Everything's Swirling

BtVS: Helpless / If the world doesn’t end I’m gonna need a note

Andy — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:36:41 +0000

And straight away the very next episode invokes the fourth rule of Buffy as Giles behaves in a most grown-up, and therefore irresponisble manner – although…

In matters of tradition and protocol, I must answer to The Council. My role in this was very specific…

… so it’s not really a surprise. Giles does love a bit of tradition and protocol.

Nothing insightful to say so here’s the lovely Swedish band Audrey playing the stunning Helpless from their first EP

And a live version:

BtVS: Gingerbread / Get your coat… witch! (Rules of Buffy #4: Don’t let the grown-ups take charge)

Andy — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:09:24 +0000

So… Gingerbread is the episode where we discover the true message of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that is that grown-ups are useless and if we allow them any sort of control they will completely muck it all up. Up until now the only exception to this is Giles… and even he’s prone to expose his grown-up-ness occasionally – we can of course ignore all the occasions when the kids are useless because kids are supposed to be useless.

Therefore… its been a while but it’s time for a new rule…

Rules of Buffy #4: Don’t le the grown-ups take charge

This isn’t our town anymore. It belongs to the monsters and, and the witches and the Slayers… I say it’s time for the grown-ups to take Sunnydale back.

Buffy: (desperately) Mom, dead people are talking to you. Do the math(s)!
Joyce: I’m sorry, Buffy.
Buffy: Mom, look at me! You love me. You’re not gonna be able to live with yourself if you do this!
Joyce: You earned this. You toyed with unnatural forces. What kind of a mother would I be if I didn’t punish you?

BtVS: Amends – You got the Barry working for you

Andy — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:15:36 +0000

Ugh! Buffy and Angel get it on again. Aww! Willow and Oz don’t get it on (although we do, later, find them in a bedroom and Willow is wearing different clothes… so maybe Oz (understandably) changed his mind).

Jenny’s back as the first evil which obviously led to over-analysis – “the first evil can’t touch” says Hazel… “it’s not touch” I reply “it’s only touch in Angel’s head where we’re currently living”.

This is how it tends to go – Hazel spots flaws and I try and convince her that they’re not flaws – it’s not always easy. I guess I’m so much more forgiving?

To be honest I’m not sure that Barry White could ever be good sex music… only if you enjoy laughing during sex at that ridiculously deep voice… to be honest I’m not sure I know what is good sex music – how about this…

One shot: songs with recorders

Andy — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:25:39 +0000

Just got a love for the recorder this morning… so here are a few of my favourites featuring that most primary(-school) of instruments…

The Beatles – Fool on The Hill

Fairport Convention – Morning Glory (with some lovely recorder from Judy Dyble)

Melanie – Mr Tambourine Man

The Rolling Stones – Ruby Tuesday

Thinking back to the days when I used to buy music on floppy disc…

Andy — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:29:13 +0000

… occasionally

A Head Full of Wishes was born on an Amiga. I learned the web on an Amiga, I built websites, I programmed mailing list software, I ran a 600+ person mailing-list… all from an Amiga A1200.

I found this at the bottom of one of my web pages… I won’t link to the actual page because it was so very, very ugly!

This page is maintained by Andy Aldridge (andy@aald.demon.co.uk) using an Amiga and lots of very cool shareware/freeware utilities. Last modified on 2nd August 1996

My A1200 is in a box in the attic. I think there may be an A500 up there too.

Today Commodore USA tweeted this…

The new Commodore AMIGA mini, an ultra compact powerhouse, is coming soon. Stay tuned

Now I have no idea what this “ultra compact powerhouse” might be [1] but we can be fairly sure that it’s not going to be an Amiga… that boat sailed. Commodore and all the subsequent owners of the technology have long since killed any hope of that.

I guess its thunder has been stolen by…

Gnu/Linux – before Linux the Amiga had a huge community of talented and enthusiastic people willing to do anything for it – they were neglected, deceived and ultimately ditched. Imagine what could have been…

Apple – who managed to haul themselves out of a rut by looking forward (said grudgingly).

And, while it’s too early to know for sure, Raspberry Pi will possibly harness a whole new wave of people with a passion for how things work rather than how things look! Maybe there’ll be a demo scene around the Raspberry Pi?

Sadly I think Andy would have plumped for a Mac now.

[1]My money’s on a[nother] Linux/UAE system that you can play Lemmings, Flashback and SWoS on… ho hum.

Davy Jones

Andy — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:19:04 +0000

My first reaction was “shame” … it’s easy to think that the other Monkees were cooler, and for the most part all my fave songs were sung by other Monkees… but Davy was the most adorable (and he was one of ours too) so as it sunk in I became sadder than I thought I would…

This is adorable – cute Davy auditioning

And this is pretty sweet too – cute Davy in drag

And this is to show just how great they were – cute Davy with maraccas

Rich Man’s Frug from Sweet Charity

Andy — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:07:03 +0000

The most wonderfully bizarre and utterly awesome five minutes you could spend

BtVS: The Wish – I mean… don’t you kind of wish…

Andy — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:41:51 +0000

So Anya turns up and, coincidentally (?) the show suddently gets better.

Anya arrives

The Wish is a gem, it has the good bits of Buffy (the darkness and the humour) mixed with the usual nonsense but in a favourable ratio. Joss gets to kill off heroes (or have them nice and (un)dead already) and he kills them with such relish…

Cordy gets it

Willow gets it

Buffy gets it

Also, while it’s nice to see vampire Willow make another appearance later, I’d quite like to have seen more of hard-arse-Buffy too!

Hard-arse-Buffy

Apologies for the screencap-heavy post.

The Radio 2 Folk Awards

Andy — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:33:54 +0000

After a whole morning of thorough (as thorough as work allowed) here are my calls for some of the categories in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2012…

FOLK SINGER OF THE YEAR
This was a pretty easy call
Jackie Oates

BEST DUO
Tougher, I actually liked three of the four nominees from my cursory poke around
Jonny & Lucy

BEST GROUP
The Unthanks

BEST ALBUM
Close run thing with Jackie Oates’ Saturnine but I should go for…
Last – The Unthanks

Which means I don’t feel wrong for giving…
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
to…
The Herring Girl – Bella Hardy

BEST TRADITIONAL TRACK
Maids When You’re Young – Lucy Ward

BtVS: Lovers Walk – So, Cordelia’s gonna be okay?

Andy — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:10:08 +0000

Oh yeah Whedon – that fake Cordy funeral was just mean, not shocking… and, as this wasn’t my first time, knowing that it was fake just made it seem more vulgar – it lacked any subtlety or care it was just a pointlessly brutal gut-punch. Don’t do that again (we wish).