Brief Notes

Posted March 18, 2006

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  • Steve Wright is a twat. This is not news and I’ve known it for years, but by god, having had to listen to his inane glorification of the stupid for two days it bears repeating.
  • Went to see the CBSO on Thursday. Went in blind and it turned out to be Mahler’s Symphony No.2 (Resurrection) which was, well, quite stunning. I particularly taken with the indulgence of the piece, employing a full choir who only sung at the climax. Give that the acoustics in Symphony Hall are spot-on throughout the venue and their cheap seats are only a fiver I must make the effort to go more often. That said, it would be nice to be able to stand. It seems unfair that the only person who’s able to dance is the conductor. (Dad’s review)
  • The office block in which I’ve been working has, unsurprisingly, reaffirmed my belief that such places are just not good. They had a “dress down Friday” (the irony being I’d made a special effort to wear clothes that weren’t really scraggy) combined with a St Patrick’s theme. The sight of middle aged women in large green foam hats combining the seriousness of their job with the desire to be wacky is just depressing. Also I noted the number of posters about the place for charity fundraising, none of which were directly connected with poverty. Given that the majority of the building deal with debt collection (resulting from other departments in the company pushing loans onto people who really shouldn’t have loans) this was not too surprising, like they’re trying to balance out the karma without dealing with the root cause.
  • This last fortnight I’ve been feeling like I’m drowning in half-baked ideas and projects, but I made a list of them and it’s not actually that bad. Maybe I’ll actually get them done now.
  • Oddly, or maybe not, I’m been contemplating putting myself forward for medical trials, the logic being as follows: 1) The noise made over the recent TGN1412 thing implies these things don’t go wrong very often. 2) At the same time a significant number of people will be put off applying so they’ll be looking for guineapigs. 3) I’ve been known to spend a couple of weeks feeling grotty and not getting anything done so I might as well get paid for it. 4) A couple of grand would free me up for a month or so of book writing. 5) Blog fodder! (Oh, altruism and for the good of mankind and all that too…)
  • It’s too fucking cold and I’m sick of it. This better break into Spring soon.

12 comments so far

  1. Dave C on March 18th, 2006

    “2) At the same time a significant number of people will be put off applying so they’ll be looking for guineapigs”

    Apparently your wrong on this point. A website that advertises this kind of this was more busy than usual AFTER the news about TGN 1412. It seems a lot of people have figured out there is money to be made. Add to that the 25% chance you will just be getting a sugar pill (placebo) and it seems like easy money :)

    I am also considering it. I’m not to bothered about the risks as I figure you have to die sometime, and the money will get me out of am impending financial problem.

    I assume that a lot of people who do these trials are students or 20-somethings, so there might be an opening for us 30-somethings :)

  2. Alex on March 18th, 2006

    With reference to Steve Wright: and how! I caught a half hour blast of his show last week for the first time… possibly ever, he was interviewing Jo Brand. Judging by the gales of laughter they were spewing forth I guessed something must’ve been funny, but it was the least funny thing I have ever heard. It sucked all the humour out of the car. It was like the end of Requiem For A Dream, but more bereft of hope, and by the time I’d parked I was in a very dark place.

  3. Russ L on March 18th, 2006

    I was at Mahler’s 2nd, too!

    It’s one of my absolute favourites.

  4. bse on March 18th, 2006

    Most. Wanted. Spring. Ever.

  5. Marv on March 19th, 2006

    I’ll go to Symphony Hall with you some time if you like.

  6. jim on March 20th, 2006

    I thought Steve was (and remained) very resentful of The Smiths after “Hang the DJ” came out. The apocryphal story is that Steve played Wham’s “I’m your Man” just after a newsflash about Chernobyl blowing it’s top and spreading radiation about the earth. This turned Morrisey’s stomach enough to have a go at him.
    Steve used to have this parody of the Smiths every now and again for a long time after - some rubbish impression- “I’m Morrissey and I’m so depressed!”
    So I guess that it pays not to cross the line with Steve - he has a long memory.

  7. Russ L on March 20th, 2006

    An important lesson for us all.

  8. Pete Ashton on March 20th, 2006

    There was a mention of Morrisey on the show today and arse-brain made some disparaging comment which didn’t quite make sense (in fact barely registered as a comment really) along the lines of him being “depressed”.

    I guess he still holds the grudge. Poor Mozza. I mean, just imagine…

  9. etat on March 22nd, 2006

    Is the vanilla date in the upper right a new thing? Nice touch! Howdja do that?

  10. Pete Ashton on March 22nd, 2006

    Just playing about - it might stay, it might not.

    It’s simply the date wrapped in a div at the bottom of the html just before the /body tag. The css is as follows:

    font-size: 7em;
    position: absolute;
    top: -35px;
    right: 0px;
    z-index: 0;
    color: #F6EDD6;
    letter-spacing: -0.1em;

    In order to have it in the background the next div up (in this case “container”) must have z-index: 1;

  11. j on March 22nd, 2006

    I like it!

  12. Andy G on March 23rd, 2006

    I concur. Hadn’t noticed it before, but I predict it will be the next big graphics/blog meme. Did you come up with it yourself?