Pig Sty Avenue

This is something I need to spend some time with.  I got to it after a bit of googling having read this article about Nick Franglen and his theremin under London Bridge.  How splendid it all is.  What I most like about the London Bridge thing is, he doesn't know how it's all going to pan out.

No 4th form jokes, please. I've been thinking about this.  In a few months I'll be moving beyond the instructive but rather cloying environment of PSP, where all the notes have finger numbers on them; (some of which don't make much sense, incidentally: the music I posted yesterday , for example, had me playing  that B flat with my thumb). This is a good starting point , with some helpful advice.  There aren't any books devoted specifically to the subject, that I can find.  So, just use the loaf and practise . Another thing, having the midi keyboard which has the names of the notes next to the naturals might be making me lazy, preventing connexion of the position of the key with the note.

I watched Tom Waits' Big Time tonight, for the first time in... fifteen years? I remembered the gag about the films with seven Xs, and half remembered the one about Wigs and Novelty Items, but had forgotten the one about the shop selling Used Erotica, and the questions that arose:  Had it been cleaned?  Who cleaned it?  Did they have a licence?  How 'used' was it?   Who used it? There's no one quite like Tom when you're feeling a bit blue.  

Here's the bit of Ode to Joy in B flat major that I'm practising just now:  See, on the treble staff, the Es and the Bs are going to be flat.  And I was thinking, wtf, there aren't any notes on those ledger lines.  On the bass staff, it's fair enough, where the Es and the Bs are marked as flats, you've got them on the ledger lines.  But playing those two Bs in the third bar of the treble staff, for example, as naturals sounded wrong...  Until I twigged that the notation applies to all Bs, not just those on the ledger line, but those outside the staff, an octave below. Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs.  I said "until I twigged" but it was actually quite a eureka moment.  Or, if I was being pedantic, a measurable learning outcome. I know I blogged this earlier , but Os didn't get it, so maybe I hadn't explained it properly, (people sometimes read my posts after all), and anyhow I wanted to get the music up on the monitor for practisi...

Here's what I've learned today: if a key signature tells you a certain note is sharp or flat, then the wee bugger's still sharp or flat an octave away.  It only took me half an hour of scowling and saying wtf? until I got this.  In this respect, at least, today has been a good day.

There was the hope, which lasted as long as a match struck on the deck of a container ship in a gale, that the Tories + the Liberals might produce some kind of weird libertarian one-nation essentially decent kind of Government.  Until you look at who's financing them . The fact is, they're shaping up to be another gang of Thatcherite neo-liberal cultural rapists, wild-eyed dismantlers of the state, giving it all away to their "pro-growth" "pro-market" pals.  New Labour were shit, but just wait and see what these bastards get up to. It's all beginning to feel horribly like 1980 felt, being told you're going to be beaten, and waiting for the beating to really start.  

It was as one-sided as any of the 6-0 routs in the Premier League this weekend

...by Ms Malignant C.  And, here it is!   Well done, Louise!  What happened to your team this weekend?   I see...

The Eldest said this afternoon that she's addicted to it, so I had another go this evening, inadvisably, probably, as I'm seven sheets to the wind in Copenhagen after this afternoon's football and the permission six goals gives to a chap to hit the vino in no uncertain terms.  It might be a better environment than Flickr to upload photos away from the eyes of weirdoes, I thought. And then I got involved with this Family Tree thing, which turned out to be rather too laden with ads for my liking... But, well, if I've gotten into touch with anyone who didn't want to hear from me, or put anyone in touch with anyone who was happy in their lack of contact with that person, well, fuck you. Only connect, as The Man said. Or hit the Ignore button.

Like we used to sing in the Leazes End, back in the 70s, "Ooh! Look behind ye! Ooh, look behind ye!" Let's see how Ms Malignant C manages to sneer tomorrow. Mind you, I think Waddler's comment on ESPN might have had some force about them playing to "a high line", which means vulnerability to a counter-attack... though the result suggests otherwise against Villa. No doubt Comrade C has more than one barricade up his sleeve. And even if this is all a flash in the pan, ffs, let's enjoy it, lads and lasses, eh? But something about their body language, never mind this scoreline, tells me we won't be battling relegation this season. Howay the fucking lads.

Remember what the dormouse said: feed your head!

Comment on ESPN: 'Andy Carroll? It's more like Lewis Carroll!' No it's not: we're winning a football game, not off our heads on drugs. I hope.

Pig Sty Avenue , originally uploaded by Mawhrin Skel . ...they pull me back in. Today I met Andy , in Northampton. He's got a homemade lens on a D80, which is how he took this. It's a glass element, and the base of a Nikon bayonet lens, joined together with a bicycle inner tube. I've got to give this a go with the Chinon, and the EFKE film. He was inspired by Susan Burnstein who uses similar techniques to represent dreams. Oh aye.

It has to be Celtic. I toyed with the idea of Kilmarnock, a local bus ride away, but... Their website isn't well maintained, which would have made getting tickets a pain in the arse. And, anyway, do I really want to follow an English AND a Scottish side who may have relegation battles this season? I briefly looked at St Mirren, but, Paisley? And being a member of a certain sub-culture, Rangers were out of the question. Not that I wouldn't go to see any of those easy-travelling-distance teams, including Jags, as a neutral, especially if they're having a European run, (unlikely in most cases, right enough). Regularity of attendance at Parkhead will, however, depend on the work situation.

I notice that Wyn Davies left Newcastle in 1971, so I must have seen my first game before that date, because I remember him.  I remember Derek Dougan playing against us for Wolves, and Billy Bremner for Leeds.  I went to a lot of games during that era, and stopped going after the 1975/76 season, when I started A levels and my football going mates started apprenticeships, and we lost touch.  I went again a few times as an undergraduate, during the time of Jackie Charlton's management.  So the last Newcastle game that I went to see would have probably been around 1984/85. In the 90s I lived in Carlisle, and would sometimes go to see them play.  My mate Mike Broadis was a journalist and I'd accompany him into the press box.  Frankly, watching Carlisle was not an experience for which you would easily part with hard cash.  That was the last contact I had with real football, though, at least thirteen years ago.  Until this year, I didn't really follow...

Tasty.   But the Guardian hasn't got it all.  The National Jazz Museum in Harlem's own site warns that there are legal problems, and there's the "restoration work" to be done.  Still, that's one worth bookmarking.  Nice.

This was splendid tonight from the Proms on Radio 3 .  You can get it conducted by Bernstein on YouTube, starting here . Oh Aye. NB.  That Bernstein is a dead end, sorry.  You get nine minutes or so.  Nothing else.  I'll do the proms link when I can. NB2: Here's the link to the BBC iPlayer - only good until 24th August, mind.   And... NB3: The first nine minutes or so of that iPlayer link is taken up with the interval, a short documentary about guys collecting dead horses' tails, I think it was. NB4: That figure of nine minutes has occurred twice in this post for different reasons.  I don't know what to say.

Whilst waiting for my own tin whistle to arrive, this song, which I've loved since I heard The Silly Sisters at The Tavern in South Shields in 1976, came back this week into my head and wouldn't go away.  I learned to sing it really quickly.  It's said to be one of Flora McDonald's songs, translated from Gaelic of course, but with a fairly modern tune composed by Johnny Moynihan . There are words, here , but I prefer the slightly different version that Maddy and June did , thirty odd years ago: O who will play the silver whistle When my king's son to sea is going? To Scotland prepares, prepares his coming Upon a large ship o'er the ocean The ship it has three masts of silver With ropes so light of french silk woven Upon each end are fixed golden pulleys To bring my king's son ashore and landed. When my king's son he comes back home No girdle scones will food be for him But loaves of bread, bread will be baking For Charles with blue eyes s...

This somehow passed me by at the time .  Though it does seem that he wrote the football column for the WRP paper, (what the hell was it called?  I can't remember now...), that doesn't necessarily mean he was a steely eyed, would-be  barricade climber like some of us, back in the day.  Still, it's only added to his reputation, in our house.

Here's a funny thing. A couple of weeks ago Boy was telling me that he'd been given his grandparents' old hi fi cabinet, which had a turntable, and he'd discovered his mother's vinyl copy of Big Science. He was impressed.  I asked him when he'd first played the album and he told me it was around 7.30, a couple of nights before, a Tuesday. Anyway, where I was in South East London, 300 miles away, at about 9.30 that same Tuesday evening, Laurie Anderson came up in conversation where I was working, and I was thinking, I really must get a copy of Big Science and Mister Heartbreak again. Anyway, I've now got my copy of Big Science on CD, the remastered version, (in the sleeve notes Ms Anderson herself is quoted as saying the first CD had lost "a lot of low end and much of its character").   And it has Walking the Dog, the B Side to the single of Big Science, which I must have had back in the day, because I remembered it straightaway, though I h...

With their ability to resign in untimely and mysterious circumstances, maybe Martin O'Neill and now Steve Coppell are seeking career changes, and moving into TEFL, where such flounces are par for the course. I've been thinking of putting together a football themed set of materials for a while now, maybe they'd be interested?  

The thing is, there are Snappy Snaps, and there are Snappy Snaps.  Some of them will sell you a wide variety of 120 roll film, and develop and actually cross process the same. You might even get a genuine film-geek to film-geek discussion with the manager about the effect of cross processing on their dev mix.  Those Snappy Snaps are great.  Unfortunately, some of the smaller Snappy Snaps are staffed by twats and can only dev 35mm, but really only specialize in printing digital.  Like a one I went to in London, looking for a roll of ANY b&w film, only to be told in the tones of timeshare salesman, "you don't need black and white now, with digital!"  I didn't tell him to shut the fuck up, though it took a will of iron. Anyway, long story short, perhaps George was taking out his frustration on his inability to get xpro done on his doorstep, or perhaps there'd been a fatal encounter with some bastard who really thought digital offered a brave new world of pho...

He's The Man.

''I don't know what we have to do to improve the minds of these players.'' And he gets £6 million a year? Fuck off. Try managing the fucktards, you cheeky fucking bastard.

I'm stumbling onto a whole new world, here .

... From the keyboard of Ms Malignant C .  Worth clicking the link for the photo of The Moustache.

Probably the best internet craic on the subject of the whistle .

What a load of old toot.  The fact is, I embarked on Learning to Play the Piano with a vague notion that I'd be playing a piano in a pub one day, and five years from now was the time scale I had from looking around usenet groups and doing some quick calculations.  What I didn't realize then was that I would learn to read music much more quickly than that - I'm probably half way there already, and would expect to get through the theory part of PSP by Christmas, or thereabouts.  But that'll mostly be a hand-eye thing, I won't have it in my ear for a while. And then this morning I woke up and said out loud, "tin whistle". I've been online this evening and bought a Clarks Sweetone D.  And this book .  The whistle's got a notation system all its own, and lots of the older songs here have it alongside a conventional staff.  So that should be good learning for the ear. The taking five years to get good may not even start until I fall in luerve with...

As much as I dislike gambling, (apart from the odd fiver on a nag with a funny name, and a lucky dip on the lottery), it being a bottomless pit of a vice, I do like the hard-eyed objectivity of betting odds.  Which means this is rather uncomfortable reading , though I was glad of more talk about Barton's moustache.  You could challenge the reasoning, though.  Ashley has surely learned that he made an arse of things, he's said as much (succesful capitalists usually learn from their blunders), and the team that won the Championship are utterly unlike the one that was relegated in 2009. Yet more Joey "Dirty Sanchez" Barton blether here .

...proper teachers go on their hols, whilst we tefl bums slave away, milking meagre cash whilst the summer school or presessional cow's in town. It' a funny job. My mam keeps asking me when I'm going to be a proper teacher, and maybe the time is approaching to make her happy and to work for yet another set of letters after my name. Tefl management is losing its attractiveness, too, the more I do of it. It feels like less work than teaching, but it's long days and a lot of hassle. There's no room for initiative, either, always some arsehole up the ladder cramping your style. Mind you, half the fucking country will be scrambling for training and career changes in the next year or so. All this ducking and diving is undignified, but what you gonna do to put mince and tatties on the table?

Hello?

Oh aye very good. I need to check out birdingbob when I have time. Thanks to Khadija Teri for putting me on to him.  Memories of shrikes in Janzur and nightjars in Crimea.

Due to the current economic uncertainty, all this talk of a double dip recession, diggity, an inability to be arsed, and a few other reasons, Pig Sty Avenue Corporation is to reduce activity in several of its non-blog peripherals forthwith...  In other words, I can't be fucking bothered with Flickr, Facebook, fucking Twitter, and Blip fucking FM.  (FM?  You're not even on the wireless, you daft cunts.)  And all other wikis and wtfs.  Facebook messages and flickrmails will usually get a response.

...Or maybe not.   It's a conundrum.  On the one hand, it's a marvellous form of expression, lending, (when well used) marvellous shades of strength and humour to a text.  On the other, as Charmaine Bucco observed, you lose the moral high ground as soon as you curse.  Indeed.  And what sounds funny in The Sopranos can fall flat on its face in the staff room, (though the person referred to was a far worse case than Minnie Matrone).

The trousers on the suits I bought in Libya, a couple of years ago, are now far too big.  Which is nice, as I'm not ill or anything.  The plan has been, for the last year or so, to lose about three stone very slowly, over two or three years.  It's going to plan.  Christmas 2011, if I'm spared, and I should be about 12 stone. It's a bit like when you stop smoking though, (which, as it goes, is why I put on weight in the first place), and you begin to notice the fatties, as I used to notice the smokers.  Not-fat people sometimes seem to be the oddities, almost everyone's overweight.  Just eat less, people.  Fucking fad diets.  And these "pro-biotic" drinks and yoghurts, punted out for people who are feeling bloated.  "Bloated?  Buy this shit!"  No, just don't eat anything for a few hours, you fat twat, and you won't feel bloated.  Easy.

What?

I was thinking of a piano accordion because I'm initially learning to play a standard keyboard.  But I'm learning that it's not that straightforward.  The PSP software is teaching me to read music.  Once I get to the end of that course, (probably in another few months), the real practising can begin.  That's when I need to decide on an  instrument.  I'm 50, and therefore a music learner in a bit of a hurry.   I don't want to spend a couple of years getting to be not-bad at something, and then deciding to try something else. It's this laddo that's got me thinking about it.  What a great party instrument this could be.  But just as good for the blues, jazz and folk harmonies...  Everything I want to do.  AND, we wouldn't have to lose the sideboard out of the sitting room to find room for it.  Here's an excellent-looking starting point for the theory of it all .  It's written by a guy called Jax and it has the wo...

I'm going to clear a space in the shed Take an old chair out there Buy an oil lamp and hang it From a beam I'm going to buy a button Accordion from eBay And at night when The Wean's dreaming of Princesses, and Herself is Watching detectives on television I'll put on an old jacket And go out to the shed And learn to play the blues