h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Om, I have to thank you - I've just played 'you are the generation' for the first time - what a stunning track - I'm going to have to investigate this band further.

many,many thanks

kd

Glad you like it! Johnny Boy have a website, which is here: http://www.johnnyboyinc.co.uk/site.php . The second track on the single is pretty great, too. It's a kind of industrial/electronic version of Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', though the sleeve lists the title as just 'S.H.B.'.

I've found the website - but thank you nonetheless - and hence have now also seen the video - which I also love. Im a huge dylan fan, so I'll look forward to getting my hands on shb. I understand there's an album out soon (I have to admit I just limewired the track) but I'll buy a copy of the cd when the album is out.
I notice you were one of the researchers for the Kate Bush piece on the front page. I was very impressed with how thorough this was. I've always been partial to ms Bush, but of late had let her slip from the playlist. The ipod, is needless to say, now fully loaded with the better bits of KB. I was particularly pleased to be able to finally find out what the hell Cloudbusting was about - the Wilhelm Reich website was fascinating. I'm not sure what I make of this yet - being a somewhat sceptical type - but anything the CIA are trying to keep under wraps, is usually of interest. I can see I've got some reading to do....
Anyway Om, great to have made your aquaintance - you have already enriched my life greatly with Johnny Boy.
Right, I'm off to buy some shoes.



kim d

I await more Johnny Boy news with a keen interest (I've joined their mailing list). Major record companies aren't often very patient these days, so I'm hoping that the album is still going ahead even though the single didn't make the Top 40.

Let it be recorded here if nowhere else: the Kate Bush entry on the front page was mostly my doing. I wrote almost everything that isn't in italics. (I also wrote one bit that *is* in italics: the endorsement of 'Running Up That Hill' as her best track was mine).

It began life as a collaborative topic of the week on the front page last summer. I made a few contributions to the ensuing discussion, then a couple of months went by with no news of the entry. I wrote a message to the Editors asking what had happened, and was asked if I'd take over the editing of the entry as they were busy. I then wove the contributions various people had made into some sort of narrative, and wrote lots of new stuff myself, including all of the 'Budding Bush' and 'Albums' sections. It took a lot of work, so I'm glad you appreciated it!

I have also joined the mailing list (aren't we a pair of saddoes)- I reckon that single may well get rereleased when the album is released - it wouldn't be the first time a label had done that sort of thing. Here's where you really wish John Peel was still with us - he'd have loved that track and made it a hit I'm sure. I've linked it from my space - and I'll be introducing it to all my mates.
The Kate Bush piece was great and as I say, it got me listening to the mad old tart again - which has been great. I'll have her and Johnny Boy belting out at the office tomorrow. I agree about running up that hill - it's maybe her best track - although I love Army dreamers too and I think it's ripe for a remake Mike Moore video - like the vid he did for Neil Young's Rocking in the free world.
I think the faces of the fallen would be very moving to this song.
I've always liked Kate from childhood - my mum was a fan and it's one of my early memories - like Dylan - the sounds I grew up with. It's funny though, like PJ Harvey - another of my favourites - a great many of her fans are male. I saw PJ Harvey live for the first time at T in the park this summer and I was amazed at how disproportionately male the crowd was - I had assumed that the opposite would be true. But then, I think a lot of girls aren't 'into stuff' in the same geeky way that boys are - which is why I maybe get on better with Blokes as mates than with girls - because I too am sad and geeky.
cheers!

kim d

ps - I've got to learn some other smileys other than - there's my next task for self improvement!

OK, how's this for a claim to fame: I was the first media person ever to interview Polly Jean Harvey. I know because she told me so. It was around the time that her first EP 'Dress' came out. I remember that we met in a pub called the Rat & Parrot in Camden Parkway, and she was rather startled that I was using a tape recorder.

I also remember tentatively broaching the subject of the meaning of the song 'Dry', wondering if my filthy mind had put an outrageously lewd interpretation on the line: 'You leave me dry'. 'No', said Polly. 'It's about dry vaginas. I think that's obvious.' Which made me feel pretty silly for being so shy about it.

I'm more jealous than I can bear to admit to. What's she like?
I know a lighting engineer that's toured with her and he always speaks highly of her.
I'm at [email protected] on msm now if you fancy a chat.

regards
kim d

She was very friendly the first couple of times I met her, but became a bit less easy to approach as she became more successful. That happened with most bands and artists I met. Unfortunately, the music industry doesn't exactly encourage people to remain open and trusting, even to honest journos like the one I used to be. She was very intense, and would take offence if you tried to ask a frivolous question. I haven't spoken to her in years, largely because I don't do music journalism any more, but I like 'Uh Huh Her', and I'm really glad to see her looking happy and healthy again after that disturbing phase where she looked like she was spending more money on make-up than on food.

Sorry, I don't understand the last line of your message. Is it something to do with a chat room? I've never cared for them.

er no - def not a chat room - I don't use them either - spooyville, stalker haunts I think.
No msm messenger is instant message programme (sadly one of the few bits of Billy Gates I have on my beloved mac) - we use it a lot at work to cut down on phonecalls - just cuts down on the time taken to have a conversation - but if you don't use it, fret not, this is fine.
I know what you mean about Polly Harvey - she has started looking merely skinny as opposed to actually close to death from starvation - she looked really happy on stage. I like about half of uh huh her - but some bits I think are actually not sufficiently polished - (and believe me, I loved 'rid of me' - I'm no stranger to music that makes a noise) but I don't think everythig on Uh Huh works. Some things seems a bit too clumsy for me. However, slow drug and desperate kingdom are amazing. I think the rawness was intentional, perhaps because there was a perception that the previous one was a bit commercial. I think that that's rubbish anyway - it was her most commercial to date but she's not exactly one of the Appleton's is she?
I can imagine that as someone becomes famous, it must be very difficult to trust the press - especially when you consider the bitchy and destructive nature of a lot of the British music press. I stopped reading the NME years ago because I got sick of last week's cover being next weeks thrillshit target. I bought it again when Peel died and was pretty mortified at what a pile of crappolla it was - a chart for bleeding ringtones! I kept thinking - what would Bill Hicks say about polyphonic ringtones and my conclusion was 'nothing good'.
So, after I've wholeheartedly slagged the British muic press, tell me, who did you write for?

any other glory stories - dazzle me with your name dropping -

regards
kim d

I was with 'Melody Maker'. Truthfully, I never liked all of it: when I started in the late Eighties, a lot of 'MM' was full of atrocious amateur postmodern theorising. My writing was, I think, some of its most unpretentious - I actually wrote about the music, which was considered a little old-fashioned. There was a period in the early Nineties when I think 'MM' was a good read, but its decline and fall was just hideous. It went right to the other extreme and dumbed down horribly in a failed attempt to attract a young, stupid readership. By the time they chucked me out in 1999, I hated the mag so much that I had to be to write for it, which caused me health problems that I have only sorted out in the last couple of years. With hindsight I really wish that I'd quit both the mag and the much sooner, but I thought I'd cease to exist if I didn't have my 'glamorous' job. Actually, I've had a much happier and more creative time in the past couple of years.

The depressing thing is that British magazine publishers think that most young readers have the attention span and intelligence of . The even more depressing thing is that they're probably right.

A decent paying job is always difficult to leave - you've nothing to chide yourself for. It's the unfortunate element of modern life, which is - as Blur said - rubbish. I thinbk about quitting on a daily basis but I have a family to support, so it aint gonna happen. The hours as they say are good but most of the minutes are pretty terrible. (That's paraphrased because I'm too idle to look it up and quote it properly.
I would have been reading your paper's arch enemy while you were writing. I bought MM sometimes but I had my NME on order from the local shop (black fingers every wednesday). It just got to be so repetitive. I can remember almost getting deja vu as some daft indie boy in stupid trousers were getting slagged when a month previously they were the best thing since leadbelly. It was all so childish. And Q was so Jeremy Clarkson and select was gettin to be little better than smash hits with better covers. So I just sort of stopped bothering buying them. My tastes froze a little bit with where they were at the time, so although I still keep my ears open, there's still a lot of pixies and breeders on my playlists.
And as I went to Sheffield, I've always been a fan of wee Jarvis Cocker. Have you heard his little spoof project - relaxed muscle?

kd

, Kim. Although, actually, being a music journo really wasn't that well paid, especially considering that it involved living in London. If it's not too painful to mention, what do you do to pay the bills?

I haven't heard Relaxed Muscle, but I must make sure I do. I absolutely adored Pulp.

Funnily enough, one bit of my past has just come back into view. I was often defiantly unfashionable in my tastes as a journo, and the most extreme example of this was that I loyally defended The Wedding Present in the face of the savage battering they got from almost all of my colleagues and rivals. The Weddoes have just made a comeback with a very funny single called 'I'm From Further North Than You', and I was delighted to see tonight that it's in the Top 40. I've just e-mailed David Gedge to congratulate him. I'm not pretending that we're great mates - I haven't seen him for a couple of years. But I am pleased for him, especially as I really like the song!

I have always had a soft spot for the wedding present - especially since I saw them on totp with a spoof James T shirt on (one of those irritating long sleeve jobs that used to have a bi 'J' on the front and then an 'a' on the arm etc) - except it spelled Shite instead. fabulous. can't bear James - they were in full throttle when I was just starting uni - the memory of students sitting down on the dancefloor at clubs, still makes me froth at the mouth. I have to learn to let these things go but....

I work for a Tv facilities house - I am in title 'financial Manager' which translates as book keeper and payroll bod. So I live, hobit like in a tiny office with a pc and my tunes for 9 hours a day processing invoices for camera hires and trying to get purchase invoices out of the BBC. (top of my list of recreational impossibilities)
the pay would be ok if I didn't live in Edinburgh and wasn't the only breadwinner for the family.

I also adore Pulp - His n Hers fave album but Common People remains one of my fave ever tracks because I actively hate the rich (lots of them round here - it can be a full time job just getting annoyed with the spoiled oxbridge rejects that litter the pubs).
The relaxed muscle thing is quite amusing - look them up on the guardian - there's an amusing little piece in their archive. It's not a serious Pulp album (although which was? they're not that serious a band I suppose) - I'll let you look them up. It's too funny. The best song is called three way accumulator and it's comparing having a threesome to betting on the horses. Classy. It genuinly has to be heard to be believed but it's both very funny and actually quite a good song.

Your space says you're a student again - how are you finding that? What are the plans for after?

kim d

ps - look - I've started learning smileys! I promised I would

Well done!

Being a student is a great challenge... especialy in a week like this, when I've been working outlandish hours to complete a dramatic role in a film being made by some fellow students, while keeping up my classes nonetheless. So apologies for the delay in replying.

Studenthood has tested my intellectual abilities to the limit, but so far I'm doing OK. All my marks for assignments have been in the 'first' or 'second' ranks, ranging from 60% to 76%. I've worked hard, but it's been worth it. I've met a lot of great people on my courses, and I love the social side of being a student. I'm fairly skint, but I still enjoy life.

Afterwards... I really don't know. It depends what options are open to me. Tonight I saw my old friends from the Mind The Gap theatre company, where I worked for a while in 2003, and let it be known that I'd love to return. They have no vacancies now, but may well have in the future, so we'll see.

for the - I'm getting used to the tags. They're quite good fun.
I respect you for going back to uni. I have done some part time studying for accountancy the last couple of years. The thing I noticed was how much more driven I was than when I was younger - a bit of maturity makes you appreciate the value of study and I found it easier than I ever had at university, to work and to revise. I found it difficult to make the time though - what with job and kids etc. I've thought about retraining and doing something that I'm interested in as opposed to simply where I've ended up (finance - ) but I couldn't cope without the money.
I looked into teaching but they don't give you a grant for a pgce here - and even in england, I think it's only 6k. Not a chance I could manage.
How do you cope financially? Do you have to pay tuition fees and things like that? Is it all loans? I'm a bit out of touch. I just seem to keep hearing politicians bickering over semantics. I imagine it must be quite trying.
What was the film? I work for a tv/film facilities house so I'm always intrigued by what's going on with student projects. We provide kit for a lot of Scottish Screen projects - which are always a nightmare to get paid - the funding council takes forever to hand out the grants and everybody orders the kit straight away when they get told they're getting money. I'm forever trying to stop my boss taking little companies to court for none payment because it's just not their fault. We always see the money in the end. Do you find similar problems? Or do you get kit from the college?

I'm feeling a bit ropey this morning because I had a bit too much last night. But hey it was friday - and my job would drive anyone to drink. And now I have to go to tesco's with the kids.

x 2 + supermarket = .

Better make sure I know where my is or I might not make it through the day. Where's the rest of that bottle of


soundtrack - mom's drunk by the amps.

he he he

Hope the shopping trip was tolerable. I have to say that whenever I see parents trying to do the shopping with kids in tow, I am really glad that I don't have any little s of my own. I honestly don't know how you cope!

I cope financially by signing on, which means that I get my rent paid and a pittance to live on. In the 2003-4 academic year, my tuition fees were paid in full by the local authority, which made things very simple - I just ticked a box on my enrolment form and the Uni did the rest. However, I got no other financial help.

This year it was more complicated: I had to apply to the Student Loans Company for my fee payment, which meant I had more forms to fill in and visits to the local authority offices to endure. I know what you mean about delays in these payments, because that caused a lot of trouble at my University. I applied for my financial support in September, as soon as the relevant forms were printed, and it arrived just in time for Christmas. In the meantime, the Uni demanded a down payment on the fees of £64, which I had to borrow from my family. But I ended up better off, because the SLC paid all but the last £65 of my fees for the year and then gave me a £250 grant for s and materials. Which was great, because academic s don't come cheap, as you may have discovered.

I will be doing a Journal Entry about the film, but the brief version is that it's a 30-minute sci-fi/horror film called 'At Full Consciousness'. It's being made by some electronic media students as their final year project, and it'll be shown later this year at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in a showcase of students' work, before possibly going on to other film festivals. I believe that the University supplied all or most of the equipment, but I have no idea about the details. Thankfully, as I'm an actor rather than the director or the producer, the financing and the equipment is not my responsibility. But there was some great inventiveness shown: for instance, the use of one of those little 'Henry' vacuum cleaners (the ones with a face) as a makeshift camera trolley!

I know from listening in on some of the conversations, just how resourceful crews have to be sometimes but a vacuum on wheels instead of a wally dolly is truly inspirational.
I'm off work today with s so am playing united nations to their Isreal and Palestine. A little military intervention will be in order if the gaza situation doesn't improve in the next five minutes. Sounds like someone's boiling a couple of s in their bedroom.

Shopping trip was made more tolerable by avoiding tescos and going to a few smaller shops which was both ethical and less immediately stressfull but more expensive for what we bought. That being said, we didn't buy loads of shite we didn't need so maybe less expensive overall. Supermarkets are bad like that.
I seriously don't know how you manage on the levels of finance you've got. It seems utterly ridiculous that people are forced to subsist in order to get an education. When I was uni (back in the mists of time....) you weren't entitled to any benefits because you got a student grant - although that actually worked out at less than income support and that was before you had paid rent. I used to get just less than 2k a year to live on. I used to beg, borrow, and barmaid to get by. My parents were skint so I got sod all help there. It was hellish. I can remember waiting for a student loan to turn up and making it through almost a fortnight on less than three quid. I just spent nothing for most of it, walked everywhere, ate the entire contents of the cupboards (carrots on toast was the real low point) and got panicky towards the end. Just as I thought I might actually go mad, it turned up - great weight loss plan though - Poverty - the simple way to stay in shape and look like your about to die.
Must try and sell that idea to hello magazine - along with another great diet plan I've thought of which is...
walking to the South Pole - you can eat 6000 calories a day - most of it fat and still lose weight!
Husky casserole anyone?

So are you going to be mindbogglingly in debt by the time you finish? Or is it not so bad if you're doing artsy courses? I don't really understand the whole tuition fees thing - mostly because my brain goes awol and my eyes glaze over whenever I hear politicians telling lies about educashun. I'd like to have Tony Blair dragged through the streets and horsewhipped - in public. But that's just me - I've always been a bit of a radical. I'm hoping that things will be better by the time mine go (they're 3 and 7 so I'm alright for a decade) although in truth, it will probably only be worse. hey ho.
My current and most pressing concerns are with primary education and school meals because I'm so bleeding sick of having to make packed lunches because if I don't he'll get fed 'chicken smiley faces' at school. Oh the horror. I'm fairly sure, that whatever else those chickens may have been before being mashed up, pushed through a stencil and deep fried, that they weren't very happy. Apparently they only spend 37p per child per day on meals - which, considering the fact that they charge £1.40, means someone is making a hell of a profit by feeding kids utter crap. Back to old Tony and the horsewhip. I hate the assumption that private enterprise can be trusted with social policy - it just doen't work.
Anyway, rant over. Don't imagine you're feasting on chargrilled guinea fowl on your finances. Is student food as bad as ever? Or are carrots on toast unique to my student experiences?

Well, thankfully, I haven't quite been that desperate - although I do like raw carrots as a healthy snack, when my will power is winning and I'm staying off the ! Your £3 for a fortnight story puts my current situation - £21 and a well-stocked food cupboard and fridge to last until Wednesday - into sharp perspective.

I get by largely because Bradford is a very good place to live if you're poor, with really great cheap food shops. I have the use of the subsidised University gym, swimming pool and bars. I get into my friendly neighbourhood arthouse cinema for £2.30, shows at the University theatre are usually under £5 for us students, and our Uni library is fantastically well stocked, so I've got plenty of cheap or free entertainment. I'll be spending most of this weekend at a theatre scriptwriting workshop that's absolutely free. I really don't eat badly at all. Pasta is always cheap, and so are fingers, vegeburgers and fruit. I think I need to try the poverty diet, though - I've just been to the gym and got weighed, and the news wasn't good.

No, I shouldn't be in debt at all when I'm done studenting. I'm not getting any student loans, almost all of my Uni fees are paid by the local authority, and the grants are non-returnable. Actually, after I'd paid a £64 deposit on this year's courses and the LEA had coughed up their contribution, I ended up owing the University precisely £1. It was fun solemnly handing that over at the cashiers. They asked me if I needed to pay in instalments!

£1 in installments. that's fantastic. beaurocracy is hilarious isn't it? That reminds me of when my father in law retired. He went to sign on for the first time ever. He had only put one thing down as his job search options - as he had only ever done one thing for years. The woman at the desk insisted he put a second option, so he suggested brain surgeon - and she wrote it down without so much as a blink. Unbelievable. I think some people must be on complete autopilot.
I imagine Bradford probably is quite a good place to live cheaply. Edinburgh drives me nuts - it's £6 to go to the cinema, almost £3 a pint in a lot of places and the public transport is crap and expensive. Everything is geared up to ripping off tourists, which is great if you run a shop selling tartan hats but rubbish if you actually live here. It's very beautiful though - I suppose that's the trade off.

Just heard that there's been a huge product recall of foods because of some carcinogenic food dye in chilli powder. Nightmare! Looks like it's all processed food though - so I won't have to empty my cupboards. I find it worrying though that one batch of dodgy chilli powder has managed to infect over 350 products which go to all the supermarkets. Clearly they all buy their frozen lasagnes from the same companies! I always suspected as much.

You must have some decent, cheap curry places in Bradford? One of the things I most miss about the midlands and s Yorks, is the curry. Up here, it just isn't as good and (like everything else) quite expensive. No bargain balti's.

(Goes into Homer Simpson mode) Mmmm, curry... Yes, indeed, that is another of the great redeeming features of Bradford. If you're ever here, I could take you to places where you can get a plate of something spicy, healthy and utterly delicious with rice or chapatis and a big plate of gorgeous, fattening pakora for about £5 the lot. I really missed Bradford curries when I lived in London, and a curry is usually the second thing my exiled friends want when they return for a visit. (The first is usually a good Northern .)

In fairness, going to the movies costs about a fiver here for most adults. My £2.30 admission is achieved via two discounts, one for being a student and one for being a member at the cinema. You certainly do have better scenery where you are, though. Bradford University is on the top of a hill. Sometimes, if I look out of a 12th floor window on a clear day, I think I can see a bit of green somewhere in the far distance. But I could be mistaken.