Bits 'n Bobs 'n Thoughts

Anything from text to images and from music to nature to current affairs, from China to Mars to madness to art to politics, to humour to natural phenomena, to total irrelevencies and to what I happen to think at  any given moment of the day about something which happens to catch my eye or my thoughts and back again. This page shall be updated (almost) daily, drunk, or stoned, and what the hell.....:)
(Most recent at the top.)

--------------------  

Here's the official video of 'Good Day Today', from David Lynch's 2011 album 'Crazy Clown Time'. He asked amateur and relatively little-known film directors and producers to submit their video interpretations of the song for its official video and he chose this one, by French director Arnold de Parscau. It's easy to see why....


--------------------

SOL FM

Hi. I'd just like to give a plug to my favourite music station here in Lyon, SOL FM. As you shall hear when you click on the link, it plays a very tasteful and original mix of music by both French and Anglophone quality newer bands of all kinds - rap, psychedelic, pop-rock, punk(ish) stuff, new wave, power pop-rock, drums and bass and a lot more, including the odd classic 70's song or two. Depending on the time of day. I'm plugging it because most modern music radio stations in France are of very poor quality so SOL FM deserves every hit it gets, so give 'em a hit and a hand please...

Apart from that, found this. Ah, kids...


Nytol...

-------------------- 

I used to comment on The Guardian's CIF site, and whilst there a fellow 'ciffer' sent me a link to this, a very charming song...


Evenin' all.

-------------------- 

STRAUSS-KAHN AND DIALLO HAVE SETTLED OUT OF COURT AND ABOUT TIME SOON!

You read it firs three days later here. So let's hope this shabby and depressing storyette finally drops off the radar and into the gutter once and for all, never to be seen again.

WOOOO HOOOO!!!



--------------------  



Phew. Hard day and I have the disagreeable feeling that it was a wasted day in some ways. Oh well, that happens to us all sometimes and things will be better tomorrow. So it's off to bed I go and yeah, sometimes I wish I had a river I could skate away on.....


Nighty night.

-------------------- 


One of France's most talented performance artists. Enjoy. Or not. Frightening it may be, but let's face it, it's common to us all...


--------------------

This song reminds me so much of a particular period of my life, when I lived back in England. We all experienced this phenomenon when we were younger I suppose. 'Common People' recounts a male's version of events, but I'm sure there are just as many women who can identify with this song. (I chose William Shatner's version here because I like the way he uses his voice to express the sentiment...)


Nytol...

--------------------

The REAL story of Snow White anyone?


Awwww. How sweet. 'Nighty night...:)

--------------------  

Evenin'. I had an amusing exchange this afternoon with Antoine, who is a Frenchman. We were discussing how to describe activities (to GO walking and to DO the washing for example) in English. After I had explained that English usually uses the former structure when discussing (mostly) outdoor leisure activities and the latter to describe household chores and other 'duties' he asked;

"So how do you express making love? Do you say "I did the cleaning and the lovemaking and the cooking?" 

I answered that if an Anglophone man said that his wife wouldn't be too pleased because it would imply that making love to her was a household 'duty.' 

Learning languages is fun and even after many years of speaking French I still mix up my masculins and feminins on the odd occasion and that sometimes makes me say something which has nothing to do with what I meant. For example, LA moule isn't at all the same as LE moule, and getting them mixed up can lead to some rather ribald reactions....

Oh, and talking of languages, music anyone? Here's a beautiful song by one of the (very) few French pop/rock singers I appreciate - Jean-Louis Aubert. This is 'Si d'Aventure' and that title contains a wonderful and extremely poignant play on words. 'Si d'aventure' means 'if ever' or 'if by chance' etc. But 'si d'a..' sounds like ''sida", which means AIDS. So then you get 'Sida Venture', which sounds like 'Aids adventure (or venture.)' And the excellent lyrics make it clear that he could be talking about either...

His management/record company etc aren't cool though because they don't allow the original version to be embedded elsewhere so here's a link to it instead. Enjoy.

--------------------  

Then, of course, I had to explain that there are exceptions to the general rules I had outlined.   

Hi! Here's a musical extravaganza by Steely Dan. I used to be against polygamy until I discovered the wonderfully talented gurlz who do the backing voices. They are amazing, no other word for it, and they are my stars of the show. Oh, and the guitar solo (which begins here) is even better than that on the album version imho. Enjoy and seeyas!


--------------------

Evenin'. I happen to be well-informed from the inside about how the online site of Le Figaro is run and how it relies on work-experience and other short term and badly-paid contracts offered to journalism students etc to keep it going in the face of stiff competition in a low-margin market. But hey, the awful standards of editing and subbing on Figaro make even The Guardian look like paragons of English perfection in comparison! Consider this example of appallingly botched French;


Ni le cardinal Vingt-Trois ni aucun évêque d'Ile-de-France ne seront dans la rue, samedi, pour manifester contre leur opposition au mariage gay. En revanche, beaucoup de prêtres seront présents place Denfert-Rochereau.
So we learn that neither the anti-gay cardinal or any anti-gay bishop from the inner Paris region will "Manifester contre leur opposition au mariage gay" tomorrow? In other words, they will not be on the streets to"demonstrate against their opposition to gay marriage"?

I think that Figaro should instruct its budding and cheaply-paid subs to either smoke less joints and snort less lines during working hours or learn how to write French. Or both........
:)

Oh, and while we're talking about France, music anyone? The wonderful Romy Schneider sang this beautiful song, in French, but although she wasn't French herself this song is as melancholy and wistfully sad and romantic as they get....


-------------------- 

Oh and where precisely were you on Sunday the 28th of June 1970 prithee? I was watching Led Zeppelin at this rock festival near Bath. Here's a promotional video of the first song they played there. The footage you see here was shot later, in Sydney, but not much was different, except that the Bath concert is widely judged to be the best they ever did. They were really something...

 
--------------------

Here's the soundtrack of Zappa in concert doing Sharleena. His son, Dweezil, is also present and after a while he kicks off a super solo. It may not be as polished and original as his dad's playing but it's a pleasure to listen to. Oh, and after a while Zappa decides that he'd like to play with him too. A great vibe piece of music this..


-------------------- 

Seahorses are extraordinarily beautiful creatures and it's such a shame that they are now in danger due to the extent of illegal fishing for them in order to sell them, most notably to Chinese clients who use them in Chinese medecine and quack pills...


 --------------------

I read that a man in Paris raped and strangled a woman before leaving her for dead on top of a municipal garbage container

What the fuck is wrong with some people?

Yeah, that's my thought of the day. Just what the fuck is wrong with this world...

-------------------- 


Ah do I just love this song! And I still listen to it to this day. 'I Could be Happy' by Altered Images in 1980. A totally insouciant and unabashedly naive pop song with a killer melody and chorus, it was a massive hit, and deservedly so. It was also one of those songs that all 'serious' rock music fans like myself weren't supposed to like......but secretly did......



--------------------

First prize in the 'Ludicrous Delusions of Grandeur Idiot of the Week' category has to go to Lance Armstrong, the cheating has-been cyclist who was stripped of all 7 of his Tour de France winner titles for doping. But he still seems to believe he has those titles seeing as the 7 Yellow Jerseys he won for first place are still hanging on a wall at his place. Here he is admiring them on his Twitter page.

Hey Lance, you got owned, those jerseys mean nothing, so suck it up and live with it...


--------------------

There are still a lot of condescending sterotypes of women in TV ads, but at least we have managed to progress a little since this cringingly 'airhead' image of them which was prevalent in French advertising during the early 1990s. 


A ta place femme !

-------------------- 

Hooo, now here's a cool video if ever I saw one. It was filmed within a real set in which visitors are in a spaceship with a semi-circular window and can control its height, speed, direction and other parameters as it approaches and turns round Earth. You see the earth on a 14-metre wide screen with 180° spread. And you can wander around the planet's atmosphere and airspace at will and watch the graceful flightpaths of 16,000 Lufthansa airliners and listen to pilot/controller dialogue as they fly from country to country. Amazing stuff.

There's no way of embedding it into this page and it can't even be linked to either, but you can watch it by pasting in this URL.

http://thisisnthappiness.com/post/128929601/realtime-3d-airtraffic-fubiz

Top class image quality on full-screen and the sound is perfect. It's relaxing, and it's thought-provoking too...

-------------------- 

Are you a bad loser? Do you get angry when someone beats you at badminton, or cards, or darts, or snooker, or scrabble, or........chess? Ah, I see. And in that case please do not watch this video 'cos it'd make you squirm to death with embarrassment...
:)


-------------------- 

I met Iggy pop a few years back here in France. He had a genuinely sincere handshake which felt to know who I was. I did the same. Obliged. He looks you in the eye too when he talks to you. And he is very polite. Soft-spoken.

Oh, sorry, almost forgot. He is also one of the most viscerally sensitive yet violent and hyper sensual rock singers that ever set foot on a stage.
  

--------------------

Here's a funny French spoof advert for soap by Les Inconnus/Pascal Legitimus. My favourite line?
"Why do you think I'm sitting in a bath doing all this stupid stuff? To pay my tax bills!" 
:)


--------------------

I've always loved penguins. Funny as hell! :)

--------------------

Steely Dan. 'A Real Class Act' wouldn't even begin to describe the visceral, taut, yet laid-back artistry of these musicians and singers (the gurlz' solo voice arrangement in the coda is quite simply sublime.) I have loved their music from the first moment I ever heard it, back in the early 70s. They are one of the finest American rock/jazz/fusion bands ever in this Brit's humble view.......


--------------------

When Bowie does sophisticated videos he doesn't fuck around. This one is terribly good....don't wanna be there..

No comments:

Post a Comment