Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Overseas folks should consider visiting old Blighty this year. As our currency slides down the proverbial pan, you furryners ought to come and fill your boots before the country is shut down altogether. I thought a “hung” parliament sounded like a good thing before I found out that it wasn’t some kind of public execution apparatus to deal wit’ them what’s been bleeding us dry for always.

Getting my currency for the impending schlep Scandi-ward was something of a shakedown. I don’t think the exchange rate has been so poor in a long, long time. It’s lucky I don’t have a taste for the high life although I’m not ready for it to limbo so low just yet.

This AM, I was out and waiting for the shop to open at 6. Actually I had hoped it would already be rolling when I got there but used the time it did to practice with some very low temperatures. Just as well that the music will provide some incendiary relief then. The cold I can deal with, hopefully it’ll be bright and blue.

This BBC thing is a bit vexing. Instead of playing to their once considerable strengths in some areas – cases in point would be Radio 6 and the reinvention of Radio 2 – they’re morphing into a publically funded commercial broadcaster. Or at least they’re aping that insipid competition and axing the genuinely good things that remain in their canon. It further marginalises their reason for existing. My own small part of the listenership has recently been reduced considerably. Where I would listen past 6pm, I simply don’t now because I can’t abide BBC Scotland’s “request” show. If I wanted to listen to “Real Radio” then I would. I don’t want this kind of shit from someone I’m paying a “licence fee” to.

My good friend, Sir Tom Morton had R*bbie FUCKING Willi*ms foisted on his show recently. He copes well with the limitations placed on him though and there’s little else to do but see out the rank shortcomings of those that call the shots. I am no fan of the fitba’ but do listen to “Off The Ball”, a show that gets booted off FM on to AM regularly, there’s no need for this. The BBC as an entity has to be on the endangered species list because as they sideline the good stuff, more crap will creep in and snuff the life from the organisation.

As has been documented here and elsewhere before, the fragmentation of consumption these days means that there’s no consensus. Plus, when you can listen to WFMU or North Fork Sound or P3 or Sirius or…. – you don’t even need to own a music collection anymore. Not really.

I should take advantage of this decent weather to truck on down (on shanks’ pony) to do some close to last minute “chopping”. Of course, it’s likely that it’ll be left until the actual last minute but you never know. The clocks go forward this month and by that time the days will be well and truly “drawin’ oot”. This means leaving the house and returning in daylight. The older I get, the more I appreciate that. It's still bloody hill-billy though, even in the sun. Word on the Stockholm pavie is that they’ve had the most snow in 20 decades with a minus 17 forecast for Friday.

Always fancied myself as an Arctic explorer, me. Or have I?