Un oeuf is un oeuf!

That's it then, Easter's over. It's been a fabulous four day break, now fuck off back to work, you shysters!

I love Easter. It's the first big holiday to loosen those valves after Christmas and the first real Bank Holiday Weekend of the year. No one really knows what to do with it though. If the weather's fantastic - like it was in London - everyone walks around with a gormless smile on their blessed chops going "This is great. And we do what?". And the parks? Full of people getting into breathing difficulties trying out the 'spring air'.

No one's really got their act together wardrobe-wise. Last year's spring/summer stuff gets an airing but looks very out of place with the black skinnies and black bomber jackets. But for those brave enough to show a bit of flesh, a medal and a little tip: the purple-veined Pete Doherty look isn't going to take off.

Anyhoo, along with the warmer weather (we're currently basking in 20 degree Cs of sunnyshine) here's a few NEW TUNES currently tickling my iPod.


Rapture - Dub Pistols Feat. Terry Hall (mp3)
Yes! THE Terry Hall of The Colourfield fame! And, er, smaller bands like The Specials and Funboy Three. Alongside the stoner's favourite dubmeister, Barry Ashworth, Terry does a very languid, gorgeous (and funny) version of the Blondie classic.


Sorry - Kaskade (mp3)
I love the heart-felt melody in this sweepy dance track from the American DJ/Producer (aka Ryan Raddon). The Bold and Beautiful!


Just Hold Me - Maria Mena (mp3)
She's from Norway and she's only 21! Gulp. I love the fractured vocals and strings going ninety to the dozen.

It's like a big movement after being egg-bound

FUNNY WOMEN PLAYING FUNNY OLDER WOMEN PART 2
Caroline Aherne as Mrs Merton: "Lisa, we love you because you've done so well. You and little Mick Hucknall. You know, two scrag ends made good. Aren't ya..."

Name? Ruby Romaine. Like the lettuce.

FUNNY WOMEN PLAYING FUNNY OLDER WOMEN PART 1 Tracey Ullman as Ruby Romaine: "Anyhoo, I was enjoying the ride, er, you know, just minding my own bees wax when all of a sudden I was blinded by a very bright light that kinda just exploded in front of me... so I says to little Greenie..."

No apologies

A huge heads up to Mr Jason D'Luv on Chart Rigger for the report on Timbaland's new album Shock Value. I doubt I would have gone to iTunes to have a listen had it not been for his posting. And I doubt I would have heard the Apologize track until it was played on the radio or TV or something.

What is it about certain songs that grab you straight away and you KNOW they will be a favourite for years to come? If I had the answer, I'd be banging my own versions out every week.

Anyhoo, a band I know nothing about, OneRepublic wrote this track with Timbaland, and, U2 pretensions aside, have produced a gorgeous anthemic sound with a pop spin. And without demeaning Apologize it actually wouldn't sound amiss in boyband V's repertoire.

This track will probably be a single, so enjoy it before it's played to within an inch of its life! And for the pedantic amongst us, it's Apologise with an 's'.

Apologize - Timbaland feat. OneRepublic (mp3)
Indestructable - V (mp3)

The magic playlist

Actually, I'm not talking about the Magic FM playlist but the once giant Capital 95.8. After a heavy knock in radio listener figures, where they went from the number 1 to the number 4 station in London they seem to have ditched the dance pop circa 1993 playlist (Loveland! Alison Limerick!! N-Trance!!!) and are now rotating Patrick Wolf (!), Mutya Buena (!!) and Siobhan Donaghy (!!!).

The best thing is, these tracks sound FAB on a chart hits station. To hear anodyne DJ, James Cannon, (hopefully the next thing to be booted out) say about The Magic Position: "Sounds like a grrrreat band from the 80s. Anyone remember Aztec Camera?" and Don't Give Up sandwiched between Gwen Stefani and Nelly Furtado all sounds very wrong, but very right!

And so I'm back...

I just popped out for a bit, just to see what was going on in the real world... I stayed at The Hoxton Hotel on Wednesday night - just five minutes down the road. It cost a fortune! Not. We had a gorgeous double room for the princely sum of £1.00.

By the time we had our free copy of The Guardian newspaper (70p) and the two free Pret A Manger breakfasts in the morning (£3.00 each), we'd worked out that they had paid us £2.85 each to stay there. What a bargain!

Get on the mailing list for the future offers. Every so often, they'll email an offer of nearly 2,000 rooms over a month or so at this gloriously ridiculous price. Sniiiippp!

The 7 one-hit wonders...

...of my world, at least.


The criteria is: I only ever listen to one track of theirs and LOVE it; and there has to have been enough time passed for a decent follow-up but they haven't managed to. A couple of the acts, Ben & Jason and Dirty Vegas had entire albums of material to get into, but I couldn't. I only have ears for the tracks below.

In alphabetical order:

1) Ben & Jason - The Wild Things (mp3)
2) Damage - Ghetto Romance (mp3)
3) Dirty Vegas - Days Go By (mp3)
4) Galleon - So I Begin (mp3)
5) Grand Popo Football Club - Men Are Not Nice Guys (mp3)
6) Lene Marlin - Unforgivable Sinner (mp3)
7) Juliet - Avalon (mp3)

The Notorious Mr Crisp

Quentin Crisp does make great soundbite. But of course he was more than that. The word legacy is the first that springs to mind. Gorgeous old puff are another three. And according to Grand Dame himself, he was "born reluctantly on Christmas day in 1908", to his "dismay" he found himself to be "the son of a middle-class middle-brow, middling parents who lived in Sutton".

Near the end of his life, he was still as dryly self deprecating by describing himself on income tax forms as a "retired waif".

A Quentin Crisp ringtone

Well, you could use it as a ringtone, or you could just play it for a quick cheer up on a Monday evening.

(By the way, the pic on the right is of Mr Crisp).

Quentin Crisp (download)

Random Treats Pt. 3

It was 1998 and I had just spent an excruciating year or so working in an office WITHOUT MUSIC. It was awful. If anyone spoke about the latest thing music-wise I was clueless; I felt like I was constantly pulling at other people's sleeves going "Whaaaaat?". And being in an office without music makes you aware of every IRRITATING office noise. Just attune yourself to the mouse clicks and you'll see exactly what I mean. Click, click, clickety, click, clickety. Like battery hens mad on Pro Plus.

That's why, when I found myself in an office with the radio on, it was like being pulled out from under a stone. These days I'm so blasé about having the radio on permanently, I can slag it off. Daily rants about Jo Whiley (Radio 1's mid-morning comatose DJ) is a jolly sport I'd highly recommend. And smelly old Edith Bowman with her rubbish features is a particular favourite. A friend of mine once emithered her during the show to ask, quite rightly, why on earth they were talking to an Elton John look-a-like... on the radio. Bowman replied, "Use your bloody imagination", to which my friend emailed back "Don't you swear at me, madam. I pay your wages!". How we laughed.

Then there's the dreaded 'playlist'. Radio 1, whilst to be commended for playing music other stations wouldn't touch with a shitty stick, still has a size zero playlist: skinny and slim pickings to be had! It always starts the eternal office argument about which station to have on when, inevitably, you've heard Keane/Coldplay/Black Eyed Peas/Natasha Bedingfield for the 57th time that day, only to switch over to, say, XFM and find that you'll hear The View/The Fray/Just Jack and Paolo "One for the laydeez" Nutini 57 times that day.

Anyhoo, all of which brings me to Random Treat pt. 3. A track on perma-repeat on every playlist when I came out from under said stone was this one, Legend of a Cowgirl by Imani Coppola (no relation). There's a bit of cheating going on with the huge cut and paste job on the original Donovan track (no I didn't know it either until the Magmers Cider ads last summer) but with lyrics like "Spend all my money on absolutely nothing, 'cos there ain't no thing like a chicken wing" and her genuine kookiness, I love it. Head over to her myspace where she's still banging out the tunes and there's a download available of a lovely ditty called Desert of a Jungle (which I'm sure is a cut 'n' paste of some classical thang). Enjoy.
Imani Coppola - Legend of a Cowgirl (mp3 download)