15 July 2010

It’s been a week of good, bad and ‘challenging.’ My first International Eisteddfod experience was the positive highlight with wonderful performances from an International range of musicians plus our own Katherine and Karl Jenkins (no relation). This jury’s out on the female crossover-classical string group called Bond - heavy petting with Pro-Tools, attractive youth and sexy dress don’t necessarilly spell great talent to me… A few days ago I received Kylie’s new album and had the painful experience of having to listen to all of it (yes, we listen to everything we receive…), and through earphones!!!! It is the most dire album I’ve heard this year (Goldfrapp’s comes bloody close though), and how a reputable national broadsheet newspaper can heap it with praise is beyond me (do I smell a back-stage pass?). Now the guy from Keane and Nerina Palot probably earned a pretty penny for their song-writing contributions, but they should really not have done it and endangered their own decent reputations.

Then there’s been the daily military death and injury toll in Afghanistan, and blind politicians in denial over the futility and waste of it all. Oh, and not forgetting Lord Mandy’s book delivered just weeks after Labour’s dismissal which makes one wonder how thousands of pages were written so quickly, or did he make an early start (like last year when he saw the writing on the wall) to make financial hay while the sun still shone? And, of course, the publicly-funded BBC couldn’t stop themselves from giving him ten minutes at peak radio-listening time on their news show and free publicity worth hundreds of thousands… That said, they are probably lining him up for some ‘expose’ TV shows in the autumn/winter to boost their ratings - BBC is after all the last resort shelter for dishonest and incompetent politicians (and Channel 4 - both publicly funded public service broadcasters).

It’s been four weeks since I stopped smoking and it’s not getting any easier - I’m finding it particularly hard to concentrate on doing anything creative. Prince delivered his new (and very average) album free via a national tabloid newspaper, while declaring the Internet is dying - wrong on both counts. This stupidity is only matched by the VP of Island Records slaying his new artist’s album via email (and therefore to the world), when in fact we at Shake reckon that the new songs heard so far are the best thing he’s done in very many years. I really hope that Tom Jones and his fans prove the a-hole wrong by buying it in its millions - quality will always win against the radio-friendly, mainstream shite that this record company exec wanted. Good luck Tom.

Walking the dog early one morning I noticed a flurry of feathers on the disused school’s playing field where I usually walk the little fella. There was something very different about the colour, style and size of the wings, so I crept closer to find a couple of young Peregrine Falcons practicing their hunting art. I hung around for a while until another settled on a fence and I was able to take a few photos…