Sunday 8 November 2009
I tried valiantly to crack on with my second essay. I did! It’s just that where the previous one was very linear, chronological and factual, the second is theoretical and I just need quotes from different theorists and… Well it’s all a bit foggy from thereon in. It’s also one of those times that a vast new topic has been introduced to me only a few weeks ago, and I now need to expand and distil it down to just 1,500 words. Ugh. But then, that’s what university is, in a way.
*****
Knowing when to put the heating on, and how high, is something I am hideously inadequately prepared for, being the offspring of a father who always wants it turned lower or off, and a mother who likes to dwell in a sub-tropical climate. I am, therefore, thankful for my own little electric heater. Turning on the central heating to just warm up one room is folly, and my little heater comes on pretty quickly.
In truth I’m fairly sure it saved my life last winter: I was living in university halls and while the heater in there was just about adequate, it only had a timer button to come on for a certain amount of time. This meant you could put it on before bed and be hopeful of falling asleep (passing out?) before you noticed the cold, but you eventually woke up when the room was at its absolute coldest.
*****
I caught some of Die Hard 4.0 last night which was as bad as I had heard. In fairness, there were some genuinely funny moments – although they often came at the expense of any shred of dignity the film might have clung onto.
Let’s face it though: it will always be funny seeing something so mainstream as a Hollywood blockbuster take on some subject such as a country’s infrastructure and try and tackle it with super-realism. That the lingo and technology will date instantly is the least of their worries when the core facts are just laughably inaccurate.
But perhaps I’m missing the point. Bruce Willis blows up stuff with other stuff, swears, bleeds and gets shot. Twice. Or more, I lost count.
*****
Finally, I appear to have rekindled my love affair with the Estonian city of Tallinn. It’s coming up to five years since I visited and while that feels like an eternity ago for so many reasons, I’ve always felt a connection with the city and love to ’stay in touch’ by checking out photos taken there. The timing of this reignited love is also familiar: whenever it comes to winter, my thoughts seem to turn to other countries which get more severe or distinct seasons. I don’t know why this is, it’s just a fact.
That being said, today (Monday) is a beautifully cold, crisp morning in Manchester so I must do my best not to overlook what is (literally) on my doorstep.
Saturday 7 November 2009
I went to see Yo La Tengo yesterday with John. Full disclosure: it was a freebie through the tattered ruins of Pulp; an arrangement made when the flag still hung to the pole with a light breeze behind it. It now lies moulding and forlorn in a gutter somewhere down the Oxford Road corridor. But I digress.
The gig was at Academy 2 and, as happens so often, we had to walk past the queues for Academy 1 to get in. 3Oh3(?) were playing there, and the queue for that gig was markedly different to the crowd for Yo La Tengo: about a quarter of the age, for starters (although the number of parents accompanying pubescent pop-punkers to the gig will have helped balance the numbers at least).
We had occasion to sit in University of Manchester Union’s new bar beforehand too, which wasn’t an entirely pleasant experience. It’s recently had a refit and looks about as un-student-bar-like as you could imagine. It just looks like an Ikea showroom and I hear that the prices had to be raised to meet the costs. Having visited many times last year, the bar seemed modern and clean enough then so I’m not sure what prompted the refit.
Heading into Academy 2 for the first time (I’m slowly ticking them off) was a revelation – Academy 1 holds itself very well as a large venue; Academy 3 as a smaller club. Academy 2, however, feels an awful lot like a school assembly hall. It’s not an ugly venue by any means, but it does feel as though it lacks a soul. This wasn’t helped to begin with by the support act, Euros Childs, with a fairly small sound given the size of the room. His set picked up towards the end though, with some genuinely funny and heart-warming tracks and some choice banter.
Yo La Tengo emerged quietly and quickly, before launching into a squall of feedback-laden guitar over a pounding beat from one of the tightest rhythm sections I’ve seen. Their set was well paced, with longer wig-out jams interspersed with some of their poppier gems being played at 99mph, along with several quiet moments.
I’m not geekily over-familiar with Yo La Tengo’s back catalogue; I’ve owned the excellent Prisoners of Love compilation for a few years and have a smattering of live sessions and odd tracks from other soundtracks or compilations. Their recent new album Popular Songs caught me out of the blue and I’ve been playing it almost daily since it came out. But I was more than happy with what they played, not least a gorgeous, sprawling 14-minute rendition of Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind.
There was some good interaction too, with references to missing out on playing Manchester on their last tour, and a slightly messy Bob Dylan cover (with Euros Childs and his bassist joining in) in a tongue-in-cheek reference to one of their “favourite Manchester records” (the Free Trade Hall bootleg mistakenly attributed to the Royal Albert Hall).
The set was capped off with a lovely, beautifully-harmonised performance of You Can Have It All, perfectly showcasing the band’s proficiency for quiet, delicate numbers alongside riffed-out Krautrock beatdowns.
Once again on the stroll home I had to remind myself never to take for granted my current proximity to some of the best venues in the country, and access to some of the best touring bands in the world. Years of slogging it home on a 90-minute tube journey from central London to my home in South Bucks took their toll on my enthusiasm for live music, but it was always worth it.
*****
It is possibly of some note, although only to myself, that Biffy Clyro were in town last night too. When the tour was announced and Future of the Left were to be the main support, the gig seemed like a good idea. This was quickly reverted to Pulled Apart By Horses who, while they put on a decent live show, aren’t quite as much of a pull as FotL. I was further put off by the Apollo’s apparent location on the set of some kind of post-apocalyptic disaster movie, and the ticket price was enough to put me off entirely.
I’ve spoken recently about my love affair with Biffy, but I can’t remember when I last saw them live and at no point yesterday did I feel like I wished I was seeing them instead of Yo La Tengo. Funny old world. I just thought I’d mention it as I’m giving Biffy’s new album a spin for the first time just now. More on that at a later date, I’m sure.
Friday 6 November 2009
Brief one, this:
- popped to the Cornerhouse to see An Education. Thoroughly enjoyed it – but then, I knew it would be my cup of tea. Great style, good dialogue, and a great cast too. Yay for good, British movies.
- walked home in the rain which was actually rather nice. As long as I have appropriate clothing and a brolly, there’s nothing wrong with a nice stroll in the pouring rain. An iPod to drown out the sound of traffic helps too
- came home feeling a bit daydreamy and had some dinner and some wine.
- John and I went round to Alan’s for the evening, with the main event being The Beatles Rock Band. Oh my. I watched for a few songs as I’ve never been a fan of the button-mashing element of those games. To be fair, the game is so beautifully designed that even just watching it is entertaining in itself – the visuals are great. But when it was revealed that there was a microphone for the singing element (and, admittedly, after some cider), I fell in love with the game.
- I discovered, in short order, how much I can’t sing, as well as how much I enjoyed trying to sing along with The Beatles. John was nailing expert mode on whatever he put his hand to, Alan wavered between decent and getting kicked off the game and I just managed to get passable results. I will always remember the time I got 100% on Easy mode though. I can’t remember which song. Probably Yellow Submarine or some such.
- it’s great fun, overall.
Thursday 5 November 2009
Remember, remember…
Well thank goodness – I managed to basically finish my first essay. It needs proof-reading and a bit of trimming down, but the bulk of it is done and the source list looks healthy. I woke up this morning and, full of coffee and cereal, I came up with the last paragraph and a conclusion. I even managed to squeeze in a quote from Biz Stone. It was mildly amusing the other day that, whilst writing an essay on the development of the Internet, I was using quotes from Tim Berners-Lee’s book (Weaving the Web), whilst seeing tweets from the man himself appear on my screen. Ok so on the face of it, it’s not that weird. But it is a bit.
Nevertheless, feeling satisfied that I had made good use of my morning, I waited for John to return so that we could head out for some classical music at the RNCM. As I’ve said before, there are free concerts on Monday and Thursday lunchtimes and it’s be a shame to miss out on them as the quality is always so high. Unfortunately today the weather was against us, so we gripped our brollies tightly and made our way to the college. We managed to get into our seats with a minute or two to spare. Missing out obviously wouldn’t have been the end of the world, but it would’ve been a wasted half an hour’s squelching through the rain.
The concert was great as usual. A fuller house than I’ve seen before, too. The opening piece was a short ditty by Bax, Mediterranean. This was followed by Five Popular Greek Songs by Ravel, with vocal accompaniment from a very accomplished tenor. Finally, a rather sublime piece from Debussy, Prélude À L’après-midi D’un Faune. The music was beautifully played by a pretty large orchestra, and led by New Zealand conductor Tecwyn Evans, who has quite a few impressive achievements under his belt, including leading the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in a prom at the Royal Albert Hall.
Although it’s obviously not quite the same as ‘being there’, I’ve quickly compiled a playlist of alternative recordings of today’s performances, if you’re feeling so inclined (although it’s as much for my purposes as anyone else’s). [Spotify link] [we7 link]
This afternoon I was at a bit of a loose end and just did some reading. This evening I was considering going out to see some fireworks, but the idea soured a little when a) nobody else seemed to want to and b) nobody else seemed to want to, because there are horrible scallies around playing with fireworks. So I stayed in with chicken Kiev and wine. The wine is provided by my rather marvellous FreshCase dispenser – more on that at a later date when I’ve given them a thorough test. This was shortly followed by the appearance of Alan – who we hadn’t seen for a while – and an evening of Mario Kart. Entirely pleasant. Much discussion of family histories and life at school. Turns out we three are an eclectic bunch with good memories and bizarre family lives.
I’ve decided it is entirely pointless speaking about things I plan to do or things I expect to happen as a) they sometimes don’t and b) it’s more fun to just talk about what has actually happened. More accurate too. Night night. x
Wednesday 4 November 2009
A loud thump on the doormat this morning – although it sounded like a bigger sound than simply the mail arriving. Actually it was my December issue of Esquire, and it still arrived on time despite the subscription company kindly offering subscribers free access to a digital edition in response to the recent postal strikes.
The weather looked bright and crisp and I made attempts at getting ready to go out to the park to take photographs. Something stopped me however – probably the realisation that I take too many photos of the same thing, if I’m honest. That’s a subject I could go on about until the cows come home: who do I take photos for? Is it worth photographing the same object or scene more than once? When should and shouldn’t you take a photo? Why do I take photographs at all?
Another time though.
Instead, I took a refreshing shower, made a cup of tea, stocked up on digestives and surrounded myself with books and notes. I even got my dictionary out as there’s something frustrating about using a digital version sometimes. The benefits of the latter far outweigh the negatives, but sometimes there is call for something a little more tactile. I think I’d like a big, “proper” dictionary for Christmas.
Speaking of which, I have a couple of things in mind for Christmas but our family doesn’t really ‘do’ Christmas lists. This has been a source of much discussion between John and I, as his family very much does. And they do make a lot of sense. But just because we never have, and my own worry that it could come across as selfish or greedy, it doesn’t feel like something you can just start doing.
I digress. I managed to pile up a few books and get stuck right into essay #1. For an essay with stone cold facts and a chronological order, it’s amazing I couldn’t just sit down and bash it out in one go. But I’m in ‘proper’ uni now – none of that foundation year nonsense – and I’d quite like the practice in reading around and referencing. Sitting down and writing about stuff off the top of my head is one thing I have done for a long time (I’m doing it right now, even) – but academic essay writing is still relatively new to me.
I’m very pleased to announce that I have written 1,200 words (of a 1,500 word essay). I’m even more pleased to say that while I did partially just sit down and write, more than half the time spent on it was in finding useful quotes and references, feeding them into MS Word’s citation system, and padding out my own vague words with them. My only current worry is that it will come across as a series of facts and statements (and quotes), without any real flow or narrative. But I can tidy it up a bit, I’m just glad to have made use of so many sources. Some of the source texts are pretty interesting actually, and it’s a great feeling when you stumble on the perfect quote to include.
Incidentally, if you’re a Word for Mac 2008 user and you have a handy way of making the citation system format bibliographies in the Harvard style, I’d love to know. I found a way to edit the ’styles’ Word uses, and this appeared to make a change in the style of the in-text citations, but not to the bibliography. Obviously I could do it manually, but I rather like using Word’s system. Other options could include Endnote, I suppose. It’s all new to me. Answers on a postcard (or in the comments, whatever).
Finally, it appears that I am now going to see Yo La Tengo on Saturday with John. Which is nice. The next few days are shaping up nicely. Might get a bit of classical music action tomorrow, followed by some potential fireworks and a bonfire. And on Saturday my good friend Nell is having a bit of a do at her shop in the Craft Centre in the northern quarter to celebrate her new shop being open, so I’ll be dropping in to show my face. Besides, it really is a very lovely shop.
