Month: August 2014

Avatar Lost treasures

I’ve been having a clear out this weekend and I found this 20-year-old NOW album:

Now 1994

Nearly 20 years ago I got it for Christmas, along with an Alba mini hi-fi system that had a tape deck, CD player and AM/FM radio. Those were the days. Here’s a selection of the great hits from this double-tape compilation:

  • Ace of Base – I Saw the Sign
  • Whigfield – Saturday Night
  • Corona – Rhythm of the Night
  • D:Ream – Things Can Only Get Better
  • East 17 – It’s Alright (The Guvnor Mix)
  • Aswad – Shine
  • Reel 2 Real – I Like To Move It
  • Doop – Doop

Unfortunately when I opened the box, tape 2 was missing, so while you can still listen to Come Baby Come by K7 and Swamp Thing by the Grid, everything that was on the second tape – from Searching by China Black to The Perfect Year by Dina Carroll to Return to Innocence by Enigma – is now gone.

But we all know that tape 1 side 1 was always the best part of the album and the rest was mostly tracks you’d skip.

Avatar Trekkin’ Abroad – France (Part 4)

Having discovered a secret tunnel under the sea, I passed quietly across the border into France undetected, arriving in their capital city, “Paris”, in the early afternoon. I took an apartment in the 16th arrondissement and started my new life cycling around parks and examining museums for clues. Nothing. Then one day, in the lift, someone else rode all the way up to the 8th floor with me. An enemy agent? One of their informers? I couldn’t be sure.

I packed my bags and left early the next morning, covering my trail with stories of a poorly relative in Geneva. It was a bittersweet departure; my apartment had the finest coffee machine I’ve experienced in recent years and I couldn’t fit it into my suitcase. I will remember it always.

I took a train somewhere, anywhere, ending up in the far west of the country where I spent the last two weeks hiding in a barn before negotiating my return to Plymouth on a fishing smack, hidden under a pile of nets and fish.

I’m never leaving England again. I am a scarred man. I still smell a bit like fish. So much for France.

Avatar Newsboost – Electrocution Eliminates Everyday Ailments?

A new report published today in the USA states that electrocution could be used to cure numerous afflictions.

The writer, Joan Hupsworth, a doctor from Boston, Massachusetts claims that a bit of electricity coursing through the body can relieve anything from the common cold to sneezing and sometimes even the aches and pains of the elderly. She has been studying the field of electricity in medicine for the last eighteen years and only now has she dared to come forward with her findings.

“I admit that a lot of people will find this very hard to believe,” says Joan, wiping her mouth with a lizard, “but the results speak for themselves. I’ve tried every single control method available and each time the electricity clears up whatever is bothering them. I started off with something simple like a sore throat but by the end of it I was having patients with hemorrhoids and tennis elbow turning up at my door. You would not believe what it can do.”

Here’s a little science lesson for you all. It’s not the volts in the electricity that can kill, it’s actually the amps in the current. Due to legal reasons the specific voltage and amps have not been mentioned and only a vague description of a ‘mild shock’ is listed throughout. We can only guess it is equivalent to the effect of suddenly bumping into that guy from work you always try to avoid talking to because he’s incapable of social interaction, or sitting in the pub and realising you’ve forgotten to turn the oven off after cooking a large roast dinner.

The initial response to the report has been poor. A large percentage of the medical community have dismissed the claims as witchcraft, with one member of popular US healthcare group Medigroup Plc Inc even calling for their residents to rise up and hunt Ms Hupsworth down as an actual witch. Many others are less concerned about throwing into a large body of water in the hopes of seeing her drown like the supposed demon she is. Dilbert Huxley, a doctor from Tampa Bay, Florida is excited by the news however he believes that the report requires a little work. “In a way I can see her point,” he sniffs, “I had a rash on my groin and after accidentally sticking my fingers in a socket covered in Mountain Dew, my fingers not the socket itself, I suffered a large electric shock. When I came out of my coma a fortnight later the rash was gone. There will be benefits, we just need to ensure every idiot and his pinky doesn’t end up shoving his middle finger into the back of their TV just because they’re sweating more than usual.”

Dr Hupsworth has advised that she will be continuing her research and a further report, including several late night seminars with mood lighting, cocktails and sexy dancers, will be published in the middle of next year. She hopes that eventually electrocution can be seen as a positive thing.

Avatar B R E A K F A S T

Or as I like to call it, B to the R to the E-A KFAST.

As it is considered to be the most important meal of the day I can understand why some people would think and possibly overthink the process. They may take time picking out what they were planning to eat or there is a particular routine which must be seen through from start to finish before moving on.

There are some though that take it a step too far. One of these people is my sister. This is the sort of marvel that has to be seen to be believed but I will do my best to convey the absurdity of it all. It is a ten step program so let’s begin:

1. Take two different packets of cereal, in this case bitesize Shredded Wheat and obnoxious granola.
2. Line the bottom of your bowl with a layer of bitesize Shredded Wheats, about 7 or 8.
3. Pick them up and individually snap them in two.
4. Worry that you’ve taken too much.
5. Convince yourself that you’ve got the right amount.
6. Pour in the obnoxious granola.
7. Be sure to take out the raisins (we wouldn’t want any taste in there, right?).
8. Smear, not pour, smear half a pot of plain Activia yoghurt over the cereal collection.
9. Fold in the yoghurt so that all or most of the cereal is smothered.
10. Eat and enjoy?

Note that the bitesize Shredded Wheat will be a lot more resistant to the yoghurt that the granola will be and take this into consideration. Please also be aware that should some raisins be left in the mix this is acceptable as they cannot kill.

I hope that this inspires people to be less fussy about their eating habits. I know that it won’t though and the world will carry on spinning with the same amount of spanners who make everyone’s lives that little bit more interesting yet annoying.

I think that it would also make a good poster so any budding artists who want to take a punt please be my guest.

Avatar Things on my Desk: Unloved Sauces

Today I looked round my desk and was faced with a sight that is all too common in modern Britain.

The grim truth is that we all take too many sachets of sauce from the cafe or canteen, we just do. Whether its some sort of instinctive nesting impulse or just the fact that we can get something for free so we do. The untold story though is what happens to all of these unwanted sauces once they are taken from the  relative comfort of the canteen stainless steel container. Do they ever make their way home? No, for once they have been removed they somehow become dirty. Nobody has opened them, nobody has licked them, but they can never go back, they are alone. Destined to see out their expiry dates in the back of an office drawer, or become a ticking time bomb in the pocket of someone who never checks their pockets before doing the washing.

Spare a thought for the unloved sauces.

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Avatar Your New Favourite Band: tUnE-yArDs

In the second post of what disappointingly appears to be a regular series, where we find out about the people behind one of the top modern bands in the pop charts, we look at the popular beat combo tUnE-yArDs.

tUnE-yArDs

Brooklyn-based team Tune-Yards (usually stylised as “tUnE-yArDs”) come from Brooklyn, an area of New York, and started their career playing music in Brooklyn USA. They were founded by Prunella Squitzelberger (pictured above) who performs lead vocals and effects a sort of improvised skiffle percussion using bubble gum. The band’s first album was a particularly sparse affair, featuring only the sound of chewing, inflating and popping, interspersed with spoken word recitals of Squitzelberger’s own abstract poetry, but with the addition of Dupe Kingsnorth on bass and cello the act has become much more lively.

The band’s current album, “Nikki Nack”, is their third, and to date their most successful, quickly outselling 2006’s “Chewniverse” and 2010’s impenetrable effort “Doctor McCluskey’s Casebook”. It has gained plenty of airplay on radio stations across the Brooklyn, NY area, where the band is from, and has all the signs of being part of the elusive “Brooklyn Sound” that is proving so popular there.

The power behind the throne is, of course, DJ and producer Nizzle, whose cool electronic beats and occasional rhythm-free blasts of overpowering white noise lend the latest album a cool chic and an unmistakeable now-ness.

Avatar The Fist of Justice

It was a nice evening. Everyone was there, everyone was having a nice time. Some of them had even managed to get hold of a drink and were feeling a little merry. Around the table tiny foods were consumed and the party spirit was rampant.

Suddenly the picture changed. Swinging through the air and landing on the table was the Evil Minion. His pallid, sickly yellow skin and greasy, limp hair were a sickening sight. Some of those with weaker stomachs had to turn away. He had landed squarely in front of the Partymaster, the Birthday Boy himself, and was presenting his foul dungarees as an unwashed challenge to us all. In front of him, on the table, was what looked like a small brown cake, but we knew it was really an explosive device, set to blow the whole deal sky high.

Mr Chang, the brave party thrower, was quick with his Samurai breadknife, beheading the Evil Minion in one smooth movement. He didn’t stand a chance to detonate his destructive delicacy. The show was over. A second blow bisected what remained of his torso, spilling hideous guts everywhere.

The emergency services arrived to cordon off the scene and the party dispersed into the Leeds night, some being rushed to hospital for trauma, and others the walking wounded, safe tonight but consigned to a lifetime of therapy to help them through their harrowing ordeal. As I got up to leave the scene, I dealt a blow for all that was good in the world and all that was right. My strong fist of justice obliterated what was left of the Minion’s grisly remains. I fisted that Minion good.

For as long as there are good people like me in the world, evil will not prevail.

Avatar Ode to a Face on a Spoon

Yes! I’ve finally gotten around to uploading my unfinished symphony to follow on the wooden spoon theme from June. If you could call it a theme.

It was mentioned once, and I have mentioned it again, so the theme has been continued.

Anyway, due to phenomenal demand (please, everyone calm down) here is my lovely unfinished song:

I was a little bit lonely
So I drew a face on a spoon
A wood spoon, a happy face,
Whistling a happy tune
I drew some bushy eyebrows
With the littlest of fuss
I also added a scar on his cheek
To look a little dangerous

Face on a spoon (not on a stick)
Face on a spoon (not on a stick)
Face on a spoon (now that’s a trick)
Face on a spoon, and not on a stick

One day I’ll finish it and I will earn a million pounds exactly.