Month: May 2004

What in the name of a fitful Welsh rarebit fiend nightmare made the people of Betelgeuse think that walking houses would ever be a good idea; let alone a giant conga line of perambulatory dwellings?

[via Bifurcated Rivets.]

Last night was billed as a London-Irish Psycho Ceilidh, so it was with some nervousness that I approached Neck’s gig at The Man on the Moon.

How wrong I was. Instead of the plastic paddy Oirishness that seems to be everywhere these days, this London-based five-piece have a very strong grounding in the Irish trad music scene. This is most seen in their electrically-charged cover versions of The Fields of Athenry and quite a long set of original reels and jigs.

The Irishness seemed forced in a couple of places, as the second generation Dubliner, Leeson O’Keefe, used the phrase “Right so” before ever speaking and didn’t seem to be able to count beyond, “a h-Aon, do, tri, ceathar,” but all in all it was like a very good ceilidh band with distorted guitars.

Highlight of the night was a long encore of McAlpine’s Fusileers with the opening verse of The Divil is Dead thrown in for good measure. It took me a while to realise I wasn’t at the Archway as we came out the door.

Very recommended.

Regarding a mate’s fall back to dial up Internet (name’s changed, natch):

G says: or maybe it’s just because he’s on a po’band connection
Damo says:The carrier pigeons could have lost some of the datagrams.
G says:He’s too po’ for pigeons. He probably sends young Wayne to pass the packets round “on an errand”

Ref: RFC 1149 – Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers

I’ve been caught. Well only my sideburn has (in the bottom left corner).

Being quite behind the times, I’ve just seen the trailer for Shrek 2. It looks pretty funny and, surprisingly, may be better than the original. I was also quite pleased to hear Ben Folds‘ Rockin’ the Suburbs as part of the soundtrack. I hope it makes it into the main film.

Continuing on from Friday’s post More by Mark Osborne is the very striking story of a lonely inventor who comes up with a device for making the world appear perfect. The animation is incredibly stylish and having New Order’s Elegia as soundtrack makes for an excellent short.

Nominiated by the Academy in 1998 and winning honours at Sundance in 1999. The animator has given lumps of plastecine a pathos and nobility that is missing from most mainstream productions.

[via Metafilter.]

This is a wonderful short movie, which really deserves television time. It remindes me an awful lot of French cinema possibly because the soundtrack is made up of Erik Satie’s compositions.

Trois Gymnopédies has always been one of my favourite art pieces for piano. Soulful, emotional, and at times heart-rending, it amazes me how powerful a medium stop-motion animation can be.

[via b3ta surprisingly, for it’s not peurile in the least]

Like ancient beacons signalling, peak to peak,
From middle sea to north sea, shining clear.
As phoenix flame upon fionn uisce here.

We bought it to help with your homework.

This article describes an NOP survey into the habits of mobile users in Great Britain. It shows that text messaging is now being used for many activities that were traditionally done in a more personal manner:

• 31 per cent have sent a love letter by text.
• 9 nine per cent have broken up with someone by text.

More worryingly is the finding that:

• 13 per cent of respondents admitted having been stalked by an unwanted admirer via text.

Admittedly texts are easier to trace and ignore, but stalking is no joke at all. Yet another example of how changes in technology are outpacing society’s ability to deal with them.

Also (via Babblogue Blog) here’s what seems to be the most high profile firing by text yet.