Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Interstellar Array Update

A France Télécom engineer just turned up to my house, unbidden, and switched on the broadband connection. Just like that. After three years of them telling me I couldn't have it.

I'm so happy I think I'm going to faint. Or lie down. Or download tons of mp3s from the Hype Machine.

Hurrah!!!


UPDATE: And now let us all celebrate my re-connection to the hive mind by listening to some stupidly catchy twee Texan indie-pop, courtesy of stupidly catchy twee Texan indie-popsters Voxtrot. Particularly recommended for fans of Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura, Lucksmiths et al.

Voxtrot - Trouble (mp3)

Ooh, I feel another podcast in the making...

29 comments:

Tamburlaine said...

Blimey! Stick your head between your knees if you feel faint!

I don't suppose the France Telecom engineer was a lesbian Jodie Foster lookalike, though?

Looking forward to more posts!

Johanna said...

Ooh, thanks for that Kalista. I thought of the Pipettes when I saw the name "Gwenno" and indeed, it really is the hot welsh one from the Pipettes. Interesting.

Anonymous said...

Excellent! Karma is working.

Valerie Polichar said...

Whoo-hoo!!!

Are you sure the Telecom dude was not simply an elaborate disguise? Gotta be an interstellar lesbian under there somewhere.

Anyway — whew!

And oh, I suppose I must admit I like accordions.

Anonymous said...

Huge congratulations on your momentus achievement, Mystic Meg says you're in for a run of good luck (and to be fair probably a load more postings and internet sex) Woo hoo!

Tim F said...

What's the French for broadband? Bande grosse?

Anonymous said...

Those lesbians...efficient or what.

patroclus said...

Ooh, thanks everyone. The engineer was definitely not a lesbian, he was a big hairy bloke, with whom I had a delightfully geeky chat about hubs (le central) and WEP keys (la clé WEP) and what-have-you (including le haut débit, which is French for broadband).

Le haut débit! Woo!

Del said...

The French have a way of making even the most technical and mundane sound exotic and seductive.

Le haut débit... I don't know whether to plug my PC into it or try and entice it with a bottle of Côtes du Ventoux.

patroclus said...

You might have more luck with le bas débit, which is French for 'dial-up', but le bas also means 'stockings', so le bas débit could also be 'stocking speed'.

Wyndham said...

A big hairy bloke. My sources tell me that's what lesbians look like in France.

Moominmama said...

mp3s? pah. the internet is for porn.



(bonus prize to the fist person to correctly identify the song reference.)

patroclus said...

Porn? Fist person? Big hairy lesbians? Gosh, I hardly recognise my own blog today. Still, the book deal can't be far off.

I keep chickening out of joining in the porn discussion on your blog, CB. I was going to express surprise that women like looky-at porn - I thought we (er, they) generally preferred written porn (sorry, 'erotica'). I'm so naive.

James Henry said...

Avenue Q

Spinsterella said...

Yaay!

I don't know what I'd do without broadband.

Well, I suppose I'd probably read the odd book and actually get some work done.

I don't like lookey-at porn. Not the stuff my old flatmates had anyhow which was hardcore and always, always German.

Billy said...

Alakazam! (that's like woo, but more magical sounding)

Mangonel said...

Ah now I haven't had the nerve to click on some of CB's interesting links. Or to de-lurk on her blog. I do like looking . . . Has she been tagged yet does anyone know?

Word verification: wbubhl - a turkish lesbian ladyboy accidentally going down on a big hairy french bloke.

cello said...

I hope you get some more unexpected but positively transforming events in your life P soon. You deserve them.

And porn just makes me laugh. It's so ridiculous! Even erotica can make me giggle. What's wrong with plain old sex, eh?

Moominmama said...

Sorry, Patroclus; didn't mean to drag the porn conversation over here. It's just that I had Avenue Q running through my head and I couldn't resist the urge.

(Props to Henry, btw. You have adequately demonstrated your cultural literacy.)

patroclus said...

CB - your porn post is clearly already an internet legend! I'd never heard of Avenue Q, but I looked it up on Wikipedia and was gratified to discover the phrase 'full puppet nudity'. Must try to sneak that into a brochure about hospital administration systems sometime.

Cello: Happy birthday for last Monday! I have to say porn has never even made me laugh, it's just...eurrgh. But a nicely-turned phrase, on the other hand...mmm.

Valerie Polichar said...

Well, crap, Patroclus. I went out last night and bought Husky Rescue and Matson Jones, and stared at Tilly and the Wall for a while (not in a porn sort of way, I feel I must clarify). Are you going to make me buy yet more music?

patroclus said...

Ooh, yay Valerie, but gosh, I didn't even know Matson Jones had an album - do they? Voxtrot are lovely, though, and they have a very cute singer, so I'd recommend buying at least one of their EPs. Although epic Norwegian space disco is really the thing for AW 0607, I shall be posting some of that soon. It's like early acid trance with (non-Baudrillardian) mirrorballs...and reindeer. Probably. That makes it sound more festive than it actually is.

I'm rambling, aren't I? It's the excitement of having broadband, I haven't calmed down yet. Woo!

Valerie Polichar said...

Matson Jones has an EP, which appears either to be called "Sympathy for the Record Industry" or to be called "the albatross mates for life, but only after a lengthy courtship that can take up to four years."

Tim F said...

"Sympathy for the Record Industry" is the record label, I think.

That Voxtrot is v good. Now I can stumble out of my Radiohead coccoon, I might indulge in a little splurge on new stuff (although I did hurl myself into the whirlpool of 70s Filipino guitar pop last week, and found myself scrambling out sharpish as if someone had done a big poo in the vicinity).

patroclus said...

Voxtrot are ace, I'd been waiting for them to come and play in the UK for ages (their singer went to Glasgow uni, which is how they sound like B&S/Camera Obscura), and then they only went on a UK tour, didn't they - in the very month (August) that I was over here in France. Bah.

Yes, come out of the Radiohead cocoon, and join in my fun game, which is only to listen to music that isn't marketed at you by 'the industry'. It takes you into all sorts of nooks and crannies of the web, you hear things you would never have heard normally, mostly from abroad (because that way you don't see the posters or the adverts), and it's very refreshing.

(Although yesterday I was listening to Califone, who turn out to be fab, but I've seen a banner ad for them, so I'm not sure whether I should be listening to them or not.)

It makes me really sad that there are people who think that the music around today consists entirely of what they see on MTV and hear on Radio 1/XFM/whatever. No wonder people think there's no good music any more.

Anonymous said...

more podcasts please. Do you know smog btw if so which tracks should I download

patroclus said...

I don't know anything about Smog I'm afraid, realdoc (there goes my guest-editing job on Pitchfork), although I enjoyed this bit about him from wikipedia:

'Themes in Callahan's lyrics include relationships, moving, horses, teenagers, bodies of water, and more recently, politics.'

Anyone?

Anonymous said...

How come no-one is playing all this stuff on the radio though, it's not as if it's difficult. Like valerie I got Matson Jones, Tilly and the wall, Howe Gelb and Lovage after your last cast and wondered why the hell I hadn't heard any of it before. Shouldn't 6 music or someone be playing this stuff.

Anonymous said...

ps downloaded a couple of smog songs and they are really good. I recommend Dress Sexy at my Funeral and cold blooded old times