Harrods Choccys

choccys 001
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

We had some rather nice visitors from Hong Kong yesterday. So nice in fact, and so impressed with me explaining what happened in our office on a day to day basis, they all had their photos taken with me.

It gets better. As you can see from the photo. To say thanks for showing them round the office, they gave us a box of choccys and some tea. Both, I can confirm are entirely ace and totally unexpected.

No idea what's in any of them, ( the one with the bee on doesn't in fact contain bees, but a very fragrant honey, and booze) they are all ace, even the white chocolate ones, though white chocolate isn't real chocolate. Don't get me started on white chocolate.

The tea's good tea, too. Real stuff. Luckily I have an infuser in my desk. Yum.

The only downer was feeling a proper twat for not having a gift to give them in return. I've been caught out like this before, and in true western culture style, the feeling quickly passes in the soothing haze of a chocolate induced coma.

A morning of darkness and gales

A morning of darkness and gales
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

Pure, miserable, rotten weather. I know it's winter, but come on. Wet and windy but not freezing, cloudy but no snow. It's been like this for weeks.
I seem to be experiencing some latent genetic predisposition to hibernate as I struggled to get up again this morning. Bears have the right idea. Who wants to go out in this?

Leave the core, Hilary

There's an excellent bit in the movie 'The Core' near the start where a pre Million Dollar Baby Hilary Swank helps land an off-course space shuttle on the freeway. She doesn't get to land it of course, 'cos she's a woman. Later on she gets to pilot a sort of train/mining machine to the centre of the earth to use nukes to start the earth spinning again after the bloke pilot dies. Swank saves the day and despite the physics, starts the earths core rotating again. It's bollocks of course, but fun bollocks with Stanley Tucci as a bulb headed clever dick who nicks ideas off of Delroy Lindo, who plays the serious one that actually invents everything.

 

You have to wonder why they bothered saving the earth though, when someone has done a 'dance' version of 'Say say say' by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, and 'Another Brick in the Wall' has been dancified by Eric Prydz? I mean what's the fucking point? Don't get me wrong, I'm not precious about either song. I do however, totally resent the stunted creativity of someone who thinks there is any reason to keep dredging up music from 20 or 30 years ago, music I can remember first time around, god help me, and making something utterly without merit after someone else has done all the hard work. McCartney doesn't need the money, and Pink Floyd have enough cars, though Jacko might be a bob or two short after paying all those lawyers.

 

This has been going on for years, you can go back to 'Hooked on Classics' (popular classical music with a crappy handclap dance beat added, in a, God forbid, medley) or even fucking Jive Bunny. Those are just the two worst offenders I can think of. It's still not relevant, has no point and is possibly even worse than cover versions. I don't mind samples or new lyrics over an old track ( except for Candle in the Wind, for obvious reasons ), or even when people appropriate hooks or bits of old stuff to add to their new stuff. But a dance beat over an old track is lazy, do it in your sleep stuff.

 

Where is the new music? I haven't heard anything recently that sounds new or pushes boundaries. I mean we can't have heard everything yet. So if you're Eric Prydz or Hi Tack, fair enough, you've got to earn a living, but spare a thought for those of us with ears and make something a bit more bloody original next time, eh?

 

Do I sound old? Do I give a monkeys?

Father Christmas' Bulging Big Pink Sack

Father Christmas' Bulging Big Pink Sack
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

Well, that's Christmas over for another year. Can't say it went too badly, in fact, it went quite fabulously. There was a prodigious quantity of food and drink to be taken on board, some of which is still with us. Also a morass of toys for the kids to wade through, all of which needed acres of landfill burdening packaging, wrapping paper, not to mention the batteries.

I must say I did quite well, besides the usual dad-fayre of socks and underwear. I must smell a bit as I recieved a brace of new fragrances and attendant shower gels, deodorants and scrubs. Plus I get to play with all the kids toys as well as my own, so a few heavy sessions on Lego Star Wars 2 have helped stave of the interim boredom between Christmas and New Year. And I've not even played Resident Evil 4 yet. Woof.

And now of course it's back to work, so I'm just getting over the shock of getting out of bed on a winters day before 10 a.m. And my co-worker is playing bloody Morrissey. Again.