Thursday, April 30, 2009

Day 46: Prep time

Today's soundtrack: The Style Council - The Complete Adventures....

Ok, so it's obviously Weller Time in Waring Towers today - there's plenty on iTunes for it to chance upon! Back a few years from Heliocentric, this is a Big Box Set with everything Weller ever released during his Style Council phase - a phase in his career that I think is much maligned and includes some of his best, and most diverse and 'experimental' work. People forget that the first Style Council LP was genuinely groundbreaking at the time - instrumentals, guest singers, complete re-workings of previously recorded songs...ok, not all of it worked, but at the time Weller was pushing back the boundaries of what was expected from a 'pop star' - and to chuck it all in with The Jam to do this, at a time when they were probably the biggest band in the country, was a very brave decision.

Hence my disappointment with the 'sausage machine' of identikit albums released in the 2000's.

Spent today preparing for a full day's worth of assessments for a new job that's taking place tomorrow. Don't want to say too much, will update when it's all over. Luckily there is a wealth of publicly-available information on t'internet to trawl through - some of it quite interesting and enlightening. Two sets of interviews, a written exercise and a presentation to get through tomorrow....bring it on!

So it looks like a chippy tea tonight - no time to cook and certainly no intention of drinking before such a busy day. There will - naturally - be freshly baked bread for chip buttyage! So the big question is whether to go with the spicy curry sauce as well...not that tough a decision really, I have to say.

We've only a couple of chippys in the near vicinity, both a drive away, and the quality can be variable. Chips tend to be a touch underdone when they are busy. Mrs W has been known to return chips not done to her satisfaction - but I find the application of curry sauce is enough to disguise the most anaemic of chip.

With the football out of the way for this week, we'll be settling down with a CSI tonight I feel. It's not quite The Wire, but it's a pleasant way to spend an hour or so. We came to CSI very late, and are working our way through the early Las Vegas box sets at the moment. Loads more to go at, and Miami and other flavours to try out as well!

What did we do before the existence of the DVD box set?

Back to the Style Council and my favourite track of theirs - Long Hot Summer. Takes me back to those lazy '80s - espadrilles, sweaters flung over shoulders, homoerotic videos...happier, simpler times! Reminds me - I saw Mick Talbot last year, playing keyboards for Candi Staton. Still got the Hammond and the chops, but the curls are long gone! And just how skinny is Weller?



Quick post tonight - must dash....wish me luck for tomorrow!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Enjoying the blogs and thought I would say good luck for tomorrow.

Simon said...

Good luck for tomorrow Paul!

One request for the blogs - less bread details and receipes and more updates on the bass playing would be in order. I hope it is not collecting dust already!

Marina said...

Hi love, hope it went ok today. Nice bottle of red with your name on it tonight! Love Mrs W xxx

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