Tremendously Important

Interview: Abstract artist Paul Kenny.

2011-11-24T11:59:00.000-08:00

Picture courtesy of Jack Hoult
Picture courtesy of Jack Hoult

Paul Kenny at Customs House, South Shields

ADMIRED as one of the country’s most important photographers, Berwick on Tweed based Paul Kenny’s abstract images of the Northumbrian coastline have become sought after artworks, collected by galleries and art dealers throughout the UK. THE JOURNAL speaks to the artist as he reflects on the region that has defined his career for more than 35 years.

It was in 1972, while still a fine art student at Newcastle Polytechnic that Paul Kenny first began to appreciate the wilderness of the Northumbrian coast-line. Catching the bus out of the city to spend a day walking along Cheswick sands, he remembers being struck by the vast emptiness and endless horizons that were so alien to his Salford upbringing. Taking out his camera he started to photograph sea-water and rocks in black and white – focusing in on the tiniest detail of beauty that he felt captured his weird and wonderful new playground. Now, more than thirty years on with work hanging in the Scottish National Gallery, National Photography Collection, the offices of Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank and a forthcoming solo show in London, Paul said he continues to be inspired by the Northumbrian landscape and still feels lucky to be able to call this place home.

“When I came to the north east from Salford I didn’t really know much about the coast and landscape was very unfamiliar, so different to the north-west where I grew up. I started to go on trips out to the sea and beaches and the roots to a lot of my work started then. Alnmouth, Druridge Bay, Cheswick, those trips as a student where I experienced the isolation and emptiness of the coast were very important,” said Paul, who turned 60 this year.

“I still go out two or three times a week to the same eight mile stretch of beach between Holy Island and Berwick. I’ll do some drawings for reference, picking up stuff I might want to use in an image later. I still find the place beautiful every day and like it even more when the weather’s really dramatic,” he said.

For the rest of the article click here

Verso - Dulcet EP

2011-11-24T11:50:00.000-08:00

More words for Triptik Records.

Listen to Verso's Dulcet EP here.

Papua New Guinea born producer Verso strikes hard with his debut solo record Dulcet –
delivering an epic blast of hip-hop carved from an old-school core.

Stuttering synths, sepia soul samples and a swollen bass heavy groove invade seven hot
tracks that re-invent a hallmarked genre with force.

Bumpin’s staccato outro tingles and bounces back to hip-hop’s Beat Generation while
lighter touch Wishes layers creamy female vocals over razor sharp type-writer percussion.

The record’s analogue production aesthetic leans heavily on the Juno 6 synthesiser and
MPC sampler for a nostalgic 1980s vibe that takes you back to hip-hop’s rawest of days.

There’s a nod to J Dilla and DJ Premier in inspiration, but Verso (aka 28-year-old Bert
Calderon) diverts to his own course bleaching a scant lyrical path, allowing the beats to do
the talking.

Dulcet is a marriage, of the old and the new, of vintage hip-hop beats with dub tinged
bass. It’s immediate head-nodding love with a smirk on its face.
Before going it alone Gateshead based Verso was a member of Newcastle hip-hop outfit

The 27 Club where he played saxophone and DJ’d alongside Triptik contemporary Mr
Blazey. He has also released work with Verbal Terrorists but Dulect is his first release as a
solo artist.

Mr Blazey: Slonality

2011-08-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

Newcastle’s Triptik Records presents Mr Blazey’s Slonality – a simmering record of ambient hip-hop.

*Listen to Slonality

He’s been Newcastle’s best kept secret, but Mr Blazey is about to get the recognition he deserves with the release of his latest album on Triptik Records.

Anchored in sample-heavy hip-hop but delving through the prisms of electronica, sonic ambience and dub-step, Slonality is a record of blissed-out precision.

Heaton raised Rob Blazey, 24, reacts against a media frenzied world with 14 deliberately down-tempo and bass heavy tracks. Collaborations with Verbal Terrorists rapper Drop Dead Fred and Sqidlims sit seamlessly with warped electronica and layered vocal fragments.

Slonality is a dream-like, ever changing journey through the progressive hip-hop genre.

An esteemed multi-instrumentalist and producer, Mr Blazey has worked with Newcastle bands Mammal Club, Rob Heron & the Teapad Orchestra and Wellington Boot. He is also a member of Natural Selection, a local collective of DJs and producers pioneering the city’s left-field dance and hip-hop scene. After years as one of the Newcastle’s most sought after collaborators he’s finally getting the chance to showcase his talent as a solo artist.

Manager of Triptik Records, Tim Shaw, said: “I’m surprised that he’s remained undiscovered for this long – we’re proud to have him on the label for his second release. Slonality is an original and seamless hip-hop album and we can’t wait for people to hear it.”

Slonality will be available to buy from i-Tunes and Amazon from August 21.

*Listen to Slonality *Buy Slonality

Clarks: The respectable face of comfort.

2011-08-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

Newcastle’s Triptik Records to release Joonipah’s debut EP Whupah.

2011-06-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

ONE of the North-East’s hottest DJs is to release his debut EP on the boundary pushing Newcastle label Triptik Records.
Joonipah a.k.a Newcastle’s Johnny Pheathan will release Whupah on July 9 – a five track EP brimming with distinctive leftfield rhythms and garage tinged beats.
Still only 18-year-old, Joonipah has rapidly been making a name for himself across the region since his dubbed-out remix of Mr Blazey’s track September 17 turned into a web-smash.
Work with the North’s underground DJ collective Natural Selection followed and nine months later Joonipah is back with his own material, promising to push bass music to new levels.
Remixes by Chinaski and Triptik’s Tim Shaw ensure the release reads like a who’s who northern DJs and makes it a must for anyone who’s serious about essential electronic dance music.
Whupah is the first release for the newly re-launched Triptik Records, which venturing beyond its techno roots.
New manager Tim Shaw, 23, who also co-runs Newcastle club-night Inertia, said: “Triptik is now about presenting an eclectic range of electronic tracks from a wide range of genres. Joonipah was an obvious choice for our first release as he makes very good, contemporary sounding music. He is young and is bound to do well. I am pleased he is representing the label.”
Charged with fresh energy Triptik will be releasing four more tracks this year including new material from dubstep producer Jayou.
Joonipah’s debut EP Whupah’ – July 9 2011 on Triptik Records, exclusively via BeatPort.

Wild Beasts play Ulverston's Coronation Hall

2011-05-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

WILD Beasts used their first homecoming gig since 2010's Kendal Calling festival to showcase their new album Smother.

Playing to a packed out audience at Ulverston's Coronation Hall it was clear the Kendal raised four-piece enjoy playing back on home turf.

Dressed in a dubious looking leather jacket co-vocalist Hayden Thorpe waved at his parents before asking if there were any Kendalians or Barrovians in the audience - a rhetorical question met with thunderous Cumbrian floor stomping.

The set kicked off with Deeper which immediately signalled the down-tempo nature of their new material.

Solemn drums marking the song's intro were a motif heard throughout the set, which was more ambient and sinister in tone than 2009's tour for album Two Dancers.

Their latest single Albatross was a beautiful moment for the audience who looked on in awe as Tom Fleming toyed with haunting keys and Hayden's falsetto voice rang out with purity.

Lyrically the tracks from Smother were as intriguing and avant-guarde as it's predecessors but there were also moments of harsh simplicity.

In Reach A Bit Further Thorpe sang: "I was crude, I was lewd, I was rude, I was not in the mood."

Themes of love permeated the new material which gave the Ulverston gig a romantic, lamenting and sadly reflective feel.

Not something the audience particularly responded to on the night but a sound that gave the band a new poignancy.

Performances of hits Devil's Crayon and Hootin and Howlin were as polished as ever but the time they gave over to tracks from Smother really gave me a chance to appreciate once again the artistry, original sound and heart rendering emotion poured into every Wild Beasts song.

The now London-based eccentrics were an essential reference point for new indie bands trying to make their mark on the scene since 2009's Two Dancers and Smother ensures they will hold onto this mantle.

The Ulverston gig wasn't one for dancing to, which disappointed some, but it gave fans a chance to hear music of a richer texture and just days afterwards, I felt like I'd known the new album for years. Haunting drums, desolate soundscapes and choral melodies...Smother will get you in the end, so don't fight it.

Radio One's Big Weekend: Saturday review

2011-05-17T03:24:00.000-07:00

THE wait felt decades long, but when Saturday finally came around I raced out the door to get to Cumbria’s biggest ever music event.
Dressed in my favourite festival wellies, raincoat and thermals I arrived at Carlisle airport to the raucous sounds of cheering from inside the main stage.
The Arctic Monkeys had just been announced as the weekend’s special guests and were right in the middle of blasting out hit song When the Sun Goes Down.
I didn’t think there could be space for anymore talent among the packed line-up full of stars but Radio 1 were pulling out all the stops throwing one more mega-star band into the mix.
Backstage I bumped into ex-Pussy Cat Doll Nicole Scherzinger where rumours were flying around she’d just received a call from Simon Cowell on official X-factor business - a new UK judge perhaps?
Meanwhile on the main stage Jessie J strutted her stuff in a fierce performance of hit songs Do It Like a Dude and Price Tag.
For some home-grown talent I went to see the wonderful Fiona Clayton who played the BBC Introducing stage. Looking great in a bright pink skirt, the Alston singer performed her new single Julia and and used the opportunity to showcase her new electro-synth sound.
On the In New Music We Trust Stage Everything Everything played an incredible set which had Radio 1 DJ Fern Cotton and Tinie Tempah dancing in the wings.
Frontman Jonathan Higgs, who is originally from Gilsland, shouted out names of well known Carlisle places Bitts Park and the Sands Centre inbetween lyrics which got a laugh.
He also cheekily changed the lyrics of the band’s hit track MY KZ YR BF to please the crowds.
Opening the song with ‘Cumbria you're landing cross-hairs on the kitchen sink/ Brampton in the bathroom/ I’m going back to Haydon Bridge’ front man Jonathan Higgs sent local fans into a giggling frenzy.
This was the first time the chart-topping band had played so close to Higg’s home village of Gilsland, and they were clearly enjoying seeing some familiar faces in the crowd.
Addressing the crowds before playing a new song Higgs said: “Gilsland is where I grew up, this is for everybody from the Borderlands.”
Tinie Tempah’s duet with Ellie Goulding, Wonderman, was also another personal highlight of the weekend.
But the band that everyone had really come to see was Foo Fighters who headlined the main stage.
The American rock band looked as fresh and energetic as ever and it looked as though front-man Dave Grohl could have carried on all night after threatening crowds 'you know I have 100 songs guys'.
After powering through Rope off new album Wasting Light they ended on Everlong which was just the nostalgic crowd pleaser everyone had been waiting for.

Artists trace Walter Wilkinson's steps

2011-04-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

This fascinating character caputured my imagination while working on this story today.

Two artists following the footsteps of famous puppeteer and showman Walter Wilkinson want to hear from people who saw his performances or met him when he toured parts of Cumbria and north Lancashire in the 1930’s.

Gary Bridgens and Phill Gregg of Headzup Theatre in Barrow will travel about 100 miles, mainly on foot, through Coniston, Grange over Sands, Cartmel, Ulverston and Kendal, performing along the way.

Their specially created show, called Vagabonding, will feature songs, stories and puppetry inspired by local history and folklore. The performers will collect stories from the places they visit, sharing them with new audiences each day.

Walter Wilkinson toured the UK and the USA during 1920s and 1930s. He carried a small cart, which doubled up as a puppet booth and set up his show wherever he could find an audience.

He wrote travelogues of his experiences, which became a series of popular books. The author DH Lawrence, said of one of Wilkinson’s books that ‘It reveals England better than twenty novels written by clever young ladies and gentlemen.’

Gary and Phill are hoping that they can meet some of the people who saw Walter Wilkinson’s shows all those years ago, hear some anecdotes about his visit to the area and maybe even unearth one or two photos of the performer.

Everything Everything: Radio One's Big Weekend

2011-04-18T05:49:00.000-07:00

An interview with Jonathan Higgs from Everything Everything. Printed in the Westmorland Gazette on Thursday, April 14. 'In the style of a mundane local news reporter ;)'

AS excitment over Radio One's Big Weekend music event in Carlisle hots up, the lead singer of indie-pop favourites Everything Everything is looking forward to his first ever home-coming gig.

Since the band launched on the scene in 2007 Everything Everything front man Jonathan Higgs has gained fans across the globe with his off-kilter falsetto melodies and eccentric lyrics.

But his appearance at One Big Weekend on Saturday May 14 will be his first Cumbrian gig since the band soared to fame.

“I grew up in Gilsland, practising in the village hall so it’s amazing news that we’ll be playing at a festival with people like Lady Gaga just 18 miles from where I used to live.”

“I’m really pleased for Carlisle, it’s going to be so good for people living in the area to see bands who don’t normally make it up to Cumbria,” said the charismatic front-man.

The band bagged their afternoon slot on the In New Music We Trust Stage at the event after the huge popularity of their debut album, Man Alive, which reached number 17 in the charts.

“We were really pleased when we got the call to say we’d been picked to play. It’s been a great past year for us with tours in Europe and Japan and an appearance on Later with Jools Holland.

One Big Weekend will be our first festival of the summer so it’s a great way to start on my home turf,” he said.

The four-piece are now based in Manchester, using indie-veterans Elbow's practice space in Salford, and are working on their second album, which Higgs thinks could sound more anthemic than their precise, electro tinged debut.

“We’re using their practice room which is on top of this huge building in Salford while they’re away. It’s changed the way we sound....I almost want to throw a choir in, and use big guitars, you know that ‘Elbow’ sound from their past two albums. It’s been quite an inspiring place to work in,” he said.

Looking to their Carlisle performance Higgs said fans can expect to hear their massive hit singles ‘MY KZ, UR BF’ and ‘Photoshop Handsome’ and he hopes somewhere among the 40,000 strong crowd the nice people from Gilsland village hall committee will be there enjoying Cumbria’s largest ever festival too.

The Trip: L'Enclume, Cartmel

2010-11-09T03:29:00.000-08:00

A review of episode two of The Trip for The Westmorland Gazette's readers.

IN the latest installment of new BBC comedy series The Trip, food critics Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon pile back into their gas-guzzling Range Rover for another gastronomic onslaught of a Cumbrian restaurant. This time it's L’Enclume in Cartmel.

Reading out a glowing review of Michelin starred chef Simon Rogan on the way, Brydon reamarks that his ‘dishes that have left reporters mightily impressed by the tastes, textures and his extraordinary technical skill’.

So with that as an opening gambit I imagine chef Rogan was less than impressed when Coogan whispered across the table with all the sophistication of a school boy that his appetiser of mallow leaves, whisky, ginger beer and chilli had the consistency of snot.

Problems also arose with duck fat lollipops, the scallops, the waiters French accents.

But the comments didn’t sting for long. With the pair cracking out an impression a minute of their favourite Hollywood movie stars - including Liam Neeson, Richard Geere and Ray 'eat it' Winstone - you soon forgot about any slating of the food.

The village of Cartmel came out well, with pretty shots of the town and the surrounding countryside, still covered in a dusting of March snow.

And the saving grace for L’Enclume of course is that the pair clearly know NOTHING about food.

Brydon: Do you like taster menus?
Coogan: Erm, I’m not sure.
Brydon: I do, when they’re done well but when they’re not it’s very frustrating.
Or Brydon’s clueless attempt at wine critique - ‘Now, erm... that is a glass of wine!’

With the comments so vague and generic I don’t think trade at L’Enclume will suffer at all. Michelin starred food is supposed to push the boundaries. I thought the food looked incredible, the presentation so creative and inspiring that if only they’d kept their £180 bill secret, I would be there in a shot.

Alice by Temperley Firebird belt

2010-10-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

Alice by Temperley
Fire Bird Belt
£125.00

I fell in love with this fantastic belt I picked to use at a photoshoot at Levens Hall for the Westmorland Gazette's Limited Edition magazine's winter fashion spread. Its double wrap around length coils perfectly around the waist and the leather and suede finish plays with tones of black, making the gold clasp really stand out.
I teamed it with a cream cable knit jumper but it clearly works brilliantly resting on other shades of black as seen on the model above. It's the statement piece of Alice by Temperley's winter collection.

Jamie Woon: Night Air

2010-10-27T12:20:00.001-07:00

Jamie Woon might have created the perfect end-of-the-night club track with Night Air. Woon's soulful vocals are crystal clear against pulsating soundscape textures and stacato beats. One to keep you going on the long walk home or for snoozing to on the night bus. Burial's production work is recognisable but something magical happens when Woon's vocals are thrown into the mix. R&B meeting dup-step couldn't have turned out better.

And watch him build up this song using a looping machine. Incredible.

Crosby Garrett Helmet

2010-10-08T02:05:00.001-07:00

I was at Christie's auction house in London yesterday for the sale of the Crosby Garrett helmet, an extremely rare Roman helmet with a startling face-mask. It was found in a farmer's field by a young metal detector from County Durham.
I had followed the story since September for the Westmorland Gazette, since Christie's lifted an embargo on reporting that it had been found in May.

Tullie House museum in Carlisle launched a campaign to try and buy the helmet for their new gallery on the Roman frontier of Hadrian's wall. They raised an impressive £1 million pounds in just a few weeks but the bidding was extremely fierce, and in just a few minutes bids had sky rocketed to £2 million, pricing out Tullie House and forever losing this magnificent piece of Cumbrian history to a private collector.

Having followed this story from the start, it was really special for me to see the helmet for myself. I was taken aback by how beautiful it was. Pictures really can't do it justice, a gleaming bronze face from the past staring right at you, penetrating eyes with intricate metal around the iris.

After the media scrum to find out who the mystery buyer was and interviews with Andrew McKay from Tullie House were over, I took a few minutes to take one last look at it. There was just me and a couple of other people in the auction room, which only a few minutes ago had been thronging with people and humming with multi million pound figures tossed liberally into the air by the auctioneer. Looking at its beguiling face, I wondered who had worn it and what their story was, and how it had come to rest in a field seemingly miles from any known Roman settlement. And I was quite moved.

Just half an hour later it was gone, removed into the vaults of Christie's until its new owner can take it home. I felt honoured to have been one of the last members of the public to glimpse at its face, to sense the enormity of a relic from the past.

For my full story from yesterday's auction in the Westmorland Gazette click here.

James Blake: Limit to Your Love

2010-10-06T02:54:00.000-07:00

My friend Tim Shaw has been banging on about James Blake for what feels like forever (see my blog post from March 14 2010).

And rightly so, he has been making wicked tunes all year. This track also reveals him to be just a talented singer as he is producer.

And now Zane Lowe's all over Mr Blake like a Kiwi rash with his like, 110 per cent enthusiasm for like, literally, and actually, everything in the world right now. You can see him at Tim's night Inertia @ World Head Quarters in Newcastle on Thursday (7 Oct). Students of Newcastle you are very lucky.

Free schools are a fad

2010-09-29T07:54:00.000-07:00

It was music to my ears to hear Ed Balls today so vehemently criticse education secretary Michael Gove's 'free schools' policy at the Labour party conference. He quite rightly dubbed the policy the most 'socially divisive education experiment for 60 years'. We should not be giving money to self interested parent and teacher groups who will use their new found freedom to better their own class and abandon the masses.

It was also good to know that so many Liberal Democrats think the same, demonstrated when they voted to back a motion criticising the idea as being ‘divisive, costly and unfair.’ (Although what impact this move will actually have is minimal, I think I was just pleased to see some coalition cracks to remind me that the Lib Dems still have some substance.) I interviewed Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale Tim Farron last week after the vote for the Westmorland Gazette.

He said he hadn't been able to vote on the motion because of other commitments but said he agreed with Liberal Democrat councillor Peter Downes who tabled the motion.

“In my personal opinon free schools could be dangerous. You could effectively end up with a private school operating in your area because it might become the school for the children from better off families. There’s also the issue of what happens when the children of the parents who the school was intended for grow up?”

His last point is the most salient. What will happen to these schools when the first batch of well intentioned parents move on? Free schools are a fad. Parents will soon get tired, realise how difficult it is to run a school and sell the buildings off for a massive profit. Enriching only themselves.

After the initial buzz of middle class empowerment wears off, I expect the state will have to rescue free schools which will be losing pupils by the day, accruing massive debts and doing a jolly good job of destroying the fine social balance between classes. Just because some people have the cash, the drive and intelligence to set up a school, it doesn't mean they will sustain their involvement once their own children have grown up. I am genuinely scared of how this policy will play out...the only good news is that uptake has been slow and only 16 are likely to be up and running in a year's time.

The Crookes love books: Sheffield band to play Lancaster library.

2010-09-27T04:49:00.000-07:00

SHEFFIELD band The Crookes are joining an impressive roster of stars swapping the bright lights for literature with a gig at Lancaster Library on Saturday (Oct 2).

The new-pop four piece who count can Radio 1 DJs Steve Lamacq and Huw Stevens, and legendary crooner Richard Hawley among their biggest fans, will play tracks from their hotly tipped EP Dreams of Another Day.

Fresh from a hectic world tour which saw them play alongside Muse at the SXSW festival in Texas, the band promise to wow book lovers not only with their bouncy romance drenched riffs but their razor sharp 60s wardrobe.

It will be a welcome return to the region for the band who played Kendal Calling festival at Lowther Deer Park in July.

Drummer Russell Bates said: “Having spent the last three years of our lives in the darker corners of Western Bank library at the University of Sheffield we were all very keen to reclaim the library as a place of intrigue and wonderment, somewhere to get lost and found with every step you take.”

The band are also asking fans to bring their favourite books to recommend or swap with other fans’ choices to make this the most literary of rock outings.

“It would be nice to get a bit of an exchange going among the audience. We use literary references a lot in our songs, like Lovers and Sons - a title which gives a little a nod to the D H Lawrence classic. Mainly though we are excited at the prospect of going to libraries where we do not owe obscene amounts of money in overdue notices!”

Supporting the band is Alan Pownall who released his debut album True Love Stories on Mercury Records in June this year after touring with Adele.

A husky voiced singer/song writer from north London, Pownall tells tales of unrequited love, pouring heartfelt honesty into every line.

Catch the Crookes and Alan Pownell at Lancaster Central Library, Market Square, on Saturday October 2 at 8pm. Tickets £6.50 available from www.getitloudinlibraries.com.

Pearls by The Union Line

2010-09-25T04:04:00.000-07:00

Pearls by The Union Line

Click on this link to hear the song Pearls.

The Union Line are a five piece from San Juan Capistrano in California I just started listening to this week. They are in the midst of an epic tour across their native USA, from Dallas to Nashville, Chicago to Portland touring with The Love Language and their friends LA band Local Natives. If Pearls is representative of the music they made before they started traipsing across the great Dust Bowl, then I am really excited to hear what they come up with the tour bus switches off the engine. With thematic track titles like Goldmine and Dirty Water and of course a band name like the Union Line, you might be led to believe they're an Americana cliche. Sure, there's bluesy guitars and harmonicas, but vocally it's raw and passionate. Music for sundowns and cowboy adventures.

Pakistan floods: The importance of short term aid

2010-08-26T02:10:00.000-07:00

Westmorland Gazette 26.08.10
"A Caton couple raise cash for flood ravaged-Pakistan."

This story by Beth Abbit of the Westmorland Gazette was unfairly buried away at the back of our paper but I thought it was a really inspiring tale that I wanted to bring to more people's attention. A couple from Lancashire have raised £90,000 to help the victims of the floods in Pakistan, a cause which has so far received a lack lustre to say the least from the international community.

Thankfully, in the last week British people have contributed a remarkable amount of funds which has shamed countries like the USA, who have the capacity to give so much more. But really, how has it taken so long for people to respond to this incident, which started well over a month ago now. When you compare the situation in Pakistan to the response to the Haiti earthquake it really is mind boggling that there exists such selectivity in aid giving. Just because Pakistan doesn't have its own answer to Wyclef Jean to champion its cause, it doesn't mean people are not suffering to exactly the same degree.

After studying international development at university for three years, I am extremely sceptical of benefits of western 'third world' development strategies...the GAP year students, the top down neo-imperialism of aid and the idea of the less fortunate 'other' that needs a cure. But what I am certain of is that
disaster relief is paramount to a well meaning global society and global citizenship.
If the west can do anything, it should be to operationalise short term relief for countries hit by natural disasters.

This is so much more important than long term development projects, which have the tendancy to breed dependency, corruption and line the pockets of self-important charitable directors. Wealthier nations should steer clear of developing patterns of dependency through aid, but what they do have is the financial capacity to get into countries quickly, sort out infrastructure, deliver health care and doctors and deliver food parcels. This is what needs developing more than any other charitable project I can think of.

I donated money through Unicef after much consideration but I wish I'd known about this Lancashire couple's charity The Abaseen Foundation. I think it's clear the money will go directly to the people that need it.

Jai Paul: BTSTU

2010-08-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

This song is a TUNE. I get excited at the very thought of playing it. Producer/artist Jai Paul is just starting out by all accounts, but if this is just a demo track, I can't wait to hear what else he's got up his dodgy tracksuit sleeves. Tremendously Important's love for the clarinet has been well documented, so you can imagine my sheer joy at 3:01.

Clare Maguire: Strangest Thing

2010-08-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

Oh the Metropolitan Borough of the West Midlands, it's been a while! Not since Duran Duran, Black Sabbath and Mike Skinner got together for an impromptu jam at the Bullring has the region had a music story worth shouting about. (The fact I was forced to make that up sums up the region's musical plight.)

Twenty-two-year old singer Clare Maguire has one of those voices that stops you dead in your tracks. One listen of her latest single Strangest Thing and you'll be wanting to know how Solihul has managed to keep her secret for so long. Miss Maguire's soothing tones and emotional conviction really sends shivers down the spine. Perhaps not since Amy Winehouse's Rehab album have I heard songs sung with such feeling.

Eliza Doolittle who? Miss Maguire would eat her for breakfast.

Visit her website www.claremaguire.co.uk for a free download of Strangest Thing.

Candy Row: Wilson Astley

2010-07-27T15:04:00.000-07:00

Mr Wilson (sic) Astley is quite good at quite a few things. When he's not the lead singer of Newcastle based band Mammal Club, he's creating slick monochrome pieces of digital art. He's also spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the frames. And you know what they say...a man who frames his art well is a man who will go far.

Check out his new exhibition which starts tomorrow night at La Fiesta Cafe in Heaton. His work will be on display there until September 6.

Mexican Kids At Home

2010-07-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across Mexican Kids At Home through a midnight Google session and a half, and I'm glad I found them.

They say 'we are two skateboarders, two girls and a host of pirates & we sing recycled songs for a happy environment.' All together now...aaahhhh. But there's more than an environmentally friendly kids birthday party to this band. Animal Shells is a really nice song and moves from primitive nursery rhyme into driving folk-pop, Mumford and Sons style. I've posted their music video for another song in all its sixth form glory below.

Mexican Kids At Home - 'no eyed deers' from JAMES KNOTT on Vimeo.

Imelda May

2010-06-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

Gee Whiz Junior I'll have a milk please, and some extra optimism to go...

After seeing Kitty, Daisy and Lewis at Tan Hill festival back in May, I've really had my eyes opened to a whole new load of artists taking a retro 50s vibe and re-fashioning into super sultry, lounge lizard pop. Here Imelda May seems to be chanelling her inner Peggy Lee and reminding me of what Popular Music once used to mean. Rockabilly group Jessie & The Orbits are also doing good work, taking us all back to the juke box.

All of these people have been introduced to me by my good friend and work colleague Beth Abbit. Born in the wrong decade, Miss Abbit has overcome this by rocking the best bloody quiff and prom dress this side of Blackpool.

Deradoorian

2010-06-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Angel Deradoorian is one of the women prancing about with llamas and wolves in the pretty creepy Dirty Projectors video I posted on June 18. This is one of her own songs off her own EP Mind Raft. It's called You Carry the Deed and I think it's lovely. Ghostly and lilting, and the perfect song to sleep to on a Sunday night before work...

Dirty Projectors: Stillness is the Move

2010-06-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

I'm going a bit Brooklyn mad at the moment - about a year after everybody else - what with Yeasayer on constant repeat. My brother's just spent some time out there too, and I'm looking forward to planning my own trip out there next year (with a polite detour to Nu Joisey to visit my aunt).
So here's another great band that I like a lot at the moment, Dirty Projectors - I applaud (just got good at spelling that) their orchestral ending on this one. Deeply uncool :)

Sunshine by Submotion Orchestra

2010-05-31T07:21:00.000-07:00

They're reminiscent of mellow Cinematic Orchestra sounds on this track but Submotion Orchestra pep things up big time when playing live - so I've heard. Describing themselves as a live soul /dub /electronica /dubstep group they comprise of seven members and fronted by the gorgeously voiced Ruby Wood. My friends in Sheffield won't shut up about them.

Their EP is out today, on Ranking Records.

White Rabbits - Percussion Gun

2010-05-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

I really like this song by White Rabbits, unusually because this is absolutely NOT the sort of music I normally listen to. But I saw them on Jools Holland, and they looked absolutely terrified, which was endearing to say the least. There's also about seven of them in the band, with a surprising amount of energy for a bunch of plaid shirt US hipsters. Anyway, sheer numbers combined with an ernest attack of their instruments gave a nice vibe to their live performances.

Four Lions: An evening of cinematic taboos and panic attacks

2010-05-18T13:18:00.000-07:00

Chris Morris draws you into some dark places doesn't he. There I was last night in Carlisle cinema munching on popcorn and feeling compassion for suicide bombers. Like they were the goodies, the cops and innocent marathon runners the baddies. It was surreal and a pure roller coaster/proper rubber dingy rapids of emotion. I also woke up in the middle of the night having a panick attack, one of my more extreme reactions to a film. Since Dumbo anyway.

I really enjoyed Four Lions - it was a film that had to be made. The subject matter too important, too taboo and too comedic to ignore. You only have to cast your mind back to 2007's botched up attack at Glasgow airport - the one where a group of radicalised doctors drove a Jeep into the electric doors and made an unlikely hero of a baggage handler? I was on work experience at the Independent at the time, and I remember the journalist Johan Hari dubbing it the equivalent of Carry On Jihadi. I laughed nervously, although I did think it was funny. But for me, it was only a couple of years since the London bombings and it still felt inappropriate to make a gag about suicide bombers.

Surely for this film to be as amusing as it was, the timing of its release date must have been paramount. We've had a lull over the past couple of years of bombings therefore we've had the space to breath and look at these things with a sense of humour. I can't help but think as soon as anything happens again - which realistically is at any time - this film will go down like a lead balloon.

But I did really enjoy the film. It was like being pulled from every direction, you know you shouldn't laugh, but you can't help it. It was excrutiating to watch, in a Peep Show sense, but also took some extraordinarily dark turns. When Faisal was blown up whilst carrying chemicals over a wall and into a field of sheep - the film's first victim - you stopped chuckling pretty abruptly.

The Islamic Republic of Tinsely

I thought the dialogue was the perfect combination of blink and you'll miss it wit and accurately radicalised language. Chris Morris had obviously spent an unhealthy amount of time studying those back room home videos released by suicide bombers to be played after they've been 'martyred'.

Riz Ahmed stole the show. His performance as Omar, the ring leader, was one of the best performances I've seen this year. The other characters are at times guilty of being purely 2-D but Ahmed made the thoughts of a suicide bomber complex and nuanced, stong and vulnerable all at the same time. (He's also not a bad MC (apart from when he works with Plan B, see Riz MC.)

Oh and and don't get me started on the South Yorks/Pakistani accent - when I worked at a youth centre in Upperthorpe in Sheffield I used to get a buzz from hearing the kids talk, it is just so beautiful.

There's so much to this film, you just have to see it and make up your own mind. If people leave half way through the film (like they did in Carlisle) that's the right reaction, and if you're still sitting there laughing until the end and feeling so guilty about it you have a panick attack...well I think that's the idea. Chris Morris 1...general public 0. This film is unbelievable.

Janelle Monae

2010-05-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

My friend Dani passed this video of Janelle Monae's Many Moons on to me a couple of months ago and let's just say a swift obsession developed! I was watching this around the time that Lady Gaga and Beyonce released Telephone - the nine minute supposed 'art piece' which made you feel like you were trapped in some sort of over-sexed technicolour nightmare.

I'm excited by music mini-films - the possibilities are endless - but please ladies take some lessons in taste and sophistication from Miss Monae. The woman sports the highest neckline in pop and has more sex appeal than Gaga, Aguilera and Beyonce combined. And like all good popstars, she also has an alter ego called Cindi Mayweather. Perhaps she could take Sasha Fierce out bowling?

At first glance at the clothes and her dance moves I thought 24-year-old Monae looked like the female Andre 3000. And I wasn't wrong. She was Outkast's backing singer works with Big Boi on many of her songs, including the single Tightrope.

All in all, Monae serves up a refreshing change to the all-girating, all nipple-tassling 'sex-pop' - seemingly the only genre available to womankind in 2010. She's already been nominated for a Grammy, and I reckon she's going to be massive in the UK this summer.

http://www.myspace.com/janellemonae

Her new album, the ArchAndroid is out on May 18.

Flight Facilities feat. Giselle Rosselli

2010-05-13T07:43:00.000-07:00

This is such a sweet song, I've been listening to it all week. I love its heart-onsleeve message, which almost verges on the desperate if 19-year-old Giselle Roselli didn't sing it so sweetly!
And there's a cheeky nudge to 1990s dance-sax at the end, always a winner with me.
The band Flight Facilities and singer are all from Australia.

Kelis: 4th of July

2010-05-13T02:43:00.000-07:00

When Kelis does dance music, boy does she do it properly. This is an anthem! The song isn't out til Monday, when she releases her new album Flesh Tone, so I'll post a better version then - one that doesn't end so abruptly. Enjoy!

Guardian's General Election blog

2010-05-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

For those of us who have been on the edge of their seats for the six days since the General Election started The Guardian's General Election blog 2010 has been a key resource.

For up to the minute information, comments, pictures, rumours and gossip, there's nothing else quite like it.

Not even the colour of Mr Brown's tie made it past the beady eyes of the Guardian's key commentators and diligently blogging public at 10.53am today. Brown wore a purple tie when he made his resignation speech, a shade he never usually wears but peculiarly, the very shade that represents PR and the group Take Back Parliament. Nick Clegg was also sporting purple today too. Strange that.

My newspaper, the Westmorland Gazette, ran a similar blog - The Westmorland Gazette Election Blog - covering the elections as they unfolded in our patch. Reporters were sent out to blog live from the scene as the results were announced in Penrith and the Border, Morecambe and Lunesdale, Westmorland and Lonsdale and Barrow-in-Furness. We got a really good response with hundreds of followers (come on, for a county that's yet to achieve full broadband coverage, that's good!) interacting with our comments. And it was the most fun I had ever had at work! The blog also showed early indications of the love Westmorland and Lonsdalers have for Tim Farron or in blogspeak 'Fazza', well before we knew he'd won the constituency by a remarkable 12,000 majority.

Barbara Cannon, the Labour candidate for Penrith and the Border, said the technological scale of this election had been unprecedented. "It's been the election of Facebook, Twitter and blogs and I've loved it. It engages the younger generation and I get people tweeting me all through the night on policy and ideas. It's been like nothing I've ever experienced in all my time working for the Labour party."

Does the Sun really make a difference?

2010-05-08T01:14:00.000-07:00

This election had nothing to do with the Sun newspaper. I'm impressed with their efforts...the Obama style front cover of polling day's edition was quite something. Infact, almost iconic at first glance. Impressive enough for me to spend 25p on it anyway.

But on second thoughts for something to be truely iconic there must be significance beyond the image. And unfortunately this front cover has neither significance or meaning. It was a last ditch attempt by the paper to take some credit for the election result. The Tories were always going to do well in this election - because the electorate like change for change's sake. And Gordon Brown had done an extremely good job of putting swing voters off Labour for life. The Sun just wanted to ride on the wave of success and claim another 'It Was the Sun What Won It' election.

So whilst at first this seems like the ultimate exercise in electorate thought control, if this had had any impact at all, then I think we would have seen the Tories smash their way to 326 seats and beyond.

May 2 1997

2010-05-06T13:00:00.001-07:00

A pretty ordinary story...

When I was eleven years old, I crawled into bed next to my Mum early on the morning of May 2 1997, looked at the TV screen and felt like it was Christmas.

Graphics of the UK on screen showed swathes of blue being washed away by the red rose of Labour. Even the news reader had elation in his voice. Of all the memories I have of when I was young, this one sticks out the most.

My Dad worked away at the time, and me, my Mum and my younger brother just watched the scene unfold as New Labour and Tony Blair were announced to have won the general election. I remember turning to my Mum and seeing a tear in her eye as she gave me and my brother a hug. She said: "You don't know what it's been like, you don't know how bad it's been."

She was, of course, referring to the 18 years of Conservative government she had lived through as a young woman, first during the troubles in Northern Ireland, then in Newcastle as a social worker and then in the Highlands as a mum in the early 80s. Me and my brother were only ten and 11 on that morning and could hardly provide the stimulating conversation she needed but we knew the significance. My mum is hard as nails, that's only the second time I have seen her cry. I understood, even though I was so young, of the weight she felt had been lifted from her shoulders.

Although I understand my love and commitment for Labour is deeply tied in the emotional stability it seemed to bring my mother, I have my own mind now and can judge what the last 13 years has meant for my family, my friends and the people I have worked with. Prosperity, security, stability, educational achievement and a fairer society.

I believe in what the New Labour project tried to achieve. I am not a lost leftie or socialist looking to equalise society and redistribute wealth - I believe in the market economy and the Third Way that Blair imagined. Those foundations are still there and it breaks my heart that other people can't see a vote for Labour as the fairest solution for all.

No matter what the instensity if of the hoodie, knife weilding, Broken Britain spiel Cameron throws at the electorate, I know that today's society is leaps and bounds above anything a Tory society has, and could ever provide. Like Gordon Brown said on Wednesday about the Tory's 'they may have changed their tune, but they haven't changed their minds'.

So I know what's coming tomorrow, I know I will wake up and David Cameron will have won. And I expect I will crawl into bed next to my mum to watch breakfast TV, just like I did when I was eleven. With tears of an entirely different kind.

Kitty Daisy & Lewis

2010-04-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

I am really looking forward to seeing teen band Kitty Daisy and Lewis at Tan Hill Festival this weekend.

Tan Hill Festival

2010-04-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

This week I am off to Tan Hill Festival which is organised by the Kendal bred band, British Sea Power. The location choice is bleak to to say the least, Tan Hill pub in Swaledale is one of the remotest places I have ever been in my life. And I live in Cumbria. Just one look at the above pic makes me want to reach for my thermals.
But we're definitely going to be in for weird and wonderful things...Metronomy, Modern Ovens, iLiketrains, and a falconry display 25 miles deep into North Yorkshire moorland; sounds like bliss to me.

Caribou: Odessa

2010-04-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Great song out last week from Canadian band Caribou. A particularly fine use of 'twiddly pipe music' at 3.08 secs too.

'The View From The North'

2010-04-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

One of the great photojournalists of the last 30 years is the subject of a new exhibition at the University of Cumbria’s Alexandra Gallery on the Lancaster campus until Friday 14 May (weekdays 9.30am until 4.30pm).

The work of Don McPhee (1945-2007), renowned as one of Britain’s finest press photographers, will be on show in a free exhibition entitled ‘The View from the North’.

McPhee worked at the Guardian’s Manchester office for 35 years, famously documenting life in the North from political strife to everyday lives.

His most iconic image was taken during the 1984 miner’s strike and depicts a striking miner wearing a plastic policeman’s hat staring down a row of policemen guarding the Orgreave coking plant in Sheffield.

Gold Panda

2010-04-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night I saw Gold Panda, dressed as a panda, playing his tunes in an old warehouse somewhere along the Tyne.

He played Quittas Raga to finish, which was lush.

Gold Panda:

http://www.myspace.com/goldpanda

Emeli Sande

2010-04-07T15:05:00.000-07:00

Come on, you all have to appreciate Wiley's lyrics at some point...

"air freshner/wild orchid/what would he get/if she caught him?"

"I got another woman in Shoreditch/It's my house/I pay the mortgage."

But I mainly posted this because I think Emili Sande's a real raw talent. She looks great in the video and there's something almost Neneh Cherry-esque about her. Whatever it is she's doing, it's doing wonders for Wiley's image.

Abandon Normal Devices

2010-04-06T03:18:00.000-07:00

Review of AND festival for the Westmorland Gazette.

FOR its second birthday, the pioneering Abandon Normal Devices media festival set up an outpost of digital drama in Grizedale forest.

Over the Easter weekend the woods were brought to life with a range of exhibitions showcasing the best of Europe’s new cinema and media art.

For those willing to dodge the downpour and head amongst the trees, The Cloud Project were on hand to puff out strawberry flavoured clouds from an icecream van. The Portable Pixle Playground was another sensory treat with its inflatable sound and light cubes.

But the real highlight of the evening was a screening of 1984 cult horror flick The Company of Wolves, where the audience could use Scratch n’ Sniff panels to smell what was happening on screen.

Odours ranged from lavender, to animal dung and even burning human flesh, which had the audience swinging from aghast to fits of giggles.

After the film acclaimed choreographer Micha Bergese, who played the role of the Huntsman, gave the audience a witty recount of how he morphed from a man to a wolf on-screen. No mean feat considering the dubious standard of special effects the decade had on offer.

Despite shamefully minimal advertising, the Grizedale branch of the festival was well attended and the audience appreciative of its brave and at times, enjoyably bonkers ideas.

And walking back from the film in the dark through the trees added a final dimension of fear to an already horror filled night.

The festival continues this week in Burnley, Accrington and Preston, and hits Manchester in September.

Jenny Holzer at the Baltic

2010-03-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

A brilliant exhibition of text and light in one of the most inspiring building's in the north - the Baltic in Gateshead. Jenny Holzer settles once and for all that text can be art. (Joseph Kosuth.)

Work at the Baltic can sometimes feel swamped when encased by such a powerfully industrial building, but the 20ft high walls paled into insignificance by the strength of Holzer's LED installations.

Containing at first relatively though provoking word groupings 'pause in the night' / 'lonliness is better than being with inferior people', the work grew in political instensity as you moved through the building's different levels, until one message became clear - the war in Iraq was saturated in illegal torture.

Using documents from the National Security Archives she presents the infamous 'the gloves are off' approach to the interogation of foreign nationals in her censored Redaction Paintings.

Heavy stuff for sure, but an incredibly powerful method of delivery. Using LED strips with text scrolling across them at such a pace that you had to read the phrase slowly, rhythmically and take on board every single word. And the light which radiates out of the pieces is lurid red, green, pink and blue and gives it an additional edge of subterranean sleaze.

Running until May 16 2010.

Heligoland...

2010-03-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

...is making my world go round.

This is a beautiful album by Massive Attack from start to finish. Paradise Circus is a favourite, such a lush string section and Hope Sandoval's vocals are an eerie combination of child-like and sensual. I've been listening to this a lot recently, and it's a massive hinderance to me getting anywhere on time.

It's like the bitter side to Blue Lines, it's lo-fi little brother, and worth the seven year wait.

Like Massive Attack said:

If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing slowly

"I want a horse daddy and I want it out of crystal!"

2010-03-30T11:47:00.001-07:00

I enjoyed Stella McCartney's Swarovski crystal horse sculpture 'Lucky Spot' at Belsay Hall, in Northumberland much more than I thought.

The three meter high structure is made from over 8000 glistening droplets, each one perfectly arranged on wires to form a horse with an unusual ethereal strength. Mid-gallop it rears through the ruined medieval ruin casting the rainbow spectrum from it's hooves.

Not being a fan of Swarovski (something to do with Jordan and Peter Andre's nuptuals), or horses (no animal should be that big), and the fact that everything Stella does is suposedly so achingly cool our generation seems to have lost sight of objectivity on her work - I was expecting something gimmicky, something slap-dash, a self indulgent little girl's fantasy. Her love of horses has been well documented in her clothing over the years, throwing a sculpture in the mix seemed so logical, it had to be have been done in a hurry.

And whilst it is unashamed pure fantasy...I'm sure most teenage girls apart from me at some point in their lives thought a ride on a crystal horse through a castle would be pure esctasy... but you can't deny being moved by something that beautiful, mid-motion.

It's on show until April 17 and worth a look.

James Blake

2010-03-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, one last post to mark the one month anniversary of my Valentine's Day mental health scare.

I'd like to say I stumbled across James Blake whilst considering the finer points of dub-step and UK Funky over a glass of Sailor Jerry and coke. But in real life, my friend Tim Shaw introduced me to him in Heaton over a cup of herbal tea, and I've been listening pretty much non-stop ever since. See what you think.

I love Air & Lack Therof and how paired down it is. It messes with the crowd...everyone would go in for the dub-step head-nod and he'll just hang on that second extra and leave you all confused on the dance floor. And then invariably you'll all laugh at yourselves for taking life and dub-step too seriously, and that's no bad thing.

And I believe all this comes from a boy who is the ridiculous age of 21. Sickening.

And another one. This is a great remix of Destiny's Child and all a bit unexpected. (Ignore the awful screen grab of Beyonce and Jay-Z.)

Hot Chip

2010-03-14T03:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not really that fussed about Hot Chip, of course apart from the song Over and Over which was probably one of the best pop songs of the naughties.
But their new album is absolutely brilliant and worth more than me trying to subtely leave hints to friends on Facebook. I think you all need to go out and buy this album.

Top songs are...Hand Me Down Your Love and I Feel Better. Although the latter resembles Madonna's La Isla Bonita and somehow still manages to sound marvelous. I kid you not.

I Feel Better

Hand Me Down Your Love

Random Acts of Ignition

2010-03-14T01:29:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to Hadrian's Wall to watch it being lit up by a series of gas fires to mark the anniversary of the Roman's hot-footing it back to the Med. I was there with my mum and dad at Steel Rigg, and seemingly every man and his geordie dog.

It was an impressive feat, all 84 miles of wall lit up every 250 metres to resemble the flames that would have risen from the various forts and outposts along the wall.

But the whole show only lasted an hour - to be environmentally friendly like. Four trees are now to be planted to compensate for every gas light, but it was a huge shame that something so spectacular was over literally as soon as you got there.

People had made a weekend of it, driven for miles and brought their caravans and even yurts to bed in by the 'Waaaall' for some spiritual Northumberland Hadrian worshipping. And then at 7.15pm it was lights out and we all trundled home in the dark. How about planting ten trees for every gas light and keep them burning all night? It would have kept the hippies happy.

2010-03-14T01:22:00.000-08:00

Dear lord. Just reading over my Valentines Day posting. My capacity for self absorbed morbidity really is impressive. And judging by the comments I have received off concerned friends over the last month, I think I had better set the record straight. I am the happiest I have been in years and Feb 14 was a momentary blip, that's all. So, to the kind friend who passed on the MIND helpline number, please give it to someone more worthy!

A Valentine's Day Diary

2010-02-14T05:54:00.000-08:00

I earn such little money as a trainee reporter that I have to live with my parents. I mean I could probably afford the £400 month for a single room the Lake District National Park normally demands, but then I also quite like to eat and dress myself.

Most of the time living with my parents is absolutely fine, great in fact. They are very nice and interesting people. But I can't help but feel completely trapped by my pittance of a wage. And also the fact I don't have a working lap-top or internet connection (i.e freedom), and this seems to make the trapped in a box feeling ten times worse.

Then along comes Valentine's Day and traps me in my home from entirely different angle.
I hate the way that for those without a Valentine (sob) this commercial diatribe of a day means you can't do anything social what-so-ever. Third wheeling is my forte, but even on Valentine's Day I know I must draw the line and leave my friends to it.
I could ring up single friends, but then I remember my one single female friend in the Lakes has left me for Australia. Men are of course off limits in case any offer of an activity on V-day gets misconstrued for something more meaningful.

So here I am in my dressing gown chomping away on the chocolates my Mum arranged in a love-heart shape outside my bedroom door this morning...counting down the hours until tomorrow when everything goes back to normal.

Ben Westbeech live at Tuesday Club: A marvelous university cliche

2010-02-10T12:27:00.001-08:00

I must be nostalgic for my university days, or Tuesday Club* at least. I say this because I have been rinsing Ben Westbeech aka 2006 on the I-pod and can think of no other explanation. Seriously, I'm about two steps away from donning my old Carhartt hoodie and asking people where they went on their gap year.

But seriously, nothing makes me happier than watching this video. It was an exciting night as I recall. Me and my friends had a lot LOT lot of fun. I wore my new pair of gold Adidas Forest Hills and gold heart shaped earings and felt like a super-star. Hey if I'm being really honest, I remember adopting a Bristol accent in the hope Westbeech would pluck me out of the crowd and take me with him on his dreamy soul adventure.

I'm screaming in pure joy somewhere to the bottom left of the stage. I make no apologies for what you are about to witness...university cliche in its purest form, and I love it.

* Tuesday Club is a wonderful doyenne of Sheffield's night-time economy. For all things dub-step, drum and bass, hip-hop, soul and funk.

Making the transition...

2010-02-07T12:41:00.000-08:00

I've turned 24 recently. It's bleak, you've only got one more year's student railcard validity and women in Boots try to sell you facial firming cream.

And to make matters worse, 24 is the year you go through 'the change'. The change from Radio 1 to Radio 2.

It's me hit me suddenly and I'm not sure I like it. I can no longer listen to Fearne Cotton - I want to punch her. Chris Moyles - I want to vomit and Zane Lowe - I am going to have a road traffic accident his radio tone is so unsettling.

Sadly I now find myself roaring in laughter at Chris Evans, and at this rate it won't be long till I banish music altogether and get my kicks from the afternoon play and Ambridge.

But perhaps I am being an old fuddy duddy - I should really try a bit harder to get my head around the hilarity of N-Dubz's Dappy farting in Chris Moyles's face.

Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show

2010-01-31T12:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite sure how someone I watch on Coronation Street by day turns into my funk and soul musical hero by night, but it's a transformation worth seeing.

Craig Charles of scouse Red Dwarf drugs scandal fame was in full swing last night in Leeds' Elbow Room playing to hundreds of happy dancers. People had travelled for miles to watch his expert delivery of funk tunes...Curtis Mayfield, Haggis Horns, Smoove and Turrell... he never let the atmosphere drop. I've missed my Saturday's of bouncing in a ballistically happy fashion for hours!

So I think dalliance of his with Corrie should stop. It may pay the bills but he's got far too much talent for that. Get him on Radio 1 and kick the N-Dubz generation into touch.

And was nice enough to stop for a photo with me after I barged VIP (to show me Nana that nice man off the tele of course...)

Listen to his Funk and Soul Show on BBC 6 Music - Saturdays 7-10 pm.

Paloma Faith covers Sade

2010-01-21T14:16:00.000-08:00

Paloma Faith and her bonkers head-wear covered Sade's Smooth Operator this week on Simon Mayo's new drive time show on BBC Radio2 - it was luscious. Perhaps even better than the original?

Watch it by clicking on this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/simon-mayo/videos/paloma-faith-2/

Christian missionaries leaving Haiti

2010-01-14T13:25:00.000-08:00

On BBC news this morning they showed footage of Christian missionaries from the USA leaving Haiti after its earthquake on the first available plane. I found it absolutely disgusting that they have chosen to turn their back on a country at a time when it needs help and comfort the most.
One of the fundamental Christian principles is to help those less fortunate than yourself isn't it?
I know it's important to look out for number one in situations like this, but only to a point. Surely they owe the Haitians some physical support to care for the sick, injured and bereaved at a time when their faith must be at its very lowest? They've no doubt spent months interfering with people's minds, and now it's time to offer the physical manifestation of love thy neighbour.

Rory Stewart again...

2010-01-13T01:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-rosen/rory-stewart-remember-thi_b_411272.html

Take a look at Ben Rosen's article in the Huffington Post on Rory Stewart's destiny as PM. Rosen must have read my earlier post :) I finally get to meet Mr Stewart on Friday, more than a little bit excited. My nerd rage knows no bounds.

Smutlane jewellery

2010-01-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.smutlane.co.uk/

For beautifully handcrafted jewellery that's filthy... in an aesthetically pleasing way. Rosie Kent's the designer.

This piece is called Cunnilingus.

Mammal Club

2010-01-12T11:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.myspace.com/mammalclub

Rory Stewart

2010-01-04T12:23:00.001-08:00

I've had the pleasure of speaking to this rather dashing man on the phone a number of times. To my shame I babbled on about really good pub quizes he should attend in Penrith and the Border rather than Operation Turquoise, Harvard or his books, but hey ho, he's not going anywhere for a while. Well, except to Cameron's front bench.

He seemes to pose as a dangerous crush for a leftie weaned on Neil Kinnock on D-ream...

Grande Duke and Emma Topolski

2009-12-20T12:05:00.001-08:00

Here are two new artists that I'd like to say I've stumbled across because I'm so incredibly in the know, but they are, of course, acquaintances of mine. This fact does not however detract from their marvellous material.

GRANDE DUKE

Grande Duke describe themselves as a seedy affair. And I would quite agree. Grungy and lo-fi in parts with filthy crashing rhythms in others. Lyrics and riffs of sweat and dirt, brewed in a basement.
I hear Incubus, I hear the Clash, I hear Nomo, Orange Blossom and Mogwai and big walls of sound. I like what I hear.
And they keep things interesting by every so often inviting a merry band of followers join the party on their saxes, trumpets, accordians and spoken words. It's like a Midlands collective, yeah.

See their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/grandeduke

EMMA TOPOLSKI

Emma Topolski is a beautiful jazz singer and brilliant song writer. Her new songs are upbeat jazz and unashamedly cute as a button. She nestles very comfortably somewhere between Nora Jones and Amy Winehouse...and it's a great place to be - a sweet oozing voice but one which actually sings lyrics of real stories. Listen to hers songs Been and Gone and Talk to Me. This is her first collection of songs she wrote on her own and I think her song writing skills and voice will just grow and grow and she'll be marvellous. And she's not bad looking either.

See her myspace: http://www.myspace.com/emmatopolskii

Innocent nerd threatened by Gypsy pole dancers

2009-12-06T09:43:00.001-08:00

Last week my friends came to stay in the Lake District with me. I aimed to show them the sights - you know the hills, Beatrix Potter and Wordsworth's blue plaques and eat Grasmere ginger bread. Wear festive knitwear and act middle-aged - that sort of thing.

Instead I ended up nearly being beaten up by a group of Gypsies. For anyone who doesn't have the pleasure of living near a Traveller community and the biggest annual Gypsy gathering in the country, it's not all caravans and horses and tinkling bells. It's intimidating and aggressive.

So I took my ladies to Toppers nightclub in Penrith to show them the north good and proper. No sooner than you can say 'I'll have three cherry WKD's for a fiver please' a group of girls came over and started, what can only be described, as lap dancing us.

It was all bums and boobs and boom boom pow right in our faces and soon I was laughing hysterically as were all my friends. Bad idea. Gypsies don't like laughing, even when they're coming on to you. After about ten minutes, the dancing started getting more and more aggressive, so much so, I couldn't actually get out of my chair. Then came the inevitable 'are looking at my mate', 'eeeer you gotta problem' 'you wanna start somthing'.

Erm no love, BUT YOU OBVIOUSLY DO.

Then there was a bit of sqaurring up to them (not me obviously, I'm a complete wimp) and we were given our last warning by the girls.

So the aggressive lap dancing went on, and on, and on for about an hour, until we were totally blocked in and couldn't get on the dance floor. So it was heads down, no one could crack a smile and there was a paired trips to the loo policy. There was no point in having a conversation because everytime we did they'd be over like a shot incase we were talking about them.

Then luckily the head skank, got so pissed that she fell down some steps, and her mates sort of dwindled off. Power in numbers obviously.

We seemed to have stumbled into some sort of weird marking out your turf tactic - but it was just so ridiculously aggressive. I've never had a group of girls do that to me in my life.

So that's the final nail in the coffin for me and Penrith's Gypsy community. I've defended them to the last for years and years whenever I've heard other people bad mouth them, which I can assure you, happens a lot. I know I sound like a nasty Daily Mail reader, but being lap-danced and simultaneously told I was gonna get my head kicked in is a bit too much, even for me.

2009-12-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

Florence + The Machine - You've Got the Love (The XX Remix)

2009-12-06T09:29:00.000-08:00

When I first heard Florence's butchering of one of my favourite songs I was more than a little upset. Why do I seem to be the only person who thinks it's a bit weak?
I mean, hello, tread carefully when imitating Miss Candi Staton - everyone knows that, surely? The problem is, Florence's version is just not far enough removed from the original making the whole experience like listening to a pub singer (be it a dazzingly beautiful flame haired one in a bat cape) with breathing problems.
But, ta daaa! LISTEN TO THIS! XX save the day with this gorgeous remix...it's paired back and abstract enough to make Florence's You've Got the Love a bit more credible. So I'm not sure if covering your own remix is the done thing but if I was Florence, I'd have a crack.

Quote of the week: Milton

2009-12-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

No...not the English poet, but Milton the photographer I work with at the Westmorland Gazette.
He's an ex-nationals photographer, including a stint with the Daily Express photographing all the world's filth. He wears brogues and a North Face jacket and covered countless bombings in Northern Ireland in the 1990s. He's hardcore and drives a poncy Lexus, which is what we travelled in to today's job. Speeding around a corner I went 'ooooh that's fast!' and he said 'No kate, it's smooth...smooth like a cashmere cod-piece.' Brilliant.

Ellie Goulding Jakwob remix

2009-11-25T13:05:00.001-08:00

I wrote about Ellie Goulding here a few weeks ago prophesing my love for her songs. This is a wicked remix by Jakwob. I might even say 'sick'. Anyway it helps me get over Shap summit everyday on my journey to work and I believe protects me from being blown into Longsleddale valley. Listening to this you think you can drive though anything. Hope you like it.

Quote of the week

2009-11-23T14:16:00.000-08:00

Paloma Faith in the Guardian's How I Get Dressed section. She gives the public a blunt dressing down on style with her comment:

"Comfort's for tossers".

See posted pic for anti-tosser qualities.

And she's so right, I know she is, yet I still can't resist a Clarks anniversary edition desert boot. I'm afraid if we're talking footwear, I'll forever be tosser material. And that's fine by me Paloma, you're going to have awful bunions and knock knees.

Pimp up my poppy

2009-11-15T11:56:00.000-08:00

Silk poppies, Swarovski crystal poppies, poppies in your hair, on your hip, on your cuff links, on your car bumper...the Poppy of Rememberance deserves better than this.

I have always loved the British tradition of wearing poppies in November as a mark of respect for those who have died serving their country. Whether you agree with the army or whichever war the government has become embroiled in at the time, it's a sincere and humble gesture which we should all take part in.

But once you start peddling it a fashion accesory you've lost all that it was intended to represent. Oh but maybe I've got it wrong...perhaps the owner of the blingest poppy is also the owner of the most heart-felt and deepest respect for those killed in action. Yeah, that's right. That's what it's all about. November.

English Defence League demo on Halloween in Leeds

2009-11-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

Quite by accident I found myself caught up in the fascist English Defence League's demonstration in Leeds City Centre on Saturday afternoon. I'd rocked up on the train to celebrate my birthday with my school friends and walked straight into a barrage of skin-head human traffic blazing down the main street, police galloping after them.

Navigating all this with a suitcase full of high heels and handbags was pretty difficult put I managed to get some pics. It was hard though, everytime I got my camera out, the EDL would just react and put on a show for the camera, and I wasn't giving the scumbags the benefit of that.

Aside from the horror of hearing the most obscene racismn directed as Muslims I've ever heard in my life, a few things struck me.

One - people's inability to stand up against racism and shy away from confrontation. I know no-one wants to be punched in the face by the man I captured in picture five, but so many people just stood there are listened to people saying the most horrendously offensive and ignorant things. In fact the things people said were so pathetic it made my burst out laughing at one point...and then cry a little inside when I realised it was all meant in total seriousness. e.g to a Palestinian British protestor "Get back on your horse and cart and go back to where you came from".

Two - the majority of the EDL's crew members were below the age of twenty. Angry, aggressive and racist teenagers were running loose all over the city, but teenagers none the less with views of the world only half-formed. They looked just like the boys I went to school with, but fired up by a cause I truely feel they can't know anything about. They were just babies draped in Union Jacks. And it chilled me to the core.

Ellie Goulding

2009-11-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

The beguiling Ellie Goulding performed two of her tracks on Jools Holland last week and left me just a wee bit spellbound. So tiny her guitar looked set to crush her, Ellie more than rose to the challenge of performing after American jazz legend Diana Krall.

It's a shame the sound quality of this video I've posted isn't great, but you get the gist of her luscious melodies and the most credible white girl vibrato I've heard in a long time. Check her out.

Alice Russell: Let Us Be Loving

2009-10-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

I love this new song by Alice Russell. She's always been an amazing vocalist, but she reins it in a bit more than on her earlier tracks and she sounds wicked. She's a power house and power housing around melodies needs to be as sparing as possible in my opinion. (I did used to be a singer back in the 80s, I feel I have a smidgin of a right to comment).

And by the looks of her latest video she's gone for 'I'm nuts in an adorable way', and it's lovely. (Although possibly she looks like Paloma Faith's wacky auntie.)

Anyway, enjoy her new tunes, they're very sweet.

Go to http://www.myspace.com/alicerusselluk

David Cameron's Conservative Party Speech

2009-10-08T11:37:00.001-07:00

I was brought up Labour so I'm never going to be David Cameron's biggest fan...but it was a cheap shot too far mentioning his son's death in his conference address today.

Anyone who thinks it was a simple bid for humanisation is wrong. The man cycles to work, likes to be called Dave and looks like a normal sweaty middle aged man when he's out jogging. Put the Bullingdon Club days aside and he's about as human and likeable as a politician can get.

It was to get the sympathy vote. The death of a child is hideously painful and life changing, and exactly the same thing happened to Gordon Brown. Yet Mr Brown never once brought this into his politics. His grief was a dignified silence, and I admired him for that. Personalise your politics by all means...it certainly works...but Cameron's stunt today was just crass.

Charlie Winston

2009-10-07T09:42:00.001-07:00

Okay...I think my musical appreciation has transcended into full blown love. I think he's the one Jeremy.

Charlie Winston - In Your Hands

2009-10-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

Long, drawn out, hammy song writing at its best. I love it.

Status dogs: not for the poor

2009-09-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

Sitting patiently at Manchester Picadilly station yesterday waiting for the 2.15pm to Euston, I was confronted with quite a remarkable sight. Parting the crowds on platform eight like a be-tracksuited Moses, was a young man and his Staffordshire bull terrier. The dog, a glossy dove grey and armored with a leather and stud body harness and collar, had a swagger so royal it made Bill Sykes' Bullseye look like a poodle. On the end of his lead proudly followed his owner. He was shaved head and immaculate in an Adidas tracky and K-Swiss trainers of the same dove grey shade as the dog. They cut quite a dash and I assume that was the desired effect.

But inner city Manchester’s answer to Dorothy and Toto were also putting the fear of god into those on their daily commute. People gave them a wide berth, mums reeled back in horror whipping their toddlers out of sight. Ah, I thought to myself. It’s a classic case of the ‘status dog’. Man in tracksuit gets a menacing looking dog to make himself look hard.

But the longer I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I became with the phrase. ‘Status dogs’ are now all that’s wrong with Britain. They’re usually a bull terrier breed and supposedly brandished by young men people to enhance their image and intimidate others. And such is the hysteria surrounding these animals they’ve been the feature of countless newspaper articles and earlier in the year, the BBC3 documentary ‘My Weapon is a Dog’.

There’s been a ‘status dog’ panic and whilst I don’t dispute the fact that there are now more mean looking Staffordshire and American bull terriers on Britain’s streets than ever before, I do object to the classist overtones this debate has now taken on.

Men have owned dangerous ‘status dogs’ for centuries, it’s just that before, they were greyhounds, Lurchers, hounds and spaniels, and owned by the nobility, so the debate never came to the table. But today’s ‘status dogs’ are owned by ‘chavs’ ‘drug dealers’ and ‘people on benefits’ and the general poor. I can’t help but think this hysteria over men wanting to own Staffy’s masks a deeper class based issue, essentially, how intolerable society has become towards working class dog owners.

Keeping a dog as a pet is a deeply British phenomenon. We love dogs in a way we love children. Every fourth family in Britain owns a dog. They are as much part of our culture as the X-factor and queueing. But don’t be fooled that this love of dogs is a universalizing trait to transcend class barriers. It’s been clear for centuries that the rich own different dogs to the poor. Take the greyhound. Outside of dog racing circles, the greyhound remains a key status dog for wealthy countryside dwellers. A mansion just isn’t a home without a couple of greyhounds strewn around the place. And they’ve enjoyed a long history as the ultimate ‘status dog’. In the Middle ages they were bred solely for hunting and protecting one’s land, which meant prowling the perimeters of country estates, generally threatening the poor and keep them in their place. In fact they were so ‘status’, only those in royal circles were allowed to own them.

Then there’s the Labrador. There’s nothing more smug than a middle class family of four living in the countryside enjoying a day out with their golden Labrador. Brandishing a Labrador may not have the same violent connotations as the Staffy or Greyhound, but it’s without doubt a ‘status dog’. Nothing says ‘I have the perfect life’ quite like the Lab.

Doberman’s were bred by German tax collectors to assist them in their day to day work. Alsatians were used by Her Majesty’s police, to intimidate and scare off the protesters at this year’s G20 summit meeting.

So it seems ‘status dogs’ in the hands of the right class and authority is entirely permissible. It’s just that now the poor are emulating what the rich have been doing for centuries mass panic breaks out and the RSPCA have been called in to cover this up as an animal welfare issue. Granted the Staffy is a particularly nasty looking dog, but in principle there’s nothing new about men owning dogs for the sole purpose of looking hard. But what is horrifying is the top down is the middle class hysteria that’s broken out around the issue. Would you run scared from a greyhound and its Barbour clad owner plodding along platform eight at Manchester Picadilly? I expect not.

Whale vs Lott

2009-09-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

I hate to jump on the band wagon. But Noah and the Whale really are such a gorgeous band. Subtle and tinged with folksy charm, but more peaceful and dreamy than say maybe Fleet Foxes. And you get a bit of feel good Everly Brothers melodies for your money too. It feels like your Dad's just switched off Jim Davidson's Generation Game, lit the fire and bought you a your brother a Crunchie because it's Saturday night and your five. Pretty marvelous the way a new band can bring back old memories of orchestral nights in the Proctor house.

On the other hand...am I the only one who doesn't get Pixie Lott? Sure she looks absolutely fantastic with her blonde hair and sequined hot pants, but not quite sure what she's adding to the world of music? No doubt I am thinking far too much about this, but it can't really be helped when the Observer feels it necessary to interview her two weeks in a row - first about her garden (which 18 year old has anything to add on horticulture) and then her opinion on the Beatles. In a market saturation of blonde, ever-so-slightly-but-not-really-won't-offend-the-neighbours-edgy, why has this one been picked out as commentator on topical events? I really hope I've missed a trick, I hope it's not just because she's fit.

SPOTTED: Dominic West in Sheffield Decathlon

2009-09-05T05:49:00.000-07:00

Where: Decathlon, Sheffield.

Doing what: Buying a detachable table tennis net and being amazing.

Reaction: adfkjadhf kadfhdkahfaoifh MCNULTY!

Not as common as spotting Sean Bean but not entirely unusual either, West was born in Sheffield to a plastics manufacturer. But still a Decathlon spot when he should be in Baltimore messing with Bunk on a Saturday lunch time is still pretty outstanding.

How NOT to cover one of the biggest child crime stories of the decade

2009-09-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a hardcore few weeks of freelance work for me at the Sheffield Star. Yes, I actually got paid! I was working on the website mainly as a video reporter learnt many a valuable thing. Including subbing, headline writing, video editing, search engine optimisation...and how to mess up one of the biggest stories I'd have ever covered in my career so far.

On Thursday I had a technological meltdown. I was sent out to video the press conference of the Edlington boys at Sheffield Crown Court who were on trial for the attempted murder of two other boys age 9 and 11. The biggest child crime case since Jamie Bulger.

I was sent down with a journalist with a video camera to capture footage for the website. As soon as I set up my rather shoddy looking tripod next to ITV, the BBC, Channel 5, ITN and every other major TV station - it ran out of battery. I had no idea that it was low on battery and had no warning when it was going to cut out. So I legged it back up one of Sheffield's finest hills to go and get the spare. The spare was gone. Had a heart attack. I ran back to court and tried to record the video on my phone, which is a rubbusg Sony Erricson. Needless to say it was completely pixalated and the sound quality rubbish and I felt like a complete moron holding up my phone whilst all major media players were surrounding me being completely competent

. When I realised my video wasn't going to work I thought the best I could do was to make an audio recording of the press conference to play on the website. I recorded ten minutes worth on my phone and felt the day had been salvaged a little. Got back to get the recording off my phone and it had disappeared into the ether. Heart attack number two and one or two tears.

This story goes on with more head pounding upsets over Bluetoothing and USB cables not working. In the end I, and web editor Nancy, gave up. I hadn't managed to get anything from the press conference and sat on the tram on the way to my next story barely able to think and feeling so dissapointed.

Lessons learned though. Always make sure your video camera is charged up, check it again, then check it again on your way out the door and make sure the spare camera is where the spare camera should be. The check the battery again. And don't have a heart attack - just get it right next time.

Beardyman @ Kendal Calling

2009-08-23T07:32:00.001-07:00

On Saturday night the Herald caught up with beat-boxer extraordinaire, Beardyman after he played his set of none stop bone shaking beats. In the past year Beardyman aka Jason Foreman’s career has boomed and it’s been a summer of non-stop festival touring for the young man from Brighton.
Using only his voice box and a looping machine to create sounds as bonkers as a car horn to a didgeridoo, Beardyman’s performances are a memorising testament to the power of the human body. His set eclectically flitted between chart covers and broken beats but he really impressed with a jaw-dropping rendition of Feeling Good. Pitch perfect and with all the jazz vibrato of Simone herself; Beardyman is more than just a beat machine there’s a musicality about his work which puts him ahead of the game.

Our interview took place in the glitzy surroundings of Kendal Calling's back-stage Portacabin. In an attempt to steer him away from the topic of Russian gangsters, something I think we could have dwelled on until the small hours, I whipped out the infamous Herald Cumbrian quiz.

What does the Cumbrian “As garn yam” translate as? “No way you lot have your own language? Well we have a few words sticking around, yes. “That’s nuts. Fascinating. I have long debates about language and I studied linguistics at university. I think it means Stop, gently please, am I right?” No. Nil point.

Which Cumbrian sport requires an all white suit and velvet knickers worn on the outside? “Squelching?”. Nil point.

Which celebrity’s parents live nearby - Timmy Mallet, Jimmy Saville or Chris Biggins? “I think it’s Timmy Mallet! It has to be he’s got such a bizarre accent. That must be the Cumbrian twang you can hear when he says ‘mall-et.” Okay, one out of three.

So talented in Cumbria trivia he may not be, but we’ll let that slide. Beardyman must be one of the busiest men in show. With back to back touring until November including the Edinburgh Festical and Bestival, Beardyman has come a long way since his life as a call centre boy in Brighton.

Apparently a seminal moment in his decision to becoming a professional beat-boxer was after failing a call centre personality test. “After I left university, I had loads of call centre jobs and we had to do this psychometric test to see if our personalities would fit in with the American Express brand – the company I was working with at the time. When I got the lowest ever score I though it was probably time to switch career. Then I met J’m Black, the guitarist I tour with, and he showed me the light.”

Beardyman also puts his success down to the Jewish work ethic instilled in him by his family who, he admits, would have probably preferred him to go into accounting.

“You know there’s that whole Jewish parenting thing of wanting your children to be stable and successful and go into accounting or something like that. Then my Mum ended up with me and my brother, who’s a comedy song-writer and tours more than I do. They’re so supportive of what I am doing now and she’s definitely given me this disciplined hard work ethic and drive to make a success of what I do.”

With so much strain on his voice-box and the phenomenal number of shows he does, I ask Beardyman how long he thinks he will be beat-boxing for. “It can hurt your throat and Tuvan monks (whose vocal techniques he uses) die young. Beat-boxer Killa Keller got throat nodules from doing it, so no it probably isn’t good for your throat. Especially when it’s combined with booze.”

So pushing your throat to such extreme limits might not be a career for the long haul, but after this weekend’s performance at Kendal Calling I don’t think he’ll be heading back to a call centre any time soon.

The Dolly Rockers

2009-08-16T05:57:00.000-07:00

In my unashamed appreciation of pure pop I have to confess I'm rather partial to this troupe of Muswell Hill glottal stop teens. I can't quite pin-point what it is about them I find so charming but it's either their ridiculously camp outfits or total lack of budget. Or maybe it's the fact they dance around like they've only got five minutes off between maths and double chemistry.

Kendal Calling 2009

2009-08-12T15:40:00.001-07:00

I had a stupendous time a couple of weekends ago smothered in glitter at Kendal Calling in the Lake District. I was working for my local paper again and got a few interviews inbetween catching up with literally everyone I went to school with from 1997 onwards. Beardyman was suitably nuts, Crazy P were the best party band by miles. And Ash were...well, Ash. But it was geordie soul man John Turrell of Smoove and Turrell who had my heart. Can't wait to see them at the Sage in Gateshead in September.

Big thanks to the organisers, B-unit and Lou Goodwin, the best press lady the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald could have asked for, for making the weekend go so smoothly.

Speech Debelle: The Key

2009-07-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

Never has the clarinet sounded so sexy. I knew I should have stuck at it.

Paul Kenny: Sea Works Exhibition 2001-2009

2009-07-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Before I was a journalist and had a richly diverse life away from the desk, I was quite into art and photography. Infact, god damn it, I've got an A-level in it. So I like to think I can spot a good photo when I see one.

One of my favourite photographers, Paul Kenny, has a new exhibition coming up in London between 10th and 29th August. You should go check it out if you're around the St James's/ Green Park. Actually I'd say it's going to be so good and innovative I'd suggest you make a special journey just to see it. It'll blow your mind away.

Using an entirely original photography technique, sometimes involving ice and sometimes involving seawater Kenny photographs far flung dramatic landscapes with a haunting beauty.

Some of my favourite work of his is his photographs of the stones which make up the ruins of crofters homes before the Highland Clearances. They are some of the most chillingly beautiful pieces of art I have ever seen.

See http://www.chrisbeetles.com/index.htm for more details.

The CBK Kid

2009-07-21T10:38:00.001-07:00

As a very cute little boy launched himself onto me today, punched me in the face and then asked me to play a game of Lotto with him, I coined a new phrase. It's the Catch it, Bin it, Kill it Kid. CBK Kid for short.

These are the snotty little monsters who drool and dribble and get far, FAR too close for comfort. This one came with a sister who sneezed on me.

As they both had me pinned to the floor and jumped on my face, all I could think of was getting to a tube of hand sanitizer, and fast, case swine flu got me before I managed to get out the room. Okay, the media has got me good and proper. Paranoia is well and truely instated.

Hoodz Underground

2009-07-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

One for the Sheffo's out there. I came across this band in my first year at university when they played a pretty fiersome set at The Tuesday Club. They were an impressive sight. Six or eight enormous blokes in Addidas rapping about class, race, Operation Impact and the BNP. The week before we'd been bopping along to Mr Scruff. So back then, the Hoodz Underground were a lot for our white middle-class selves to handle.

After they blasted a dumb-founded looking crowd for a good hour with their grimy tales of parts of Sheffield we'd never been to, I can't recall many cheers. As an audience, we'd been weened on a diet of gap year Bonobo and Fat Freddy's Drop. We were fresh out of school discos and nervously wondering whether to put all our eggs in the Artic Monkey's basket. Sorry Hoodz. We did you a disservice.

But I rediscovered them this year after working with one of the members 'Baby Moma' (her words, not mine) at a youth club who reminded my of their greatness. If you can get past a video filmed outside the Frog and Parrot on Division Street there's something really genuine behind it all. And I don't just mean their soft South Yorkshire vowels.

I've heard they've died off a little now...lead singer turned to Islam and not that fussed anymore - but they caputure a moment in 90s Sheffield's musical and social history. After watching the video I posted, check out 'Where ya from'...for little slice of the seven hills badlands. Yo.

Piling up the portfolio

2009-07-09T03:40:00.001-07:00

Please forgive this shameless bit of self-promotion...but what are blogs for?!

Here's a selection of work I did for the Independent whilst on work experience two weeks ago. Most went in the Life section but the interview with Witu Kahengeri went in the Saturday paper underneath an article by Robert Fisk - an honour to be on the same page.

This is a double page feature on kitchen cupboard remedies. Nice not to be edited up to the hilt. Very pleased about this!
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/kitchen-cupboard-remedies-1734272.html

I did the interviews and car reviews on this John Walsh piece on electric cars.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/features/batteries-included-are-ecofriendly-cars-any-good-1722687.html

I wrote a side bar to accompany this article by Rob Sharp on malaria.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/malaria-the-holiday-bug-with-a-lethal-sting-1734271.html

This is an interview I did with a Kenyan Mau-Mau vet on his week in London to launch his case against the British government.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/my-week-gitu-wa-kahengeri-1721568.html

This is a piece I wrote for the Hit and Run section.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/hit-and-run/hit-amp-run-twins-spell-trouble-in-hughs-harem-1707753.html

And no stint on features at the Independent is complete without compiling the Ten Best Stuff page. The stuff I did this year was The Ten Best Florists and HD Projectors. Your lives will tick along quite nicely without me linking you up to these pages...you get the gist.

Sorry guys...I never liked him.

2009-06-26T03:06:00.001-07:00

I've always been incredibly creeped out by Michael Jackson. As a child I just couldn't get over the way he looked and that he had gone from being such a beautiful looking man to a bleached white freak.

I always thought that he was just someone little boys had a crush on. I remember once sitting in my friends bedroom when I was 11 and him sticking the song Ben on the CD player and telling me it was the greatest song he'd ever heart. I looked nervously around the room trying to avoid looking at him, and simultaneously, the glare of the life size and purse lipped Jacko poster he had above his bed. Even at 11I could spot a cringe worthy moment a mile off. He'd often invite me to play at his house but knowing that it would mainly revolve around Michael Jackson worship sessions I often declined.

Then there was uni. Like a massive bore I always went to get another drink whilst everyone else around me went balistic on the dance floor for Bille Jean and Thriller. In fact I always found getting rid on unwanted male attention at union nights out was best achieved by whispering in their ear... "You know I hate Michael Jackson."

There I have said. I have never had even the slightest bit of connection with Wacko Jacko, I hated him as a person and I detested his music even more.

Although I'm not made of stone. The pictures of his family in the hallways of UCLA hospital on TMZ.com were emotional and iconic. The sort of photo that makes it into the compliations of the most poingnant moments of the century. I understand his achievements and fantastic career, I just wish, on the day of his death, I really understood what all the fuss is about.

Middle-aged, minted and massively sucessful.

2009-06-25T04:22:00.000-07:00

Not since Britters went pant-less has there been a more sickening sight in the Daily Mail. Yesterday the picture of Sir Philip Green and Simon Cowell larking about in the sand was enough to turn the stomach of the good men and women sat on the tube next to me.

In the picture the giggling pair are shown on holiday a few years ago in Barbados at the Sandy Lane Resort (where else?) massaging suncream and no doubt each other egos all day long. But little did we know that these earlier Carribean romps were the scene of the masterminding of one of the most powerful entertainment business mergers this century.

Yesterday the news broke that Cowell and Green are putting their greasy perma-tanned foreheads together to buy the rights to the X-Factor and a whole host of other popular entertainment programs. Although Simon is the creator of the programs he doesn't own any shares and so is paid a salary like everyone else on the judges panel. Clearly Simon is feeling a little short changed on this and needs a few more mil shoved his way before he spits the dummy out over the enourmous sucess of his own program.

So they'll buy out Simon Fuller, rope in Kate Moss as a judge and no doubt subject the tabloid press to even more displays of 'I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine' beach side shenanigans. How are these two bloated middle aged men in swimming shorts capable of so much?

Miranda Sings: A Youtube great.

2009-06-20T05:12:00.000-07:00

I want to share with you someone very 'special'. This is Miranda, Youtube sensation and a class A joker. Her home movie singing lessons are priceless, you have to check them out! This is pure Youtube self indulgence and Miranda really shows the best company is always your own.

See her website for all the Youbube links:
http://www.mirandasings.com/

Wonderful work experience

2009-06-19T08:12:00.000-07:00

I love this time of year.

In June I like to uphold a long standing tradition and make my annual pilgrimage to London to carry out unpaid work experience in the dwindling hope it may lead to some sort of employment on any paper, of any standard, anywhere in the country.

In six days I have been here so far I have stayed on sofas,in spare rooms and kitchens in Hackney, East Finchley and Shad Thames. I've looked after someone's cat, managed to set the Fort Knox style alarm system and almost definitely blocked up someone's drain washing my afro.

I'm absolutely knackered, but I have found out whilst working on a feature for a national newspaper that it is possible to treat thrush with a supositoary of garlic.

I love this time of year.

Another stonker from Gwyneth

2009-06-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

It's becoming a bit of a running theme, but I just can't avoid attacking Gwyneth Paltrow's blog. Her cheerful emails always seem to crop up when I am feeling at my most murderous. This month she is extolling the virtues of international travel and how we should all spend some time getting to know Barcelona. I may sound like a broken record but, hello! privilege, recession, reality check.

I quote: "Barcelona is a city full of wonder and beauty. I first went when I was 19 years old, with some train money and a backpack and not much else. I fell in love with the city’s passion for life, its food, culture, and of course, its architecture."

Yes, it's the train money and 'not much else' which really caused me to choke on my afternoon cuppa. By 'not much else' I am assuming the younger and much poorer Birkenstock wearing Gywneth had clean forgot about the film producer father, world famous actress mother, Hollywood upbringing and burgeoning acting career. At least when I'm traveling with 'not much else', the Hollywood part of my life slips my mind too.

Is she really trying to convince the great untraveled masses that now is the time to go abroad to gorge yourself on tapas and saunter around Gaudi's parks and gardens? Of course you can do it on the cheap when 'not much else' refers to a spanking new credit card that Dad's topped up for the summer.

Get a grip Gwyneth.

Why are exams in June?

2009-06-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

Sitting inside on one of the hottest days of the year trying to complete my final piece of course work, which marks the end of 20 years in education, is pure torture.

Why are exams in June? Why, oh why? Every summer I feel like I have to miss the best weather to sit at my desk. I'm boiling, and being tortured by the heart breaking twinkles of the ice-cream van bringing joy and life to everyone in Crookes except me. :(

Now I know that out educational calender harks back to the old harvest season when we all needed the long summer off to go and help in the fields...but isn't it time to move on? The only people I still know who have to help with the harvest are some poor boys back in my home town of Penrith. Why do the rest of us have to suffer revising for exams in the heat so that we can 'conveniently' end the school year in the middle of summer.

My suggestion: Do exams in February. It's an utterly shit month and it needs a bit of direction. All those in favor raise their pastey ink smudged hands high into the gorgeous blue sky.

Wham Bam Thankyou Cam

2009-05-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

Wham Bham Thankyou Cam

As much as it pains me to say it, you've got to hand it to David Cameron for his handling of the Tory expense abuse, as revealed in the Daily Telegraph on Monday.

Quite rightly, Cameron has publicly shamed those who have abused the system to pay for their gardening, the laying of pipes under tennis courts, maintaining moats and polishing the silver pillaged from Daddy's days in Africa. Okay, made the last one up, but you get the gist of the absurdity of the claims. Gosh damn it, Camo's even said he'll pay back his meager looking claim of £608 for house maintenance. Compared to the way Gordon handled things, Cameron is looks like a Robinhood-esque saint.

Labour's management of the whole affair has been markedly different. Sure Cameron had a full week to prepare and learn from the mistakes of Labour. But Cameron's job well done has shown up Labour's incompetence. It's been like watching a very slow, painful Carry On film watch bumbling imbeciles fumbling around for a solution to a humongous problem they've caused. Except sadly, this is no laughing matter, Labour MPs have effectively stolen from the poor.

To top it all off, Speaker Michael Martin's only action was to call the police into the House to try and find the source of the leak. I'm not quire sure which part of 'the public are owed an apology' he failed to understand.

It was of some minor comfort to see Hazel Blears apologizing and promising to repay £13,000 of tax she evaded. But one thing's for certain - Gordon Brown's Labour government is now in the latter stages of terminal decline.

Now I only remember two things about 1997. One, was telling my Dad I thought the Spice Girls were a one hit wonder, and two, staying up till the small hours with my Mum and little brother watching the blue counties of England turn to red in the landside election that brought Tony Blair to power. And since then I have been generally pleased with the way the country has been run. And I will still vote Labour, but to find out a party I once had such faith and belief in has stolen from the public in such a sleazy fat-cat way, has left me sad and disillusioned. Although fat-cat alludes one to some sort of stealth and cunning. Perhaps greedy bumbling baffoon (if it were an animal) is more appropriate.

In terms of claiming huge amounts on expenses, I would have expected it from some of the older generation Tories. The fact one of them lives in a moated mansion is proof enough that they are still a class based party. But David Cameron's public apology and promise to take disciplinary action against party member who have abused their expenses account is applaudable. I can hardly believe I am saying this (and I apologize in advance to my parents) but Cameron has shown more backbone, leadership and morality than all of the Labour party put together. That's why he's going to win the next election.

How to save money at a festival.

2009-05-04T15:47:00.001-07:00

My article on how to approach a festival in these doom and gloom recession times is for the forthcoming magazine, The Festival, which will be available at all major UK festivals this summer. If you have any thoughts on other ways to save money then please let me know - there may be something vital I missed out...

The festival season is nearly upon us. There’s been the usual tell tale signs - Radio One’s commenced it’s relentless plugging of its first One Big Weekend and it’s more than likely you’ve had your first whiff of a disposable BBQ. But this year’s different. We’re all completely skint. Gone are the days of partying in a muddy field for a week and then heading off abroad for a post-festival chill out. This year more than ever, people are treating their festival of choice as their one and only summer break. And we want to help you make the most of it. Seasoned festival goer Kate Proctor takes a look at the top ways to save money and party like it’s 1999 – when people thought recession was something that only happened to coal miners.

1. Tent equipment.

Wait till the last minute and take advantage of the annual supermarket tent war and see who caves first. Aldi is usually a safe bet for the £10 tent. It will almost definitely only last one festival and let some water in, but it won’t break the bank. E-bay is also a great place to pick up a tent bargain. I spied a 9 person tent on for only 99p.

2. Getting lashed on zero cash.

Always buy your booze in advance from a supermarket or cash and carry and take as much of it as you can into the festival on a sledge. If you’re heading to WOMAD, in the west-country, then stop at a cider brewery and get yourself an industrial vat for a fiver to tank you up till Monday.

3.Work at a festival.

Not for the faint hearted, but working at a festival can save you hundreds of pounds. You get a free ticket and often hot meals, a quiet camp site and clean toilets and showers. If you’re really lucky you might also get paid minimum wage. Get in touch with www.stuartsecurity.co.uk who have shifts available at festivals all over the UK. But remember you could be watching a fence for 8 hours whilst everyone else enjoys your favourite band.

4. Take your own food.

Aim to buy just one meal inside the festival ground per day and take everything else with you. Bananas and breakfast bars are cheap and absolute essentials for kick starting your day, and small enough to take into the festival ground in your pockets. Noodles and pasta sachets are good for snacks at any time. What ever you do…don’t ever, ever, ever waste your money on cheese. It will turn rancid and sweaty as soon as it goes anywhere near a tent, and you’ll definitely be sleeping on your own. Always take spare gas for your camping stove because it will cost a fortune to buy it inside the festival.

5. Use public transport.

No one buys their festival tickets last minute any more, any festival worth its salt is always sold out months in advance, so there’s no excuse for not sorting out your transport at the same time. Book your train tickets 3 months in advance and you can save up to 70% off your fare. Go to www.nationalrail.co.uk or www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk, which for some reason I have never quite unfathomed sells cheaper fares than anyone else. The Big Green Coach company picks up festival goers from all over the country to V-Festival. It’s about £40 for a return journey. Go to www.biggreencoach.co.uk to save the environment and money on petrol and parking.

6. Recession festival chic.

The basic concept – wear what you wore last year. Very little changes in festival fashion. It’s always shorts, wife beaters and flip flops for the boys, unless your at Leeds festival then it’s jeans and bare chests for brawling later on. And cute flowery dresses and wellies for the girls. Sure, there might be a must-have hat or pair of sunglasses - like last years neon plastic slat glasses that no one could see through - but that boho-dress you wore last year will look just as good this time round. Alternatively, raid charity shops for cool vintage t-shirts or get out the spray paint and decorate those wellies to give your outfit a new lease of life.

7. Toiletries.

Forget those novelty mini toiletry sets Boot’s has on offer. There’s a cheaper way to keep clean. Time to head to the frightening looking own brand toiletry section of your local supermarket for your festival teams shampoos, soaps, and toothpaste. These items cost only a few pence and just because they look like they were packaged in Stalinist Russia, doesn’t mean the actual ingredients are any different to well known brands.

The only thing I wouldn’t scrimp on is wet-wipes. Unless you want to sport the well known festival affliction of ‘tent-face’. This is when your face puffs up into red angry weeping sore, due to the combination of astringent budget face wipes and a night spent with your face pressed up against a tent.

Exercise and help Madonna nick children...

2009-03-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

Okay I am back on Gwyneth's case...

GOOP, Gwyneth Paltrow's blog on how to be as perfect as her, has just launched it's March newsletter. This time, her personal trainer, Tracey Anderson (midget excercise guru to the stars) is teaching Dance Cardio through a 'webisode'.

Gwynnie wants you to put these on your I-pod and dance when ever you have free time. I imagine I will be able to do this inbetween my morning chocolatachino, securing a job at the Times and saving the world from Aids. Like Gwyneth.

What really takes the mick tho, is that Gwyneth wants you to go and buy the next in the series of dance cardio 'webisodes'. The proceeds of which will go to Madonna's baby stealing charity, Raising Malawi.

We get it Gwyneth, Madonna is your bezzie, but endorsing her charity, which will no doubt be used as leverage against Malawian social services in her next orphan pilfering spree is really not a good idea.

Post office blues.

2009-03-28T16:19:00.001-07:00

I'm quite partial to the British post office. I mean where else can you apply for a passport, take out cash, top up your mobile phone credit, buy Turkish Lira and post your brother a second-hand Adidas tracksuit through the fair hand of a woman named Judith?

Which is why I find the closure of yet another post office in Sheffield upsetting. The most convenient town centre post office, off Fargate, closed last week. After seeing its white-washed windows and closed sign, I then started the hunt for another one in the town. No easy feat. After wandering round the Moor, I ended up in a cavernous basement room of the Co-op near Primark. I have never seen such a sorry state of post office affairs.

I was in the queue for thirty minutes, and at 5.00pm ever more and more people were flooding in. I wasn't the only person irate at the pace of service. With only 3 cash desks open, getting something posted was a pitifully slow process. The disgruntled left, whilst others stuck it out. Babies started squeal and the atmosphere turned sour.

Perhaps it was the bare shelves and balding carpet of the Co-op. Perhaps it was lemming like line of tired looking people clutching parcels, but there was something distinctly Soviet about the whole situation. It just didn't feel like I was in Britain in the 21st century. What ever happened to this great public institution?

Judith, who served me, told me the number of people coming into the post office increases every day as more and more in the suburbs are closed. So clearly, the demand is still there - but not enough staff to cope. The post office on West Street puts customers through a similar ordeal. Only two cash desks are ever open and the queue is often out the shop door.

The post office is a basic and fundamental institution and it needs a serious injection of public money to improve it. It has to be saved, not because it is traditional, but because of the number of services it delivers and its necessity in the functioning of everyday life.

Outsourcing services to WHSmith's might increase efficiency, but why can't this be achieved with the public sector? Probably because the government have been too busy bailing out the banks to find any additional funds for other services.

Long term, the post office needs much more than the £150bn given to Royal Mail to subsidise the post offices. And short term, more cash desks need to be opened to deal with those currently standing out in the cold and wet for half and hour to draw their pensions. Surely those made redundant in post office closures across Sheffield can be moved to the branches still open?

The long, long queues currently seen outside Sheffield's post offices feels emblematic of 2009's recession. By the looks on the faces of those queuing with me Thursday afternoon, the declining post office is yet another blow to public moral. Post office closures are inevitable, but in a recession already tipping people over the edge, the least New Labour can do is keep the post offices in order. Keep the queues down: there's a few voters in it, I'm sure.

Why I love being ill...

2009-03-08T07:23:00.000-07:00

I had a horrible flu this weekend and enjoyed every minute!

After a killer deadline on Thursday I woke up with a sore throat. And I was delighted. Being ill feels like the only legitimate excuse a journalism masters student can have to take things easy.

Whilst I ploughed through series 3 of Grey's Anatomy, a box of tissues and lemsip, there were moments of pure panic. Shouldn't I be reading Flat Earth or Power and Society or practicing my shorthand or thinking about my portfolio or sorting out that job application....the mental list making went on and on.

Thankfully my brain, the doctor and my mum got the better of me and I gave myself 2 days off. Apparently you can be 'diagnosed' with exhaustion. Save reading the Sunday papers, listening to the World at One and writing just a little article, I have had the weekend off from school work.

And it's amazing what random things one can achieve whilst laid up in bed. In my flu based delirium, I researched my family tree using the online census' and found out that my great-grandad was 43 years older than my great-grandma (erm, sick), caught up with far too many American TV series, and then decided that it was about time in my life to donate some money to charity. After some serious research, I decided upon Medicine Sans Frontiers. Quite why it took getting ill to make me donate £2 a month to charity I'm not sure. But perhaps being ill, is the only time a journalism student has the chance to step back and think about something other than their own ambition.

So I am looking forward to getting back on it with a day at Rotherham Magistrates on Tuesday for court reporting practice. But it sure has been nice having a weekend off.

2009-02-15T15:52:00.000-08:00

It's all in the eyebrows.

Eyebrows - check.
Uncomfortable grimace- check.
Position of incredible power over the tax payer - check.

David Freud, on the left, former advisor to Blair and Brown has deserted the Labour party for the Tory front bench this weekend. His extremely impressive track record in money making and management is just the sort of person Cameron wants to sex up his team of financially retarded advisers. I may have got Cammy wrong here, but so far I've failed to hear anything substantial in response to the recession. There's been no master plan from the Bullingdon club, except to snipe like school children 'weeee wouldn't have given the bankers bonuses.' What a lie.

David Freud is not the sort of person you want to de-camp from your team and his move is a worrying sign that he knows something we don't. Freud has brokered extraordinary deals in his time, understands government and seems to have done all of this without much effort. He announced his retirement at 53, saying he had become 'bored of the city'. Furthermore, with the genes of old Sigmund floating around, Freud can probably predict the outcome of this great subconcious game the economy is playing. I bet David Cameron can hardly believe his luck.

But do you trust those eyebrows? The poor tax payer has been misled by a man with a crop of snow white hair and black eye brows before and Freud has high hopes for a prominent position if the Tories get into power. Freud better bleach those slugs quick: those things are a curse.

Living with boys

2009-02-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

Just something I have learned from living with boys...

I am lucky enough to have the pleasure of living with two gorgeous and talented young men. One is a photographer for rags such as the Mirror and Daily Mail/rock-star and the other is a rock climber studying for a Phd on glaciers, Mars and mathematics. All very intellectual and all very pleasing on the eye.

The only thing jading this beautifully bohemian life of ours is the dirt. Our house is filthy. The recycling hasn't been taken out for months and tins of sweetcorn have been left out to spore toxic towers of mold. The toilet is rarely flushed and there's the memorable time I ran myself a bath and found a lump of poo floating in it. I know they are busy guys and everyone has different standards, but there's been weeks when I think I'm going to die of cholera.

So you can understand it angered me somewhat to receive a text on Friday night from handsome rock-climbing housemate telling me he had tidied the entire house from top to bottom and popped a smoked salmon pasta bake in the oven. He'd pulled a girl the night before in Fuzz Club and was inviting her back for the conversation part.

Whether it was the sparkling surfaces or his knowledge on eastern grit, this girl has now been living in our house for four days in something of a Valentines love-in.

Looks like I should chuck the sparkly gel-penned cleaning rota in the bin. That's clearly a female only device of cleaning encouragement.

Great. I'm in a sex-for-hoovering situation. I failed to observe that in the contract.

2009-02-01T11:06:00.000-08:00

The BBC and Sky are right.

I received a number of emails this week from the pro-Palestine society at my university, of which I am a member, asking me to petition the BBC to show an advert for aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

Whilst I am whole heartedly anti-Zionist and saddened by recent events, I think the Palestine Society and its affiliated organisations throughout the UK are targeting the wrong sector. Instead of wasting energy on the steps of Broadcasting House, protesters could be taking more direct action, lobbying the government to send aid, organising high profile marches, writing articles.

The BBC is right to not become politically involved. By showing the advert, the media crosses the impartiality line and erodes the foundations of broadcasting. Media neutrality is not an antiquated value; it is demonstrated in the British press everyday and is the very essence of accurate newsgathering.

It was good to see Sky news, another global broadcaster sticking by the broadcasters principled code. News organisations should relay the facts, the suffering and the pain. They should show the mistreatment of Palestinians, but they cannot advertise a plea for aid from oneside and ignore the suffering endured by the other. This is not caving to Israeli pressure and this is not ignoring the war crimes waged on Palestinian citizens. This is the proper stance of a professional, detatched, newsgathering organisation. News is informative, it is up to the viewers to be transformative.

There is no place for advocacy journalism in the 6 0'clock news. Thankfully there are other technological forums which can be employed to demand aid for Gaza. Blogs, websites, discussion boards are far more appropriate for the task of drumming up support.

Did the BBC or Sky News show appeals in their news programs for aid to be sent to Rwanda? Kenya? Zimbabwe? East Timor? Nicaragua? Sierra Leone? Sri Lanka?
I would be interested to know.

Lady Gaga and Paris Hilton. 'No no, you're an icon'.

2009-02-01T10:30:00.000-08:00

Lady Gaga and Paris Hilton.
'No no, you're an icon.'

Let me know how many seconds you can stomach of this narcissistic, brain dribbling, self absorbed crap?! I'm so sorry Gwyneth, these two make you look like a genius.

Obama - this is what is wrong with America. That these people are given air time and are the 'icons' of America, does your nation no favors in raising the much needed intellectual and cultural game.

Watch these two losers at the Nokia Twat Awards.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVxxgNDYzho

2009-01-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

Do Jewish Ethics Justify Israel's War in Gaza?

The Jewish Chronicle is a great place to hear the other side of the story on the war in Gaza.

It is nice to still be completely amazed and dumb-founded by the things I read.

Check out this conversation between Orthodox Professor Geoffrey Alderman and Liberal Rabbi David Goldberg

at

http://www.thejc.com/articles/do-jewish-ethics-justify-israelâs-war-gaza