a-ha’s “Take On Me”, played by North Korean accordion group

Incoming from Jacques:

In case you’ve never encountered this.
I’m told by a friend-of-a-friend on FB that: “Apparently a member of a-ha went there (cant remember why) and took a CD. Within three days the group came up with this arrangement. They had no sheet music or anything other than the CD to work off.”

Obviously, I haven’t encountered this. If I had encountered this, it would have been all over the blog the day that I encountered  it. Just like it is today, which is the first day I have encountered it.

 

Brilliant. It’s on accordions, it’s in North Korea, there’s an austere painting and some fake sunflowers behind them and the guy on the right (as we’re looking) can’t stop swaying. And then it ends, abruptly. And there’s no applause.

In my mind, there can be no better example of an 1980’s hit played by a quintet on instruments of the bellows-driven, free-reed aerophone family in a politically-closed Asian country. And I’ve seen a few: who could forget that cover of Club Tropicana, played on pitch pipes by that 5-piece from Myanmar, for example?

What I can’t understand is why it only has 5,000 views in the three days that it has been on YouTube. This has every single element of  the perfect viral video: we’re obviously just in the incubation phase right now. All of us now have the duty to spread the disease as widely as possible. Admit it, another piece of your life’s jigsaw clicked into place the moment you watched this – what gives you the right to deny others that experience? Who made you god?

Go – click the share button. Spread the wealth.

Thanks Jacques

UPDATE: (via @ColinMac7 on twitter) 

alas, not every Norwegian is a member of AHA, and there has been more than a million YT hits tinyurl.com/73yfjuh

So it’s a Morten Traavik (and not Morten Harket) that took the CD to North Korea. And there’s the full story (and an epic photo of him) on the BBC page via that link.

100,000

Sitting here knocking back a glass of rather decent foot-stomped port from Beaumont in Bot River, I noted (as one does) that I have, at some point over the last few days, passed the 100,000 views mark on my Flickr photostream.

With that landmark reached, here’s one I like from the horribly aborted Last Hurrah 2010 tour.

I’m not quite sure how this happened, but suffice to say that the World Cup helped quite a bit. As has Katrin Müller-Hohenstein’s bottom, which – depressingly – remains my most viewed photo from the tournament. Depressingly because it’s rubbish (the photograph – her bottom is lovely). Here it is again with ex-German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn looking on.

But I digress. Often.

If you’ve ever looked at any of my photos, thanks. If you haven’t, now would be the perfect time to start as I begin my journey on the path towards 200,000 views.

 

Sasha Martinengo to leave 5fm – The (un)official press release

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There was much chatter yesterday on the social networks and then today came the confirmation that DJ Sasha Martinengo will be leaving 5FM at the end of March, after being with the station for 17 years. Here’s what their press release said (sort of):

5FM is sad to announce that, after 17 years on air, Sasha Martinengo will be leaving the station at the end of March 2012. The decision comes as part of the station’s annual line-up change, which takes place from 1 April 2012. Explains 5FM’s station manager Aisha Mohamed, “Line-up changes are an unfortunate part of the radio landscape. Annually, 5FM, along with the SABC’s 17 other radio properties, evaluate their on-air line-up for the year ahead and we are always careful to ensure that we implement these changes on April 1st each year. That’s how we managed to get Grant & Anele into the afternoon slot. Everyone thought it was just a sick April Fool’s joke, and by the time they realised that it was actually genuine, the contracts were signed and it was a done deal.”

“Sasha will unfortunately not be with us from April onwards. The change comes as part of a long-term strategic plan to revise our on air offering. From our extensive research, we’ve noted that many people are at work during working hours. If these workers are listening to the radio, they are less productive and as the national broadcaster, we feel that it’s important to improve national productivity in the interests of the country as a whole. As part of this plan, we are actively encouraging people to switch off their radios during the day and to do some work.”

Aisha continues, “So far, we’ve been extremely successful in cutting our listener numbers between 12 and 3pm, with an incredible 95% switch off rate – and we estimate that most of the remaining 5% would rather be doing anything other than listening to 5FM during those hours. From these figures, we can see that it is foolish to employ DJs with any talent or personality who people might actually listen to during the day. We are enormously appreciative of Sasha’s incredible work ethic, his dedication to the listeners and his support of the 5FM brand. He’s just too good at his job though and so he has to go. The station needs to evolve and change as our listeners do and we’re banking on engaging a more unfunny, brain-dead audience. He will be a hard act to follow and whoever replaces him in the studio will struggle enormously, as Grant & Anele have proven literally every day since starting here.”

Says Sasha, “Working at 5FM hasn’t just been a job, it’s been my life. I’d like to think I have entertained my listeners over the years. I have had a brilliant time and will miss my 5FM family. Thank you for all the years of fun and support.”

Newsreader Kim Schulze was also shocked at the news, “Comrades, the safety of the travelling public is the amongst the most important challenges we face and it is for this reaso…”

I’m sorry, that’s the incorrect soundbite.

Adds 5FM’s Aisha, “It has been absolutely wonderful working with Sasha. He’s been a huge asset to the 5FM team and we will miss him as an on-air personality and as a team player. But look out for news of an exciting new show with Grant & Anele from 9 until 3 each day. I bet you can’t wait, right?

Hello?

Hello?”

(The genuine press release (some of which you may be able to pick out from the text above) is available here.)

Recursive self destruction

I loved Charlie Brooker’s column in Guardian this past weekend, detailing what came to pass when that bast… ion of quality journalism and long-time favourite newspaper of this blog, the Daily Mail, published a story alleging that right-wingers are less intelligent than left-wingers. Despite their disclaimer, labelling the study as “controversial”, what followed – as Brooker points out – was a perfect storm of recursive self-destruction:

As you might expect, many Mail Online readers didn’t take kindly to a report that strived to paint them as simplistic, terrified dimwits. Many leapt from the tyres they were swinging in to furrow their brows and howl in anger. Others, tragically, began tapping rudimentary responses into the comments box. Which is where the tragi-fun really began.

I’m not going to reproduce the whole column here – that’s what that first link is there for – but suffice to say that while it’s funny, it stops disappointingly short of where it could have gone. There’s so much fodder there for your perusal and enjoyment. Please feel free to share your favourite moments from the comments section there in… er… the comments section here.

For the record, we have no evidence that the results of this “controversial” Canadian study are correct.
Well, apart from this, obviously.