Ten Things I Learned In 2008

A quick New Year's Eve meme, courtesy of the Bureauista.

1. People in Cornwall are polite to each other most of the time.

2. Being self-employed is a lot more secure than being employed.

3. Giving birth with no pain relief is an interesting experience.

4. Babies are quite nice after all.

5. Breastfeeding means you can eat tons of cake and still lose weight.

6. Twitter is a lot more fun than Facebook.

7. American television is better than British television.

8. Yes, even Doctor Who.

9. *Especially* Doctor Who.

10. Although this year's Christmas special was pretty good.


Happy New Year to you all! I'm feeling quite positive about 2009, despite all the doom and gloom, and I wish you all a happy and fulfilling year too.

Back In The House!

Hello blogchums, I am back after another BT-enforced exile in the Land of No Broadband. Hopefully the last one ever, though, as now we've seen the amount of stuff we own, we're planning never to move house ever again.

It seems that during my absence I was tagged twice (twice!) for the same meme, first by Oli and then by Clair.

Luckily this meme is a) easy and b) fun, as all I have to do is list seven songs that I'm into right now. But because I'm so lovely, I'm not going to just list them, I'm going to give them to you as a splendid free podcast! Well, I mean, it isn't a podcast really, it's just seven songs squished into one audio file, what the lovely Mr BC kindly made for me with his super Garageband software.

So anyway, here we go, seven songs I am into at the moment, with vacuous commentary:

Yeasayer - Sunrise
I don't know anything about Yeasayer at all, other than that the Very Short List thinks they're quite cool right now, which means that all the *real* New York hipsters probably liked them about a year ago, and they're now quite passé, but not so passé that you'll have read about them being the 'next big thing' in the Sunday Times. (I think that's generally the way it goes.) This track is enormous and uplifting, as are almost all the other tracks on this non-podcast. I'm in a kind of 'enormous and uplifting' mood now, musically. Possibly because I *am* currently enormous, and need lifting up whenever I ill-advisedly sit on the ground, to fix carpet trims and the like.

Gnarls Barkley - Run
Usually a pop song is popular because it has a catchy melody or some other catchy hook that makes you really love it at first but then after you hear it another three times you realise that's all there is to it and you feel empty and cheated and a bit sick, like when you eat a Big Mac. (I think Theodor Adorno had something sniffy to say on the matter, but it backfired on him somewhat, as everyone accused him of being a big Wagner-loving snob and apparently no one likes a big Wagner-loving snob.) Anyway, Gnarls Barkley are not like that. Somehow they manage to make amazingly detailed and fantastic songs that sound like they're the best song ever written and that they've been around for about forty years, even though they were only written last week. This is one such. Worship Gnarls Barkley, for they are very special.

The Shortwave Set - No Social (Optimo Espacio Mix)
I like the Shortwave Set, because they're what a British indie band should be like - male/female vocals, lots of weird instruments, they take a gramophone on stage with them, etc. - and then I read that Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley fame) had produced their latest single, so I went looking for it, and then I discovered this great remix of it and thought 'that's even better!', so here it is.

Nirvana vs Supermen Lovers - Come As The Starlight (Overdub Bootleg)
I love mashups, and I love Nirvana, and I love French electro, and this has all those things! (With thanks to Rafael, from whose hopefully-not-actually-moribund blog I unceremoniously whipped it.)

Martina Topley-Bird - Valentine
I thought I'd better have something slightly more subdued at some point, so here's Martina Topley-Bird, ex-cohort of Tricky. She has a lovely voice, and this is a lovely song, and I think that is all that needs to be said.

TV On The Radio - Dirty Whirl
Whenever I get a new album, I like to circle it suspiciously for several months, before putting it away on my CD shelf for another couple of years or so, after which I will tentatively get it out and give it its first listen. So after originally purchasing it when it came out in 2005, I've finally got round to listening to TV On The Radio's 'Return to Cookie Mountain', whence this song comes. And now I've heard it, I can't get it out of my head. It's fantastically infectious and has lots of great lyrics about some femme fatale or other being a 'dirty little whirlwind'. I'd quite like to be thought of as a dirty little whirlwind, but it's unlikely, as I spend most of my time repotting geraniums and going to B&Q, rather than messing with rock stars' heads. Oh well.

Eminem vs Survivor - Without Me
It is Eminem's 'Without Me' mashed up with 'Eye of The Tiger'. There is nothing subtle about it at all. It is brilliant. Oh yes. You know it.

Here you go then:

Download Podcast (m4a, 27MB)

I now hereby tag Mr BC, Wyndham, Tim and Rivergirlie to list their seven songs of the moment - podcast optional.


IN OTHER NEWS: Thanks to Annie for bringing it to my attention that my Guardian Letters blog was plugged in the Guardian Guide yesterday. Woo! (Although frankly I'm still waiting for a proper answer to my BURNING QUESTIONS.)

AND ALSO: Congratulations to Sarah Peach and team for getting the long-awaited 'You're Not Alone' blog anthology book out on to the virtual shelves at lulu.com, and congratulations to Occasional Poster of Comments for getting into it!

Revelations

The lovely Mr BC has tagged me (mainly because I asked him to, I've never quite got the hang of these 'meme' things) to answer the burning question: 'What revelations have you had since taking up your writing career?'

The reason I wanted to do this one is that I'm aware that quite a few of you are, like me, toiling at the unglamorous end of the writing industry, with no prospect of ever being asked to write anything about dragons, or ninjas, or unfeasibly attractive and scantily-clad Liverpudlian teenagers.

BUT WE HAVE FEELINGS TOO, DAMMIT!

So now I am going to impart some wisdom, and then I will tag some more of you to impart your own wisdom, and maybe together we can create a beautiful primer of everything that anyone might want to know about how to be a 'professional writer'.

Here we go then, some revelations I have had since I took up my writing career - or rather 'accidentally fell into' my writing career - nine years ago:

1. Being a freelance writer is brilliant. You get to work at home, have coffee whenever you like, look out of the window whenever you like and (usually) organise your working day however you like. Now there's the internet, and laptops, you can theoretically work from anywhere, which is how I didn't have to give up my job to go and look after my mum when she was ill, for which I am profoundly grateful.

2. Those adverts ('Make A Living From Writing!') that you see in the back of Sunday supplements are deeply misleading. Unless you're extraordinarily good, extraordinarily lucky or extraordinarily well-connected, you're never going to make a decent living as a freelance journalist, novelist or screenwriter. (Obviously this doesn't mean you shouldn't try, especially not if you're a naturally gifted creative writer, but just be aware that it's highly unlikely to make you unbelievably rich.)

3. This doesn't mean you can't make a decent living as a writer, though. You can. If you get enough work, and if you work hard enough at it, you can even earn the equivalent of a six-figure salary*. To do that, you need to be in the private sector. And not just any old part of the private sector - you need to be in an industry that's awash with cash. And not just any old industry that's awash with cash - you need to be in one whose products are complicated and obscure, and therefore need careful and precise explaining. It helps if it's an industry in which not many people know how to write about the products in a way that laypeople understand. Technology is one. Finance is another**. Pharmaceuticals is probably another one.

4. Once you get into one of these industries, and demonstrate that you can write beautiful, limpid prose that not only educates the target market about what the product does but also makes them REALLY WANT TO BUY IT, you'll be amazed at a) how much people are prepared to pay for your services and b) the kind of things they ask you to write. On more than one occasion, I've been paid to write an internal memo. Amazingly, there are people who have so little confidence in their own writing skills that they'd rather pay someone to write their emails for them. In some ways, I find this a sad reflection on an education system that has clearly failed a lot of people. In other ways, I'm eternally thankful that so many people feel unable to string two words together, because otherwise there'd be no work for me.

5. There's a received wisdom in the world of marketing that no writing is any good unless it's 'punchy', which means 'extremely short', 'devoid of verbs' and 'bereft of all meaning'. Many clients don't seem to care what the text actually says, as long as it meets these criteria. (This post of Matt's sums up the attitude nicely.) This means that I quite often spend all day writing meaningless 'punchy' stuff, which is why I like to be quite long-winded on this blog. Sorry about that.

Now then, let's hear it from fellow writers Great She Elephant, Bête de Jour and Rach. And of course anyone else who feels like joining in.

UPDATE: You can read Rach's very fine answer here.


* For the record, I don't have a six-figure salary, but I came within spitting distance of one during the dotcom boom. The dotcom boom was brilliant.

** I'm aware that the finance industry is currently emphatically not awash with cash, but give it six months and it'll probably recover.

Oh Dear, Oh Dear

Evil Tim Footman has tagged me to tell lies about the Chuckle Brothers on the internet. Or more precisely, seven true facts and one lie. And only about one of the Chuckle Brothers. And you have to guess which fact is factually incorrect.

I can choose which Chuckle Brother I want to lie about, apparently, although up until a few minutes ago that was something of a moot point, since up until a few minutes ago I had no idea who the Chuckle Brothers actually are.

(I know! And me with a Masters degree in popular culture and everything! Raymond Williams would be awfully disappointed.)

All the name conjured up in my head was a rather confusing montage of Chuck Norris and those two scousers from Harry Enfield who say 'calm down calm down' and bob from side to side.

I have since established that the Chuckle Brothers are neither martial arts action heroes nor comedy Northerners from a TV sketch show. I had to find this out for myself, because Mr BC was no real help in the matter:

Me: Do you know anything about the Chuckle Brothers?

Mr BC: Hmm. I think Richard wrote an episode for them once.

Me: Anything else?

Mr BC thinks for a moment.

Mr BC: No.

Anyway, these days we are fortunate enough to have access to an oracular fount of human knowledge, namely 'the' Wikipedia. Here are some facts that I sourced from 'the' Wikipedia about Paul Chuckle, who is one of the Chuckle Brothers. One of them is factually inaccurate. Can you spot which one?

1. Paul Chuckle (real name Paul Elliot) is one of the Chuckle Brothers.

2. Paul is a comedy Northerner, but not one from a TV sketch show.

3. That's not to say that Paul isn't in a TV show, because he is. It's called Chuckle Vision, and it's meant for children, which is why I've never seen it. (This will probably change soon.)

4. Paul has a catchphrase, but it isn't 'calm down calm down'. It's the equally lexically economical 'oh dear oh dear'.

5. When Paul crashed a motorbike while on holiday in Kefalonia, he was dismayed to discover that, far from rushing to his aid, a number of onlookers had instead chosen to loiter at a distance intoning 'oh dear oh dear' in a comedy Northern accent. That, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the occupational hazards of showbusiness.

6. Or they might have been actual Northerners who were just saying 'oh dear oh dear' in a concerned tone, only in his disorientated state, Paul mistook them for fans. A loss of perspective regarding one's own importance in the grand scheme of things is another of the occupational hazards of showbusiness.

7. Also, this was reported in the Metro, so it might all have been made up to start with.

8. Paul and his brother Barry are very popular in Mexico, where they are known as Los Hermanos Chupacabras.


Los hermanos Chupacabras: ¡uy uy uy!

Erm...over to you.


UPDATE: Far better efforts are to be found at Slaminsky (Perkin Warbeck), First Nations (Friedrich Nietzche), Betty's Utility Room (Israel Kamakawiwo'ole) and Geoff's blog (Madame Blavatsky)...

Ten Embarrassing Songs I Like

Hot on the heels of Billy's and Betty's lists, here we have ten songs that I'm embarrassed to admit I really like, with accompanying YouTube videos.

Actually I'm embarrassed at *every* song that I like, with the result that I can't listen to music out loud if there's anyone else in the house, or even if I think that next door might be able to hear, in case they FORM AN OPINION of my musical taste. (I agonise every time I put an mp3 on the blog, too - oh, the psychological sacrifices I make in the name of blogging, etc.) If I wanted to listen to any of these out loud, I'd have to build myself a soundproof bunker on St Kilda first.

1. Gina G - Ooh Ah Just A Little Bit
My friend S. played this at my wedding, while dressed in an electric blue catsuit with a pair of fairy wings on the back. I danced so much at my wedding that when I arrived at my honeymoon destination, I couldn't walk for two days. I blame Gina G for that.

2. Savage Garden - I Want You
This is great because he sings all the words really fast. Also it sounds like a speeded up version of 'The Look' by Roxette, and speaking of which...

3. Roxette - The Look
Er, I don't really know why, but it's great, isn't it?

4. Robbie Williams and Kylie - Kids
I once invented a brilliant joke about how I was wearing hotpants when Kylie was still in short trousers, and I never miss an opportunity to say it again. This song is equally brilliant. Make of that what you will.

5. Billie Piper - Honey To The Bee
Yes, well, erm, *cough*, and moving swiftly along...

6. Mika - Grace Kelly
Even though the actual sight of Mika turns my stomach, this song is utter pop fabulousness. Although he's no Freddie Mercury, and speaking of which...

7. Queen - Killer Queen
Actually I'm not even sure I'm embarrassed to like this. How many other songs have got Moet & Chandon, Marie Antoinette, Khruschev and Kennedy all in the first verse? None, that's how many.

8. Guns 'n' Roses - Paradise City
I downloaded this out of nostalgia early last year when Mr BC sent me a brilliantly languid bossanova cover of it, and it's still on my iPod now.

9. Hanson - Mmm Bop
There is nothing wrong with liking this at all, as Tim and Chaucer's Bitch will attest.

10. Britney Spears - Baby One More Time
Poor Britney. Dalle stelle alle stalle, as the Italians say. This is still the greatest pop song ever written, I reckon.

Anyone else fancy a go?

No, Wait!

This always happens...the minute I decide I'm too miserable and self-conscious to blog, I always suddenly feel much better about it again, hurrah.

This miraculous turnaround is thanks to Miss Newham, whom I found via Beyceyar, whom I found via Miss-Cellany.

Miss Newham has a great meme - the Wikipedia Band Name Meme. You go to Wikipedia and click on 'random article' in the left-hand navbar, and the first article title is your band name. Then click 'random article' again, that is your album name. Then click 'random article' another however many times, and those are your album tracks.

Here are mine:

Band Name: Volksbank Beograd

Album Title: British Rail Class 325

Album Tracks:

1. Arbutus Pavarii

2. Andorra

3. Komorów, Świdnica County

4. Bonnerveen

5. Dianne Feinstein

6. Erica Carnea

7. Carroll Borland

8. Balochistan Forest Dormouse

9. Sopot

10. Shinobu

11. Gediminids

Hurrah, I have a 1980s industrial chamber pop band with fey indie overtones, and I am every bit as pretentious as I always knew I was!

Seven Things

Stolen from Tim and Spinny:


Seven Things I Have Wanted To Be

1. Archaeologist

2. Journalist

3. Waitress

4. Japanese

5. Steven Johnson

6. Clay Shirky

7. Taller


Seven Things I Have Been

1. An estate agent

2. A boy

3. In love

4. An indie kid

5. A raver

6. On medication

7. Happy


(It's that kind of day.)

20 Tracks

UPDATE: Tag-ees now listed at the end.

Hurrah for Chaucer’s Bitch, who nominated me for this one, which I’ve been dying to do for ages. I did stamp my foot and sulk until she tagged me though, so it may not really count, but still, here goes:

1. A track from your early childhood
I was sheltered from the media in a tiny cottage in the North of Scotland for a lot of my early childhood, but when I was nine my Dad bought my brother and me a dodgy old telly for a pound in the school jumble sale. On this telly I remember watching Top of the Pops, and on Top of the Pops in 1980* I remember seeing Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles, Going Underground by The Jam, and Sergeant Rock by XTC. As early song memories go, that’s a pretty damn fine selection.

2. A track that you associate with your first love
Love as in actual real grown-up love, or love as in playground love? If the latter, then definitely It’s My Party And I’ll Cry If I Want To by Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin. I was 11 or 12. Jonathan Thompson was my first boyfriend. I don’t know where he is now. (Jonathan, if you’re reading, please make yourself known).

My first real grown-up love was Camouflage Netting Man. In the declining days of our relationship, we lived in a shared house in Windsor with a bunch of DJs, including the future editor of Sleazenation mag. They were all students; I’d graduated and was the only one with a job (working behind the till in Past Times). On one of my mornings off, Camo Netting Man and I were lying in bed listening to Fallen by One Dove, when his Dad burst in unannounced – which was quite amazing, since he lived a hundred miles away – and ordered me to get up and clean the house, because that was my job as “the only woman in the place.” (There was another girl who lived upstairs, ACTUALLY, but we never saw her). I still have that CD. It still reminds me of being ordered out of bed by my boyfriend’s dad to clean up after a bunch of lazy stoner students. Possibly not what One Dove, or this question, intended.

3. A track that reminds you of a holiday trip
Teardrop by Massive Attack reminds me of my first proper holiday – a week in Tuscany with ex-Mr P not long after we’d started going out. With him at the wheel, I’d managed to navigate our way out of Rome in a hire car with only a map of the Rome metro for guidance. Not an approach I would necessarily recommend to other holidaymakers. I spent this holiday drinking, smoking, crying about my parents splitting up, fending off snakes with a broom, looking at frescos by Piero della Francesca, translating things into and out of Italian, and reading Catch-22. My Dad, his girlfriend and his dog also kept turning up, which was quite amazing, since they lived in a completely different country.

4. A track you like but wouldn't want to be associated with in public
I Want You by Savage Garden. Let us not examine this too closely.

5. A track that accompanied you when you were lovesick
Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere? by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I don’t recommend this song to anyone. Every time I hear it the sky goes black, birds drop from the trees and I’m immediately compelled to rock back and forth in my chair, sobbing desolately. Painful memories, and all the more painful for still being pretty recent.

6. The track you have listened to most often
According to iTunes, There She Goes, My Beautiful World, also by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. And who am I to argue with iTunes?

7. A track that is your favourite instrumental
I’m a terrible philistine when it comes to music, and I really only like songs for the lyrics. I have very little truck with instrumentals. I can just about listen to all of Hunted by a Freak by Mogwai, so it’ll have to be that.

8. A track that represents one of your favourite bands
Black Heart by Calexico. The greatest broken-heart dirge ever, unlike Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?, which is just mental cruelty in song form.

9. A track which best represents yourself
Return To Yesterday by the Lilac Time. I’m still listening to it after nearly 20 years, which is quite something, seeing as I normally grow to hate all songs within a fortnight of deciding I like them.

10. A track which reminds you of a special person
Mechanic Dancing by XTC (in fact, anything by XTC) reminds me of my little brother, and he’s very special (everyone say “awwwww”).

11. A track to which you can relax
Still…Sleeping by Canyon Country. I’ve never heard this song to the end, because it does actually send me to sleep. In a nice way.

12. A track that stands for a really good time in your life
The best time I’ve had in my life is undoubtedly right now, so I’ll go for Gold Lion by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Yeah.

13. A track that is currently your favourite
This week’s Song of the Week is But I Did Not, by Howe Gelb, ex-frontman of British Net Celebrity-scaring alt.country band Giant Sand. It’s like Lou Reed singing Appalachian porch blues (I have no idea what I’m talking about there, incidentally) with a Canadian gospel choir thrown in. Marvellous.

14. A track that you'd dedicate to your best friend
Does this require me to be soppy and that? I don’t really do soppy. I also have more than one best friend. It’s a minefield! Alright then, for Smat, Don’t Go by the Hothouse Flowers, for reasons she’ll appreciate and that are mainly to do with binbags, and for Tabby Rabbit, Chicago by Sufjan Stevens, because that’s where we’re going in July. Not in a van, sadly, but you can't have everything.

15. A track that you like especially for its lyrics
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart by Wilco. Turgid song, but beautiful, quite erotic, emotionally twisted lyrics.

16. A track that no one likes but you
I Want You by Savage Garden, probably.

17. A track that you like that's neither English nor German
That only leaves French, because I don’t like songs with words I don’t understand. So, either the French version of Ballad of Cable Hogue by Calexico, or Le Freestyle de l’Obsolète by MC Solaar.

18. The track that best lets you release tension
That’s the same as 11, isn’t it?

19. A track you want to be played at your funeral
I really hope my friend S will a) still be with us, and will also b) DJ at my funeral wearing his electric blue catsuit and fairy wings. In which case it’s likely to be Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit by Gina G – and frankly I can’t think of a better song to accompany anyone to the grave.

20. A track that you'd nominate for "Best Track of All Time"
Oo, now this really *is* a minefield. Minefield, I tell you. You should have seen the withering look that Wyndham gave me on Wednesday night when I answered this very same question. I’m not saying.

UPDATE: Now hold still while I tag you, and you won't feel a thing: Pashmina, Nibus and Occasional Poster!


* Or 1979. Not sure.

This Is Not A Meme

It seems I've been tagged all the way from Thailand by the lovely Tim from Cultural Snow. Gosh, how far the internet's tentricles reach, eh?

The game with this one is to think of the Ten Best Films ever, then scrap that list, and list your Ten Favourite Films instead. For which, phew, quite frankly. I'm no film buff, so I'd have no chance of creating a list of Best Films Ever. But favourites, now, that I can do.

My film appreciation criteria are more or less the same as my music appreciation criteria: it's mainly to do with the words. Spiky, witty dialogue, that's what I like*. So here, in no particular order, are my Ten Favourite Films, with bonus facetious commentary:

1. Withnail and I: Yes, yes, I know, say what you like, but there's never been a more perfectly quotable film, ever. Every line a classic. *And* it's British. Hurrah!

2. Amélie: A friend and I were discussing at the weekend why it is that France produces brilliant films but execrable pop music. We came to the conclusion that it's because the French are just too spookily comfortable with their own emotions. They may be, but we Brits aren't, and that's why I can never quite establish why this film makes me cry so much. Also, it's so pretty to look at that I've got a poster of it in my bedroom. It's a bit like sharing a two-man dormitory with Audrey Tautou, and she never turns the light off, which is quite annoying.

3. Ed Wood: Zombies! Aliens! Bela Lugosi! A giant inanimate octopus! A cross-dressing Johnny Depp in an angora sweater! The best dialogue of any film that isn't Withnail & I! What more do you need?

4. Ghostbusters: My unseemly love of geeks was almost entirely formed by Dr Egon Spengler. "I collect spores, moulds, and fungus." Ooh, baby.

5. Lost In Translation: Because any film that has the Jesus and Mary Chain on the soundtrack gets my vote.

6. Memento: I could claim to admire it for its sheer cleverness and technical innovation and all that, but really it's probably something a bit more straightforward to do with Guy Pearce. Moving on...

7. A Knight's Tale. We don't really have to talk about why I like this one, do we? Oh, alright then. More attractive men per square inch of celluloid than any other film, ever. Paul Bettany as a periodically naked Geoffrey Chaucer? ("Chaucer's the name, writing's the game" etc.) Has to be a winner.

8. A Beautiful Mind. Maths geeks and secret codes - only two of my favourite things ever! I wanted this all to be true soooo much that I can only watch it up to halfway. Russell Crowe hideously miscast. Paul Bettany sadly remains fully clothed throughout. Never mind.

9. Sleepy Hollow: Excellent comedy turn from the boy Depp, doing his best Withnail impression. He's so clearly a comic actor that I don't know why anyone ever bothers asking him to do serious stuff.

10. Swingers: It's cool, it's funny, it's got some cracking dialogue, and Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau are just great.

God, that was awful. Anyone else want a go?


* Although now I've made the list, it seems that I like attractive men almost as much as I like spiky, witty dialogue. Tsk, whatever would Seven of Nine say?


tags: films | johnny depp | bill murray | ghostbusters