Get outta here!

Diary 2.

Soon come

More Tootpaste For Dinner

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Angry young man

is what I'm feeling at the moment - the clips of NY bands on BBC4 last week inspired me to dig out tracks by all of the following:

Sonic Youth (a return to my teenage years)
The Velvet Underground (Shiny shiny shiny boots of leather, etc)
MC5 (has there ever been a greater opening to anything than Kick out the Jams?)

Plus, on another note, the new Air album has arrived - a return to form, or so they claim. I shall have to listen tonight and get back to you...

Not much to write about

apart from expressing my admiration for Tim Robinson's Connemara - up for numerous Irish literary prizes, this book manages to combine history, geology, biology, folklore, literature in a beautifully evocative picture of this small part of the west of Ireland - the author has lived and worked mapping this part of the world for the last couple of decades, and the depth of understanding of the various processes (historical, meteorological, geological and so on) that go to shape this most peripheral part of Europe combined with his eye for small cultural details (he frequently deviates from the grand narrative to engage the reader in some village gossip, or in an old folk story) ensure that the area truly comes alive.

Added: Friday, 9 March, 2007, 18:28 GMT 18:28 UK

"One best leader in the 21 st century to come. He took russia from dust to world only alternative power to save the world...russian and whole world will rally behind him...as the greatest leader to face unjust in the world created by christian and jewish and muslim fundemantals and uniplorasim.
He is the one can save world from religous fanatics...we know nobody perfect whatever that mean.

Turk, Samsun"

Taken from this BBC discussion thread about Putin's effect on Russia.

Noo Yoik

week on BBC 4. Watching a collection of New York bands playing live on the BBC in the 70's now. Patti Smith, Talking Heads, The Ramones, all soon to be followed by Blondie. This is a less famous appearance by the delightful Miss Harry from 1980:

Bar Frankfurt Calypso

was the name of the bar just round the corner from the hotel. The sign was black lettering on an orange background. In three different fonts. "Bar" was normal. In Arial, perhaps. "Frankfurt" followed the standard practice of using Gothic script for a German name. The "Calypso" element was rendered in a wonderful 1970's style - I have been searching for the font for about 45 minutes now, to no avail. It was bliss. And had evidently not been changed since the bar opened in the late 70's or early 80's. An aberration, I thought. Like a kebab house in the provinces. Everywhere, and especially bars, rebrands itself about four times a week in the UK, and in a major cosmopolitan European city, it must be at least twice a day, if not more frequent. Then there was another. Not the same style, but from the same period. And another. In fact, apart from international brands - Habitat, Starbucks, FNAC, etc, most of the businesses seemed to be small concerns with no desire or need to change their image. Even the Keisy supermarkets make very little effort:



Yet despite this anti-branding, there is a conciousness to the naming of businesses. German and Austrian names are prevalent - especially for bars and restaurants - Frankfurt, Duesseldorf and Innsbruck all appeared at least once, and not one of the bars seemed to have any particular Teutonic influence save the name. I imagine it is due to the fact that Germans were the first real mass tourists in Europe, and must have got to Barcelona in large numbers in the late 1960's.

Babe,

I'm back again... As Take That sang in one of their unforgettable mid-90's classics. No blogging proper today - masses of work to do, and then exciting football of the highest order tonight. So in the meantime, an list of things to help me remember what to write about in the next few days:

1. Barcelona
2. Sevilla beating Barcelona
3. Bar signs
4. Cars with their roofs (or should that be rooves?) removed
5. British weather
6. Pork products
7. Irish placelore
8. Good urban design

Back Tuesday

See you later.