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My freelance writing can now be found at mikeatkinson.wordpress.com.
Recently: VV Brown, Alabama 3, Just Jack, Phantom Band, Frankmusik, Twilight Sad, Slaid Cleaves, Alesha Dixon, Bellowhead, The Unthanks, Dizzee Rascal.
On Thursday September 17th, I danced on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Click here to watch, and here to listen. Thursday, April 07, 2005
The Troubled Diva Parallel Universe Top 40.
Hmm. So much for longevity; with only twelve songs remaining from the first of these charts (compiled just three weeks ago), I must be even more fickle than I had feared. Such is the transient nature of yadda yadda yadda.
On the other hand, three of this week's fifteen new entries are actually re-entries - headed up by British Sea Power, who I was a little too quick to dismiss at the time. It sneaks up on you, that one. Familiarity is everything. Of the new new entries, Juliet and Ciara go charging straight into the Top Five - the first time that we've had new entries go in so high. It's a good week for dance, with Juliet, The Freeloaders, Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk all debuting in the Top Twenty, and Vitalic climbing ten places. It's also - if you'll forgive the Radio Two-ism - a great week for the ladies, with no less than six records in the Top Ten sporting female lead vocals. Kylie displaces Rachel after two weeks at Number One; Garbage have the highest climber (on ubiquity alone, as this has been inescapable all week); and we say goodbye to Tony Christie, Estelle, The Earlies, Bloc Party, Queens Of The Stone Age, T.I., Mario, Caribou, Erasure, New Order, Gwen Stefani, Annie, Million Dead, John Legend and Fischerspooner. 1 (2) Giving You Up - Kylie Minogue Bubbling under the chart are The Magic Numbers, as tipped for greatness last week. Having sat down and listened to them since then, I'm not so sure; too thin and soft and wimpy and wispy for my tastes. There again, they could still turn out to be the new Keane - who were the new Thrills - who were the new Starsailor - who were the new Travis. Such is the cyclical nature of yadda yadda yadda.
2 (11) Chicken Payback - The Bees (updated link: full length video) 3 (-) Avalon - Juliet 4 (1) Negotiate With Love - Rachel Stevens 5 (-) 1-2 Step - Ciara ft Missy Elliott 6 (19) It's Like That - Mariah Carey ft Fatman Scoop & Jermaine Dupri 7 (5) Fistful Of Love - Antony & The Johnsons 8 (9) The One You Love - Rufus Wainwright 9 (-) So Much Love To Give - Freeloaders ft The Real Thing 10 (20) My Friend Dario - Vitalic 11 (-) Believe - Chemical Brothers ft Kele Okereke 12 (-) Turn The Lights Out When You Leave - Elton John 13 (26) In Public - Kelis featuring Nas 14 (3) 10 Dollar/Pull Up The People - M.I.A. 15 (39) Why Do You Love Me - Garbage 16 (6) No Sleep Tonight - The Faders 17 (12) Get Right - Jennifer Lopez (featuring Fabolous) 18 (4) Brown Eyes - Kano 19 (-) Robot Rock - Daft Punk 20 (18) Get Ready For Love - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 21 (16) They - Jem 22 (10) Across Yer Ocean - Mercury Rev 23 (-) Somewhere Else - Razorlight 24 (7) Oh My Gosh - Basement Jaxx 25 (8) Neighborhood #2 (Laika) - The Arcade Fire 26 (13) Stay With You - Lemon Jelly 27 (RE) It Ended On An Oily Stage - British Sea Power 28 (-) Road Leads Where It's Led - Secret Machines 29 (-) Must Get Out - Maroon 5 30 (-) Surrender - Brand New Heavies ft Nicole Russo 31 (14) Too Cold - Roots Manuva 32 (RE) The World's Gone Mad - Handsome Boy Modelling School 33 (-) First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes 34 (15) Random - Lady Sovereign 35 (RE) No One Takes Your Freedom - DJ Earworm 36 (29) Finding Out True Love Is Blind - Louis XIV 37 (38) Whoopsie Daisy - Terri Walker 38 (25) I See Girls - Studio B featuring Romeo 39 (22) Just A Moment - Nas featuring Quan 40 (-) Shop Window - Kathryn Williams
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Wednesday, April 06, 2005
The big launch.
K's animal cancer company launches commercially this weekend, at a big veterinary conference in Birmingham. Once again, the Nottingham Evening Post's business section has the scoop; here's a link to yesterday's cover story. (I'd scan the accompanying photo, but the scanner's gone on the blink.)
As my old art teacher used to say: basically, this is very exciting. K's absence at the conference also means that I shall be Home Alone between tomorrow evening and Sunday evening. Heavens, whatever shall I do?
Write Like A Diva: the results.
In joint third place, with 3 votes: Entry #1 - the Judy Garland contest.
Plenty of "meta" waffle at the beginning, before even starting the story: yes, that's very me. Actual use of the word "meta": oh yes, absolutely. Using the word "meta" twice in the same post: actually, not me at all. Ever since I spotted D.H. Lawrence use the same "interesting" word twice in consecutive paragraphs at the age of 14 (thus dismissing him as an overrated writer from that point onwards - sorry Ben, but teenagers can be harsh in their judgements), I have been especially wary of ever doing this. Placing an entire paragraph in brackets: yup, got me there. Double parenthesising (i.e. brackets within brackets): actually, I never do this. A dangerous little touch of parody creeping in there, methinks. "There remains in my heart, I freely admit, a small kernel of bitterness which pains me whenever I think of that night." Now, that's a quintessential Troubled Diva sentence if ever I heard one. Colour me spooked! The idea of K and I impersonating Judy Garland is, I agree, a little too gay-cliché even for us. But then - and this is what some people might have glossed over - we were actually impersonating Judy Garland impersonating a gay man. Clever, huh? But possibly a bit too clever for the likes of the Part Two nightclub, even at its height. And besides: whereas I might be something of a thesp manqué, you would never catch K doing anything so overtly flamboyant in a public place. (He'd rather die.) Verdict: Very close - but on balance, probably not me. Shall we find out who wrote it, then? Actually, one of you has guessed it already - well done, chav gav - but then, she did leave rather a massive clue on her own blog, didn't she? Clare Sudbery of Boob Pencil: 'twas you all along. Many thanks for taking part. I'd hand you a Troubled Diva pencil at this point, but we're not doing consolation prizes this time. So how about an unsolicited plug instead? Clare is a bona fide published author, whose first novel - the splendidly titled The Dying Of Delight, published by the equally splendidly named Diva Books - can be ordered from here (UK) or from here (US). Also in joint third place, with 3 votes: Entry #4 - And Baby Makes Three.
Blue Witch: actually, you're right. I did promise that mine would be a true reminiscence. So let's sift through for clues, shall we? Again, we have an entire paragraph encased in brackets. And three sentences beginning with "Oh". But possibly a certain paucity of adverbs. Then again, I could be double-bluffing. The Paul Smith pyjamas are more than plausible. As for Marrakesh: more extraordinary how-did-they-know spookiness here, as K has been trying to persuade me to take a holiday in Morocco for many years. (I've always been worried about the street hassle, but have been getting progressively less worried.) There was even one occasion where he brandished a brochure in front of me, announcing that he'd found a bijou little tent in the desert for us. By an oasis. With broadband internet access. And your own private chef. Nice try, I'll grant him that. The juxtaposition of class (Harvey Nicks crockery) and trash (the Trisha show) is also highly characteristic - as is the way I seize upon the arrival of a baby as an opportunity to burn yet another compilation CD. However. K can't drink coffee (acupuncturist's orders), and I almost never do crosswords, and our cleaner's name is Joan, and my BT/Yahoo spam filter blocks all the viagra/cialis adverts, and I never call myself lower-case-mike outside of comments boxes (although I find it rather sweet that you all do). And I don't separate sections of posts with rows of asterisks, either. But rather more importantly than that: although breaking the news to you by means of a blogging competition would have been the most fantastic way of doing things, we don't actually have a newly-delivered surrogate baby called Kylie Louise. Come on, do we look like that ghastly couple off the telly from a few years back? Aspen and Saffron indeed! (And that bungalow!) So, contestant number four - who the devil are you? Once again, chav gav nails it - as does dave. Peter of Naked Blog: 'twas you all along. (I also have my suspicions about the vote from "IKEAman", but we'll let that one pass.) Commiserations on your joint third place, and thank you for taking part. In second place, with 16 votes: Entry #2 - Where d'ya want taking?
Let's take a good, hard look at #2, then. Waitrose David: this may shock you, but yes - we do have taxis in the Peak District. And electricity! And running water! (OK, so there's no digital TV or broadband in our village just yet, but it's just a matter of time.) Because drunk people need to get home in the countryside just as much as they do in the city. As for the stylistic tics: I call you "people". I start sentences with "Well", "Yes", "So" (twice), "But" (twice), and "And" (a whopping SEVEN times). There's a whole paragraph in brackets, obviously. And there are certainly plenty of adverbs. Including two uses of "thrillingly". Hmm. Remember what I said? But - most damningly of all - there is this: (A confession. We were, actually, in the front of the lorry. But that last sentence just seemed too good to leave out). Read on. Do you see what I see? Yes: a full stop outside the closing bracket, even though there is no "exterior" sentence for it to close. Rightly or wrongly, I would never have done this. Unless I was double-bluffing, of course. So what about the story itself? Plausible, isn't it? Astonishingly so, even. Particularly the "Where d'ya want taking?" punchline, and K's response to it. How could anyone else have nailed his sense of humour so precisely? On the other hand, there's the Tammy Wynette song. Notice how contestant #2 doesn't actually tell you the name of the song in question. And ask yourself: would Mike have let a musical detail like that slip by? Time to reveal the real identity of Contestant #2, then. Which none of you guessed. Not one of you. Which makes his achievement all the more impressive. JonnyB, will you step up to the platform please. Now, let me take a good look at you. My God! The resemblance is uncanny. Peas in a pod. People will think we're sisters! JonnyB: when I read your entry out loud to K, and got to the "Where d'ya want taking?" punchline, he a) howled the house down and b) said "Does he ever visit Derbyshire? We must have him over!" (Actually, I'm starting to get a little worried. This guy starts his blog not much more than a year ago - with finely honed and witty tales of village life in a period cottage - and builds his links and traffic up to the point where he's actually more popular than Troubled F***ing Diva, if you please - then he writes a suspiciously accurate "gayest moment ever" blog entry which comes perilously close to beating me in a competition to be myself - and now my own Long Term Life Partner wants to "have him over". It's all a bit Single White Female, isn't it?) Congratulations, JonnyB - and thanks for taking part. You may leave the stage now. That's right, carry on walking. Yes, thank you. Exit at the back, please. (Security: make sure he leaves the premises.) In first place, with 19 votes: Entry #3 - the playground tart who couldn't stop pulling.
Of the above commenters, asta had it spot on. Having listed my most common stylistic tics for the benefit of prospective contestants, I then proceeded to abandon them as much as possible, opting instead to write more in the style of the old 40 In 40 Days Project from three years ago. My "writerly" voice, if you like. (Comparatively speaking, at any rate.) However, as the piece progressed and I moved into the actual Ken story itself, I found myself thinking: this is the sort of thing that Joe.My.God. might write. And so I found myself quite deliberately bending my style more towards his. The one sentence paragraphs. The simpler language. The sense of immediacy. The suspense-building. The sheer perversity. There was even a direct quote: the one-word paragraph HOT, which formed the repeated punchline to one of his series from last year. So how gratifying it was to have pulled the wool over at least two sets of eyes. Regarding Gert's comment: Carnaby Street's heyday lasted until at least 1968-69, when this story would have taken place, so the story is indeed accurate. And yes, Jonathan - I really was that flamboyant as a child, before the self-conscious agonies of adolescence put paid to such gaiety. But as for your detective work on the au pairs: OK, you got me there, fair and square. (It's called "artistic licence". I'm not proud.) I shall now award myself with the luscious six-CD set of Bloggers' Disco megamixes. About time I won something in one of these competitions, anyway. That was fun. I've often wondered what it would feel like to impersonated, and now I know. You should try it some time!
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Bloggers' Disco - Megamix #5. (Like disco never happened.)
Our penultimate megamix moves from glacial alienation, through gay electro-pop, through cutesy-wutesy indie-jangle, through leather-jacketed rebel-rock, to beer-sodden bar-room boogie, before ending with a flurry of pure 1980s pop. OK, so it's not what you might call "funky", but it does its job all the same.
I'll be posting four alternative links in all. If they've expired, then try your luck in the comments; you might need to do a little networking, but some kind soul or other will no doubt sort you out. Link one. Link two. Link three. Link four. The results of the Write Like A Diva contest will be announced tomorrow. It's been neck-and-neck for first place all the way, so every vote still counts. To be fair to those of you in other time zones, I'll give you until 8:00 UK time on Wednesday morning to cast your votes. Update: Voting is now closed.
Monday, April 04, 2005
The Apprentice: contestant sites.
For those of you who are as hopelessly hooked on The Apprentice as I am, here are the personal web sites for some of the contestants.(What, nothing for Saira? We can only live in hope.)
Bumped off the schedules, to make way for that Polish bloke. I ask you, how many more indignities must our happy couple suffer? One can only hope that at least Ken and Deirdre stick to their guns.
I also see that Charles will be travelling to Rome for the Friday funeral, without Camilla. That's asking for trouble, isn't it? I can picture the sheepish Saturday morning phone call now. "Sorry, old thing; I appear to be chained to a lamp post in St Peter's Square. Those bloody cardinals..."
Stylus UK Singles Jukebox: Spangly Soundscapes.
This week's column sees the panel assess the new singles from Melanie C, Feeder, Natasha Bedingfield, Elton John, The Others, The Bees, Garbage, Kelis (featuring Nas) and Vitalic.
The reviews of mine which didn't make the final cut can be found in the comments. Except for the incredibly rude one about Melanie C, over which I feel a veil should be drawn.
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