Just click play.

It’s called ‘The Golden Age of Video’ by Ricardo Autobahn. It’s a copyright minefield, so I’m surprised it’s not been deleted yet. I’m so glad it hasn’t.

I got out of bed at 5:50 just to play it because I woke up with it going around my head. Anything that has Short Circuit, Rainbow, The Fast Show, Anchorman, Naked Gun, South Park, and Family Guy in the same video, with a recurring chorus featuring Ghostbusters and Freaks MUST be good… and this is brilliant.

EDIT: fixed formatting.

After much umming and ahhing, I’ve decided against getting a PS3. For ever. There were a few things that have swayed me in that direction, but mainly, it’s Sony’s decision to remove the ‘Other OS’ option in their latest firmware.

Other things contributed, such as the fact that I’ll only be able to use it when Daddykins doesn’t want to watch the telly. Also, life is too short for gaming. I suppose I could say the same about blogging too! On that subject, I’m glad to see that Chad is still reading, though not commenting.

Seriously though… nah, not my scene anymore. I made the same mistake with my original xbox. It got hammered for a week or two, then became an ugly, very dark green paperweight, before being shoved in a cupboard for three years. It would have still been there if I hadn’t been given a load of games for free, and somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen with the PS3 any time soon.

Hopefully, this will answer the question I get asked occasionally… “When are you getting a PS3?”

I’m tempted to put something in its place, as in some type of media server, but I don’t know if/when that’s going to happen. I’d comment a bit more on this, but I’ve just finished a nightshift, and am considerably goosed.

I’ve finally found something which I haven’t seen in at least 10 years. The Richard Whitely / Countdown “Gotcha”.

For those of you unfamiliar with the “Gotcha”, it was a section of the Saturday night twatfest known simply as “Noel’s House Party”, where Noel Edmonds would play pranks on unsuspecting celebrities, with often un-hilarious consequences. You may remember this section of the show also brought us the pink and yellow spawn of Satan himself known as Mr. Blobby.

Thankfully, there was one good episode. The world, his dog and its fleas know that I am a lifelong fan of Countdown, and I remember howling with laughter at this particular wind-up. I recorded part of it, when it was originally aired, but since then, the tape got damaged and I haven’t seen it since.

Obviously, they couldn’t show the full programme on Noel’s House Party – instead they cut it down to about 5 minutes.

Whilst clicking around on youtube, I found it. But wait, there’s more! It’s the *entire* episode of Countdown! Roughly 50 minutes worth of footage, including “mistakes” which weren’t shown in the NHP broadcast – especially Richard’s “You do know you’re talking a load of bollocks, don’t you?” outburst. There is also (finally) the explnation why there were two new contestants.

Here are the links to the videos. Watch them while they’re hot, or before someone at Google HQ presses the big ‘delete’ button on them…

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

It’s a billionth generation VHS rip, but you don’t need good quality video to appreciate this.

You know, sometimes, I think supermarkets do things just to annoy me. I’ve just came back from Tesco, as I needed a few bits and pieces, along with my latest fave food additive, namely “finger” chillies. they get their name because they’re roughly the length of your index finger. And green, unlike your index finger, hopefully.

They’re bloody hot, but they can really perk up something bland like a tin of supermarket curry, or a packet of rice.

the chillies are the little green bits.Don’t eat the seeds raw. I did. Once. No amount of water could put the fire out.

I was lucky enough to pick up the last packet of these finger chillies. I finish pottering around Tesco, and head to the checkout with everything I’d bought.

I pile them all up when I notice there were chillies rolling along the conveyor belt. Yup, that last pack was the last one for a reason. There was a great big hole in the thing. Before I’d realised, the lady behind the checkout had scanned them. Gah! Now, considering that these were one of the things I’d travelled 3 miles for, I turned down the offer of a refund, and asked if I could have a replacement packet. even though I knowingly picked up the last packet, I’d hoped that there was one I’d missed, or there may have been some “out the back”, or whatever.

While the gopher disappeared to fetch me my replacement, the rest of my groceries were scanned. I paid for them, and the transaction was complete.

The gopher returned empty handed, and it was too late to give me a refund, so was pointed over to the customer services desk, who would be more than happy to hand over 89 shiny new pennies for my faulty product.

Off I toddle, with the gopher who explained the situation to the angry looking woman behind the desk. I handed over the receipt. She scanned over it several times, like a headmistress scrutinising the homework of a slightly dim child. She pointed at the receipt, and looked up at me, as if I’d smeared shit on her sofa…

“There are no finger chillies on here…”

She was right. The lady on the checkout hadn’t actually scanned them at all.

I leave, and load my stuff into the car, only to see this staring up at me…

Seeing as they weren’t scanned in the first place, I’m now technically a thief, meaning that this chilli is ‘hot’ in more than one sense…

UPDATE: After it had stared at me, for approximately six hours, resting on that section of the keyboard, I washed it under the tap and ate it. It must have taken me about half an hour, but I managed it.

A little bit of a musical self indulgence shall follow. Chad’s not around to criticise my posts, so I feel like I can write about anything I want. Not that it ever stopped me before. This time I’m going to blog about a song I could have possibly missed out on.

I was out for a walk last Monday, before I went and got my hair butchered, to the Headland. It’s a walk I take with startling regularity.

On Monday, I was listening to music on my phone, as I always do, and, happened to be walking up Thorpe Street, as the junction of Marine Drive approached. The name suggests that it would give you a lovely view to the sea, and indeed it does. I stopped paying attention to the music I was listening to, and instead grabbed the camera out of my pocket in order to take some shots, escpecially as the weather was as gloroius as this…

The song which I had previously paid no attention faded out, yet I still continued to walk along the sea front. My mind, still wandering, partially ignored the slow violin introduction of the song that was playing, until I saw a bench, looking out to sea, with a decaying bunch of flowers tied to it. This sad sight caused me to pay attention to my surroundings, and the music I was listening to, which happened to be the slow, solo violin intro to “Vagabonds” by New Model Army. (Youtube link, will probably die). It’s a song I’ve probably skipped over many times, and never noticed its full spendour.

Talking about violinny-type music, I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about this recently, but seeing as I’m here, and talking about musical shit, I might as well post this…

I now have the original, 1982 version of Darryl Way’s “Little Plum”.

“Little Plum” was a little instrumental tune released by Curved Air member Darryl Way. It has had two releases that I know of, and neither of them charted. It was made famous in the North East of England, however, by Metro FM Talk Show host Alan Robson, who for many years has used the second release of the record as the theme to the “North East Night Owls”.

Neither version of Little Plum have ever been released on CD or LP, meaning that the only way to get hold of the tune is to track down a copy of the 7″ single, which really isn’t easy!

Well, this’ll be my last posting on the subject of as I now have all three versions that I know about. The last one to enter the collection was the 1982 version…

It’s a much simpler arrangement than the later version, and after hearing it, I can see why this earlier recording was “abandoned” in favour of the later release. It’s… different, let’s just put it that way.

Some of the violin stuff from the 1982 version was used in the 1984 version. A certain section near the end of the 1982 recording matches up exactly with the 1984 intro. There’s a lot of processing on the later version, but it’s definitely the same bit.

Mere weeks after I got the first version, I did a search on ebay and found the 1982 French pressing…

Not only did it sound cleaner (less scratched) than my 1982 version, it had an infinitely more interesting sleeve.

I’m a bit upset that Darryl Way has completely disowned this song… as I mentioned before, none of the recordings have ever been released on CD, and Wikipedia doesn’t have an entry for it, though it is mentioned in his discography. Maybe it’s time I changed all that…

*UPDATE (the following afternoon)* Jesus, this was a terrible post. Don’t drink and blog.