It’s been a bit of a strange week again. Granted Tuesday night provided a more than welcome change from the grind of going to work, going home and then going to work again, but all in all it’s been another time of being run down and actually running out of things to say again. But there has been time to do something else which I hadn’t done but others had told me about.

I watched the Mighty Boosh.

For those of you unaware of this thing, it stars Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding as two friends who do bizarre things and go on freaky adventures while making it all look perfectly normal.

It’s one of the most compelling shows I have ever watched, dancing mod wolves, grating a cheese man’s head to save a zoo, a shaman who shops at Shamansburys for mystic supplies. The thing was I never watched it because the way the BBC advertised it, it looked effing rubbish, and for most people it is, but it’s so out there, I found myself loving the show and therefore I want you to watch one episode and make your minds up.

I didn’t really have a clue that it started out as a stand up routine, then a radio show then it got to TV and well it was interesting to see so many of the actors from the IT crowd in the show, series 1 had the new boss man from series 2 of the Channel 4 thingy, Moss was a shaman (you know nothing of the crunch). Each one of the shows can just stand on its own but the one I really like was the demon old woman, the most evil of all demons!

In fact the show does remind of me of my mates as he tends to be rather random just like this show, but he doesn’t accessorise as much. Because I got the DVD, given the fact that the people who star and write the show did them, I’d give them a go and frankly it was a riot!

They even were remarking on an old man’s arse when it was a shot of the zoo. Series 3 is on the BBC website and then BBC three. Go and watch them now! I command you by the order of the watermelon!

Mighty Boosh at BBC

Tuesday evening, after partying hard at work, a group of us travelled to the NIA for the second of the month’s gigs, this time around it was to see the Kaiser Chiefs.

If you haven’t been under a rock for the past couple of years, then you will know that these lads from Leeds (which Mr Woodvine set me straight on, ta!) have produced some fine music titles and once again, were one of the artists that performed at Glastonbury earlier this year which of course inspired me (and others who wanted to come along) to go and see them just like Amy W. But regretfully unlike Amy, these were on fire musically.

Blasting out hit after hit such as ‘Everything is average nowadays’ (which became an in-joke between us all because of an average cheesecake sans biscuit-base in Weatherspoons) and ‘I Predict a Riot’, and fair play they kept the crowd entertained. They also previewed three songs from their forthcoming third album, of which ‘You Want History’ and ‘Never Miss A Beat’ were sounding fantastic and I do think those will be the singles from the next album.

The key to their music always appears to be having a bit on the song that everyone who knows just the tune can sing along with. I predict a riot comes easily to a crowd as does the bit where Ricky Wilson starts singing “We are the Angry Mob”, hell one song is called na naa naa so people can’t sing that, well break out the colouring books now. This gets people involved far easier and frankly it made for one hell of a karaoke session.

Ricky also surprised us by turning up right by where we were standing, singing along and this again added to the “bam” that the band gave to the crowd. It was also good to hear some of the lesser known songs from the albums that you never really bother listening to, like Want to be a dancer, hearing those kinds of tunes live make you look to the albums after to see what they were like when released all that time ago, which can only be a good thing.

It has to be said that if anything, the unsung hero of the show was the lighting. Believe it or not, it created such an atmosphere that added untold amounts to each song, especially to the new song ‘Never Miss a Beat’. I have been asked to compare this performance with that of Amy’s and well it’s just no comparison.

A fantastic show, certainly not average and frankly I can’t wait for the next album to hit the streets.

It should be noted kudos for the Pigeon detectives who were on before the Kaisers, that they gave a fair amount of energy bouncing around and singing something, the only song that was known was their single which has been played on the radio umpteen times, but no idea what it is called.

There were a few extra highlights to the evening, the cheesecake for instance became a topic as well as having various things on toast, and also is bread on toast for poor people who can’t afford to toast both pieces of bread? This is a worthwhile topic and should be researched. However this doesn’t factor in that this would require effort. Effort is costly to the soul and therefore should not be expended without good reason.

Pictures provided by Adrian Woodvine.

It’s a pretty few days for many people it appears, and I certainly know the feeling, it must be said. Just look at BBC News for the latest on all that “tomfoolery”, the ministers are like flies on a windscreen at the moment, it’s only a matter of time before public hanging comes back and the Queen from Alice in Wonderland comes storming in shouting “off with their heads!” accompanied by that green alien laughing thing from Return of the Jedi.

Now I cannot possibly comment on the fallout from the missing data discs too much, but as you can imagine I will say something. Big mouth like me can’t resist.

From all this, you can only surely see people overreacting and the HMRC tightening the belt so much that you struggle for breath and you won’t even able to have a poo without some director saying “yes, you can.” And with the merry go round that is our political system the opposition will keep on using this to say we are better than you and you smell of Vic.

And it will solve nothing. At the heart of any system, the weak link is always a human. And until we develop into energy or something uber good from Star Trek, that will always be the case. Never mind.

That’s as far as I am going to push that subject for now so let’s move on.

In other bad news, England got knocked out of Euro 2008 qualifying thingy and for once I am actually glad. I must confess I never really follow the football as much as most people but in-between doing naughty last night, I got glances of the play and I must say Croatia were the better team. They played with more passion and went for it more than England did. And they have done very well, so all the best at the tournament next year.

And once again the manager has been sacked. Quelle Surprise.

That always seems to be the answer, it’s the manager’s fault, but you also should always look at the players. They are the ones on the pitch and the manager has no control once they are out there. So I refuse to believe that Steve Mcvitty or whatever his name is is solely to blame.

At the end of the day, teams will still be beaten by others and last night, Croatia was better. Perhaps we also need to accept we can’t win everything in the world ever and have some humility, and not jump the gun blaming everyone (the butcher, the bread maker, the bus driver, the list goes on) and in some cases, objects and just work at it for next time. England has the time to sort out now, use it wisely. Perhaps whoever comes in should not look to the overpaid over hyped underachieving premiership players all the time and try something different?

After all that, you’ll be wondering about the Lord of Leisure and what news of the Pot Noodle eating competion? I’m sure I mentioned that somewhere? Ah well, turns out I’ve had a bit of a mare the past couple of days too.

My UberBeast’s installation of Vista has died due to a dodgy installation of a driver for the Samson Microphone, so I have effectively been offline for the past day or so, which has meant I haven’t been able to send some emails I wanted to do (Sorry Glyn, I will send all those links as requested as soon as I am fully sorted) or indeed work on the podcast some more that I wanted.

At present the Beast stands proud, having reinstalled all the bare essentials required for the forthcoming works of genius: World of Warcraft, Adobe Audition 3, and Office 2007. All the rest will be put when I have the time as I still have to play more of Call of Duty 4 (for a reason other than just laughing and killing various things) and I have to start again from the beginning. Ooh the life of a geek, you could just bottle the excitement and sell to people who can’t smile, it’s that good.

Now if this was audio, I’d now be playing “Bad Day” by REM. but it’s not so please just hum it to yourselves, you’ll get the jist!

A very good question, dear readers because this debate was sparked off remarking on Mr. Potato Head and how hard they are, would they defeat Megatron a lot better than the Movie version of OP? This was becuase in the cartoon movie, Optimus Prime kicked bottom and was hard has nails. He could look at a train track and it would buckle trying to run away from him.

But in order to illistrate the point in differences, I need to explain the ending to the movie version of Transformers. I know that spoling a film is one of the most evil things you can do, and I can only apologise to people now, so if you don’t want to know, look away from this post.

BEWARE SPOLIERS:

Optimus Prime battled it out with Megatron in the city where they smashed through several buildings and casuing a wee bit of a mess. But Megatron was clearly superior, thrashing him about and basically the robot was a beaten man. It took a little scrawny kid person to destroy Megatron and save the day by shoving a cube into his chest.

It was pointed out that Optimus Prime would not be swayed so easily in the cartoon, and indeed he carried on to the bitter end, fighting and shooting until he could do no more. Therefore the movie version was “gay” to quote my learned collegue. And therefore the Mr. Potato Head version (Optimash Prime – see what they did, aren’t Playskool clever?) is trying to be the movie version and therefore would be as equally as pants.

Is this true? Has the true hero of Transformers been turned into a nancy? And if you were not happy with what happened, how should have the Transformers Movie really ended? Should they have gone on a wizzo adventure finding the holy garden of Tanktarta or perhaps settled their differences with the decpiticons with a nice cup of tea. How would you all prefered it to end? I would look forward to hearing debate on this important issue.

All this starts making you wonder what I do for a living….

(Post Contents requested by Paul Comaish.)

The Podcast page has been updated with what’s coming up in that, the future work page has been altered to reflect on going changes, and I have to also say that the blog posts will be infrequent over the next few days due to recording and playing Call of Duty 4.

Also I have received 2 emails about my comments about Amy Winehouse. To paraphrase once again, I don’t know what I am talking about and I am not a true fan according to one of them. She is meant to be out of it etc for her performances and you get her true spirit as opposed to artists who produce the same every gig. And I am an example of why we knock people who are famous. (well that part I guess is true, I have spoken about Amy a fair bit here on the blog and the Podcast)

Rather than respond in private, I will tell you all that I bought the tickets for two reasons:

1) Natalie really liked her and I thought it was a good thing to do for her. (Boyfriend Duty)
2) The performance earlier in the year at Glasto was fantastic, spot on with not a boo in the crowd. I thought it would be good based on that.

So I guess I am a mug then, and all the other naughty words. But you know what, I stand by what I said. It was constructive criticism towards the end, the start of it, I posted what I saw. If you want further proof, go to You Tube and watch what some other people have actually posted and make your own mind up.

Though having read a review today about the Glasgow gig, It appears she’s started to pull herself together, albeit still showing her dark side. Note perfect from what The Glasgow Daily Record reported, so here’s hoping that she gets better, her situation improves and carries on producing fine music, better than that bang bang crap we are all supposed to love.

Not quite as catchy, that was the original title for the event that the BBC stages every year, but it was scrubbed by one of the cameramen and well it seems to have stuck. I spent my Friday night in, choosing to actually watch the television for once, if only for the far too short Doctor Who special, which I quite liked as it goes. Methinks that could have made for quite an interesting episode in it’s own right, instead for just charity but hey ho, those are the breaks.

Mind you I still think they would do well to bring back Christopher Eccleston for a crossover as he was a great doctor, bitter and sad. With Billy Piper, actually that would be a great watch.

But enough of that, I watched Children in Need and well despite the fact that they raise millions for children in the UK suffering through all sorts of conditions and problems, and that itself is fantastic, I only really sat there thinking one thing:

It’s one big advert.

So many companies were thanked, it only made me feel like the companies did it only to shoehorn their way onto the BBC for a bit of advertising. Oh how great are we? BTW we do this…. Some bands clearly there to plug their tour (cough, Boyzone) and I guess now it is a sign that I have become so disenfranchised with what we see in the media in terms of what people do, that I will see bad in everything and put it down. There is truth there I know, but for once, why can’t I accept that the whole thing was for good?

Mind you, the whole programmed smelled a wee bit samey for me. The cast of Eastenders always sing something, the news readers once again look like rejects from the Rocky Horror picture show and for once, just bloody once, can we not have Greese show up. How much more can people listen to that over and over again? But hey, it appears I am only one of 7 people in Britain who can’t stand that musical and wish for it to be buried in some unholy place, that not even the Time Team of 200 years from now would dare to tread.

Fair play, the fact they had Hotel Babylon on if only to rip the mickey out of it and get a lorry load of old stars shoehorned onto the TV to make the adults go “I know them, I’ll give money” was a bonus. That surely means we are in for another series of that hotel adult entertainment which goes from silly to sex all the space of 30 seconds. Nice.

So I guess, it will all be the same, next time next year. Keep it up good people, but maybe think of something new? Like Parrots riding bicycles….

Just some self promotion here I’m afraid, after my attack on what was a performance of a different kind, I decided to voice some of my opinion on the BBC News Website. Oh yes, in a world where prices are sky rocketing out of control, war is raged, and people starve every day, I finally get off my high horse about a pop concert.

My, I can almost see the world becoming a better place….

But alas it seems someone at the BBC liked the comment:

The original article can be found at this URL: BBC News about Amy Winehouse

Now some of it has been altered for obvious reasons otherwise they wouldn’t publish it but the point remains the same. One only looks to the news tomorrow to see if the performance is repeated tonight in Glasgow…

Last Night, after having good times with the rest of my Birmingham bound comrades, we took in a show at the NIA, with Mrs Amy Winehouse. Now of course we all know about recent history and the fact that her husband is currently locked up for trying to pervert the course of justice, to what ends we don’t know. Of course all the talk was about whether or not she would turn up at all let alone perform any of her modern day classic songs.

According to one radio station at least, the support act lead singer had learned all her songs so she could perform them if required, which being honest, is not the best thing to be hearing before you make your way to a concert. But that doesn’t even come close to paling in comparison to the horrors that we beheld.

In hind sight, maybe the support girl should have performed. Instead of an entertaining evening singing along to the likes of “Back to Black” and “Love Is A Losing Game” and just being glad that for once we were indoors to enjoy such a talent, we had an entertaining evening of seeing how bad a human being can make a complete arse of themselves of stage. And I am being kind in that regard.

For starters, the main act herself was extremely late on stage after the support act went off by about an hour (it was less, but standing there in the arena, it seemed longer) and then when she did come on, oh dear. She seemed to excessively rub her nose (no mystery there) and then try and drink an imaginary drink, then she actually got hold of one, and then another and another all through the opening few minutes of the act.

Where was she? The Sahara Desert?

Clearly she wasn’t on the stage, as she meandered through one song to another, slurring words and half the songs, you couldn’t even start to make out what the words were. I can’t simply describe what it sounded like, no words could come close, the closest I can think of was someone being strangled through parts, and then someone dying in others.

And it only got worse, she was obsessed with trying to wear a white guitar from the back of the stage, but not even playing it, at one point, one of the stage hands had to come to her rescue to relieve her of the instrument, only for her to wear it once more.

It was when she started crying for her husband and speaking about him that you basically knew she was clearly not up for this. Let alone the drunken behaviour (mixed with a cocaine cocktail I have no doubt), she just wanted to go, and for a while she did, and the band tried to carry on, introducing themselves and doing the best to win the crowd back.

It failed like Hitler’s Germany.

Slowly but surely the boos started, and they were getting louder with each passing song. And then we see ugly. “Who’s that booing” she rasped down the mic, and this was mixed in with cheering from the devoted who don’t want to see Amy smeared.

To paraphrase her next sentence: “Those who are cheering are brilliant and all those who are booing are (fudging) (dunce)!” and apparently when her husband gets out, we are all in for it, don’t see how, but we’ll get our comeuppance. Wonder if he will do a door to door campaign….

And then the boos got louder and the crowd was starting to vote with their feet. The only other time I have seen lots of people leave was at Glastonbury with the legend that are The Who, and I think that was only because people wanted to go home after a long few days of dancing, drinking and whatever else took their fancy. This was because it was bad.

I feel sorry for the band, I really do. They were the picture of professionalism and carried on regardless, the two men dancing on the right hand side of the stage still giving their all, and they deserve nothing but applause in my blog.

But as for the “lady” of the hour, it was pathetic and that is truly sad. Her voice is nothing short of fantastic from her albums, her performance from Glastonbury earlier this year, of which I invite you all to re watch the video made then to remind you how great she was. She has a great talent and to see it being “pi**ed” down the drain like this is nothing short of tragic.

It appears now she has forgotten how to perform, and we have all seen examples of singers in rock bands with turbulent personal lives and drug problems, still managing to go on that stage and truly shine. But here was someone struggling for well, just being able to stand first off. If things are that bad, and she truly is in no condition to sing, she should have never gone on that stage and instead done the decent thing and cancelled or rescheduled the tour.

At the end of the day this is the simple truth. People paid good money to see a performance and didn’t get one. Or rather got a performance of a different sort.

Now in the press, it is wave after wave of comments from fans from the show who only goes on to say how bad things went. I had plenty of comments on the way home for instance, two lads said that she was far worse at the Carling Academy in Birmingham earlier this year, and she even said to the audience then “You may as well ask for your money back!”. Another wanted to go halfway through the show, another went after 3 songs. We even started having bets over whether or not she would last over half an hour….

Just look at these pages if you need more proof:
EntertainmentWise
Gigwise
Times Online

The Times article is the most kind of the ones that people have shown me so far, instead referring to her past performances and the songs she has created rather than focusing on what went on.

But for now my final thought: She needs help, family, friends, someone on the tour or at the record label needs to get her that help otherwise we’ll have another Kurt on our hands. And that will be something to go to rehab over.

Once upon a time, there was a devil-may-care man by the name of Paul Hughes. He was a big person, who played with shiny metal things for a living. One day, one of his friends, asked if he could come and have some fun at an arena shooting and laughing at other friends with lasers.

This sounds grand, said Paul, and so He had the day off to go and have fun while other people still played with shiny metal things. His friend who likes to play with him sometimes, Natalie also came along and after a short on the magic car, arrived outside a place with big tellys all showing films with people being angry at each other. We don’t like that sort of thing so we’ll carry on, shall we kids?

YEAHHHHHH!

Ok then.

We all met up and were all jolly excited. We went passed men who smelt and asked “Big Issue” to which we respond, no we have no big issues today but thank you for asking. You see, one of our friends was still playing with shiny coffee things and needed to let out to play and so that’s where we went first before skipping onto the 37 bus and heading off to the playpen of lasers.

Once we all got there (after several silly remarks on the bus involving a girl hanging from rails at a conservatory reseller) we all jumped for joy and went inside. It was an inviting place filled with wizzo things to play on, and sit. We gave the people our pocket money and all went in the dark room. Natalie was wearing white and with the funny purple lighting, it all lit up. Oh, how we laughed.

After dividing into two teams, we all went onto the proper play area, and ran around and around, playing war and shooting each other with laser guns. It was jolly tiring but great fun all the same. It did at times get a bit silly as all Paul did was run after Natalie shooting her, but oh my, what fun it was.

The play area was very big, with lots of ramps and corners all to go and get lost around. There was a blue area and a red area, all to get lives after we lost them all playing war. We were all wearing costumes in different colours, and our toys vibrated and spoke to us whenever someone said “Bang! got you!”

The reds won 2-1 in the end thanks to 2 little people who play the game far too much, and we all came out, red in the face but ready to go home and sleep. We all said goodbye and went on our merry way.

Real World Translation:
It was my mate Will’s birthday and we all went and did laser quest in Birmingham. Now I’ve said that one sentence, the rest seems a bit of a waste! Blast!

For the second time here on Ooh Sometimes, it gives me great pleasure to say that another of my friends (in fact both of them) are now engaged.

Not the engage that you see ol’ Captain Picard say before the end credits off Star Trek, and the little word that pops up when someone is in the toilet, no they are be married at a yet unknown location (I presume somewhere on Earth but with the advent of the commercial space shuttle launches, you can’t say for certain.)

So from everyone here at Ooh Sometimes, please wish all the Best to Steve Middleton and Kristi Janno (Middleton, not sure if she will go double barred…)

The Announcement

WOOOOOOOO!!!!