Please come and find me:- familyaffairsandothermatters.com
Monday, 21 December 2009
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE NEW CHRISTMAS NO.1
How reassuring that we have not become a nation of puppets manipulated by Simon Cowell and his band of merry puppeteers. I don't have an issue with the fact that the X Factor has become a national obsession - we are social animals and have found a common bond, but I do like the fact that we still have our own mind when it counts and from time to time can prove that a grassroots campaign can make a massive difference. PEOPLE POWER.
It would be good if politicians could work out how to tap the nations collective desire to vote by actually providing us with credible people that we want to believe in. This campaign has proved that it is not all about apathy.
Rock band Rage Against The Machine has won the most competitive battle in years for the Christmas number one.
The band's single, Killing In The Name, sold 500,000 downloads beating X Factor winner Joe McElderry's The Climb by 50,000 copies to clinch the top spot.
Their success followed a Facebook campaign designed to prevent another X Factor number one.
One retailer said it was a "truly remarkable outcome - possibly the greatest chart upset ever".
Speaking on the Radio 1 chart show, Zack de la Rocha from Rage said: "We are very, very ecstatic about being number one."
He added it was an "incredible organic grassroots campaign".
"It says more about the spontaneous action taken by young people throughout the UK to topple this very sterile pop monopoly," he said.
It would be good if politicians could work out how to tap the nations collective desire to vote by actually providing us with credible people that we want to believe in. This campaign has proved that it is not all about apathy.
Rock band Rage Against The Machine has won the most competitive battle in years for the Christmas number one.
The band's single, Killing In The Name, sold 500,000 downloads beating X Factor winner Joe McElderry's The Climb by 50,000 copies to clinch the top spot.
Their success followed a Facebook campaign designed to prevent another X Factor number one.
One retailer said it was a "truly remarkable outcome - possibly the greatest chart upset ever".
Speaking on the Radio 1 chart show, Zack de la Rocha from Rage said: "We are very, very ecstatic about being number one."
He added it was an "incredible organic grassroots campaign".
"It says more about the spontaneous action taken by young people throughout the UK to topple this very sterile pop monopoly," he said.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
DAVID GRAY AT HAMMERSMITH APOLLO REVIEW
Yesterday would have been my 20th wedding anniversary had we survived.
Given that I didn't want to sit at home contemplating what could have been, I decided ages to book tickets to do something different and went off to see David Gray wobble his stuff at the Hammersmith Apollo.
What an amazing voice he has. I know some might consider him to be middle class dinner party music, but not me. He is a brilliant singer and songwriter in IMHO.
Actually it's not just David who's head looks as if it's about to fall off during the set - he's amassed a team of head wobblers and left leg shakers. Quite an extraordinary amount of energy must be used in his small movements. He was very sweaty by the end of his set - his suit jacket was soaked. I suspect he loses tons of weight each night (sorry apologies at this point to diehard David Gray fans who don't want to know about sweat but the order of his songs - I'm a rubbish reviewer - I'll get my brother on the case next time).
He sang most of the old favourites from "White Ladder" and "Life In Slow Motion" and a few from the album he released this year "Draw The Line" and even brought Annie Lennox on stage to sing two songs with him at the end - my how their voices complimented each other.
I've got a reasonable photograph to show you given that we were sitting in the circle bloody miles away. What's the deal with photographs these days anyway? When I worked at EMI artists had total control of what was released. We used to get sent a very small selection of approved photos from the artist to use. Somebody like Stevie Nicks would do all her interviews in near total darkness, draping scarves over each and every light and sitting like a clairvoyant in the corner and refuse any photos and now it's all changed - I realise that there still might be some rules BUT everybody in the audience had a phone camera and a video camera and what can you do about any of that?
Given that I didn't want to sit at home contemplating what could have been, I decided ages to book tickets to do something different and went off to see David Gray wobble his stuff at the Hammersmith Apollo.
What an amazing voice he has. I know some might consider him to be middle class dinner party music, but not me. He is a brilliant singer and songwriter in IMHO.
Actually it's not just David who's head looks as if it's about to fall off during the set - he's amassed a team of head wobblers and left leg shakers. Quite an extraordinary amount of energy must be used in his small movements. He was very sweaty by the end of his set - his suit jacket was soaked. I suspect he loses tons of weight each night (sorry apologies at this point to diehard David Gray fans who don't want to know about sweat but the order of his songs - I'm a rubbish reviewer - I'll get my brother on the case next time).
He sang most of the old favourites from "White Ladder" and "Life In Slow Motion" and a few from the album he released this year "Draw The Line" and even brought Annie Lennox on stage to sing two songs with him at the end - my how their voices complimented each other.
I've got a reasonable photograph to show you given that we were sitting in the circle bloody miles away. What's the deal with photographs these days anyway? When I worked at EMI artists had total control of what was released. We used to get sent a very small selection of approved photos from the artist to use. Somebody like Stevie Nicks would do all her interviews in near total darkness, draping scarves over each and every light and sitting like a clairvoyant in the corner and refuse any photos and now it's all changed - I realise that there still might be some rules BUT everybody in the audience had a phone camera and a video camera and what can you do about any of that?
Sunday, 6 December 2009
I'VE MOVED...
Just to let you know I've moved.....
Please come and find me:- familyaffairsandothermatters.com
X FACTOR SEMI FINALS ET AL
I am exhausted. Underlying self inflicted headache has ruled all day. A busy weekend has been had by all. I watched my daughter lose in a netball match and my son lose in a rugby match (although they were playing against a team that had 3 huge international players - not the sort of match any mother wants to watch her son playing in and unbelievably two rival dad's got into a fight) . I did my bit at the "Secrets" stall at the school Christmas fair helping children choose and wrap presents for their family and then in the evening I went to the most fantastic party with lots of good friends. It was a friend's 40th birthday party and it was hosted for her by Sir Tim Rice. We spent the evening in a marquee in his garden all dressed up as cowboys and cowgirls - no PC cow "people" to be found in Country and Western world - good old fashioned sex role stereotyping rules - Malboro Man meets Daisy Dukes/Dolly Parton....everybody looked fabulous. There was line dancing and fab food and LOADS to drink - tequila slammers, tequila slushpuppies and, and, and, then, a, headache, and, silly, behaviour, all, round.
Therefore, I wasn't very happy to drive my son to his bloody audition in Islington for Britain's Got Talent" which took hours only to find a huge queue. Having then established that it was probably going to be at least 3 hours we decided not to bother. I don't even know why I made any attempt to get him there anyway. He was so not interested - although he did get out of bed and do a quick practice of the song before we left which was as good as it was ever going to get. He was always going to go to the Sunderland Vs Fulham game and clearly doesn't even have the grit and determination required to pass even the first hurdle. The queue was full of little girls in tutu's and men with sparkly mohicans and frankly none of us could be arsed. My mother wants me to record him singing his song and send it to her - so maybe I'll show you too and then we can all judge him and be done with it.
Talking of judging what do you think about the X Factor finalists? I'm pretty happy with those three. My son told me today that his mate knows somebody who knows somebody else who says it's all a fix and that Joe will DEFINITELY win. My daughter completely loves Ollie - he's certainly got the personality. Stacy has a fab voice and I feel I should support her from one single parent to another, but I don't think she'll win simply because there have been too many female divas of late. Time for a change. So Joe probably will win. Fix or no fix.
It's looking like I might have all three kids off school again tomorrow. Two of them are ill with horrendous coughs and colds and my teenage son has a day off tomorrow - "Teachers Shopping Day". Not completely sure why they can't go shopping at the same time as the rest of us, but anyway, he is obviously delighted and currently out playing the Fifa 10 drinking game, which could be a worry.
My gorgeous youngest child said to me as he went to bed, "mum, I've got an idea...because you're tired I think we three should do a swap with you and we'll cook you a meal and tidy up and you can just relax". How lovely is that? When I told my daughter she said "god he is such a neek - he sucks up to you so badly it's ridiculous".
Well. At least someone does.
Therefore, I wasn't very happy to drive my son to his bloody audition in Islington for Britain's Got Talent" which took hours only to find a huge queue. Having then established that it was probably going to be at least 3 hours we decided not to bother. I don't even know why I made any attempt to get him there anyway. He was so not interested - although he did get out of bed and do a quick practice of the song before we left which was as good as it was ever going to get. He was always going to go to the Sunderland Vs Fulham game and clearly doesn't even have the grit and determination required to pass even the first hurdle. The queue was full of little girls in tutu's and men with sparkly mohicans and frankly none of us could be arsed. My mother wants me to record him singing his song and send it to her - so maybe I'll show you too and then we can all judge him and be done with it.
Talking of judging what do you think about the X Factor finalists? I'm pretty happy with those three. My son told me today that his mate knows somebody who knows somebody else who says it's all a fix and that Joe will DEFINITELY win. My daughter completely loves Ollie - he's certainly got the personality. Stacy has a fab voice and I feel I should support her from one single parent to another, but I don't think she'll win simply because there have been too many female divas of late. Time for a change. So Joe probably will win. Fix or no fix.
It's looking like I might have all three kids off school again tomorrow. Two of them are ill with horrendous coughs and colds and my teenage son has a day off tomorrow - "Teachers Shopping Day". Not completely sure why they can't go shopping at the same time as the rest of us, but anyway, he is obviously delighted and currently out playing the Fifa 10 drinking game, which could be a worry.
My gorgeous youngest child said to me as he went to bed, "mum, I've got an idea...because you're tired I think we three should do a swap with you and we'll cook you a meal and tidy up and you can just relax". How lovely is that? When I told my daughter she said "god he is such a neek - he sucks up to you so badly it's ridiculous".
Well. At least someone does.
FARMVILLE ADDICTION
My youngest child is currently not allowed on Facebook for getting his mate banned from Club Penguin. This is a huge relief to me because he embarked on his mission to acquire friends with such gusto that I was a little concerned and began to regret my decision to let him join all his mates online. He became friends with my friends (of which I have about 6). He became friends with his brother and sister's friends (of which they have about 856 each). He became friends with people he barely knows. This is probably the reason why there is an age limit and why I have to hope that I will find another excuse quite quickly to ban him again.
However, my biggest concern is with the withdrawal symptoms he is exhibiting as a result of not being able to tend to his farm on FarmVille. "I reckon I'm going to have to spend like £50m now to get everything growing again. My strawberries are dead and there's no one feeding my cattle - please mum, I have to go back on. I'll be way behind everybody else now".
I have recently read that FarmVille, the online computer game built into the social networking site has 69m players and is rising fast. Uniting the world of social networking and gaming is genius for addiction obviously. 69 million!! That's more than the entire population of the UK.
Last month in the US a scam behind the special offers on adverts on the FarmVille site was revealed. Zynga is an advertising company that has "an extremely tight relationship with Facebook through committing to large ad buys" and according to Nick O'Neill from the social media site All Facebook, Znyga is making £304,000 ($500K) a day from its Facebook games. Facebook have so far refused to release details of its advertising revenue insisting that it has no obligation to do so.
Should we be worried about this? Are our children going to become addicted? Or indeed are we going to become addicted, given that the majority of players are women over 35. It all seems initially very innocent - ploughing fields and buying sheep, but you can spend real money improving it and getting absorbed into competitive farming and then all it is is a proper common or garden gambling addiction.
However, my biggest concern is with the withdrawal symptoms he is exhibiting as a result of not being able to tend to his farm on FarmVille. "I reckon I'm going to have to spend like £50m now to get everything growing again. My strawberries are dead and there's no one feeding my cattle - please mum, I have to go back on. I'll be way behind everybody else now".
I have recently read that FarmVille, the online computer game built into the social networking site has 69m players and is rising fast. Uniting the world of social networking and gaming is genius for addiction obviously. 69 million!! That's more than the entire population of the UK.
Last month in the US a scam behind the special offers on adverts on the FarmVille site was revealed. Zynga is an advertising company that has "an extremely tight relationship with Facebook through committing to large ad buys" and according to Nick O'Neill from the social media site All Facebook, Znyga is making £304,000 ($500K) a day from its Facebook games. Facebook have so far refused to release details of its advertising revenue insisting that it has no obligation to do so.
Should we be worried about this? Are our children going to become addicted? Or indeed are we going to become addicted, given that the majority of players are women over 35. It all seems initially very innocent - ploughing fields and buying sheep, but you can spend real money improving it and getting absorbed into competitive farming and then all it is is a proper common or garden gambling addiction.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
RICHARD DAWKINS IN "IS ATHEISM THE NEW FUNDAMENTALISM" DEBATE
This was the debate I went to at Wellington College a few days ago. I wanted to take my teenage son to hear Richard Dawkins speak because he's meant to be reading some of his books for Biology A level - namely "The Selfish Gene" and "The Ancestor's Tale" and I thought it might bring it all a bit more to life if he could relate to the author. Richard Dawkins is widely acclaimed for his views. He is one of the world's best known atheists and "has established himself as a biological guru". His most recent publication "The God Delusion" in which he claims that there is "probably no god" in manner of proper scientist has become an international bestseller.
For the motion was Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford and Charles Moore who was editor of the Daily Telegraph and currently Group Consulting Editor and columnist. Against the motion was Richard Dawkins and Anthony Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College and a Humanist.
It was a fascinating debate. Richard Dawkins and Anthony Grayling were arguing that atheism has not become the new fundamentalism, even if it is the topic of the millenium. They believe that in order to be a fundamentalist you have to have a blind obedience to a holy book, whereas there is no book for atheists, only evidence.
As scientists they could not accept that religion forces you to believe in a "truth" and a faith without questioning it instead of understanding that truth should be rational and based on evidence. Richard Dawkins argued that although religion is not necessarily associated with violence, there is always a logical pathway that can be traced back to it which cannot be found within atheism. They came out with the following quote to sum this up, which received the loudest cheer of the evening:-
"Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings".
Another point Richard Dawkins made was that if it was anything else he was criticising there wouldn't be such a furore. But with religion it is different - you are not allowed to criticise religion because it is seen as somehow bad manners to attack blind faith rather than reasonable honest clarity of expression to speak your mind.
It must be virtually impossible to argue against logic and freedom of thought. The two religious speakers came across as defensive and bigoted. It's not easy to persuade a large audience to change their mind in a two hour time frame although the numbers of people who voted against the motion rose when votes were taken again at the end of the discussion (although several people in our party voted "For" and changed to "Against" simply because they hadn't understood the question at the beginning).
So in conclusion well over two thirds of the audience disagreed that atheism had become the new fundamentalism.
For the motion was Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford and Charles Moore who was editor of the Daily Telegraph and currently Group Consulting Editor and columnist. Against the motion was Richard Dawkins and Anthony Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College and a Humanist.
It was a fascinating debate. Richard Dawkins and Anthony Grayling were arguing that atheism has not become the new fundamentalism, even if it is the topic of the millenium. They believe that in order to be a fundamentalist you have to have a blind obedience to a holy book, whereas there is no book for atheists, only evidence.
As scientists they could not accept that religion forces you to believe in a "truth" and a faith without questioning it instead of understanding that truth should be rational and based on evidence. Richard Dawkins argued that although religion is not necessarily associated with violence, there is always a logical pathway that can be traced back to it which cannot be found within atheism. They came out with the following quote to sum this up, which received the loudest cheer of the evening:-
"Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings".
Another point Richard Dawkins made was that if it was anything else he was criticising there wouldn't be such a furore. But with religion it is different - you are not allowed to criticise religion because it is seen as somehow bad manners to attack blind faith rather than reasonable honest clarity of expression to speak your mind.
It must be virtually impossible to argue against logic and freedom of thought. The two religious speakers came across as defensive and bigoted. It's not easy to persuade a large audience to change their mind in a two hour time frame although the numbers of people who voted against the motion rose when votes were taken again at the end of the discussion (although several people in our party voted "For" and changed to "Against" simply because they hadn't understood the question at the beginning).
So in conclusion well over two thirds of the audience disagreed that atheism had become the new fundamentalism.
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