Rev Stan's other stuff

QotD: Sick Day

What's your favorite thing about being sick?

Being sick is pretty miserable but if I'm on the mend and feeling up to it then watching daytime telly can sometimes be novel. For a short while. (I'm assuming this is aimed at America where throwing the odd sickie is part of your holiday allocation).

Clocks

And no not the song by Coldplay even though I happen to like it, but the whole adjusting time malarkey. Why do we do it? It's light in the evening until nearly 6.30pm now. The kids have long been back from school, factory and agricultural workers I'm sure finished hours ago so that leaves us office workers, most of whom are used to going to work and getting home in the dark during the weeks of mid winter and are revelling in the already expanding lighter hours.
Modern society has moved on. We no longer need the extra hours of daylight to bring in the crops or whatever. Kids aren't walking home in the dark so why screw up my body clock for a few days and give me one less valuable hour of my weekend until the autumn?
Gripe. Moan. Whinge. I'm going to bed now so I get to sleep before the 'early hours'.

Vox Hunt: Drink Up

Show us a beverage you absolutely can't stand the taste of.

Makes my nose curl

Don't like beer or lager either. Wish I did as it would make it so much easier to get a drink when I'm travelling.

Three things

Muse.
HAARP

Muse

Tribute to Alexander Rodchenko by Stan & Mosh

It's all about the angles

Day of culture

Easter snow

Decided to make the most of the fabulous four-day Easter weekend this year and get out and about in this wonderful city, despite the freezing cold, snowy and wet weather.

Alexander Rodchenko

With a Spanish movie already under my belt it was time to take in a gallery and so Mosh and I headed to the Haywards on the South Bank for the Alexander Rodchenko photography exhibition which was excellent. He had an amazing eye for angles and perspective in his pictures and certainly pushed the boundaries 70 or so year ago.
There was also a free exhibition about comedy in art or humour in art and whether it transcends cultural difference or something but that was far from impressive. It didn't even amuse. Perhaps my height was a problem and it went straight over my head.

Lovely food at World Food Cafe

Now it can't really be classed as cultural but we then headed to Covent Garden for lunch and my first visit to the World Food Cafe in Neals Yard. I've always wanted to eat there ever since buying the cook book which was a regular source of inspiration for the years I was a vegetarian. For those who aren't familiar it is a collection of recipes from around the world that are either naturally meat-free or have been adapted.
So used has been the book that one dish, African sweet potato stew, is something I can now cook without the recipe and of course I couldn't resist ordering it. It was beautifully presented, really tasty and, I was pleased to note, very similar to my own attempts.
Anyway, enough of food and onto the highlight of the day: the theatre. As soon as I heard about the cast: Ralph Fiennes, Ken Stott, Tamsin Greig and Janet McTeer I knew I had to go and see God of Carnage, at the Gielgud Theatre without knowing anything of the story.

It's a new play by French playwright Yasmina Riza who is probably best know for Art and is based around the meeting of two sets of parents brought together when one couple's 11 year old son hits the others with a stick, knocking two teeth out.
What starts out as a strained but civilised discussion on how to deal with the incident soon begins to unravel and descend into something that while comical and extremely amusing it also very revealing about human nature.
It is an expertly constructed and pitched play aided by four superbly timed performances. There are so many deliciously entertaining moments and bits of dialogue I could write pages but at the very least, it was enjoyable to be entertained by such a high calibre cast including an Oscar winner.
Am going to have to do something very low-brow for the rest of the weekend after all that.

Nearly Sunday cinema

The Orphanage

Just been to see  Spanish director Juan Anthonio Bayona's film the Orphanage. I'm not a big fan of scary movies owing to the fact that they usually work too well but a recommendation from a friend swayed me. I settled down with my pop corn at the wonderful Curzon Soho determined to enjoy the film while not allowing myself to be scared half to death.
It is the story of a woman who returns with her family to live in the house that was the orphanage she grew up in. Her adopted son claims to hear children in the house and I won't say any more.
Don't be put off by the marketing image, it is a much more sophisticated offering than the posters would suggest. Skillfully crafted to create tension and intrigue with a couple of jump out of your seat moments thrown in for good measure. It is evenly paced towards a chilling, climactic and clever twist that gives the whole film a tragic depth that is rare is such a genre of film.
Go see it.

RIP Astoria

The Astoria - facing the chop

And so the axe is finally to fall on the Astoria my second favourite London music venue. It is part of a larger block being demolished to make way for a new underground Crossrail station.
I'll be sad to see the sticky-floored flea-pit go. It is probably the largest music venue in central London and has a reputation for putting on an eclectic mixture of entertainment from its famed G.A.Y nights at which the likes of Kylie have guested to heavy metal bands.
Mosh and I have spent many an hour watching gigs from the safety of the tiered balconies (brilliant for short-arses like me because I can actually see everything that is going on).
I've been trying to think of some of the bands I've seen and there is one particular gig that will forever stick in my memory - although Mosh will probably read this and tell me it was a different venue.
Not one to let the facts get in the way of a great story, it was Anthrax, who were on good form or 'rocked' I believe is the accepted term these days. And the reason the gig will always stand out in my mind is that the lead singer climbed up onto a 6ft high speaker stack at the side of the stage where the audience expected him to rock out bit, which he did, before launching himself into what can only be described as a stage 'high' dive. It was high enough he probably could have put in a somersault if he'd given it a bit more thought.
Miraculously the crowd below caught him. (I bloody wouldn't have, singer of a rock band or not.) It was quite cool though.
I remember when gigs at venues like the Astoria, Brixton Academy and Kentish Town Forum regularly had stage diving and crowd surfing. Of course it's all high security now and you have to go to much small venues to be within touching distance of the stage. Crowd surfing has gone the way of smoking and been pretty much banned even to the point where you sometimes see signs warning against it.
Health and safety gone mad I reckon but I won't go there as that leads into a whole different area to moan about.
There are proposals for a replacement venue when the site gets redeveloped over the new station but it will be all clean and shiny and, lets face it, not very rock n' roll.
When the diggers move in at the end of the year, it will sad day indeed.

QotD: Time for Change

If you could go back and change one thing you've done in your life, what would it be?
Submitted by Devinoid.

That sounds like a regret to me and that is living in the past, which is pointless. Move on with a greater degree of wisdom.

I spied or one for the girls

I have a bit of a thing about spies. Therefore, it is with mixed emotions that I read this

Sexy spy no. 2

morning that sexy spy no. 2, Rupert Penry-Jones is to step aside during the next series of Spooks for Richard Armitage, or sexy spy no. 3 as he will be called.
It could be seen as jumping the gun a bit, bestowing on Mr Armitage the gilted sexy spy title when he hasn't even been seen in the role yet, especially P-J took a bit of warming to when he took over from Matthew Macfadyen the orginal and still missed sexy spy no.1.

Hello sexy spy no.3

I will be sad to see P-J meet with what will inevitably be an untimely end - I believe in BBC parlance the correct phrase is 'explosive end' - but Armitage already has a bit of a reputation on the Rev Stanley purrr-o-meter for his role as leather-clad Guy of Gisburne in the BBC's Robin Hood.
Like I said, mixed emotions...

Disclaimer: This post was written to accurately reflect genuine anguish and in no way provide an excuse to look up images of good looking actors on Google. Absolutely not. No.

QotW: Spring in My Step

For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is upon us. How does your life change as the weather gets warmer? 

Apart from feeling a bit more cheerful, I get some extra time as I don't have to put on so many layers before going outside. This is particularly significant when I'm working as it means less clothing to change into and out of for my commute by bicycle. Those five-ten minutes soon add up over the weeks.

QotW: Just Added...

What was the last song you added to your MP3 player? (Bonus points, as always, if you share it with us!)
Submitted by Julie.

It was Goldfrapp's new album Seventh Tree. Technically I should put the last track on the album up as that would be the last one to go onto my iPod but I feel like bending the rules and putting the first track Clowns which is beautiful.

1-01 Clowns

Goldfrapp

Culture QotD: Postcards from the Edge

What's the worst travel experience you've ever had?

Australia '95. Philippine airlines. 16 hours late. I wrote a poem during the experience:

Travel, broaden your mind,

See countless airport departure lounges

Of every possible kind.

(They've since gone bust, thank heavens.)

Vox Hunt: I Saw the Sign

Public convenience sign in Turkey

Show us a sign.

Over Cannes-out

Yep survived another year and this time I've made it onto the Eurostar, albeit with a 30 min delay, with the madness of the week rapidly becoming a distant speck..
We are under the English channel so soon shall be back on British soil once again and back to a semblence of sanity.
There was no english breakfast served on a spoon this year instead down-on-its-luck Bradford rolled out Linda Barker of crap furniture ad and TV makeover fame to promote the city. God knows who thought that was an effective use of however much money she cost.

I did make a bit of a tit of myself by only recognising her enough to think she must be a PR I'd met last year. "Oh I thought I recognised your face" is probably not the best line to use when introduced to a 'celebrity'.

Ms Barker, however, did recount the tale of her rushed journey to Heathrow in which, following a delay in traffic, she decided to park in the short stay car park. (For those who aren't familiar with parking at Heathrow it is bloody expensive parking in the short stay for anything other than a very short stay). The purpose was, I imagine to amuse us with the dilemma she found herself in when the machine wouldn't give her a ticket: Should she go to the attendant and explain the fault before leaving the car park or wait until she returned when she gamble on getting away with paying less. A dilemma indeed and as you are no doubt curious to know that she got a ticket before getting on the plane. 

But there is a humorous element to the tale, trust me. While Ms Barker was telling us about this incident one of the two PR's that listening piped up: "are we picking up the tab for the short stay car park" which was followed by a stoney silence.

Good to see the the URC's budget is being spent on essentials.

The other silliness to note was a Russian town being promoted by three identically dressed models sporting pregnancy bumps and pushing around prams with towers coming out of them. Birth of a new town apparently. (Do you see what they've done there). It certainly got everyone talking but not about the town as not a single person I spoke to remembered the town's name.
There are numerous other tales I could recount but I've had quite enough for one year. Mosh is under instruction to order a take away and the plan is to jump in a cab at St Pancras float out the other end into my slippers and grasp my first glass of wine of the week. Yes I did it all sober this year which was illuminating.
Fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

Cannes do

I probably used that title last year and yep it's come around again. The lack of lottery/premium bond win during the last 12 months means I'm still working for a living and in the same job visiting the same trade fair for the fourth time.
I don't mind really, there are worse places to go for work certainly. And while I'll spend 70% of my time trying to eek something half interesting out of some generally dull people to justify the expense of me going it does give me a bit of a buzz dashing around Cannes from a meeting on a yacht to another in a marquee on the beach to a lunch on balcony overlooking the seafront. Beats having a meeting in Swansea that's for sure.
It is a shameless show of extravagance, one-up-manship and general lack of taste in the name of generating business and sadly much of what I'll be 'enjoying' will be at the British tax-payers expense. (I'll make sure I eat up every morsel offered and drink every drink to ensure good value)
Am trusting my suitcase and myself to the train once again. Fingers crossed there are no disasters like last year journey home. The storm that has been raging for the last 12 hours seems to be heading up north to spread headlines and news copy up there so I'm hoping the line through Kent will stay tree-free between now and 9 o'clock tomorrow morning when should be safely on French tracks.
My taxi is booked for 5-oh-joy in the morning so I'd better try and get some sleep because there is going to be scant little of that for the rest of the week.

Music ghosts

Nadia lent me a great 5 CD compilation album of hits from the 80s. It's full of cheesy pop and takes me right back to my formative years. I'd told Mosh about it and was ready for the ridicule when he saw the track listing. But lo and behold, there we are talking about some of the songs in the pub with Nadia and J late last night when Mosh pipes up that he used to have the 12-inch version of this King song.
Now I don't know whether it was the number of pints which had loosened his tongue but needless to say he's managed to keep this little ghost from his music past well and truly in the attic for the 16-odd years I've known him. I'm still in shock.

King Love & Pride

You guys crack me up

I like ER. Not as much as I used to, sitting transfixed watching George Clooney, but more in a surfing-the-web-glancing-up-when-Dr Kovac-is-on-the-screen sort of way.
But the episode I'm watching tonight has grabbed my attention for more than the talented male totty. It has to have the worst English accents since Dick Van Dyke for a start and blatant stereo-typing not seen since the sitcom 'Allo 'Allo had French characters dressed in berets and strings of onions around their necks.
For a start the story line involves an English man who has sprained his ankle in a cheese rolling competition - an obscure and ancient sport played out occasionally in a handful of villages in the West Country. Naturally they've not gone for the West Country accent because I imagine that most American viewers wouldn't have a clue they where they were from English. So of course they've chosen Cockney and 'e's all cor blimey guv-nar'. The characters are required to name as many English sounding produce as possible such as biscuits and the script only just stops short of using rhyming slang.
The story concludes with a group of fellow 'Brits' arriving at the hospital to dispute who won the cheese rolling competition and one of the American doctors shouting out "David Beckham is rubbish" in order to distract the rowdy crowd from the fight they are about the have.
What shred of credibility the programme had left has been shattered. Please, the writers have been taking the piss.

Updatey stuff

I've been crap at posting recently. I'm blaming work and the excessive hours and general knackeredness resulting from that. But my new found hobby, Scrabulous, must also take it's share of the blame. Like any new hobby I've become a little bit obsessive with it and have eight games on the go at the moment. I've managed to win a couple of games so far and my record on points is 80 for dinosaur which I'm very proud of it.
I've been to the cinema a lot too but have only posted about films that feel warrant it, ie I either loved or hated. I'd sort of include Be Kind Rewind* among the latter group although hate is probably a bit strong. Disappointed is more apt as I'd expected so much more from Michel Gondry. The bits where they remake classic movies are very good but the story is extremely predictable and decidedly thin. After Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is seems very lame.
And the Muse tickets never materialised either. Mosh was online at the stroke of nine to buy them but by the time he managed to get through it had already sold out and tickets were appearing on ebay at inflated prices which is a little more cheeky than usual as it is for charity.
I'm really gutted because Matt Bellamy has said they will be playing a stripped down show which I think will be amazing especially with the wonderful acoustics of the Royal Albert Hall. I'm almost tempted to say 'fuck it' and buy some tickets on ebay even if it would make me a hypocrite.
Still got the live album HAARP to look forward to which is released next week.

* Mosh is a Jack Black fan but generally not a big film watcher so as he was interested in seeing it I thought I'd go along with him accompanied by a large glass of wine to lubricate my sense of humour.