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

Life is unfair!

Heard about the beard thing, not too sure either and I've not seen any pictures!
Oh yes, I read that one and laughed as well.

Hi Phil,

Off on your holybobs? somewhere nice? .... ah time off what a luxury

I was away on a course last week. Hard work but it got me out of the office for a bit
Now back to reality and a load of stuff to sort out.

learn lots of new and interesting stuff?

funny how you alway have to suffer for days off

It was a database course so I think I should have learnt usefull stuff. I think I did learn a few things that'll be of use
Get up to much yourself last week?

nah, not much. wednesday was the first day of the new committee season, so there was my first set of minutes to avoid doing (all done now, thank god); went to some book signing with that bloke from the telly with the bike and the love of victorian inventors - adam hart rice (?) - but that'll mean nothing to you... that was it

where was the course? get a nice wee jolly somewhere interesting?

I think I might have seen something of that fellow you mention. Seems like the sort of TV prog I'd watch if I had one (or was at my mum and dads place). Was he an interesting and nice chap?

The course was just down the road from here in another part of the city so no nice expensive jolly on the company It was on the 11th floor and so you do get nice views over London from there.

wears lycra, a rotund, father chrismassy kinda fellar. he was very entertaining - obsessed with toilets

bummer - no nice jolly d'you do anyting exciting at the weekend?

Spent the weekend seeing a friend. Next weekend is the exciting one, a friends 30th so a bunch of us are off on a jolly to france
Must phone hime to find out the details...

nice... nothing so exciting for my 30th, just down the local nitespot for a touch of dancing

i'm so excited/frustrated. bought the new groove armada cd today, unfortunately i forgot my personal, so i've got wait till i get home!

Oops, that's not a good situation to be in! Then again I go away and buy loads of cds and then have to wait to get back to play them as I don't have a portable cd player.

its killing me man, especially as today's music of choice would have been 'bow down to the exit' - david holmes

hi

pretty strange times we're livin' in eh?

is it churlish to start to talk about other things? or do you want to talk about it?

good to see pj harvey winning the mercury - the whole gorillaz thing was pretty funny though. have you got the album? its very good. its got a beautiful duet with thom yorke on it, very new york (i think that's the first smiley i've used for a couple of days)

i bought groove armada too - its not as bad as the critics are saying, its no vertigo, and it ain't gonnae set the world on fire, but there's some tunes. still can't wait to see them

Well she was in Washington and could see the Pentagon burning from her hotel room you know.
This is the first in a few years that I haven't got the winner. I'm not sure if I'll be going out to get it Polly Jean hasn't really been my cup of tea from what I've heard.

you should, its a good album, she's always kinda scared me before but i was pleasantly surprised.

seeing on telly last night was a pleasant and necessary distraction. quite fancy getting getting the ed harcourt and zero 7 cd's - they sounded good.

bought anything interesting?

Might have a listen to it then. I listened to some of the radio coverage on tuesday night and heard the Super Furrys play. What's the Ed Harcourt stuff like? Not heard much about him.

Not bought anything at all recently. Been too busy doing other things
While searching for a cd the other day (I was looking for the rocky horror cd I've got) I found a load of stuff I'd not listened to in ages shame I can now only remember what one of them was, Badly Drawn Boy (It came from the ground ep).

badly drawn boy - top man in a hat. looking forward to hearing his stuff!

ed hardcourt - he's one of the allusive 'alt.country' people (does that mean everything that sounds like beck?) sounded not bad, not unlike beck (not a bad thing to my ears....)

who was the guy nominated that sounded like david grey?

What sort of BEck does he sound like, Beck's done a lot of differing stuff in his time.

Is Tom McCrae the one you're thinking of? (re David Gray)

I think it must be tom mcrae (i think i was making supper when he was on, so i missed his name) didn't sound too bad.

beck's odalay, is that not some kind of alt.country bible? i confess i have no idea what alt.country really is, i see the word country and my mind goes all dolly parton!

i was away to this thing last night in our local waterstones, it was some quy Everett True; hung about with Nirvana? Introducted kurt to courtney? used to write for melody maker or nme, one of the two. it was supposed to be this round table debate about grunge and the state of music today with members of the pastels (there were a couple of them in the audience); teenage fan club (we were hoping for sexy gerry, but norman was expecting to turn up, in the end he didn't) and mogwai (poor wee stuart braithwaite, all alone on the stage, asking that arse questions, slowly getting pissed - he looked a lot better than he does when you see him in the pub). oh god, it was awful! elitest snobbery nonsense - from a man clearly named after a boat! firstly for a music journo i thought he was a terrible communicator (maybe he's better in print, although judging by the reaction of my friends when i said i was going to this thing, i doubt it) mumbling into the floor, just wanting to get on to the book signing/book buying part of the evening. secondly he doesn't talk about the bands, he talks about himself. he said how he'd once been flown out to nova socotia and everyone assumed that because he was there, there must be a 'scene' happening! 'courtney and i have been through some tough times' - no! courtney's been through some tuff times, you were just there. there was a general slagging off of everything in the charts - if its popular it must be crap! eh? don't get that one. the audience weren't much better, they were trying to 'out Peel' each other in the obscure bands stakes. at one point they were slagging off the strokes and the white stripes (cos they're getting coverage from nme) and he admitted he'd never even heard them. then he came out with a cracker 'there's no good music about!' well i think that says more about you than it does about the state of the music scene today. when you start saying things like, you know you're too old!

i hate snobbery, i hate elitism. if its underground it must be good, until the moment it goes overground then its crap nonsense if you ask me. it was just sychophantic nonsense.

oh sorry about the rant - just pissed me off.

A good voice on that Mr Mcrae. That purchase was one of those wander around the store and read a review, listen on a listening thing and think, hmmm, I like this

I know what you mean about country, though I tend to think of the likes of Glenn Campbell and Willie Nelson rather than Dolly - or perhaps even Slim Whitman and the Indian Love Song (That was the one that killed the martians in Mars Attacks wasn't it )

What a pretentious tosser that guy sounds. The thing with someone like Peel is that he has actually been there and done that. He talks about the music and rarely about himself. He has probably played and listened to every imaginable style and music and still does. That's why Mr Peel is a respected fellow in the music industry, guys like the one you describe are mere transients.
As you say he's probably now past it if everything around at the mo is crap. There is lots of good stuff out there, both mainstream and underground. There is also a lot of rubbish as well in both camps
I think you wanting to put up the rant is good, shows you're still willing to listen to stuff and then say what you think rather than say what you think and not listen.