Tales From The Riverbank

A truly random example today - I'm sure there's some great band/album names in here somewhere (these are selected highlights because the entire E-mail from which this sample was taken was astonishingly long)...

potty whelk among dud.
rumour postal saliva recast!
saliva spawn rhetor cinque!
visual tatter hurl laical!
elves walrus elixir saloon!
scathe sol puke clod.
menu among cougar versed?
viral wormy zariba truss!
daman potty ardour in.
elixir flower bang.
recast denial epic hurl!
crabby disown elbow chut!
sprite keck.
bested keck abroad.
clod launch crabby comfit?
dampy fin spiral.
disown dampy churn disown!
gauze potty demo halt.
klaxon cinque rumour.
flower truss dud laical?
cougar sol wormy parted!
rumour elbow hawser gauze?
spiral spawn hey thole.
menu awoken gourde among!
halt cougar tatter teak.
ripply spiral.
dud paddy slough.
potty spawn thole.
aspire postal one puke?
hey rug hush.
trek walrus thole lacing.
blotto teak in keck!
ordeal halt mascot spell.
dampy aspire bested awoken!
rug cannot zariba keck?
slug cinque aspire abroad?

Hmmmmmm...

I've been a bit concerned about myself for the last week or so. Why? I seem to have become somehow charged with energy, and I'm not sure where it's come from. Steen advanced a theory that it might have something to do with the increased frequency with which I'm walking to/from work - I'd gotten into a bit of a rut since Christmas where Steen would drive us both to work in the morning, dropping me off along the way, and would then pick me up after work as well. Something snapped about a month ago and I decided that enough was enough, I was starting to feel really unfit and lethargic, and that it was high time I got my lazy arse walking again. So virtually every day now, I at least walk home from work - sometimes I walk in as well, but I am legendarily crap in the morning, so sometimes it just doesn't happen. The first few days pretty much left me useless when I got home, but the more I've done it, the more energy I seem to have. I'm not sure if it's just my imagination or not, but there even seems to have been a very slight (I mean, bordering on the infinitesimal, but there nonetheless) reduction in the mass of my belly area, too. This can only be A Good Thing.

This increase in energy has left me a bit fidgety at home, though, which in turn has meant that I have - probably very much to Steen's relief - been not just content but positively gung-ho about de-entropising the flat and otherwise completing niggling little projects that I've let slide for months. This last weekend, for instance: I ended up spending the best part of a whole day going through all the filing that's been piling up since practically a year ago, and de-cluttering the filing cabinet whilst I was busily - and happily, that's the scary bit - re-organising it all. The last few days I've been merrily organising the chaotic state of our back-up drive, which is strewn with literally hundreds of gigabytes of accumulated weirdness. I've updated every program going on the PC. I've fixed all kinds of Windows-related problems that were causing problems when our PC started up.I've stripped out everything that I had in iTunes and re-organised it all. I've dug out my C# manuals. I've dug out my Welsh tutorial files. I've stuck up a whole bunch of stuff on eBay, with a lot more to follow. I've renewed my passport for the trip to the US this summer. The list goes on...

It's odd. The more regular exercise may help to explain where the energy came from, but I'm not really sure what has focused that energy on sorting out all these trivial things, other than perhaps a vague feeling that it's annoying to exist day-to-day with them all looming in the background somewhere. Whatever the reasons, I'm sure Steen is grateful that I'm finally doing something more constructive than monging out in front of online forums/Gamebase/MAME/Space Giraffe every night for hours at a time. And, strangely, so am I. Given to rapid entropisation of my chosen living space though I am, sometimes it feels good to say, "No more!", roll up yer sleeves and get stuck in. Given that there are about three crates full to overflowing with stuff that needs to go up on eBay, I'm not sure I'm going to recognise the flat when I get done.

I'm not sure how long this will last, though - so I'd best get back to eBay whilst the mood still takes me... :-)

Walking to work, on a beautiful sunny morning, with Eat Static's excellent album Implant playing on your MP3 player... 

Aaaahhhh, life is good.

That is all.

It's been a fun weekend. We've not long got back from our friends gaff in Worcester, where I've been since yesterday afternoon. The chief object of the weekend: seeing French musician Jean Michel Jarre in action.

( OMG, it's full of stars )

We've just got back from seeing the new Star Trek film, and not to put too fine a point on it, it was awesome.

( Warp Speed, Mr Sulu! )

[01]  Friday night is curry (and beer, of course) night.  So it shall be written, so it shall be done.

[02]  It's Steen's birthday tomorrow. A pile of presents and top-notch ordered-in pizza awaits.

[03]  Finally getting to see the new Star Trek flick at the cinema, which will happen on Monday night. Everything I've seen and heard about this film tells me that it's likely to be stellar even by Trek standards. The trailer(s): brilliant. The premise: imaginative. The music: stunning. The casting: apparently superlative. The FX: gobsmacking. I only hope I haven't built my expectations too high.

[04]  The 'remastered' episodes of the original Star Trek series. In the flush of enthusiasm about the new Trek film, I ordered the first season of the original series on DVD. The episodes have been exhaustively restored after decades of neglect, and much of the original lacklustre special effects have been replaced with new state of the art digital effects. It's all been done with such love that it fair brings a tear to the eye. Seeing those retouched, cleaned-up episodes started an avalanche of wonderful memories - it's been a minimum of about 12 years since I'd seen any of these episodes (a lot longer in some cases), and with the occasionally jarringly poor effects replaced with something more immersive, watching the show is pure magic. It reminded me that the original series was bonkers, brilliant and full of great ideas, and re-introduced me to a bunch of characters I'll be seeing in a very different light on Monday. Of course, now I need to buy the other two seasons of the original show. Like I need an excuse!

[05]  This summer's trip to the USA is booked and paid for - three weeks of immersion in all things American, and the chance to see some much-loved American friends for the first time in far too long a time. Not to mention (I hope - it depends what's on, really) a trip that wonderful US invention, the drive-in movie.

[06]  The Church's new album, Untitled #23. Darker and more desolate by far than the previous couple of albums, but still a thing of incandescent beauty. The band have never sounded so effortlessly creative, or their music so memorably atmospheric. And to think, people thought that Starfish and Under The Milky Way were the band at their best! Not. Even. Close.

[07]  The new album by Touchstone, Wintercoast. A prime slice of no-nonsense progressive rock, with the emphasis on ROCK. The band have really raised their game with this one. Some great playing, some wonderfully memorable songs, and Jeremy Irons going all Lovecraftian on us as well. A placing in my end-of-year 'Best of 2009' is assured.

[08]  The knowledge that in a little over a week, I'll be sitting in the NIA in Birmingham, in excellent seats, waiting for Jean Michel Jarre to take the stage. I haven't seen the eccentric French nutter since 1997, and I am seriously gung-ho about what could well be my gig of the year. A true audio-visual spectacular is promised - bring it on!

[09]  Knowing that the new Karnataka album, The Gathering Light, is entering the final stages of production. I've been telling everyone who'll listen that it'll knock their socks off - you just wait and see! Good things come to those who wait. And then there's the Chasing The Monsoon album as well, which will be following later in the year. That's made of win, too. You'll see.

[10]  Realising that 2009 could end up being the best year for new music in a long time. Let's see, we've either had or will soon be having great new material from: The Church, Touchstone, Gazpacho, Breathing Space, Karnataka, Chasing The Monsoon, Dream Theater, Panic Room, Mr So & So, The Wishing Tree, Tori Amos, Bat For Lashes, Lacuna Coil, No-Man, Muse, Mastodon, Sirenia, Pythia, Epica, Ozric Tentacles, Marillion, IQ, The Prodigy, Megadeth, Natalie Imbruglia, and Alice In Chains - and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Looks like the only difficulty will be deciding what makes my end of year Top 10!

Ah, life is good.

...isn't dead by any means, just somewhat neglected. I have been writing scads of reviews, though, which I'm cleaning up and finally posting up, so there'll be a flurry of activity Real Soon Now.

As a reassurance of sorts that I haven't forgotten my password, I've recently put up a new review - of Dan Vincent's excellent This Building Is Under Electronic Surveillance At All Times - and there'll be more to follow soon. Promise!

Take a look: http://hippytowers.livejournal.com

... to theleftcoast.

May your day include:

(a) Good friends
(b) Good times
(c) Good music
(d) Good Indian fare, and
(e) Good ale(s)

Have a good one!

...time flies, doesn't it? Here we are, nearly two weeks on from the Marillion convention, and I've yet to post anything here about it. To be honest, I've not long recovered from the trip - although thankfully I've not come down with the traditional post-convention lurgy: the first time I've ever managed to avoid it. Steen hasn't been so lucky, unfortunately, and nor have many others. Perhaps there was something in that month-long course of echinacea that we took before setting off for Holland after all? Steen, of course, wasn't in the best shape even before we left, so we're putting her conventionitis down to a knackered immune system.

What was it like? It was ace, of course. It's become a bit of a cliché that each convention is better than the previous one, but I think everyone I've spoken to has agreed that this one was the best to date, against some pretty stiff opposition. The Center Parcs site at Port Zelande was good - the accomodations weren't much better than Butlins to be fair (unless of course you paid extra for an uber-chalet), but the site itself was nicer and staff were certainly helpful and attentive. The massive tent erected to act as the main venue for the weekend's music was very impressive, and Marillion were certainly firing on all cylinders all weekend. There was a slightly worrying moment on the Sunday night before Marillion's last show of the weekend when we were told, pre-gig, that vocalist Steve Hogarth had become ill, but whatever medication they gave him must have been good stuff, as about ten minutes after hitting the stage he was turning in a world-class performance.

There are a slew of highlights, of course. All three of Marillion's shows were legendary, and two of them (the Saturday and Sunday night shows) would probably end up in my Top 10 Marillion shows of all time. The support bands that we saw were all enjoyable to a greater or lesser degree (special mentions should however go to The Wishing Tree (fabulous), Anne-Marie Helder (fantastic) and A Genuine Freakshow (a huge surprise, and immensely enjoyable). There was the Glaswegian/Canadian chalet session on Saturday night, too - and the small matter of standing on that enormous stage myself on Sunday morning, as part of the weekend's victorious quiz team...  That's not to mention wandering around Delft & Amsterdam with our friends from Worcester, and the seemingly endless parade of faces from all over the globe that we met or were re-acquainted with over the course of the weekend.

A great - no, frankly awesome - time was had by all. I daresay further highlights will occur to me and will get mentioned in due course, but for now, suffice it to say that hours after it was over, we were all talking excitedly about the next one (due 2011).

If you're reading this and you're not already familiar with Marillion's work, for God's sake do yourself a favour and get yourself along to their website right now and give them a listen. That way you can start saving now for the 2011 weekend and save yourself a great deal of angst later on...

Well, it's nearly time to saddle up. The 2009 Marillion Weekend will be opening in a little over 24 hours, and in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, we'll be setting off for our friends Ann & Tony's place, where a hire car will be whisking us off to Birmingham Airport. From there, we fly into Amsterdam, from where we will collect another hire car and drive the remaining distance to Center Parcs at Port Zelande, where the Weekend is being held.

There are all sorts of reasons why - despite the prospect of getting up at small number o'clock - I am very excited about this weekend. For one thing, this will be the first time in nearly 14 years(!) that I've been in the Netherlands outside of an airport. Much as Holland is rather flat (albeit pretty), it's a refreshingly cosmopolitan and relaxed place, and I've always found the people really friendly and helpful. Funnily enough, it was to go and see Marillion that I first went to Holland back in the 90s, and it was to go and see Marillion that I was last in Holland in 2004, albeit indirectly, as we only stopped over at Schiphol to get a connecting flight to Prague, which is where we were actually seeing Marillion. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever been to Holland on a non-Marillion related excursion.

Then there's the social side of it. I suppose I've been around on the Marillion scene for a long time - since 1984, and then online ever since 1997. Even in the latter case, that's 12 bloody years now, which is quite alarming. Consequently, in that time I've met a whole bunch of great people, and one of the fringe benefits of this sort of thing is that fans of all stripes from all over the globe come along. Consequently I'll get to see a lot of these great people - some of who live in far-flung countries - this weekend, which virtually guarantees a certain level of good-natured debauchery and catching up over a beer or six. If there's a problem with this, it's only that there are only so many hours over the weekend, and a large number of people I'd like to spend some quality time with. It's a bit like wandering into an exceptionally large record store, being handed a trolley and told that anything you grab in the next 10 minutes is yours for free. I often find myself at these things frantically trying to talk to as many people as I can, ensuring that (a) my throat dries out really quickly, (b) much beer is therefore required as a result, and (c) I usually lose my voice by the point it's time to leave. It'll be top drawer to see the Scottish contingent (most especially the excellent psychochicken and his Better Half zantic), not to mention the Canadians (joeserge and tiggereh amongst them) and a myriad of others who I just don't get to see or talk to often except via E-mail - which, however handy or invaluable, is still a very poor substitute for The Real Thing.

And then there's the music. I've waxed lyrical often about Marillion here, and whilst I've had my ups and downs with their output, they never cease to surprise and delight. Even their lesser offerings are things of beauty that I keep coming back to. More than perhaps any other band, with the honourable exception of the mighty Pink Floyd, they have soundtracked my life since 1984 in a way that few other bands could hope to do. This year's event is especially nostalgic, since it doubles as a celebration of vocalist Steve Hogarth's 20 years (to date) with the band. The weekend opens with a performance of the band's first album with Mr Hogarth, the excellent Seasons End which is exciting enough for me as it's the record that turned them from a really good band to an absolutely incredible one in my eyes. The fact that they've just turned in what is fast becoming one of my favourite Marillion albums in the shape of Happiness Is The Road is merely the icing on the cake. Add in some tremendous support from the likes of The Wishing Tree and the fabulous Anne-Marie Helder, and my cup truly runneth over.

It's going to be a belter. If you're going along, maybe I'll see you there - keep an eye out for the sleep-deprived hippy, wearing glasses and a Blade Runner/Pineapple Thief/Karnataka T-shirt! If you're not going along, I'll be back with some Iliad-esque tales of the weekend sometime next week!

Courtesy of psychochicken , here's an interesting meme: "Name 20 albums which have affected your life."

Well, clearly I could do with hundreds as opposed to 20, but as it is, this is going to take me a while. So I'll do it in two halves. I'll have to do the other 10 when I've got a few spare minutes sometime down the road!

So, with no further ado (and in roughly chronological order):

( You might want to go and get a nice cup of tea before you start reading this... )

...and wish a very Happy Birthday to Mr psychochicken .

Have a fantastic day, mate!

Not long to go now...

Been a little while since I did an update - at least one that I actually finished (sharp-eyed readers may notice a few entries appearing under this one as I finally sort them out) - so I thought I'd just start typing tonight and see what falls out.

It's the week before Spring half term, which means that Steen gets next week off, but that it's business as usual for yours truly. Except this year, for some reason, I have quite a bit of holiday left, so I'm taking a couple of days off - fantastic, a shorter working week next week! I expect, however, that the bulk of our time off will merely be spent catching up with all the film and TV stuff we have stockpiled that we haven't got around to watching yet. Seriously, it's quite something. Not only is there a sizeable stack of films to go through, there's an immense backlog of TV we've either taped or downloaded. Perhaps we'll get to see the end of The 4400 - we got four episodes from the end in the summer and haven't finished it yet. Or perhaps we'll start watching Lost again? We haven't seen any of season 4 yet, let alone season 5! And so it goes on - literally dozens of gigabytes of stuff. As if that wasn't bad enough, new stuff keeps getting added to the list all the time: Joss Whedon's Dollhouse starts this weekend, and anything Whedon-originated goes straight to the top of the list in this house. It's going to start hitting the point where I'll be relieved when something we're watching regularly gets cancelled. Having said that, Dollhouse, Supernatural and Ghost Whisperer better not be cancelled any time soon, or there's going to be trouble!

The last fortnight we've been re-watching season 1 of Alias - I know, I should be watching some of the stockpile, but I hadn't seen that first season of Alias for ages and fancied a fix. It's every bit as wonderful as I remember it being: I can't think of another show where so much happens every week, and nearly every episode ends with an edge-of-your-seat cliffhanger, an almost guaranteed "ZOMG!" moment. The new Battlestar Galactica comes close, but it's nowhere near as relentless or as fast-moving: blink whilst you're watching Alias and you'll miss something. I really need to pick up the other four seasons of Alias on DVD, but with so much else to watch, I suppose it can wait a while...

What else... Well, a random selection of events from the past couple of weeks would include:

- Our car passing its MOT, albeit reluctantly. We're still awaiting new rear lamps, which once fitted may actually fix the fishpond in the boot (the seal behind the right-hand light is split, so every time it rains, the boot fills with water, making a lovely water feature).

- Our final payment has been taken for the Marillion weekend in Holland next month. W00t!

- I lost a fractured front tooth, which has been replaced by a denture. Fun, fun, fun!

- Chris thought she had a broken tooth as well, only to find she has a nasty gum infection. She is currently giddy, nauseous and in some pain whilst the infection is being treated with the most heavy-duty antibiotics available. Apparently they are the same medication that is given to recovering alcoholics whilst they go cold turkey. I can quite believe this.

- It snowed a surprising amount. In Evesham, for crying out loud! We even had two days off work as the schools in the area all closed.

- We ordered season 6 of Frasier and a copy of Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife from Amazon, which arrived early this week. I'm finding it hard to credit that I hadn't read Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy until now, but I'm throughly enjoying it now that I am. Frasier is every bit as funny as I remember.

- I appear to be on a "femme metal" kick. Epica, After Forever (who split this month, oddly (and sadly) enough), Sirenia, Within Temptation etc have pretty much soundtracked the last couple of weeks. I've even dug out some of the old Evanescence stuff. Perhaps it goes deeper than that, though, and it's just a metal kick after all, as I've been playing Metallica virtually non-stop as well. That latest album of theirs is, actually, bloody great.

The outside temperature is showing as -3 at the moment. Joys. Spring can't arrive soon enough, I tell ya.

R.I.P. Patrick McGoohan, star of TV's The Prisoner, who died today at the age of 80.

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7829267.stm

Courtesy of psychochicken...

( 2008 In Review... )

After a hard day's present-opening and involuntary gluttony, I'm sitting here with Steen's laptop idly surfing around whilst we slowly slip into a Christmas coma in front of the telly. It's been a top day: some suitably festive viewing (and no, we didn't watch the Queen's Speech), many lovely presents from friends far and near, and a great deal of artery-clogging food have conspired to keep me in an extremely jolly mood all day. Here's hoping everyone who's reading this is having a similarly festive time of it.

Merry Christmas (or equivalent winter festival of your choice) to you all. Have a wonderful holiday season - however long it lasts for you - and here's to an even better 2009!

The plastic took another hit this morning...

The only sad thing is that Steen isn't interested in this one, being a hardened sceptic when it comes to Monsieur Jarre, so I'll be going to this one with the Cosycat mob. Still, at least she gets a husband-free evening in which to indulge herself... :-)

This'll be the first time I've seen Jarre live since the Oxygene tour of 1997, when he played the slightly larger NEC. I remember steeling myself to be disappointed with that show, since it was the first time I'd seen him play indoors, and it's undeniable that the sheer scale and spectacle of his city-sized previous shows was a part of their appeal, no matter how excellent the music was. Happily, there was no need for concern: from the moment the show opened, with the latest (and most impressive to date) iteration of Jarre's beloved Laser Harp unfolding and shooting its beams out over the audience, it was a audio/visual tour de force. The absolutely enormous projection screen they lowered in front of the band (it spanned fully 3/4 of the width of the NEC) later in the show was a highlight, too: Jarre and his band performing Oxygene Part 12 as a succession of filmed birds, insects and fish (all in extreme close-up) strutted their stuff, unnervingly synchronised to the music. All in all, it was a tremendous show - probably the most impressive thing I'd seen for quite a while. If we can expect similar bells and whistles next May, on top of Jarre's memorable music, then I'm going to be a very happy camper indeed.

Cool - I'm off to see Jarre again! (Insert fanboy squeeeeing here)

Well, how'd you like that? It seems that the good people of the USA are as disgusted with the 'Wild West' foreign policy and general smugness of the Bush administration and have come out in force to vote in its antithesis - or at least the governmental option that was furthest from it. After so many years of "Dubya" and his cohorts riding roughshod over the dignity of both the American people and indeed anyone else who dared to get in the way, it does my heart good to see that even his countrymen are - generally speaking, of course - equally sick of it all. I've got far too many great American friends - and a fabulous American wife, of course! - to buy into the shortsighted stereotype of the average American as the Texan cliché, but it never hurts to put across a more realistic impression of America and what it stands for: and Mr Obama certainly paints a much more appealing picture than Dubya and his chums ever did. It'll be interesting to see how things develop for Obama next year. The man certainly has the weight of massive expectation resting on his shoulders, and not just a domestic but a world audience watching his every move. Today, though, watching Obama's really quite moving victory speech and seeing the joyous reaction he's received from the bulk of America - even his previous detractors - it's hard not to be swept up in the optimism and excitement of Obama's victory. Way to go, America!

The US election aside, I find myself in my usual mid-Autumn funk. The clocks have just changed, for one thing, which never fails to royally mess me up. I find myself being less tired at night and increasingly reluctant to get up in the morning - I know it's just the painfully slow process of my body clock adjusting itself, and it'll all be over in a week or two, but it makes work days a real chore at the moment. I've also got a really annoying tickly cough, the aftermath of my Autumn cold, which simply will not let up and I swear is causing me to tear muscles in my abdomen. Add to that a suspiciously sensitive tooth (joys, my now traditional once-a-year dental problem) which may mean a visit to the dentist lies in my near future, and I'm... well, fidgety. With Halloween and tonight's Bonfire Night festivities out of the way, though, it does mean we'll soon be well and truly on the run-up to Christmas, which, as anyone who knows me will remember, is something I always enjoy. There's not a religious bone in my body, but I've always loved Christmas. There's something strangely pagan about the process of dressing the tree which speaks to some fondly recalled race memory, the weather is usually at its frostiest and clearest (I love the fiery sunsets and icily clear starlit night skies), the evenings are long and just begging to be filled with games, lengthy film sessions and much valued chilling out... add to that the promise of a week/10 days off work and the usual exchange of gifts and frankly what is there not to enjoy?

I have several friends who hate Christmas simply because "it's got too commercialised". This is a perfectly fair point, and that aspect of it all irks me as well, but I've learnt to ignore it, turn my mind off, anything in order not to have that aspect of the season obscure all the things about the Christmas holidays that I enjoy so much. It can certainly be tough to ensure it doesn't get to you, but it's a self-preservation mechanism that I've perfected now. If I feel the self-control slipping, a viewing of It's A Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol (the Patrick Stewart version preferred - no-one plays Scrooge as convincingly or enjoyably as Mr Stewart, personally speaking) is enough to remind me what is really important.

I'll be buying our advent calendars soon. I'm actually looking forward to it.

Should I be concerned that I'm already feeling a little festive?