Wednesday 4th January 2006

Digging the new breed

I've finally got round to doing some tidying up on the site. I've corrected one or two spelling mistakes and grammatical errors (although this post has probably introduced some new ones) and removed some of the old or broken links and added two new ones. So, it's farewell to the following:

• Bushbaby - not been updated for over a year and now seems permanently broken. Where are you, Benny?
• Pylon of the Month - another ghost site, which hasn't been updated for 5 years.
• Readers Sheds - we've all got the joke now, haven't we?
• Corrugated Iron Club - see Readers Sheds.
• Motorcycle Hearse - Likewise.
• Bizarre Magazine - As a mature, responsible adult, I'm sure I shouldn't be encouraging you to look at such filth. Especially not at work.
• lastfriday - finally got round to updating it to the Mexborough Civic site instead, although you should still read the forums to keep up with all the gig news.

And it's a big Hello to:

• Muzz - Under the guise of Andrew Timothy Novelist, my old mate Muzz has joined the blog world. Leave him a comment to encourage him to write more.
• Robyn Hitchcock - a welcome return to the psychedelic-pop pedlar, who I've ignored for too long.
• Miriam - my boss, so I'd better put a link here to stand any chance of a decent pay rise...

On the subject of links, I note, with some sadness, that V/VM Test Records are closing down. Sort of. Basically the guy behind it has had enough and is slowly downloading stuff from the archives for you, me and everybody to download. Some of it is bound to be unlistenable and some of it is bound to be brilliant. All of it will be free. Not sure if the chaps will be doing anymore gigs, but if they are try to get along to see them. Provided they're not in their Belgian New Beat incarnation...

New Year's resolutions - did you make any? I didn't. Mainly because I seem to have a lot left over from last year (and the year before) that I didn't seem to manage, so I thought I'd try recycling those - learn to drive, write a book, record some of my music, win the lottery, lose some weight, shag Kylie, appear on the front of the Daily Mail dressed in my mother's bridal veil, that sort of thing. So, in lieu of a list of things I have no more than a vague intention of doing, here, in no particular order, are my personal highs and lows of last year:

Highs:

• REM at Hull KC Stadium - soaked to the skin, a few beers worse for wear, good company and probably the best of the performances I saw.
• The Fall on my 40th Birthday - A glorious shambles and yet somehow brilliant. Exactly what I wanted for my birthday.
• The Wedding Present, British Sea Power, The Tears at Leeds Festival - there were plenty of good things about the Leeds fest, but of the bands I targeted seeing these three were the best.
• Fiona joining MDS - it's always nice to help out a friend, especially when that friend can help you further your own agenda.
• Meeting up with Davey Dole - the kind of blessed coincidence I needed that night. I hadn't seen him for far too long.
• London getting the 2012 Olympics - I managed to miss the actual announcement but saw it "as live" in a hotel in Nottingham two hours later. I was so excited I nearly opened the mini-bar. Fantastic news and not just for London.
• Crewe at home to Coventry, last day of the season - needing a win to have any chance of staying up, we're a goal down at half-time and talking of trips to Hartlepool, Chesterfield and Port Vale. A dramatic turn around sees Higdon and Steve Jones scoring to preserve our Championship status. Cue the celebrations.

Lows:

• The Pixies at Leeds - along with missing out on the "free" beer at the end of the riot, The Pixies were the biggest disappointment. I might have expected too much but, compared to their performance in Manchester the previous summer, there was too much guitar-wankery and not enough energy.
• Getting my face smashed in at lastfriday - wrong place, wrong time and no fault of the venue. It wasn't the assault that was disheartening but the Police's indifference. Still, at least I've got a nice, macho scar by my left eye. The more observant will have noticed I haven't been back since.
• Fiona leaving MDS - I never expected her to stay long but it was still a disappointment when she announced she had found a proper Technical Author role at proper wages. Especially at a time when I'm feeling particularly down about the job anyway. Still, I wish her all the best.
• Crewe losing at home to Preston - hard to pick one game out of a depressing string of results, but I have to say that this was the only one that almost got me leaving the ground at half-time.

So that was the year that was. This year there'll probably be more of the same music and football-related capers. I've already booked my first gig of the year - Robyn Hitchcock in Manchester at the end of January. I've got a spare ticket if anyone's interested. I thought either Charlie or Muzz might be interested but sadly neither of them are.

I try not to mention work on here, for several reasons. Firstly, it's work - everyone's got a job and has to suffer the minor irritations that go with that. Secondly, people from work read this blog, so I can't go slagging off my boss, Miriam, without her finding out. (Not that I would.) Thirdly, most of what happens at work is incredibly tedious and possibly only of interest to any other Technical Author who reads this (about half a dozen colleagues past and present). Come on now, how many people want to know why Javahelp looks crap or why DocBook is rubbish for doing Online Help? You do? Well, Javahelp looks crap because it uses Sun's own helpset viewer, the development of which appears to be bottom of Sun's priorities. You can, in some circumstances, use Oracle's helpset viewer instead but that's not much better. And if you have to produce Javahelp you'll already know that it's worth looking at something other than RoboHelp X5 as an authoring tool. As for DocBook, well, it's an XML schema designed for producing printed documentation. There's no fancy tri-pane layout available so whatever you write appears in a single pop-up with no navigation to and from other topics other than hyper-links. Also, without proper XML authoring tools and access to the schema you're pretty much working in the dark about how your work will look in the finished application. I might be doing it a disservice but from my experience, if a developer ever suggests using DocBook for Online Help in an application, you should slap him/her repeatedly round the face till they come up with a proper solution. Especially if you're working in a department where Dreamweaver 4 is considered cutting edge...

Anyway, the point of my mentioning work was not to fill you in on the finer points of JavaHelp or vent my spleen over DocBook. It was just to have a moan about some of the irritations of my job. The major one of which is the fact that despite being Technical Authors (a recognised industry job title) and being responsible for maintaining the Online Help, Release Notes and (nominally) User Guides, we still seem to have to justify our existence. Plus the fact that other departments are producing work which normally would be done by the Technical Authors. Still, this year I'm not letting that get to me. In fact, given the company's apparent lack of interest in printed documentation (except when the customer complains, of course), I'm beginning to think that we should move our focus away from that and towards providing updated and comprehensive Online Help to our end-users. Besides, experience delivering Help is a more marketable skill than font-fondling in Word or Framemaker, don't you think?

One of the other irritations of my job is that the IT department have recently installed St Bernard's iPrism web filtering solution, so that people can't "accidentally" surf onto a porn site. Or myspace.com, b3ta.com, wwe.com, or even, apparently, one of the knitting sites that my boss Miriam visits (although I think that might have been the one with the instructions on knitting your own sex toys...) Oh no, I've used the word 'sex' so I daresay this site will be blocked at work next. To be fair, if you try to access a blocked site you do get a page displayed that allows you to request access to that site but I doubt that many people actually ever use it. Why bother? Computer will probably say 'No'. I guess I'm just irritated by the fact it was introduced without announcement and that it blocks access to some of the more amusing/interesting sites I like. Still, it doesn't block access to the major timewasters like The BBC, or Crewe Alex, so I shouldn't really complain, should I?

As far as my little smashers, Crewe Alexandra, are concerned, 'tis probably best to draw a veil over 2005. A grand total of six wins in the calendar year, more than 100 goals conceded and in the bottom three for much of the time. Despite the woeful defence and the fact that none our regular strikers can hit a cow's backside with a banjo, I still can't help feeling that the current performances are somehow my fault. It had been 16 years last December (2004) since I'd had a season ticket and as soon as I bought one the team embarked on their worst run in that many years, if not more. Yes, I know that since I bought my ticket the club have sold their best striker, failed to strengthen the defence, signed half a dozen strikers who can't score and employed some bewildering tactics, but still part of me thinks it IS my fault. I'm almost tempted to send back my season ticket in the hope that the team's form will miraculously improve. What's even more frustrating for me is that once again we're not playing teams that are significantly better than us. Away from home it may be different but apart from Wolves, Sheffield United and Preston, there have been very few games where we were worse than the opposition. And yet, we've managed only three wins at home this season (Burnley, Luton and Leeds), drawn games we should have won (Leicester, Derby, Watford, Hull) and lost games where we should have got at least a point (Stoke, Norwich, QPR). Given another eleven points from those games the league position would look a lot healthier. Not safe by any means but at least in with a chance of being safe before the end of the season. As it is, we now have to win at least 8 of the remaining 18 games and get a few draws to have any chance of staying up. I thought there were 8 winnable games there, but yesterday's depressing defeat at Sheffield Wednesday was one of those. So, given current form, I'm not hopeful of actually getting those wins.

As you regular readers will know, I don't have a place to call my own at the moment. One of the advantages of living a rootless life is that I don't pay council tax at either of my nominal places of residences. One of the disadvantages is that I can't vote either. Nor can I update this site on a regular basis. Another disadvantage is that when I do make the occasional visit to South Yorkshire, I invariably spend large amounts of time uploading the various patches and updates for my computer that I've missed since my last visit. Normally, this is a tedious time-filling chore. This time, my anti-virus update killed my PC. On rebooting to complete the installation, the boot up stalled with a DOS message "While intializing device CONFIGMG" and that was as far as it got. I tried reboooting and got an interesting list of boot options, the only one that was of any use being the old Safe Mode. Sadly, in Safe Mode I couldn't connect to the Internet to try to diagnose my problem, so I ended up uninstalling my AV software. I had no problems booting up after that, except for a lack of Virus protection. Having had a quick scan of the old Interweb I noted that, unsurprisingly, I was not alone in having this problem. And nor had it arisen recently. So I was doubly chuffed that neither Microsoft or my AV provider had bothered to fix the problem. Or even warn me about it. Still, problem solved and my AV stuff is all up-to-date now.

And that's about all there is to tell. I had a fairly decent Xmas, thank you, although it was somewhat spoiled by having to go into work between Xmas and New Year. (Don't worry I'm not about to harp on about my holiday allowance being screwed, again). This year I mainly got useful or edible presents (the sort I like best) so won't be joining the e-Bay community anytime soon. My first priority this year is to move out of my sister's house. Where I move to will largely depend on whether I get offered another job (I interviewed for one just before Xmas), but move I will. Honest. And I was going to do a rather radical re-vamp to the site to include a couple of things I've been working on, but things haven't progressed as quickly as I wanted this week, so you're going to have to wait a bit longer for those. Sorry. See you all next time.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Wednesday 16th November

That Was The Week That Was

Tempus Fugit, as they say, and during this last month or so the tempus has really fugited. I don't know where the time goes but go it does. Anyway, over the last few weeks I've been doing a few interesting things. So many interesting things that I'm sure I won't be able to remember some of them.

I've managed to have a fantastic week or so celebrating my fortieth birthday. Things kicked off on Saturday 29th October with a useful home draw for Crewe Alex against Crystal Palace. To be honest, Palace weren't that good but Crewe couldn't take their chances early enough to kill the game off. In the end it took a late, late goal for Crewe to secure the point that they looked good enough for for most of the match. Anyway, buoyed by the result I was looking forward to my rendezvous in Nantwich later that evening. I'd fixed up to meet up with a few old friends for a few quiet beers in the Red Cow, my former local. It was just a small gathering, and although sadly one or two couldn't make it, the evening was considerably enlivened by the unexpected arrival of Davey Dole, back in the country after six years living in Bermuda and, entirely coincidentally, back in Nantwich that very weekend. I bumped into him as he passed by the takeway where I was getting my post-match tea. So with him, Ironman, Muzz and Chrissy D, there was a reasonable enough gathering. Add to that Tammer phoning in, plenty of beers and finishing up in the curry house and it was a top night all round.

After the delights of an early birthday tea, complete with presents (including a magnificent life-size inflatable Dalek) and cake, on Monday night, it was off to the footy again on Tuesday night to see Crewe outplay Leeds United. In truth, it was marginal as to whether the goal was scored by Kelly of Leeds or Billy Jones of Crewe - and I thought the referee was going to rule it out for a foul - but the Mighty Whites took one hell of a beating as they were thoroughly outplayed. If Steve Jones had taken his shooting boots the scoreline could have been a lot more emphatic. So, a home win against Leeds and a birthday announcement, read out just before kick-off, meant I was a truly happy man.

On the Wednesday morning, I had a bit of an extra long lie-in and so didnt get down to that there London as early as I had originally planned. Still, I did get down there for about half past three and made my way round to Bethnal Green to meet up with my little brother, Eddy and his girlfriend,Stephanie. We had a few birthday beers and then made our way round to the Carling Academy, Islington to see The Fall in concert. We arrived late enough to miss support band Resist (partly deliberately, to be honest) and were greeted by the sight of John Cooper Clarke recycling old Bob Monkhouse gags to a bizarrely raucous reception. It was like watching a re-run of terrible 70s gag-athon The Comedians. Never mind the easy recycling of other pepole's old material JCC, give us some of your old material! Anyway, once he'd gone we were treated to some strange video-looping inna V/VM stylee, which seemed to go on forever. Add to that the loss of Eddy when he went off to the toilet and then failed to find us on his way back AND the number of twats who thought standing right in front of me was a good idea, and I was beginning to get a little annoyed. Fortunately the twats moved on before The Fall started. And doubly fortunately, The Fall did not disappoint when they finally hit the stage. Giving us pretty much only stuff of the new album, MES seemed in good form despite looking a bit pissed. Some other twat threw a pint of water or something over him but he wasn't phased. The band were really tight and I have to say the new stuff sounds good on stage. Whilst treating us to a couple of older songs in the form of 'Mountain Energie' and 'Theme from Sparta FC' MES indulged in his usual stage antics trying to disrupt the band. Things came to head when there was some malarkey with the drums and the drummer walked off, swiftly followed by MES and then the bassist, leaving the guitarist and keyboardist to complete 'Janet, Johnny and James' alone. They then left the stage. There was a brief return, of sorts, when the band reappeared and MES added vocals to 'Bo Demmick' from the side of the stage. The band then ran through a couple of numbers instrumentally beofre leaving the stage. It was all over in about 40 minutes. It was a disaster. It was brilliant. Exactly what I was expecting and a perfect birthday gig. The night ended with more beers back at Eddy's and late, late night chats.

Waking late on Thursday, me and Eddy had some restorative coffees and then ventured out down Whitechapel Road for some brekkie. You can't go wrong if you choose a caff based on the number of workmen in there. And go wrong we didn't. So after a nourishingly healthy fry-up and a couple of cups of coffee I was feeling a bit more human. So it was time to pack the bags and head off over to my hotel in Victoria. After checking in, I went off up to Oxford Road to check out the sales in Virgin and HMV, to see if they'd got any records or DVDs that I might want. You know, the sort of stuff that I can't get in Crewe or Doncaster. Well, you can't get it in London either apparently. There were one or two potential purchases but they were incidental to my main concerns so were cast aside. Then I went looking for Forbidden Planet, which has moved since I last went there. Admittedly that was about five years or more ago. Anyway, there was a bit more wandering around, including a stroll down the disappointingly poor Carnaby Street, before heading back to my hotel where I intended to take advantage of the Wi-Fi access to update my site and check out some of the other attractions of the fair city. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a decent reception in my room, which was a bit disappointing. In fact, it was a bit of a swizz as I'd only booked the hotel because of the Wi-Fi. (That said, when I did pick up a connection I couldn't do anything with it, so this Wireless Internet malarkey is obviously beyond me.)

Friday morning and it was time for a lie-in, a long lazy shower and a wander round to the nearest Wetherspoons for a farmhouse breakfast and a bottle of Koppaberg pear cider. Then it was off up to the Science Museum to meet up with Eddy and take in the ALIEN exhibition. The exhibition focusses mainly on the science of alien life and speculates on the sort of creatures that might evolve under different conditions. It was quite intyeresting and has some decent interactive features but I felt it was a bit superficial. I guess it was aimed at a slightly younger audience than a pair of cynical middle-aged nerds. The other thing that irritated me about it was that it was obviously part of a big promo puff for a Channel 4 show (Sundays 7.15pm) so why did it cost an arm and a leg to see it? Once we'd been round that, there was time for a quick coffee and then we legged it to see Magnificent Desolation, a 3-D film about walking on the moon, in the iMax cinema. That was pretty spectacular as 3-D films go and really well filmed, but it is written by Tom Hanks, so tends towards the overblown. Also, there are numerous qoutes from the men who actually walked on the moon, but we don't hear their actual voices - they're dubbed by numerous famous actors instead. Why? Most of these guys are still alive. Let's hear them. Anyway, the exhibition, the film and a wander round the museum took us up to late afternoon and it was time to go our separate ways. I went off up to Westminster to meet up with a couple of old mates from MAFF (now known as DEFRA). There weren't as many of them about as I expected but I still managed to get reasonably well drunk. Well, plastered actually. Plastered enough not to remember leaving the pub and getting back to the hotel. Top night.

Saturday morning I was feeling pretty rough. Despite a couple of cups of tea things didn't improve so it was off to MacDs for a burger. That wasn't much help either, so I went back to the hotel to crash out for a couple of hours. My chances of getting on the London Eye pretty much disappeared at that moment. Not that I really cared. After a quick kip, it was off to South Bermondsey to see my little smashers, Crewe play Millwall. It's not the most welcoming of places, although the approach from the railway station isn't too bad - there's a special walkway fo away fans, to save us from mixing with the locals. Once inside the stadium, it resembles a shed and the facilities can't be described as plush. Still, never mind because the view from the upper tier of the away end is pretty good. And it was made all the better as Crewe took the game to Millwall and looked to dominate from the off. Steve Jones popped up to take advantage of a great through ball and earn Crewe the lead but then Millwall started getting back in the game. They were on top for much of the half although their defence looked susceptible to the through ball. Anyway, about five minutes before half time Williams gave away a soft penalty, which Hayles put away without too much difficulty to make it 1 - 1. The second half was almost all Crewe. Gary Roberts finished off a good passing move to make it 2 - 1 and then Steve Jones took another defence-splitting pass and beat the keeper with ease to make the points safe. A good game and an enjoyable away win. The only thing left was to negotiate the crowded train station. Fortunately, the more vocal Millwall fans were still at the ground protesting against the chairman, so my return to Victoria passed without incident. I was due to meet up with Eddy again that evening but he was feeling a bit rough, so I had a nice nosh in the Paradise Indian on Denbigh St and an early night. I needed the kip, to be honest.

Sunday morning it was time to pack up and head over to Eddy's for dinner. We went out to the Cat & Mutton on Broadway Market for a very nice Sunday lunch. Stephanie was disappointed not to get a Yorkshire pudding with her chicken as it was on the menu. Turns out it shouldn't have been on the menu but we got the puds anyway. Result. Then it was round the corner to The Dove for a sampling of one or two of the 106 beers they have on offer. Moving on from there it was into one last pub for a few pints of Budvar whilst watching the Man Yoo vs Chelsea game. After that there was just enough time for a sausage sarnie before heading off to catch almost the last train home. And that was the end of the week for me. I was home, tired but happy and not looking forward to going back to work the next day.

On the music front, apart from The Fall there's not been a lot to tell. Well, actually, there has. There was no visit to lastfriday for me this month due to my birthday plans but I made up for that by buying a couple of dozen CDs and a few DVDs. The essential music purchases this month were:

• British Sea Power - The Decline of...
• British Sea Power - Open Season
• The Tears - Here Come The Tears
• Antony And The Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now
• Air - 10,000 Hz Legend
• John Cooper Clarke - Snap, Crackle, Bop
• Cocteau Twins - Treasure
• Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas
• UB40 - Signing Off
• The Fall - Fall Heads Roll
• Teenage Fanclub - Thirteen
• The Wedding Present - Bizarro
• Goldie Lookin' Chain - Greatest Hits
• Goldie Lookin' Chain - Safe a F**k
• The Mekons - So Good It Hurts
• Eminem - The Eminem Show
• Eminem - Encore
• The Teardrop Explodes - Wilder

I also received a copy of The High Llamas - Retrospective, Rarities and Instrumentals, from stroppycow, which I regard as a kind of birthday present, and The Fall - The Legendary Chaos Tape from Eddy, which definitely was a birthday present. Anyway, the essential DVDs:

• White Noise
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3
• House of 1,000 Corpses
• Bubba Ho-Tep
• Scanners
• Stage Beauty
• Flight of the Navigator
• The Ramones - End of A Century
• Morrissey - Live in Dallas (a present from Chris)
• Brazil
• I Love Huckabees
• Rock 'n' Roll High School

I can thoroughly un-recommend the Texas Chainsaw movies - they're terrible. Bubba Ho - Tep, I Love Huckabees, House of 1,000 Corpses and Scanners, on the other hand, are all highly recommended. The Ramones documentary is interesting but probably only required viewing for die-hard Ramones fans. And Flight of the Navigator is just a personal favourite of mine.

One final thing that's been bothering me. The Darkness have got a new single out which includes the line One-way ticket to Hell and back. Well, there and back - that's a return ticket, surely? If I'd gone to the train station and asked for one-way ticket to London and back, they'd have looked at me like I was mad. Come on Hawkins, you just haven't thought that through.

Go on, stick your oar in: