Thursday, August 06, 2009

Day 143: Genius - it's official!

Today's soundtrack: Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (remixed)

So yes, it's official - I am a genius! It must be so, because someone said so!

Well ok, no-one actually said 'Paul Waring is a genius' - what they said was that something I'd written on another blog was 'genius'. Which is almost the same thing.

What are you talking about, Paul? Will you please get to the point?

Ok then. Regular readers will know of my contributions to The Word - magazine, website, podcast. Not in any remuneratory capacity, I hasten to add - there is a blog on their website that I contribute to, and occasionally those contributions get transferred by the editorial team to the magazine (via the letters page) or, as in this case, get a mention on the podcast.

The blog had had a very entertaining thread relating to 'things that happen in The Beano that you never see in real life' it's here, if you want to read the whole thread. My contribution, describing how someone bitten on the toe by a crab would be depicted in the comic, appears somewhere in the middle of the thread. And it got read out in the following week's podcast (which you can listen to in its entirety below) by Andrew Collins, music journalist, broadcaster and fellow blogger.



Andrew, clearly a man of taste and discernment, chose to describe my post as 'genius', bless him. You should really listen to the whole podcast, but my moment of glory commences at around the 32:50 mark if you wish to skip right there!

Anyway, enough with the self-congratulation already! Did you do anything constructive today, Paul? Well I tidied the garden up, got the lawnmower out and applied the (not so) green fingers to the soil. Happily, our lawn (which has suffered for years from squirrel/badger assaults and shade from surrounding vegetation) seems to have flourished this summer - largely due, I think, to our neighbours cutting down a tree that blocked out a lot of light rather than anything I've done. Although I have re-seeded a few patches and applied the 'Weed and Feed' liberally on occasion.

Other than that, it was a bit of a quiet one, really. Quiet on the job front as well - no news from the current 'live' opportunities although as always these things move slower than you would like them to.

We've had Bloc Party on the soundtrack before, I think, but no reason not to have them again. Today's album is a complete remix of their debut album and includes some tasty versions of their early songs. Not something I listen to on a regular basis, but it's a nice touch from the group and sets them ever so slightly apart from their fellow indie contemporaries. It harks back to the days when reggae albums were often accompanied by 'dub' versions of the album, which I always enjoyed, often preferring the dub versions to the originals!

Here's the band performing 'Banquet' from their debut. Lots of spiky guitars and tension!

No comments: