Weekend Bits & Pieces

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I’ve got a hugely busy weekend coming up: repairing stuff, watching football, walking the beagle… and stuff. So here are some things I found earlier:

Designer looks at Yvette Cooper campaign poster, offers advice:

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What? Even if it’s true?

The Teletubbies sing Die Antwoord’s I Fink U Freeky 
They’re weird, quite scary and more than a little creepy and off-putting. And then there’s this video of one of their songs being performed by the Teletubbies.
This isn’t the first time the four-piece from CBBC have taken on a musical cover here they are doing Joy Division’s Atmosphere.
Yes. I know. It is a bit, isn’t it?

The Allium continues to amuse:

Post-Doc Honestly Thinks He Is Getting Out Of The Lab Early This Evening - The Allium - Google Chrome 2015-08-14 041023 PM.bmp

Just substitute an on-call shift at the John Radcliffe:

“I have planned all my experiments today and I know every detail of what I am doing. The world is a fair and kind and just place and nice people like me will always have nice things happening to them, so I am definitely 100% certain that I am getting out of the lab early this evening. There is no way I am going to be here all night. Nothing could possibly go wrong.”

It’s so very funny because it’s so very true.

a-ha to release album soon after releasing album

Yes. Well, sort of. It’s a 4 (four!) CD re-issue of my second-favourite ever album Hunting High and Low and it’s coming out just a couple of weeks after the new (and allegedly final) offering Cast In Steel. (Not Long Now!!!)
The extras on the newly remastered HHAL look excellent:

…disc two contains 25 demos recorded between 1982-84. These consist of 18 demos of eventually-released songs, including the original demo of Take On Me under its original title Lesson One. The other seven demos are of unreleased songs including Nothing To It, The Love Goodbye and Go To Sleep.

and Warner Bros can expect my pre-order this weekend.

Whatever you’re doing this weekend, have a good weekend.

Night

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New song from new album time. And today’s artist is Ludovico Einaudi.

This is the first track from the new album Elements, and it sounds like LE has subscribed to the “Here’s what made me popular, so why change it?” masterplan. Well done him.

Incidentally, you can have heaps (or more) of fun by being Ludovico and playing Night yourself, here.
Even before hearing the real thing, I wasn’t that far off, thus proving my point about how deliciously samey this new track is.

Shooting Stars

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No, not the popular 1990s Reeves and Mortimer celebrity panel game (although, happy memories right there), but the Perseid meteor shower, currently happening all over the world and photographed by lots of people.

I would have been out there amongst them, but for a lack of photography expertise, the fact that apparently Cape Town wasn’t (geographically-speaking) the best place to see the shower, and the dense, heavy cloud twixt me and the heavens.

Thankfully, several, or more individuals had fewer problems and produced stuff like this:

Owen Humphrey’s effort was taken in Newcastle, and it features a lighthouse. Boxes ticked everywhere.

More here, and given that the Perseids are around for a while, maybe more to come.

A statement

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I’m not usually one to surrender to peer pressure, nor one to take part in petty acts of slacktivism, but given the continued publicity around the killing of Cecil the Lion, and the associated persisting coercion I have been facing, I hereby make this promise:

Henceforth, I resolve not to use the services of Dr Walter Palmer for any of my dental needs, in solidarity with those protesting the allegedly illegal and unethical methods used to hunt and kill Cecil the Lion*.

I trust that this sates the bloodthirsty hordes on various social media platforms and preserves my reputation as a compliant and entirely reasonable individual, especially when confronted with pitchforks and flaming torches.

 

* unless I find myself in Minnesota with toothache, in which case, whatevs. 

Caviar Dreams

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The 5fm Xperia MashLab project has recently returned. The idea is that two diverse South African artists team up for one month and produce a track with as much (5fm) audience participation as possible – theme of song, ideas for video, lyrics etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I think this one did:

It’s Cape Town artistes, Al Bairre and PHFat (check out their brilliant House of Clashes video here). And the video is interesting – despite the lass looking rather too similar to Noel Fielding when she pops her mask on.

As a Sony Xperia owner, I get sneak previews and soundbites from the various projects on my phone.

My only issue is that the different bands are always too nice to one another. Simperingly so. (On camera/microphone, at least.) Why no fighty fighty? Whatever happened to the overly emotional and dramatic artists’ temperament?

The end product might be what comes of a month’s hard work, but I still reckon most people will really be tuning in in the hope of a big fight in the intervening period.