as luck would have it, there's a full on, pro shot, full tilt concert sat in the vault from this year.

but i very much doubt this one shall get a release. other than the polka dot trousers bowie has on, this was a corporate gig for the GQ awards. most musicians are absolutely delighted to do such corporate gigs, as they are very lucrative. but few like advertising it. also, GQ. giving this an official release would probably see GQ expecting a cut, and it might be seen as a dubious yet tacit endorsement of the dubious "biography" someone off of GQ recently published about bowie. even if one left aside most or all of the contentious or controversial comments in a book about someone who has no right to reply, one does really have to wonder how credible a book can be if pages are given over to paul morely to drone on about what he thinks of something.

and on we go to 1999, then. in this particular year bowie went ahead and arranged a gig at the Astoria, down in London (innit) for the specific purpose of filming it to be released. it was done, but not released, although bootlegs are widely available. and usually the whole thing can be found on that you tube thing.

not sure why this one didn't get a release, really. it's not so bad, featuring a set dominated by selections from the then current hours.... album, plus a few that would turn up on Glastonbury 2000.  and then some what were on his VH1 Storytellers thing. maybe this will turn up as an official release one day, since he went to all the trouble of making it.

yes, indeed, there probably is / are a whole load more things recorded tucked away. i had and have no intention of providing an exhaustive or extensive list of them, but hopefully it gives anyone interested an indication that the well of bowie material not yet to be released (properly) has not run dry just yet.

back, then, to finish off, to the ostensible point of this blog post. which would be that Glastonbury 2000 CD release that i haven't said too much of, overall.

i have just checked and yes, you can indeed get the 2 CD set of Glastonbury 2000, at time of writing, off of a number of ebay sellers for south of £6. even if just a penny south. frankly, at that price it is pretty much a straightforward "yeah go on then" purchase. others, like NME journalists for instance, may well appreciate the performances more than me. also, the nice pictures of bowie resplendent in a posh jacket, plus the diary thing, are very much worth having.

live albums are, generally, more miss than hit. it is quite rare for any musician or band to release a concert record which could be deemed as essential or as important as their studio works. off the top of my head, i can only think of three genuine examples - Live At Leeds by The Who, Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads and Live (X Cert) by The Stranglers. for the most part they tend to be either contractual obligation things, or hasty cash-in releases. sometimes the "live in concert" releases are very suspiciously note perfect and so polished that they are of virtually no difference to the studio variations of the songs on them. examples of these would be Arena by Duran Duran and, most infamously, Live In The City Of Light by Simple Minds.

considering the sheer volume of bowie recordings i have to select from for listening pleasure (yes i am fortunate and indeed probably showing off a bit), i really cannot see any point of time in the future, as opposed to the past, where i shall willingly take this off the shelf and listen to it again. but, i guess, i needed to get it and listen to it so as to know this now.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so we asked a simple blackbird

hello there


and so once again i attempt to bring you any (and all) random items left out on the streets. please note that i did not claim that these were things of interest, look you see, as i could not possibly claim that such are on any universal level.

the invisible war against the plague still rages, of course. well, mostly, at the time of writing, at the least, to use more commas than i should. some believe that defeat is inevitable, whereas others seem comfortable that victory has been secured. in this respect, there is a slight increase in the number of people out and about, but not all that many of them are of a persuasion or disposition to casually discard all that many items.

it also remains that i am not going anywhere remotely near the number of places i would typically visit on my travels, for my travels are fairly and firmly limited to what is defined as "essential shopping trips". one has to eat, after all. but, good fortune sometimes smiles, and the car parks of the places where we, the people, may do some of this important commerce offer some items, every now and then.

yes, that is quite an interesting, almost storytelling array (or arrangement) of abandoned items, found or spotted if you will in a car park. no, true, exactly what has been left behind is not perhaps as clear as it could be, what with me opting to present such in Commodore 64 mode.

whilst i am not (too) confident that there is much in the way of interest, or wish, for any images to feature here which are not in Commodore 64 mode, in this instance it may well be that a regular, more conventional image would be better. and so, below, here is such.

quite a bit of a (potentially) alarming image, that. the juxtaposition of the wood near some rather badly damaged "mirror lens" sunglasses like what pimps and drug dealers wear implies some act of violence occurred. maybe someone broke one of the many unwritten laws of the criminal underworld, which prompts the suggestion that if they wrote then down then aspiring criminals could learn them and thus reduce admin on punishment for transgressions.

but this is, i suspect, an unlikely account of what might have happened. should some sort of miscreant justice been handed out here, then one would reasonably expect to see elements of blood, if not partial or entire dismembered limbs, reflecting that whoever did what they were not supposed to have done has been taught not to do such. overall, and i am no expert, the idea of someone coming along and cleaning up any damage inflicted on someone but not these bits makes little sense.

sadly, or alas, no, i did not spot the above. Spiros did. he said there was quite an interesting, strategic trail of these cans, which appeared to lead to a bush or similar such shrubbery type arrangement in a park. yes, a park well known for gentlemen congregating, at 2 or sometimes 3 in the morning, for reasons which they assure the constabulary are all related to concern for the welfare of badgers.

this is quite a new one on me. both myself and Spiros are very familiar with Ace lager, but i had not heard of Ace cider prior to him sending this picture on. my understanding is that them what made the Ace in a lager form ceased to do so, for they felt the "wrong" form of patron was being drawn to it. this was down to the proliferation of popularity experienced by learnings from the character 8 Ace, or Octavious Ace, out of The Viz.

despite a good friend of mine recently deciding that my new name was to be Cider, i must confess that i am not too familiar with the stuff. however i am game if not overtly keen to give this stuff a go. especially if, as was apparently the case with Ace lager, you can get 8 cans of it for £1.49.

it is a shame to see any sort of varying quality eyewear laid to waste, but then again if it was not done here then i suppose i'd not have much to write of. as for how and why this was left, really not sure. maybe for some reason someone doing "emergency" shopping had not enough space in their car for whatever they bought, but found they did if they rid themselves of these item. just why they had such in their car at the start is perhaps an even greater mystery. well, no, sunglasses is pretty straightforward.

anyway, or anyhow, yes, if i see anything else of interest (or just plain anything else) discarded on the streets, i shall try to remember to share them here. indeed, if Spiros does the same and sends me the images, certainly, i shall do similar. well, the same.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!