Sweet Nothings

When a country is hosting an Olympic games, they always want to do well. And, buoyed by the homefield advantage and the goodwill of the vast majority of spectators, they generally do. For Vancouver 2010 and beyond, the Canadians, perhaps somewhat miffed at what they perceive to be below-par performances at previous Olympics, launched their much-trumpeted Own the Podium initiative. Its “Vision” is for Canada to become a “world leader in high-performance sport”, and clearly this is more likely to happen at the Winter Games based on climate issues and comparitve lack of competitors. Therefore the Canadian bigwigs have set the lofty goal of achieving the highest overall medal count in Vancouver. Which is all well and good, but there is maximising your chances of success and then there is basically not letting other countries practice properly on all your courses, which is somewhat crossing the line into pretty bloody awful sportsmanship. Oh, except the Russians, who were allowed more pr...

Ooh, this is mentioned in the Guardian today - a blog wherein a plethora of London arty folk have posted illustrations (in some cases mini comic strips) of tracks from the Magnetic Fields' wonderful 69 Love Songs album. Already one of my favourites, now if only someone could find a way of patching these pics directly into my brain when each song came up on my [generic MP3 player], that would be.... well, quite awkward I imagine, but still pretty darn cool. There's also a Stephin Merritt documentary coming out. Maybe it'll even sneak its way into a cinema in London at some point! To say I'm stupidly excited would be an understatement.

  It's been a horrible day of football, but in trying to keep with my new non-cynical attitude I'm thinking of nice comforting things, such as the above album. I have been metaphorically and literally kicking myself for the last week, as it was only then that I heard all of the critically-adored, all-time classic status-achieving Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space for the first time.  What on earth was I doing back in the summer of 1997 that was so important to stop me listening to this? Sadly, the answer is: working in some godawful temp jobs, trying to put off the imminent prospect of going to university, and listening to Be Here sodding Now . I was lucky enough to settle into university, absorb myself in trendy studenty music and become slightly less of an uncultured loser, but despite falling in love with Broken Heart on a Q compilation CD the rest of this album went resolutely unlistened-to.  In hindsight I can kinda see why: it's much-heralded calling ...

I was going to write a really indignant piece about the recent Tonight Show controversy , wherein poor old Conan O'Brien was effectively forced to quit as host of the venerable NBC late-night talk show to facilitate the return of lantern-jawed former host Jay Leno to the role he'd only vacated a few months previously. Although Leno is very popular, he is an avowedly mainstream comedian who once summed up his job as "Write joke. Tell Joke. Get Cheque." Did you see him on Top Gear ? It was hardly a riot of laughs, put it that way. Meanwhile, Conan has written for The Simpsons (the monorail episode!) and for me has always been a far more interesting, leftfield proposition. And if you haven't bothered to read the above link, suffice to say that Leno and NBC are widely held to be responsible for the whole mess, whilst Conan was the subject of popular campaigns to save his job (see right). So yes, I was going to be all snarky and cynical, and then I saw the clip of...