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Sunday, June 20, 2004

Ripples in the Pond


The divine Julie and Lord of the Night, the incomparable Pond-ificator, are soon to be blessèd with another babe, soeur or frere to the lovely Verity.

This is triumphant news. Pond is a man born to sire, a man to whom I hjave always vowed fealty and look forward to watching as his parental powers increase thru the years.


t

Time 2 meet Joe Blog


Thank you Time mag for yr offer to Meet Joe Blog.

Out of which, I got:


Skye Sweetnam
advantage of being dad of teeny bop: i'm looped who's next.

watch out for Ms Sweetnam.

CB lookalike

July 8 sees the divine Martha Stewart come up for sentencing.

I took out the Martha, Inc. DVD and found it v entertaining and enlightening, not least because "Big Martha" (the college, marriage to Andy Stewart, ambitions' first sprouting years) is played by the disconcertingly comely Hollis McLaren (who?) who reminded me often of the equally bellissima CB.

A slightly pointier prominent chin than C, perhaps, but otherwise a damn'd decent likeness.

Of course, no info' about HM anywhere, nor fotos, dammit.

post-script: the above is, of course, wildly inaccurate: C bears far less resemblance to Ms McLaren than being a total dead ringer for Natasha "Species" Henstridge.



Saturday, June 19, 2004

friday eve CD

this weather! reminds me of those warm evenings in Hong Kong when i'd leave Dragages around 6 n cross over to Pacific Place and buy a cd for the weekend - never much of a selection, but any junky pop or classic jazz would do. Then I'd zip back to Shek O via the Sheung Wan coastal route, feeling the breeze cool as we climbed away from the city and the over the mountain to the coastal views.

Find a parking nook and shuffle home, take the cold beers, cigs and crisps up on the roof and just sit and expand.


Friday, June 11, 2004

Veirs Redux

My crusade continues, to ensure that Ms Veirs earns lots of lovely money and can afford to keep writing and singing her amazing songs. And I expect Bill Frisell could do with the pocket money, too.

So. New stuff on LV:

Crocodile Tears

Is there no end to the disruption caused by the Gyper's alleged quitting of this mortal coil?

My favorite TV programs are spewing nothing but Obfuscator coverage and I even hear that the stock exchange has been brought to a halt.

One note of cheefulness is that, across the other side of the world, an almost as scaley creature has come in from the cold: that freshwater croc that's been swanning around Hong Kong has at last been netted. Or noosed, to be more accurate. Perhaps Wislon has returned in the form of the croc? I must check the timing of when the say the Waffler passed on and the precise moment that the croc was trapped. I may be onto something here ....

The Office

Watched the second series, and better than the first, I reckon.

God, what a brilliantly creepy creation that Brent thing is.

Same old cast - and what's this I hear of Tim being cast for the galactic Hitch-hiker role? - the ultra sultry and sexy Jennifer Taylor-Clarke still around, thank de Lawd, but 2 newcomers that kept me riveted: perfectly cast Neil Godwin as Brent's non-nonsense new boss from the pros in Swindon, and a very fanciable new lurve interest in the shapely coquettish Rachel.

It ended so pathetically for the Brent character that I can't see how he could be back. I also read somewhere - with great delight - that the pilot American edition bombed with its test audience worse than any other pilot in living memory. I do hope that's true.

Local Lingo With the DVD came a list of Slough slang for the uncomprehending US market. Some rather funny choices:
Clever clever show.

LAURA VEIRS


Someone had better slip me a new artiste fast before I become a mega bore about the truly wonderful Veirs, L. I mean, dammit, why isn't her visage on every poster, her 'vox' (as she preciously has it in her liner notes) lilting from every doorway?

OK, so I caught the early ferry back to make a sepecial meal and then watch a special DVD and maybe play some special guitar before phoning a special daughter and - you get my drift.

Eh bien, so what do I find in my mail box, just scraping in one day late of the final EDD set by Florida-based sellers, 'ForeignCD' from I ordered this import?

Correct: Ms Veirs' remarkable and brilliantly produced Carbon Glacier.

And what customs declaration did this 'import' carry? None other than from my hometown of Hong Kong. What a laff. How can I be impatient when it came from such a distinguished source.

Bang go all my good intentions as I shove it on the stereo and play it at manly volume as I husband the insatiable Blog.

I can see it'll be a Veirs-schrift, veering from Glacier to
Troubled by the Fire and back.

The really odd thing is that the geezer who tipped me off to LV, simply by having her mug on his cubicle wall - we don't really get on that well, and yet here I am swooning and mooning over this major talent, all thanks to him.

To give credit, he did crack a nuance of a smile when I went round to thank him and actually spoke a few words, enough to suggest I check out one Jolie Holland.

One crush at a time, I think: let me do a bumper burn for CB - Clapton's Mr Johnson, Bad Plus' Give, these 2 Veirs - get the Oracle's verdict before rushing off after some other bird.


NTK

Well well ... the blokes who restore my Seattle-based toehold on sanity each Friday and keep me in touch with bytey Blighty.

Clever old Grauniad pulling off an interview. Bravo Dave and Danny, and thanks a ton.


Wednesday, June 09, 2004

DUI


Uh ohhhh ... driving sozzled just got even trickier.

Let me look further into this and post all the links I can find and maybe gaze at them from time to time in case the penny drops and slivers of the lesson get thru.

Sept 29 is when I'm up again before the Beak, by which time I'll have either acquired a thoroughly red conk and rheumy eyes and Hizzonner will not be fooled one jot, or been on the wagon and exercise trail long enough to give the impression of having one toenail in the land of the living.

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

the great obfuscator

I rather rushed to judgment in my earlier posting about the Old Waffler's demise.

It hadn't sunk in how appallingly ill-timed the whole thing was: totally buggered up the weekend's TV and radio and, as far as I can see, we're in for more of this uncritical blubfest for many a moon to come.

Biggest joke about the media's efforts to dredge up something nice to say about that "venal and vicious man" is the way everyone trots out that rubbish about his so-called "humor", followed - needless to say - by examples of the complete opposite. No quicker distinction is there of the bogus and light-weight than the unwillingness or inability to handle gravitas. Humor has nothing to do with it, as Reagan proved at every turn. His was rather the knee-jerk reaction of simpering in the face of anything requiring gray matter or which might expose the foggy understanding of anything going on around him.

I know he died of some dreadful memory-eroding illness that reduces one to a terrible bore to those around around, but before I found out that Al'zheimer wasn't some sort of samizdat fedayeen edition of 'Private Eye', I always thought Reagan's demise would prompt me to come up with that comment on the announcement of the death of Prime Ministers Clement Attlee.

"How can they tell?" Another time, perhaps. That crinkly wrinkly look might have warded off awkward questions, but the man hisself was no laughing matter.

I side with Consortium in my dismal view of the "press corps’ stultifying version of recent American history, a superficiality richly on display in the media paeans to Reagan following his death."

Needless to say, the incomparable Christopher Hitchens nails it with his description of a straight question getting thru, catching the oily dissembler in a "rictus of senile fury ... I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard."

But all is not wasted if we're to be treated to regular appearances of that modern-day Joan Bakewell, the delightful Norah O'Donnell. If anything good comes out of the reag'n'rrhea outpourings ahead, at least it be a decent batch of pics of our telegenic White House hottie.

Sunday, June 06, 2004

Reagan RIP


So, the old waffler gathered at last. I'd better watch my words because a) he was never my president, and (b) according to the somewhat emotional reportage on TV, the old windbag seemed to have a sizeable fan club dotted around.

What made me snigger about the tribute footage was how precisely it captured the old fake's overall limp grasp of things, and his genius for sounding not just bogus but uncomprehending.

But enough of that. We're in for quite enough blubbing and tedious re-agonising without my adding to the clamor.

On to more immediate matters:

Up at sparrow fart to catch ferry for tomorrow's secret film, so to bed.

Thursday, June 03, 2004

New Favorites


Long time no update, thanks to my new hot-rod PC making it way too much fun to spend my time churning out dreary blog, plus I have a new favorite singer, the divine Laura Veirs, and a new favorite blog, the rivetting Cathy's World, which inhibits me from blathering on with my own directionless utterances.

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