You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2008.
The first shot is of Lindisfarne (AKA Holy Island), where we spent last weekend, and I was a bit chuffed to see that it had been named Photo of the Day on Gadling yesterday.
The second is from Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which was the previous Saturday’s entertainment. I’d struggle to think of a more engaging walk (and decent Cafe too).
A truly fabulous post (here) by Kate Belgrave at Liberal Conspiracy.
It includes such marvellously spiky rantings as this:
Why do followers of God still get airtime in politics and press? In all other (normal) forums like parties and pub nights, they’re laughed out of the room and never invited back. The person who brought them is usually expelled forever as well. If you see a Christian preaching on the street, you cough the word ‘loser’ and cross the road. But there they are in Brown’s cabinet. Go figure.
It may make you grimace but Kate has a point.
I also liked this from Anton Vowl in a very lengthy comments section:
I agree entirely about religious figures being granted undue significance. Why, simply because someone believes in Jesus (or Allah, or the flying spaghetti monster) should that person’s views be considered more weighty than any other non-expert source?
Couldn’t one argue that their weird belief in some mystic deity, contrary to all scientific evidence, is a reason to take them +less+ seriously than a non-believer? It’s anachronistic nonsense that the modern media can’t shake off even in an increasingly secular society where church attendances are falling off a cliff almost as fast as newspaper readerships.
As the comments here show, even otherwise intelligent people blithely assume ‘facts’ about Jesus Christ’s life and existence (look at the annual outcry about children not being taught the Nativity story)
It’s not ‘intolerant’ to point this out, and I’d say it’s fair enough to be mocking about people who frequently think you’re going to hell and suffer for all eternity just for not believing what they do.
Of course everyone has the right to believe and worship. But that doesn’t make them more important, more spiritual, more intelligent or more worthy to give an opinion on subjects like abortion than anyone else.
It’s worth noting that amongst all these comments, on a political, rather than religious blog, there are only a couple of dissenting voice despite the tone of the language. Like the Americans coming out of their post 9/11 closetsand admitting, now that there is a fashionable option, that they never really liked Bush – people are realising it is okay not just to be un-religious but also to speak out against religion.
In addition, perhaps, while people should be respected (unless they prove unworthy of it), religion is now no longer being afforded respect by default. I believe it is okay to question - and it is okay to ridicule the ridiculous.
Update: Paul Linford reacts (from a more Christian point of view).
When talking crap in the small hours the concept of fantasy gigs comes up from time to time.
Who have you seen? What gigs do you regret missing? If you could choose any band from history who would you most like to see?
Gigs I’ll never forget include the Stone Roses at Whitley Bay, just weeks before they split. Billy Bragg at Glastonbury’s Leftfield Tent takes some beating but then again the same artist playing in Durham, at an event to remember the miner’s strike, was especially poignant.
Radiohead at Glastonbury was incredible. So were REM and the Flaming Lips. Years earlier I remember the less-well-known Jah Wobble playing a Glasto set that blew everyone away.
On Tyneside the Baghdaddies never fail to leave a room smiling and sweating. As a kid I have happy memories of the Lindisfarne Christmas concerts – a fabulous, and much missed North East tradition.
Gigs I missed? Radiohead the year the big rains came – largely seen as the greatest ever Glasto performance. I never did see The Smiths either. This year Wilco cancelled the UK part of their tour without any real explanation. For the life of me, I can’t remember why I passed over the chance to see the Stones Roses at the legendary Spike Island gig. I still would love to see the Shins.
As for fantasy gigs, that’s a difficult one. I would, of course, have loved to have seen The Beatles. Than again they split before I was born, but this is fantasy, right?
Whenever I think of that impossible gig I always imagine some level of intimacy. My fantasy isn’t going to place me at the back of the stadium watching the action via video screens. It isn’t also going to have me at the front in a sweaty crush.
I don’t want a private audience – I just want to be part of a small one.
I’d love to see Tom Waits, but in a surrounding conducive to really enjoying him. In a jazz club where smoking is not only allowed but also doesn’t give you cancer.
There are so many bands I’d love to see under those conditions (even without the smoking) from Beth Gibbons right through to Van Morrison. I should point out that I have see Van The Man three times before and he was desperate each time. At least in my fantasy gig he’d be superb and, for once, he’d be arsed to actually make an effort.
There is a point to these ramblings. Because I have actually found my fantasy venue. Okay so it’s not a smokey club and its size means only smaller bands will play there.
Having said that I saw the Cowboy Junkies there not so long ago. Seeing them singing their version of Sweet Jane in such close proximity will stick with me forever. Totally spellbinding.
The venue of my dreams is Hall Two at the Gateshead Sage. Never have I been so close to artists. Never has my view been better. Never has the sound been so good. Never has a venue felt so intimate.
I’ve booked two more gigs to see at Hall Two and I am starting to get the impression that I’m buying the tickets more for the venue than the bands.
I just wish Tom Waits would play there.
… I bought the domain.
I visited the very wonderful Sage Gateshead on Saturday to see King Creosote.
It was rather good. But even better was the support act, Pip Dylan.
Since returning home I’ve been scouring the net without success to find his music to download. It’s beautiful stuff – Americana by way of Fife and with a voice lingering between the gravitas of Neil Diamond and Roy Orbison.
So with no tunes to download and bugger all available from his record company Fence, I instead bought this:
I believe in you Pip. Now where can I buy your stuff?
Sidenote: On the way home, our taxi driver, a Scouse lady asked what we had been watching.
King Creosote, we replied.
She said she knew him.
Are the Coconuts still with him, she asked.
Update: Thanks to PT from Fence who posted this link below. Hope you like his tunes as much as I do.
How much better would the internet and media be in general if we could just, at a stroke, cut out everything related to Mac, Apple, Steve Jobs etc?
Is it really just me that finds it so incredibly dull? It’s all so “Me Too”. So embarrassingly corporate and people are falling for it in their millions. Adults wanting new toys because “all my friends have one”. Are you so insecure?
I find myself reading blogs that, without obviously intending to, write exclusively on what Apple product they have just bought, how it works, what they’ll buy next. Every other Twitter feeds is the same.
People leave messages on blogs and websites saying: your site looks great on my new Apple iDick. It’s as excruciating as saying: your haircut looks fabulous through my new Armani shades.
I don’t care what people buy, but don’t they have more self respect than to turn themselves into viral marketing fodder for Apple? Apple is a business – that’s all. You’re doing what they want you to do. Don’t you feel used?
You’re as duped as the idiots I used to work with who all ate a KitKat one Friday because Rowntree had informed them it was National KitKat day. Suckers.
Jemima Kiss at the Guardian includes links to the advertisement for the latest MacBook. Free advertising again. Imagine all the non-Apple organisations that could better use that free plug. Viral video charts are fun but can we please keep the corporate stuff out of it? After all we don’t run “favourite ads on TV” sections? Or how about Today’s Top Training Video. Utter tosh.
Just the other day I saw an on-line request from someone who was due to visit Paris on holiday and they were asking if anyone knew if there was an Apple store locally.
ARRRRGGGHHH. Can’t you people leave it alone for a second?
I’ve said this before, but the single main reason that I stick with my PC rather than investing in a Mac, is that I would hate to become yet another Apple disciple who bungs up their blog with their awful gushing.
It is not important who made the tools you use. It is what you use it for. You can change the world and what are you doing?
You are writing about the tool itself that’s what.
When they invented the printing press did they then use it to produce books about fecking printing presses?
For the love of God. Please, please please stop.
Okay. I said it. Nothing to see here. Move along.
