Wemberlee

23 Aug 2007: Got there at last. The new Wemberlee, that is. After seeing the last club game at the old stadium, my favourite neighbour got me a ticket for, er, the second England game at the new one. And it really is a good venue. What’s more, the criticism I have heard (mainly about the price of the catering) seemed a little exaggerated. Shame about the result.

Danny Baker’s All-Day Breakfast Show

20 Aug 2007: Danny Baker, a long-time hero, looks like he may be the person who makes the breakthrough for podcasting with the first non-niche show I know of that’s independent of a traditional broadcaster but makes enough money to stand on its own feet. He tells the story of how it came about in these interviews here: Part One | Part Two Fascinating stuff, and Dan remains as amiable as ever. I really enjoy the show, and will be happy to join the ranks of subscribers when they start to charge for it, real soon now. But I do have some issues with it. When the show began, in a series of pilot broadcasts, Danny definitely “got it”, perhaps because of his [...]

A man likes milk, now he owns a million cows

20 Aug 2007: Scary. Last Wednesday night I noticed the Was (Not Was) album Out Come the Freaks on eMusic – an album I adored 20 years ago, and have probably not listened to in 15 years. It considerably lightened up an early-morning train journey to London, where I was meeting long-time business partner Andy, amongst others. I arrived in the office humming the title track, and was in a good mood for the morning. I mentioned the album to someone as I was walking into the meeting, but not to Andy. Fast forward to this morning, and an email comes in from Andy: “Interesting day yesterday. Met up with some … distant relatives [including] Don Was, the legendary record producer and bassist [...]

Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics

9 Aug 2007: A project for less pressured times, methinks, but there really is a dearth of well-transcribed HMHB lyrics online. Anyway, I saw this transcription of Breaking News today, and helped finish it off for the author. Lots of references explained at the brilliant HMHB website of course, but I wonder how long it’d take to transcribe the whole canon?

Mitre Championship Video

8 Aug 2007: This is great fun, a new promo from Mitre for their championship footballs, featuring loads of Championship players spoofing other footy virals and taking the piss out of themselves. It might as well have been called “Play Me On Constant Rotation On Soccer AM”. Starts off with the mighty Danny Haynes not quite being Ronaldinho! Isn’t it strange how your brain automatically interprets these things with your own bias though? I thought: “That was quite clever of Danny to have done that”, but when it came on to the Norwich segment, I immediately thought “Ha ha, nobody wants Huckerby”, and on the Colyoo part, “Ha ha, they have to practice in the street ‘cos they haven’t got a proper ground”. [...]

Simpsons Avatar: Web App of the Week

1 Aug 2007: Thanks to The Simpsons Movie website for the chance to create my own character, Simpsons-stylee. Truly great movie, everything I’d hoped it would be and more. Despite being well over four times the length of a normal 21-minute episode, it didn’t outstay its welcome at all, and indeed, I could easily have watched more. Hard to pick out the highlights, but like many other people, I loved the bit where, hearing about their imminent doom, the church congregation all rushes out to Moe’s Bar next door, whilst the occupants of the bar all empty out and run to the church. Genius. Then there’s the brief but wonderful bit of animation (which features in one of the trailers) where Smithers, standing [...]