GoodBooks: GornBooks

I was very very sad to hear that GoodBooks are shutting up shop and going their four separate ways. Their blog tells us that their set in Glastonbury this Sunday morning will be their last.

I liked this band. Obviously, my head was turned by the heady days of 2007 when Lottie and I had a glorious couple of gigs deputising as some/all of their horn section. We had, as long-term readers will know, a poptastic time. But that apart, I thought they were an original, interesting and clever band with some wonderful songs.

Of course, they are also four very talented individuals, and nice with it, so I have no doubt that they will prosper in their next enterprises. I'll look forward to hearing more about these.

I hope we'll get the Glasto coverage on some sort of televisual broadcast thing. That would be nice. I can't make my mind up whether I want them to do Passchendaele (great song, nice to hear it) or don't want them to (green with envy and a bit sad because we're not there). Hmmmm and ho hum, eh?

If I have one regret it's that I never got to join in the chanting in Walk With Me. I'd have liked that. Here we go: "Oh, come on, walk with me, I want you to walk with me!" See? I'm good at it! The next time my pop-o-tronic pop music career erupts poptrumpetastically on a helpless and astonished universe (this is scheduled to be in about 2032 I think) I reckon I'll have to be a bit more proactive about asking (nicely) to do (nice) things.

Bye bye boys, it was great.

Update-o-blog-o-irony: I wrote that last night. This morning, in one of those piquant little twists that a slightly bored Fate enjoys teasing us with, the very first two things that came up on Random Pleyel on my Wretched Young Persons' Portable Phonographic Device were the unmistakeable sound of GoodBooks (The Butcher [We All Fear for You] since you ask) followed by the equally unmistakeable sound of the lovely Ian McMillan Orchestra, who of course were one of the other acts in the Radio 4 Loose Ends programme that was such a jolly jape. (Just for the sake of completeness and my mild OCD let me tell you that they were performing The Shanty Attacker.) So the first few minutes of my journey into work were a sort of little recapitulation of the flavour of that enormously enjoyable gig.

Now OK, randomness is random, which is why they call it "random", and a statistician could tell you why this little coincidence probably isn't really so amazing, because that is pretty much what we pay them to do. Even so, it was quite a cool moment, and I liked it.

• GoodBookDex™

Photo by courtesy of James at Mallinsons.

Links-I-Liked

So, farewell then:

• Living with Bert - very amusing, sometimes tinged with a touch of, erm, affectionate bitterness or something. Not updated since 15th April 2008. Your guess is as good as mine. I miss it.
• Punclox: inexplicable group writing by Wretched Young Persons™. Do not let your auntie read it. Well that's what it used to say. However, your auntie cannot now read it anyway so that risk is past; indeed only members of the Punclox Inner Circle™ can read it as it is no longer public. Where on Earth will confused people go looking for Donnie Darko hints now? The world is a duller place without Punclox and I salute it (attempts to make complicated saluting gesture but falls over).

I have removed these two from Links-I-Like and I have officially recategorized them as Links-I-Liked. They are now to be found in storage at Wookey Hole caves.

ITG 2009 – miscellaneous weebling on about stuff

I thought I might use this page for some miscellaneous weebling on about stuff, if that’s OK with you?

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 - travel

Yes it’s a laugh a minute with Vogel’s adventure-o-licious travel stories.

Er, or not.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 - venues

Oh alright then. I’ll regret this, I can see it now.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 – food

Did you really expect me to ignore this important, nay consuming (ahahaha) topic? No, me neither.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 - Harrisburg

About the very pleasant city. Am I including venues in here? Hmm not sure, watch this space.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 – Gettysburg

We went to Gettysburg. I’m working on my write-up. Honest I am.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009 - gigs

Well you’ll find lots of coverage online – see my main ITG 2009 page for links – so I am just going to pick out a few things which appealed for one reason or another.

• ITGdex 2009

ITG 2009

Well at the risk of stating the obvious I did make it to ITG 2009, the International Trumpet Guild’s 34th annual conference, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Here are some external links:

• Main conference site
• ITG conference coverage
• Twitter
• Trumpet Herald forum
• Facebook
• ITG home page

It became pretty obvious that I couldn’t even attempt to do proper blog entries while at ITG so instead I'm going to try to do some short sketches in the hope of getting something of the flavo[u]r down. I’m not quite 100% clear in my head (well actually I am usually not even 8% clear in my head, but that’s another story) how exactly I will structure this … but I’ll think of something.
I had a wonderful time!

Oopsie bumbum - never wrote a word. Shall I just zap the lot, or keep them here in the hope that one day I will write something, perhaps when the guilt overpowers the laziness? What do you think? Tamsin? Colin? Anyone??

• ITGdex 2009

ITGdex 2009

• ITG 2009 - Intro and external links
• Food
• Gettysburg
• Gigs
• Harrisburg
• Miscellaneous weebling on about stuff
• Travel
• Venues

Yes, they’re in alphabetical order after the home page. Or did you think I’d just put food first anyway? Thank you Colin, see me afterwards please.

Horrible crap disaster reporting

Distraught relatives prepare for the worst as they wait for news of Air France flight 447, which disappeared off the radar between Brazil and France early on Monday.

Well thank goodness they were allowed to do so in the calm and privacy of, er, having 63 cameras shoved up their noses. I should think that that will have made them feel much better, plus we the public really needed to see those photos. Come to think of it, maybe they could be asked to pose again, looking a touch more photogenic, and with more tears visible please? And get that woman to move her hand so we can see her grief-stricken face better? That would be nice.

I know I sound like a retired colonel, more and more so, but really, is there no room for restraint at all in a story like this? Hmph.

Orange mobile customer services

Totally brilliant, 10/10. Martha's lost mobile phone sorted out in seconds, replacement on its way, absolute minimum pain and hassle. And a nice Geordie accent too. What could be better?

As you know I like to be rude about companies being useless. This lot, on the other hand, deserve a big bunch of flowers and a strawberry yoghurt for their superb service. Thank you very much, roger dodger, Vogel out.

So, am I actually going to the US on Sunday?

So, am I actually going to the US on Sunday? I am supposed to be at the ITG conference yay woo. My Dearest Muvver is a guest at the very fine (though architecturally bizarre) Southlands Hospital. Come Monday, am I going to be in Harrisburg, PA, or in Shoreham, West Sussex? Tamsin, I don’t know, dear child: you tell me. 

Hmmmm.

Hip hip boo

Brief summary: things seemed difficult already, then my mum broke her hip.

We apologize for the gap in blogulistic service. As you know I do not blog about serious matters, and the broken hip is fundamentally unfunny.

Thank you.

                      Da Management

 

Language note to Americans and others: “mum” is a BrE word similar in meaning to the AmE expression “mom”. Strangely they have quite different origins, “mom” being descended from the epidemiological term “multiple of the median” which has escaped into everyday language during statistical discussions on perinatal health figures, while “mum” is a contraction of “maximum”, a reference to the size of a pregnant lady close to term. It is the purest coincidence that they have ended up sounding similar. Compare “boot” and “trunk” – no-one would have guessed they are both parts of a helicopter. Isn’t English funny? Aha.

My sensible part

Goodness me!

Someone purporting to be the Abbey has kindly written to me to ask me to log into their site and sort my account out. Oddly their site is not at Abbey.com as you might expect

Unfortunately, we are unable to verify your online banking account successfully. To ensure your protection, we've now blocked access to your sensible part of your accounts.

I must say that I am a little upset about them having blocked access to my sensible part. I guess I'll just have to live with it. Ah me.

Sunshine, woohoo!

It’s another beautiful morning in Londontown, Englandland. The city looks lovely; our site looks lovely. Even the man in the Italian cafe looks lovely as indeed does his wife.

Talking of spouses (do you see what I did there?) Mrs von Neustadt was in Vicenza and Udine Sunday-Tuesday, doing some teaching and flying the flag, and was extremely miffed to find that we seemed to have swapped weathers – we were cavorting (well, up to a point) around in the sunshine while she was trudging through rainswept though beautiful streets in Italy with a brolly borrowed from the hotel. Life is just so unfair sometimes, he roared with laughter  empathized.

I am going orienteering tomorrow – a little local event run by my own club at Mardley Heath (pdf). I am not sure what the weather is supposed to be doing but I really really hope it holds. I’ve been seeing bluebells in greater and greater numbers over the last week or two and the last time I was at Mardley it was spectacular – indeed it was breathtaking, and I don’t just mean because of my wheezing attempts to run. It’s the insane intensity of bluebells that gets to me so if it’s a good display tomorrow I will really be in floral heaven.

And now I must address issues of databases, scanned graphics, and linking charts in a web site. Hi ho, hi ho, etc.

Have a nice day now y’all!

Jewish Mother

There are already a good many definitions of a Jewish Mother, with close to 100% featuring Chicken Soup. And why not?

I would like to suggest, however, that a new subspecies of definition might be considered. This is not yet properly formulated but broadly speaking would propose that Jewish Mothers do not see autostereograms, either because they can’t, or because they won’t. (They do after all have Chicken Soup to prepare.)

Obviously this is just in the early planning and consultation stages but I may consider taking it to t’Committee with a view to refining it into a pithy witty aphorism (whatever one of those might be) for release in Q2 2011.

Thank you for reading. Pass the gefilte fish. Thank you. Mmm.

Pessimist

A pessimist is someone who accepts the offer of a loyalty card at the hospital coffee shop.

Error-Message-I-Like-a-Blog™

Yes! Yes! I like this error message! There should be more like this, more I tell you. More, more! Muuuahhhahahaha haahahah ahaha hahahah ahahahah ahah ahah aha haha haha!

In other news: as you can see, I am installing SQL Server, well the client side of it anyway (if that is not too, ah, oxymoronic for you) on my office PC. Oddly, I find that I am enjoying myself…