Music: Pet Shop Boys

During my extensive iTunes importing (my vinyl's are now in iTunes) over the last few days, I found my Pet Shop Boys 12" singles which led me to listen to PopArt and other stuff.
I've always felt that PSB are a hugely underrated pop outfit, their music seems on first listen to be very disposable and very 'samey', but the more you listen the more it becomes obvious they are a cut above generic pop. The sheer perfection of 'It's a sin' doesn't sound dated these days, kinda like Talk Talk - they've aged very well.
One aspect is the lyrics, sure the music is poppy, cheerful etc, but listening to the lyrics they tend to be quite melancholic. Quite wistful, quite quirky. There's an element of sadness in most of their lyrics, summed up perfectly in the wonderful 'You only tell me you love me when you're drunk'. A reflection of Neil Tennant's relationships? Don't really know, seeing as I can't tell who wrote the lyrics, and wikipedia appears to have failed me.
So yes, I've been enjoying my redipping into PSB. Theres stuff there that has far more emotional investment than you'd expect in 'pop' music, thematically homosexuality, AIDS, relationships - and done with a tongue in check humour. Worth watching their movie too, it's refreshingly different.

Best albums? Nightlife and Actually. For my money anyway.

B x

musings

I need to rant about the stupidity of todays rock stars, inspired by the insipidness of various Rolling Stone interviews. Don't get me started. I'm going to swear a lot.
but not yet.
I've had a couple of GnTs, and then had a 'nip' of each of my scotches. Finished with the Edradour. It's like sex in a glass.

Really.

And strangely, Knocked up, is a reasonably movie. And the music was organised by Loudon Wainwright III and Joe Henry. Cool.

Me xxxx

World's Best: Beer, Radio and Enz

Oude Geuze Boon: Is this my favourite beer in the world? I had one the other night and held off reviewing it to think a bit more about it. I'm prepared to go out and say it may be the best beer I have ever had. There is a lot going in this beer, nice head, citrus hints, slightly fruity (apples?), fizzy (unsurprising), wonderful aroma - again citrus, but also overtones of a white wine (NZ chardonnay). This was the 2003-2004 vintage btw. Obviously lambic with the distinctive bitterness but beautifully balanced against the rest of the flavours.
Go try it.

I just had the last of my Belgian beers, another Timmermans but one I hadn't tried before. Timmermans Lambicus Blanche. A nice light beer, it's very tasty with huge overtones of apricots. Or something sweetish like that anyway. Seems like a wonderful breakfast beer.

And my favourite radio show is back on, Matinee Idol with Phil O'Brian. Woohoo. I would suggest for those of you overseas to check this out, you'll hear pretty much anything. Phil and Simon are great - it's available online here.

Also noted on the RadioNZ site, the brilliant series by Jeremy Ansell on Split Enz, Enzology is available online here. If you haven't already heard it, it's definitely worth checking out.

With hugs and beery thoughts, me

Cartoon Madness!

My mind has regressed far enough that the following two cartoons have been keeping me amused !!!


The Tick, wonderful series from the comics, co-written by Ben Edlund - it was series 2 that I've been watching. Including the Christmas classic 'The Tick v. Santa'.

and now, Count Duckula, again a classic - voiced by David Jason (well Duckula is). I recently got Series 1 on DVD (thanks HMV) and am beginning to work my way through it. Wonderful subversive stuff.
Not the best quality video, but here' the opening credits.

I suspect Series1 of QI maybe up next.



me xx

Blue Demon!

Following some Wooing Tree Otago Pinot Noir, and another viewing of Death at a Funeral (great fun movie), I've moved onto a Blue Demon flick, The Champions of Justice, and hey guess wot - it's started with a long wrestling sequence. Crickey. How surprising for a Blue Demon movie.
I'll revise that, I'm now 10 mins in and all there's been is wrestling, and some bike riding, oh hang on someone with a machine gun popped up and is shooting people. Seems a reasonable thing to do with a machine gun. Go him. He has a cape. It's red. WTF? "It is the Black hand"."although we killed him and his gang","it's obvious he has returned". Wooohoooo Ms Mexico competition is involved.
For the love of god, now there's frickin dwarves. WHY OH GOD WHY. And yes there is one in Death AAF too.
Why do the dwarves look full sized in the car? Odd. Great soundtrack, wonderful mid-late 60s jazz. Choice. Now a wrestler dressed as a tiger is being done to by 3 dwarves. Oh dear who will save him from the darstadly dwarves.
OK what passed as plot has gone. I wasn't trying to follow it, cos I knew I'd lose, but really all it's been is a series of fights between superhuman strength midgits, and normal sized wrestlers. Fantastic. The 80minutes has just flown by.

damm this cold, and my moderate sobriety. Grr.

me x

Xmas Midday report

Right, so I have a stinkin head cold. I'm trying to deal with it by ignoring and booze. so after croissants we're watching top gear.
intact thus far: two liquor coffees, glass of trinity hill arneis and now one of my Belgian beers.

The wine: a refreshing wee morning drop. Quite tasty and fruity, moderately sweet. Would go well with spicy stuff methinks, and did work well with croissants and lemon/mustard potatoes. Interesting wee drop and not one we get in NZ a lot, so yay Trinity Hill. I'll be drinking more of that thank you very much.

It's beer o'clock now (while watching Marcus Lush's "Ice") and I'm sipping a Belgian Poperings Hommel Bier. Similar to the wine, it's fruity very zesty, I'd disagree with MJs review I thnk the bitterness is quite high, and I don't sense the honey in there. I like it, and it's a good example of the IPA form. I do get string citrus from it tho', but I'm thinking it's not a morning bier, I should have gone with my first thought and ahd another kriek. Oh well, there's always soon...

Now I just need some Bgrade movies, and things will be bloody marvellous. Ohhh and there's trifle soon. If either of us can be arsed moving.

me xx

Beer 101

Needless to say far more beer will be consumed tomorrow, along with viewing a number of B grade movies. So expect drunken reviews. Actually that's a point, I should organise the movies before I hit the booze tomorrow. Like tonight OMG I'm so excited.
Oops, sorry the thought of making Rudolph's nose red just got to me.

Belgium Beer:

Scotch Silly - a Scotch style ale, and yes I bought it on name. Nothing to write home about, not very hoppy and not a good example of an ale. It is 8% which in kiwi beer drinking style means it's a "good beer" but sadly my requirements for beer have changed. For that reason, find a decent Scottish ale if you want an ale in the style of a Scottish ale. The green on the cover was pretty though.

Next up was from one of my favourite breweries, Timmermans. More precisely, their lambic Kriek. It is frickin stunning. I love a good kriek, and you'd be hard pressed to get better than this one. A slightly bitter lambic taste, the sweetness of the berry - if you want a good example of the type, you could do a lot lot worse than this one. Drink it.


Slainte, B

iPod randomness and Radiohead

So I'm wandering around listening to the new(ish) Radiohead 'In Rainbows' which, btw, is brilliant and will definitely be making my top10 this year. Briefly, it's more tune orientated than the last few albums, so is a more natural successor to Ok Computer. Having said that I love the dissonant stuff they've been doing recently (KidA is one of my fav albums)...basically if you like radiohead, you'll be buying it anyway, the rest of you - if you liked OkComputer or Hail to the Thief, it's worth picking up this one.

But onto the beauty of my ipod randomness, having finished InRainbows, I switched on random. First up was the classic Rare Bird track 'Sympathy', which my favourite band covered. A video of which is included for your viewing pleasure.



And then the ipod switched to the Deep Purple track 'Child in Time'. DP have always struck me as one of the great 'lost' rock bands, everyone seems to know their music (aside from Smoke...) but they never got the recognition of say LedZep, Sabbath etc - and I don't know why. Their music is interesting, rocks, has complexity and the musicianship is stunning. Child in Time is one of my favourite DP tracks, who'da thought a long complex track with a keyboard solo would appeal eh?!
I have fond memories of watching the classic Top of the Pops (repeats obviously!) when CiT was played, and the looks on the audiences faces were priceless. Not so much wot the fuck, as for the love of god, what do we do?! Smile? Clap? Look serious? jiggle?
This isn't that version, but it's still great:


me x

Xmas Carols!!!

in an attempt to get into the Xmas spirit, here's some vids for the kids:


And for Mr Salmond, where-ever he may be:


Yuletide love, B.

Food Mojo

Is my mojo back? Admittedly this post comes from a slightly inebriated B, due to a champagne, strawberries and cake for Adelie Penguin's birthday. There's something very right about drinking two bottles of booze before 9am, and then bowling along to a meeting at 9am.

But in the last few days I've actually done some cooking. This is surprising as I've been very much out of sorts with cooking and have had no interest in it wotsoever.

So after Jos invited me over for tea, and said I could do the main and it would involve 'mushrooms' I came up with the following:
* brown rice and a thai (ish) sauce flicked through it
* mushroom, red wine, ricotta and spinach pies
* shiitake mushroom polenta fritters with feta and salad drapped over them

Last night I made a cake for the birthday booze-up this morning, a roast strawberry cake where the strawberries and roasted for about 25mins with balsamic vinegar and icing sugar and dumped in and over a lemon-ish cake.

I also made a nice and hot fish tortilla (also from the current Cuisine). Could have done with being a bit hotter as I pulled back on the chilly a little, but the salsa was pretty much perfect! Made me reach for a lager. And that's never a bad thing.

I wonder if I'll get a small hangover around lunchtime? Might drive back to a pub. Mmmm pub.

B xx