A conversation about 80s Bowie

In the comments to the last entry, noted music blogger Simon called for the 6 Music presenter George Lamb to be 'crucified', even before the other night's documentary with Michael Portillo investigating various methods of execution had been aired. (I didn't see it, but as it apparently featured Michael seeing how long he could gas himself for, I feel I must catch up with it on the iPlayer at some point.) Shadowy illicit-album owner Rob M 'agreed'. Even though all I've heard from Lamb is a few minutes of idiotic shouting when he was doing the late night show and a couple of his excruciating attempts to interview bands, I can only concur with this penetrating analysis.

A cursory search to see if the anti-Lamb sentiment extended any further (by dint of typing the cathartic phrase "George Lamb is shit" into a handy search engine) led me to an online petition. And this gives me a problem, as while I agree with the sentiment, I can't help but feel slightly sceptical. There's something about online petitions; no matter how well intentioned they might be and how much I might agree with the aims, they always feel slightly mimsy, and easily ignorable.

The petition led me to the 6 Music message boards, where anti-Lamb sentiment is so overwhelming that they've clearly given up on deleting it all. And while knowing that it's not just me is all jolly reassuring, I can't help but feel that all this does is make the no doubt demographic-addled, bar chart-toting 6 Music controller woman think that she's achieving what she was aiming for. Why else would she decide to swap friendly, clubbable, music-loving Gideon Coe with loudmouth perma-shouting imbecilic dullard George Lamb on 6 Music, where 'it's all about the music' and where they're 'closer to the music that matters', if it wasn't a deliberate shift to move the station away from being about the music to being about the 'personality' presenters? (Obviously this is 'personality' in the sense of 'lairy wanker in a suit shouting into his mobile phone drowning out whatever you're trying to listen to on your ipod' rather than a personality that you might actually warm to but, well, look around; there's more of them than there are of us.) Upsetting the existing listeners isn't an unfortunate side-effect; it's sign that all of her plans are falling into place.

So there's no option; we're going to have to crucify him. The problem with this is the low availability of crosses, and as such I think we're going to have to wait until Easter. The best bet, I think, is for me to nab the one that the bloke who bears the cross through the streets of Goodmayes on Good Friday (to commemorate the time that Jesus bore the cross through the streets of Goodmayes) carries; I reckon that the Christians will be so surprised that I should be able to get enough of a head-start on them, and after that who's going to stop someone carrying a cross on Good Friday? This should give me enough time to get up to Great Portland Street, from where it should be easy enough to lie in wait outside the correct building and nab Lamb after he finishes his extensive preparation for the following week of shows (30 seconds of shouting 'wafty!' at himself in a mirror, probably). All that's needed then is to find a nice quiet spot, and then - nailing time!

Who's with me? It'd be really helpful if someone bought some nails and a study hammer, as I don't think I'd be able to manage to carry them them and a cross if I have to fend off a bunch of irate Christians outside Tesco. They'd have to be quite large nails though; it'd be quite embarrassing if you tried to crucify someone and found out that the nails weren't big enough.

Important legal disclaimer: I don't really think George Lamb should be crucified, nor do I think that mugging Christians for their crosses on Good Friday would be a good thing to do. I realise that this is a bit of a cop-out, but I do read a lot of legal textbooks and as such feel that such mimsiness is necessary.

Laura Tobin would not lie to me

Having decided that actually maybe I would prefer to have the radio on in the morning, despite having spent ages putting together various playlists to provide suitable morning listening, but having decided last week that I still really couldn't stick Shaun C Keaveny on 6 Music (the tipping point was not his playing of "I'm In The Mood For Dancing" by The Nolan Sisters, as I'd been hugely cheered by the 6 Music Playlist Computer's choice of Open Your Heart by The Human League preceding it; no, the tipping point was Shaun C Keaveney reading out a listener's email suggesting that "the Nolans didn't sound nearly as cheesy as The Human League before it", for it was then that I realised that 6 Music Controller Woman had successfully achieved her plan to position the station for a new demographic of idiots that I really don't want to be a part of) I'm at a loss for what to listen to instead.

Today I attempted to listen to The Today Programme instead. My conclusion is that I quite admire people who can listen to The Today Programme, because goodness me it's slightly gruelling listening. Possibly it reminds me a bit too much of fraught mornings round at my ex-girlfriend's flat, or possibly I'm just not cut out for serious talk in the morning; either way I can't help but feel it reflects really quite badly on me.

The Same Old Frequency

Living as I do in the suburbs of London, I'm seldom far from a building site upon which luxury apartments of some species are being constructed. Being far too poor to ever contemplate owning a luxury apartment I've naturally enjoyed the predictions of financial doom for the forthcoming year, chuckling away to myself at the thought of the people who built the luxury apartments crying into their balance sheets. The miserable poverty seems almost bearable when you put it that way, or at least it does until you get your gas bill.

Wandering past one such building site the other day, I was struck by the promotional hoardings which had been put up to encourage the passing public that this really was a once in a lifetime opportunity to own! Own! OWN! a part of the East London/Essex area's finest real estate, and that making this purchase would be the gateway to an exciting new lifestyle. Naturally they did this through the medium of glamorous young people and their hectic social lives.



Obviously they're fooling no-one, but this did get me thinking about what happens what you move house. Because I, who've admittedly only done it a few times, always imagine that it's going to be the start of an exciting new life, which will feature all manner of hi-jinks, amusing and quirky encounters and glamorous liaisons with attractive young women. I thought it when I first left home for University, I thought it when I left home, I thought it when I moved here. After the first time there was no excuse for ever thinking otherwise. Even if there had been any attractive young women, the chances of me becoming their friend/late-night confidante/drunken snog participant/and so on were remote at best.


(I particularly like the way that the clapped-out vans and stuff on the other side of the road reflect off of the hoardings in this one. Makes it look even more appealing.)

I suppose the problem is that the realities of moving into a new flat - people on the intercom insisting that you've ordered a pizza or asking if they can leave a message for Lisa in the flat downstairs, psychopathic Scotman moving in upstairs, being woken up by Lisa in the flat downstairs when she comes home at 3am but frustratingly not being able to quite work out if she's just talking to someone or etc - are difficult to represent in promotional photo form.

Billing Aquadrome

I spent ages constructing an admittedly not particularly coherent entry on the satisfaction of partaking in some form of appropriate cultural experience on a relevant day - say, listening to The Ice Of Boston on New Year's Eve, or the time that Channel Five showed Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day - taking the usual page-o-thing diversions around damaged windows, unsatisfactory sofa positioning, farm machinery, dead cats and a trail for the forthcoming dull page about foopball entry on failed human being Peter Clarke of Southend United, all leading to a link to an apt song for today (or, at least, apt song for the remaining 88 minutes of today).

But Blogger then refused to allow me to post an amusing screengrab from Amazon, of the sort that I'm sure many people experience in these post-Christmas days, and so I decided not to post it. Blame them, not me.