Well as The Brits Awards was last night, now seems a good oppotunity to look at some of those new albums I got for Christmas and my Birthday.

British Album

• Coldplay X & Y
• Gorillaz Demon Days
• James Blunt Back To Bedlam
• Kaiser Chiefs Employment
• Kate Bush Aerial

Coldplay, Kaiser Chiefs, and Kate Bush were on my list of new albums.

I would have chosen between Kate Bush and Coldplay, so the fact that Coldplay won is not a problem.

Coldplay - X&Y, I didn’t think I was going to like X&Y, because I didn’t like the Single ‘Fix you’. Victoria was going to buy the album for me, so I thought; what the heck, and bought it. I really really like it! It’s worthy of all the praise handed to it.

Kate Bush -  Aerial, is also fantastic. Typical oddness beautifully done. I read the lyrics before listening, and thought it was going to be crap. How can you have a song about ‘PI’ where the number is recited throughout it? Or singing about washing machines ‘Mrs Bartolozzi’? But the album is Kate Bush at her best, just wonderfully done. There are two discs for the album. The first seems a more random arrangement of songs, whereas the second seems to be put together with some relationship. That said ‘A Coral Room’ on CD1 is just gorgeous.

Kaiser Chiefs - Employment, on the other hand is pants. It does have some great songs on it, ie: all the ones that have been released as singles so far. ‘Everyday I Love You Less and Less’, ‘I Predict  A Riot’, ‘Oh My God’, and ‘Na Na Na Na Naa’… but that’s it, all the rest are dull dull dull…

BRITISH FEMALE SOLO

KT Tunstall took this one, which from the nominees I won’t argue with.

KT Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope. Love this. Fantastic album. Not a bad track on it. She at times reminds me of other artists, but hell there is no crime in that. Well put together album.

Jack Johnson took International break Through Artist.

Jack Johnson -  In Between Dreams, loved this as well. Again, not a bad track on it. Reminds me a little of John Martyn, but that is no bad thing.

Madonna picked up International Femal Solo Artist.

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor, I thought I was going to hate this one. When it was first released I listened to some of the tracks on MSN Music and didn’t take to it at all. So I was going to give it a miss, but Victoria gave it to me. I love it! There is only one dodgy track on it; ‘Push’, which I think is terrible and therefore so out of place.

Baker Street
Gerry Rafferty

Winding your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day, you’ll drink the night away
And forget about everything.

This city desert makes you feel so cold
It’s got so many people but it’s got no soul
And it’s taken you so long to find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything.

You used to think that it was so easy,
You used to say that it was so easy
But you’re tryin’, you’re tryin’ now.
Another year and then you’d be happy
Just one more year and then you’d be happy
But you’re cryin’, you’re cryin’ now.

Way down the street there’s a light in his place
He opens the door, he’s got that look on his face
And he asks you where you’ve been, you tell him who you’ve seen
And you talk about anything.

He’s got this dream about buyin’ some land
He’s gonna give up the booze and the one night stands
And then he’ll settle down, it’s a quiet little town
And forget about everything.

But you know he’ll always keep movin’
You know he’s never gonna stop movin’
Cause he’s rollin’, he’s the rollin’ stone.
And when you wake up it’s a new morning
The sun is shining, it’s a new morning
But you’re going, you’re going on.

Gerry Rafferty Official Website.

 

Just finished reading H G Wells, The War of the Worlds. One thing that I found very interesting whil reading, was my memory of the script written by Doreen Wayne for Jeff Wayne’s musical version, or more to the point the brilliant narration by Richard Burton.

If we consider the opening of the book, it takes the first 200 or so words to say what Doreen says so eloquently in about 80.

No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.

 I really enjoyed the book, but it does re-enforce my general belief that older is not necessarily better. As a general rule I don’t enjoy watching old “classic” films, and a number of “classic” books I have read - I didn’t enjoy. It think something that Doreen did in her adaptation of the book was to cut out much of the waffle. Not just as a bridged version, but as a good condensing of meandering narrative. You can read the text of Doreen Wayne’s Adaptation here.

The more I thought about it, the more I considered that Jeff Wayne’s musical is actually a better adaptation of the book that the films. The two films made so far have transported the action to another place and time. Wouldn’t it be much better to have a film set in the time and place that the original story was covering? So am I so glad that I read in a press release…

In addition, earlier this year Jeff commissioned a large team of UK animators to begin production of a feature length CGI-animated film based on his Musical Work which is intended to be released in cinemas in 2007 - and the team are making unbelievable progress. The film will sty true to
the HG Well’s novel, being set in Victorian England and will of course make good use of Jeff’s music!

See Also:
You can read the eText version here. 
Official Website for Musical Version.

 

I finished reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time on Thursday. I say finished; I actually mean I read it! It only took 3 hours! I read some extracts from it a fwe years ago and absolutley hated it. It seemed to me to be poor writing. I know the story is told by a boy with Asperger syndrome but to be honest it felt like that was a secondary excuse for poor writing. However, my wife bought it for me last christmas so I added it to my “to read” pile. Needless to say, I read it and I loved it. It is very simple but it is also very charming and funny.

 

Well as of today, I am officially looking for work. I’m not unemployed per se, but I need to supplement with some contracting work. I’m really after very short term work that I can do from home, or longer term work that I can do at home with hours that suite me ( not asking for much I know! ). Ideally placed for development of databases and Word or Excel apps. Also ideally placed for tools for Game Development - I’ve done a bit of that! I can also write technical manuals, specifications… Hell - I can do pretty much anything!

Anyone stumbling across this post who doesn’t know me, I am a more than capable programmer who has been in IT Dev for almost 20 years - shudder! Contact me for more info.

Anyway, I’m hitting the agencies today… watch this space…