bridget jones' diary

so so, the missus and i watched bridget jones' diary the other week - first time for me, umpteenth for her, seriously hung over from a hen party the night before. watching it the thought came to me - i bet this was a really good book.

i've never had that in a film - kind of enjoying the film but reckoning that i'd enjoy the book a lot more. i've seen films that i've loved that were based on books, which i then read and turned out to be even better (princess bride, never ending story fit very well especially as they're both recursive books); rubbish films based on books i liked, and so on. the point is the film really felt like a not-entirely-tacky romcom made out of a book that was slightly more sophisticated, with a less cringey soundtrack, and with a better structure (but without, of course, the very lovely renee. romcoms are really relationship porn).

aside from the manic flip-flopping of the ending of the film, the thing that most strikes me is the pride and prejudice riffing; in the book, we are presented with a lass who dreams of meeting her d'arcy, fresh from the bbc lake; who then actually gets to interview colin firth; and whose life turns into the plot of pride and prejudice as she dates two men who don't like each other, for dark mysterious reasons. the film on the other hand, doesn't have time for all that, actually casts colin firth as the d'arcy character, and just becomes a p&p tribute/update. i'm sure the book was more than just 'pride and predjuice in middle class 90s london'. i can feel it. but then, maybe the casting of firth as d'arcy - _again_ - is actually as close as they could get to the flavour of the book?

but, anyway, now i can't read it. i've seen the film, and i feel reading the book has been ruined for me. because the film wasn't _terrible_, i have absorbed too much of it. if it had been rubbish, i could have moved on; if it had been great, i'd have dived in; but it was just fine. which leaves me wanting to get the better, deeper experience of the book, but without the motivation. sigh. lol.

battle of cable street footage

amazing footage. i love who painfully 'impartial' the news reader is trying to appear; that mosley can't be a bad chap, look, he's wearing a trilby hat. baddies don't wear trilby hats.

i was reading up on tower hamlets - doesn't it have the highest gradient of economic difference of any borough in the country or something? i don't know, because the otherwise excellent wikipedia article is simply missing that information. given that the borough encompasses whitechapel, which is at least historically one of the poorest areas in the country, and canary wharf, 'the apprentice' land. whitechapel is quite heartbreakingly trapped between the two towers of the minas gherkin and minas wharf, like a glacial valley of shit. it's totally song worthy

free album-geddon (edited fource)

i'm tired, as i keep telling people. lots of holiday then lots of pgce-ness.
in the midst of that, lots of good free albums have been releasified and you can download them and i can see no reason why you shouldn't instantly get them all:

i enjoyed necro deathmort's this beat is necrotonic very much while painting the corridor. a great mix of various styles of unpleasant music, works very well. instrumental doom-hop.

euros childs' son of euro child can be got by signing up to his mailing list. it's very cynical and funny and a bit reminiscant of early gorky's, which is what we all wanted.

penny sweets' barefoot at the edge and dildano's the buzzard maze are both cracking indie releases which you should already have.

drumcorps has a new mixtape online, truth and justice. lots of unreleased stuff and actual great mixing on there.

can't believe i forgot ex-strangler hugh cornwell's hoover dam, quite half man half biscuity - lots of wry lyrics and lo-fi indie songs.

and recall's marvellous trippy plotlines, former zabrinski producer doing what he's good at.

in the midst of all this race to the bottom, to the boats..! have a new album out, but it's not free. call us old fashioned... you can get it right here, which would be really flattering and delightful for you to do.

found lyrics

found when i was cleaning out my desk, which i can roughly date around august 2007:

perfume and meat

saline
dribbles down her chin
vacant
eyes she cannot close
i thought you'd left me off the hook
you made me come back for one last look

her last lie-in
lying in state
oh what a state

as a uniform pulls over a sheet
i realise girls are made of perfume and meat.

please help the disabled

i'm glad to know -really glad- that i'm not the only person on the internet who has tried to record the 'please help the disabled, help the disabled please' guy who turns up at a random tube station every day. you never know where he'll strike next...
at least two others have tried: there's this excellent recording amongst the very great library of ambience, and:



i just put the keyboard ketteh tune as my ringtone and i can't stop playing it and bouncing along and smiling 87)