Elvis Costello wrote and recorded his first album while also working as a computer operator for the Elizabeth Arden factory, only resigning when his record company agreed to match his salary. Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner continued his day job of laying floors even once they became successful. The story went that the group sat down on stage as they would generally all be worn out from their day jobs. Read the rest of this entry »
I do like a good manifesto. There is something pretty powerful about a clear declaration of intent. There is something almost grandiose about a manifesto that you don’t get from a simple resolution, or pledge or plan of action. They seem innately ambitious, and equally doomed to fail, as nobody ever really can achieve the ideal, whatever that ideal might be. Read the rest of this entry »
Those of you with a WordPress blog will have no doubt received their funkily designed Annual Report cataloguing your 2012 year in blogging. For those who don’t blog, or at least don’t blog through WordPress, the report collates all the relevant data relating to blog activity and visitors and all that kind of stuff. It is a nice feature as it offers an opportunity to reflect on how you are doing with your blogging, look at what you’ve achieved in terms of how many people you’ve reached in the big, bad world and consider the sheer quantity of stuff you’ve thrown up on the internet. Read the rest of this entry »
I was just going to post one of my favourite Christmas songs today, because I’m too lazy/busy to actually write anything, and if nothing else this place is a handy vessel to inflict my tastes on the five to ten people who flock to the site each day. Then I found out via the wonders of Google that said song, Christmas Time Is Here Again by The Flirtations, was in fact the B side of Nothing But A Heartache, and so Christmas Time Is Here Again is not only one of the great Christmas songs, but is quite possible one half of one of the great singles – Northern soul brilliance and classy Christmas soul, all on one piece of vinyl. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m not sure how I feel about noise in a working environment. This morning, for instance, I have been disrupted and distracted by a colleague playing Michael Bublé’s Christmas hits at high volume, another colleague’s mobile phone squawking out a rather tinny rendition of something by Led Zeppelin, the constant chug of the photocopier, the initial sniffs of someone’s winter cold, plus your usual conversational hubbub/general non-specific office noise. I’m grateful that there haven’t been any especially loud phone calls, nor the bizarre, inexplicable exclamations to nobody in particular that sometimes emanate from certain staff. Read the rest of this entry »
Wait until next year 