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Friday, November 02, 2001
Spreading the word
Good to see that Chig has started blogging. A Soft Cell gig review and some top notch sleb goss already! I shall be keeping an eye on this one.
Andrew WK: rock music's amyl nitrate?
Initial brief "wa-hey! fantastic!" rush, followed by prolonged headache and "what the f*** was I thinking of" remorse.
Or am I being too harsh?
Dead Funny - Nottingham Playhouse.
Hmmm. A potentially interesting and amusing play ruined by the actors. It felt more like a technical read-through than an actual performance, as they all rattled off their lines at breakneck speed, without any sense of timing, interpretation (other than adopting one dimensional am dram stock comic characters) or communication (either with each other or with the audience, who might as well not have been there, so self-absorbed were the actors). In fact, the script was more recited than acted out. It demanded razor sharp comic interpretation to work; as it was, line after line was completely thrown away. This had the effect of stripping out all the potential subtleties of the script, so that - ironically - all that we were left with was a Ray Cooney style "whoops there go my bloomers" farce. The worst offender was the lead actress - another irony here, in that a character with no sense of humour was played by an actress with no sense of humour. Ah well!
Thursday, November 01, 2001
POR = Pine Oriented Rock.
Press release:
Following the proven success of established genres such as AOR & MOR, we are proud to announce the launch of a major new branding opportunity: POR. Spearheaded by priority high recognition acts such as David Gray, Dido, Nelly Furtado and Natalie Imbruglia, POR is music specifically designed to be stored alphabetically in pine CD racks from Ikea. Major cross-badging tie-ups to be announced in time for the pre-Christmas sales build-up. New instore campaigns featuring rising POR figurehead Alicia Keys assembling tower units, while cutting edge POR breakthrough artist Dave Matthews launches his own instruction DVD, talking customers through favoured alphabetic sorting techniques such as stack merging, shuffling up, the perennial "various artists" problem, and much more.
Wednesday, October 31, 2001
Stroppy superchefs part 94
Michelin starred nascent superchef Claude Bosi, of the Hibiscus restaurant in Ludlow, is clearly taking the "enfant terrible" Marco Pierre White/Gordon Ramsay wannabe thing very seriously indeed.
Him indoors was hosting a dinner at Hibiscus last night for important business collaborators, hem hem. The food was unutterably fabulous throughout, natch. However, on receipt of the amuse-bouche thingy (a fantasia on the theme of soft boiled egg with parmesan), one of the guests remarked "well, it has the texture of snot and the taste of vomit - but it's still delicious". No waiters in sight, this was directed solely at the others round the table. The meal passed pleasantly, and the staff were all as friendly as could be.
At the end of the meal, him indoors settles the bill and the group gets up to leave. At this point, the kitchen doors burst opens and Bosi storms in. He makes straight for snot-n-vomit man, and basically goes mental with him, and with the rest of the group. How dare you criticise my food, get out of my restaurant now, etc etc at great length. Remember this is a Michelin restuarant and it's NOT cheap. He even gets physical, grabbing hold of snot-n-vom to, er, stress his point.
Clearly, one of the staff had:
a) eavesdropped on a private conversation.
b) snitched to Claude.
c) snitched to Claude, omitting the fact that the comment was said as a joke, with the suffix "but it's still delicious".
d) snitched to Claude, knowing full well that he was liable to go ballistic with his customers.
Outside on the street, a police car happens to draw up. Snot-n-vom has a word with the copper: "I think the chef in there has just committed common assault". Copper: "Oh, don't worry - it happens all the time with him."
Tch, superchefs and their precious egos. You don't get that at Harvester, do you?
Pluralism sucks. Gimme Lenin.
From today's popbitch - this stuck in my mind:
helen from big bruv
oh deary me. was flicking thru the cable music channels last nite when a familiar face appeared..... dancing around and singing along to an ad for .... the best of bananarama. worst of all was a note that said...... and i shit you not.... "i luv bananarama i do".
what with helen cheesily advertising defunct 80's girl bands and the levellers advertising (of all things) weightwatchers methinks this world is goin mad
(quentinnobber, Tue 30 Oct 13:44, Reply)
It is.
Spiralling in on itself like a fly in a hall of mirrors, faster and faster until all that's left is a dot, like the TV after closedown in the days when TV did close down. Too much of everything. Pluralism sucks. Gimme Lenin.
(magoo, Tue 30 Oct 13:41, Reply)
Tuesday, October 30, 2001
TV Go Home
TV Go Home. Am I the last sentient being in the British Isles to discover this little gem of caustic wit? Quite possibly.
Soundtrack to first blog.
Girls On Top - I Wanna Dance With Numbers
Simian - One Dimension
Basement Jaxx - Jus I Kiss
And so to blog.
Everybody else is doing it, so why can't I?
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