Meting out punishment is no easy task. Just ask the newly-installed criminal justice system in Iraq. Its decision last night to execute Saddam Hussein was a hugely symbolic one, even more so than the toppling of his statue almost four years ago. But if it's closure that the new Iraqi entity is looking for, they'll have to try a bit harder. Thousands of hardcore Ba'athist followers will not have to jump through the same circus hoops erected by the US government and will certainly not have a noose tied around their necks.
Deciding not to trial Saddam for all of his crimes against humanity can only leave uncertainty where answers were once expected. Capital punishment is being shown for what it really is, a terribly ineffective and shallow means of righting wrongs and exacting revenge. Like Bin Laden before him, they've let a terrorist escape once again.
But it's the fillip that Bush needs in what can only be described as a terribly smelly anus horribilis for neocons all over the world desperately in need of this colonic clear out.
To my memory, this year’s most derided musical release had to be Damien Rice’s9. A victim of his own success it wasn’t just the Irish who revolted, Pitchfork awarding the album a laughable 1.9 out of 10. I guess Damo can console himself that he ducked the treatment meted out to Jet in a peculiar review. Closer to home, Sinead and Twenty didn’t exactly greet Rice’s album enthusiastically either. It seems we’re endowed (burdened?) with a plethora of haranguing singer songwriters in this here Emerald Isle and I’m sure everyone is familiar with the backlash their ilk has encountered in recent times. It seems there’s only so much Emeral Angst listeners can stomach. I think it’d be reasonable to surmise that throughout music circles in Ireland if anyone bothered to worry about Rice’s album for a minute they’d feel a twinge of bitterness. Bitter because it seems like it’s the singular Irish record to gain coverage in respected international music editorials such as Pitchfork's this year.
Or was it?
Nialler9 (what does the 9 stand for Niall? ;) ) did trojan work in sampling the opinion of his readers recently regarding their favourite Irish albums of 2006. Interesting to me in the albums which cropped up in the final list of 20 was the absence of an album by Irishman Donnacha Costello, who is now based in Berlin. His album was rated an A on Pitchfork’s rival and even more high-brow publication Stylus Magazine. Of course one review does not an album of gold make, but it was an interesting anecdote from my traversal of year end review material on the int0rweb. It’s a pity we couldn’t wind back the clock and snatch that guitar away from the young Damien Rice and his bevy of near clones and thrust the tools of the electronic music trade upon them.
In recent years thanks to Moore’s Law and other advances in technology, the barrier to entry to Costello’s domain of electronic music producer have become almost as low as the logistics of picking up a guitar. Many teenagers have access to a PC in their home and the musical possibilities are right there before they even know they want to use them. Gone are the days when one requires access to specialised hardware to start experimenting with producing Electronic music, you can emulate most of the hardware of bygone eras in software at the behest of your mouse on your average laptop. This paradigm shift in electronic music has injected fresh impetus into a scene which many in the past considered a novelty, or questioned the integrity and staying power of. To say that techno in particular had a positively burgeoning 2006 would not be an exaggeration. Where in 2005 there was much talk of the crossover appeal to electronic music fans of traditional guitar and vocal acts such as Bloc Party, in 2006 we see the crossover circuit reversed with releases such as The Knife’s Silent Shout gaining widespread commendation and fawning praise from quarters unfamiliar with the techno elements it is heavily influenced by.
Sure there are more nascent, concentrated and buzz-worthy communities within dance music at the moment, in particular I’m tipping my hat to the sounds of breakcore, dubstep, and wrong music and its family which all had hugely exciting and well deserved success in 2006. For the moment, these communities remain dwarfed by the breadth and quantity of effort expended in producing (and consuming) the more established genre of techno. The sheer volume of releases of genuine quality under the techno umbrella expanded once again in 2006 and is currently at a level that even the most diligent of the scene’s professional journalists find difficult to keep pace with.
Ironically enough it was four years almost to the day since Eminem released "Without Me" and told the world "It’s Over / Let’s Go / Nobody Listens To Techno" that the world descended on Berlin for World Cup final weekend and many thousands of visitors across Berlin (and Germany as a whole) danced way past breakfast time to the sounds of a city positively teeming with techno culture like never before. I've dug out a couple of videos from the hard disk from that time this summer.
I managed to get some video in Berghain/Panoramabar before I realised they have a strict ban on still or motion photography to cosset the hedonistic atmosphere. I engineered to not get thrown out by the skin of my teeth, pretending to delete the videos from the phone while some staff stood over me! Video from inside this hallowed turf on the Internet is almost non-existent (unlike the fantastic clips available from the watergate club on YouTube and elsewhere) so I thought I'd share.
Queueing to get in, circa 5a.m.
The hair really stands up on the back of your neck just after getting in the entrance. This is when your jaw hits the floor at the size and character of the building and the noise upstairs.
Panoramabar floor, Berghain, Berlin at about 9a.m. Nick Hoppner DJ Set.
It’s impossible to overstate the embarrassment of riches Berlin plays host to on an average week. You could quite easily come back from a weekend there with a list of artist appearances you had to pass up due to an inability to bi-locate that would put to shame the list of electronic music producers your average world city sees in a month. There was a time not so long ago when I got the same feeling of there being something truly special and unique about a time and a location with the astounding volume and caliber of indie rock coming out of Canada. All those artists were bouncing off each other, collaborating, exchanging ideas and generally marking that time and place down as something more than the sum of its generative parts. A magical spark seemed to have involuntarily caught light and taken hold. This same phenomenon is at play in Berlin now and the intensity of the situation in Berlin is exponentially greater as the artists are largely performing and recording there as well as calling it home. They are tripping over each other on a weekly basis in their studios, homes and DJ boxes.
The qualities that make up this techno culture are novel, multifarious and worthy of benchmarking. 2006 saw attempts to pry open the tightly rolled phenomena by documentary film makers on a couple of fronts. Maja Classen’s film Feiern saw DVD release (available here, official trailer.) last month to wide acclaim. In the film Classen captures a balanced, sober and melancholic study of participants in the production and consumption of Berlin’s techno culture featuring conversations with Ewan Pearson, Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos and many ordinary punters who have indulged in Berlin’s 72 hour parties. The film which has the minor title "Stories of Excess, Destruction and Tenderness" is not to be missed by anyone with even a passing interest in dance music and the temptation to pursue it to its logical conclusion near the edges of the physical and mental limits of party. The tagline of the film is a soundbyte from Ewan Pearson’s contribution: "Don’t Forget To Go Home". For some excerpts I cut from the film see, Funf, Vier, Drei, Zewi, Eins. The other documentary, now in post production and due for release in 2007 is Speaking In Code which will feature a fly-on the wall look at a day in the life of Modeselektor amongst its wares.
Next week I’m off to Berlin for five nights over New Years. Having been there for the first time this summer, I couldn’t wait to return. The clubbing is compelling enough, however the city offers a myriad of opportunities outside its musical forte for fans of travel to explore. A trip to London taking in a night and early morning at Fabric this year to see an M_nus label night featuring Richie Hawtin, Magda et al only served to confirm in my mind the uniquely appealing character of Berlin as a city in general and also more specifically as a place to party. Eating out, service and of course the indigenous beers there are of a stellar standard and everything is so low cost you’ll find yourself doing double-takes at your bills for the right reasons.
For readers with an interest in music I urge you to get there to sample what’s on offer at your earliest convenience, you’ll be forever impressed with the experience as everyone I know who's been seems to be. I know many people may see the intertwined drug use that goes along with the party scene a barrier to entry. Whether you choose to opt in or out it’s not an issue and you can absolutely partake and appreciate the experience while straight, all that’s required is a commitment to lose yourself on the dancefloor and the fortitude to confuse your body clock for a few days!
To In Fact, Ah sign off for 2006, I'd like to mention some of the best new techno I managed to digest during the year. Techno is generally not packaged and distributed in the familiar album format, so for the casual listener compilations/mix CDs are a great way to skim the genre. In that line, try:
Luciano - Sci.Fi.Hi.Fi Vol. 2[Featuring Donnacha Costello] Cassy - Panoramabar 01 Michael Mayer - Immer 2 Kiki - Boogybytes Vol. 1 Magda - She's A Dancing Machine [Featuring Donnacha Costello] Kompakt - Total 7 Perlon - Superlongevity 04 Matthew Dear as Audion - Fabric 27 Various - Post Office Special Argentina Madness
Studio Albums: Motor - Klunk My My - Songs For The Gentle Booka Shade - Movements Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra Of Bubbles Donnacha Costello - 6x6=36
"Singles" to try: Hearthrob - Baby Kate Booka Shade - In White Rooms Magda - Staring Contest Marc Houle - Bay Of Figs
The release which set most tongues wagging this year in techno was from the the incumbent in the throne of high techno devotion, Ricardo Villalobos. Last month he released Fizheuer Zieheuer, nominally a single, it clocks in at 37 minutes. To say this piece of music is sparse would be an understatement akin to saying Santa is a generous bloke. There are three elements to the whole 37 minutes. Drums, horn (sampled from a rendition of his native Chile's national anthem) and a hi-hat. After that, there really isn't anything else in this track. The 37 minutes is spent tweaking and morphing these three elements through the electronic grinder, changing their tone and moving them in and out of phase with each other to dizzying effect. I don't see contemporary icons of any genre labeled as genius as often as Villalobos is by commentators within and without of their genre. This experimental work is certainly fitting of that tag. This thing grows on you and rewards a few listens before judging . You soon become totally hypnotised by its spell and crave to listen. Enthralling and bewitching new detail emerges every time. Implicitly something as audacious and 'out there' as this composition has its detractors who will say its cachet is built of smoke and mirrors but I can't lend any weight to their argument in this case. It is the killer release of 2006 and will stand the test of time in my humble opinion.
The symmetry provided by the link of the Chilean national anthem to the track and the celebrated passing of Augusto Pinochet this year surely gives Villalobos cause for a wry smile when he drops this track at 8a.m. on a ballistic dancefloor in Berlin. After all, it's the home he adopted and is a major contributor to the social fabric of having fled Chile as a three year old child with his family following Pinochet's overthrowing of Salvador Allende's government in 1973.
It begins, the great Christmas binge where we all eat too much chocolate, overdose on fizzy drinks, and mop up ridiculous amounts of booze...all in the name of our Blessed Lord's birthday. Christmas biscuits are a strange phenomenon. They only come out one month a year and a simple tin box seems to inflate the price three-fold. There is one biscuit that stands head and shoulder above the rest at Xmas time though, and that's the incomparable Chocolate Kimberley.
At this juncture I must confess something. I no longer eat these because I'm a vegetarian and they contain Gelatine which is in animal derivative. Some of you may say that this would preclude me from reviewing these biscuits. I disagree. I've eaten enough of them over the years to adequately recall their taste, texture and construction.
Separated at birth? A regular Kimberley and Zippy from Rainbow.
Chocolate Kimberleys (CKs) are probably the most bourgeois biscuit in the Jacobs stable. Demand for them became so great in the early days of the Celtic Tiger that Jacobs took to selling them all year round in an individually wrapped, ostentatiously packaged six unit format. These seem to have disappeared from the shelves.
Down to business. The CK doesn't dunk well. When you dunk a biscuit, you want the hot liquid to have an effect on the whole biscuit. The fact that CKs are completely covered in chocolate prohibits any liquid access to the gooey-biscuity core. This is an utter shame as the hint of ginger in the biscuit coupled with the mallow centre would be a veritable mouth party. I've already hinted at the value for money aspect. CKs are hopelessly overpriced. The thing is, you always get them as presents so you're less troubled about the price.
Consistency is one of the CK's strong points. The chocolate nearly always covers the biscuit (see photo above). The CKs strength, however, lies in its novelty. Chocolate and mallow don't often go together and the genius in Jacobs' product development should be commended for coming up with the idea of smathering the already excellent Kimberley with chocolate.
Value for Money: 4
Consistency: 7.5
Dunkability: 6
If it were a car it would be : one of those flashy Hyundai SUVs
Overall: 7.5
Synonymous with Christmas and even though it lacks in many key areas its novelty factor makes it a champion.
Excellent, springtime now affords me the chance to tick boxes for the two bands at the top of my wishlist to see live. I was already chuffed to have landed tickets for Explosions In The Sky's now sold out London gig at Koko in March and now And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead... have announced a date in the Temple Bar Music Centre on Feb 13th.
I KNEW I should have asked Santa for a pair of those cool customised earplugs for Christmas, it's going to be a noisy 2007!
Open invitation to anyone interested in joining myself and a few other bloggers in the Market Bar tomorrow evening from 7pm onwards. We have a group of people coming along, but the more the merrier. I swear it'll be a hoot.
In Fact, Ah are proud to bring you this year's definitive top ten albums of 2006. The list is a result of a voting process where each contributor listed their top ten. These were then distilled into a composite top ten which, I suppose, reflects our collective tastes. Each contributor's top ten is then listed. The fact that each of us chose a different favourite album is testament to the varying tastes among us. The fact that Francie chose Westlife as his number 10 may be a joke, but he's not messing about his number one. Consequently, I've chosen a video for Snow Patrol which, I feel, is quite apt. Sorry Francie, couldn't resist.
1. Nathan Fake - Drowning In A Sea Of Love (Video Above) 2. Tom Zé - Estudando o Pagode (Video) 3. Serena-Maneesh - Serena-Maneesh (Video) 4. Asobi Seksu - Citrus (Video Above) 5. The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America (Video) 6. My My - Songs For The Gentle (No Video) 7. The Knife - Silent Shout (Review here) (Video) 8. Cassy - Panoramabar 01
In a year where Villalobos and Hawtin banked enough airmiles to rebel a White Christmas at the North Pole, two of their sidekicks, both female artists, produced my favourite two dance mix CDs of 2006. Hawtin’s protégé Magda released “She’s A Dancing Machine” while Villalobos’ collaborator Cassy released the first mix CD in the legendary Berlin club Panoramabar’s mix series.
While Magda followed her Yoda’s favoured path of Ableton-ing elements from over 70 individual tracks into her mix, Cassy opted for the more organic approach and crafted this mix by hand, with vinyl on decks. Each new track enters the mix loud and clear, lending a warmth and immediacy due to that same flourish of adrenalin you get in a club each time you hear the next track fading in. The mix straddles a broad timespan of releases, sometimes sacrificing anorak fodder for older, classic underground tracks. As well as journeying through the years, the album melds ingredients from Jazz, Acid and Deep House, Minimal Techno and Drum ‘n’ Base to very satisfying effect. The aura of this album captures perfectly the uniquely ethereal and unearthly experience that is a night spent on Panoramabar’s supernal dancefloor.
9. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale (Video) 10. Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass (Video) Padraig
1. Modeselektor - Hello Mum I had a feeling early this year that 2006 would see a return to all things electro for me. And with several fantastic releases from the likes of Nathan Fake, The Knife, Luciano, Ellen alien and others it was bumper year for electro aficionados. The highlight though was a release from Deutschland's finest knob twisting, beat monsters, Modeselektor. (OK it may have been released in late ‘05 but I only got my hands on this album early in ‘06). A raw, thumping, razor edged, feet stomper of an album “Hello Mum” gave old school techno a modern cut, mashed up with some exceptional hip hop beats and rhymes for good measure. Record highlights include Kill Bill Vol 4 which lifted the roof of the Crawdaddy tent at EP ‘06 and glitch-tastic ‘Dancing Box’. The album is sheer rave genius and hopefully it won’t take these guys another 10 years to release their next record. In the mean time stick em on the stereo, crank the speakers up to 11 and get dancing.
2. M Ward - Post War(Video) 3. Burial - Burial (No Video) 4. Spank Rock - YoYoYo(Video) 5. Annuals - BeHeMe(Video) 6. Band of Horses - Everything All the Time (Video Above) 7. Asobi Seksu- Citrus (Video Above) 8. TV on the Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain(Video Above) 9. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House(Video Above) 10. Mogwai - Mr Beast (Review here) (Video)
Francie
1 .Eyes Open - Snow Patrol
Many fans find most to cherish in one particular corner of an artist's sound. Snow Patrol can do rousing rock anthems, but it's in their ballads where they excel. Both styles are catered for on 'Eyes Open', an album which has an array of both, depending on mood or taste, you could be enthralled by either. Many songs have had chart success to date, most notably ‘Open your Eyes’ and the epic ‘Chasing Cars’.
But the strongest songs here are the ones that won't accompany countless sports programmes or adverts, have you jumping at festivals or feature in the singles charts. They're the ones where Lightbody sounds at his most desperate and you listen to at your most isolated. 'Shut Your Eyes' and the devastating 'You Could Be Happy', 'The Last Time' and the Martha Wainwright duet 'Set the Fire to the Third Bar' are all shining examples of the ballad angst Snow Patrol do so well. As a lyricist Lightbody is a master at heartbreak pile-ups, happiness turning on its heels and pieces that can never fit back together.For anyone who has experienced any of the above, this album is a must soundtrack for that experience.
2. Black Holes and Revelations - Muse. (Video) 3. Broker Boy Soldiers - Racounters. (Video Above) 4. Mr.Beast - Mogwai (Video Above) 5. S/T - Razorlight (Video) 6. We thrive on big cities -Director. (Video) 7. St.Elsewere - Gnarles Barkley. (Video) 8. Future Sex/Love sounds - Justin Timberlake. (Video) 9. Asobi Seksu - Citrus (Video Above) 10.Westlife - Love (Video)
Colm 1. Tapes N Tapes - The Loon
Looking at lead singer Josh Grier perform at the start of a Tapes 'N Tapes gig this year in London might have been enough to make nonbelievers. But only on a superficial level; he doesn't look like the lead singer of an alt band that's riding the cusp of an enormous indie wave. He looks more like what you'd expect the lead singer of Keane to look like.
The hype and the buzz generated from their performance at SXSW aside, Tapes 'N Tapes are the real deal. Why? Because they've replaced the up-tempo guitar void left since the fade of Bloc Party's Silent Alarm with their own offering called "The Loon". It's a position they'll continue to occupy even after BP's release in the New Year(Sssh. "A Weekend in the City" is not very good).
2. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldier (Video Above) 3. Daedelus - Denies the Day's Demise (Video) 4. Cut Chemist - The Audience's Listening (Video) 5. Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche (Video) 6. Archie Bronson Outfit - Derdang Derdang (Video) 7. Hot Chip - The Warning (Video Above) 8. Scott Matthews - Passing Stranger (Video) 9. Jens Lekmen - Oh you're so silent Jens (Video) 10. My Brightest Diamond - Bring me the workhorse (Video)
Micheal
1. Junior Boys - So this is goodbye
Forty five minute walks to work ‘In The Morning’ permit an adequate daily consumption of new music. This is how I came to love Junior Boys. I can’t wax philosophical on what the album means in hyper-convoluted English. To put it simply this is an amazing album to accompany one through a city. Poignant, reflective and sometimes downright haunting, it’s the perfect partner for the meandering thoughts of a street walker. According to the group’sbio this album expresses Nomadalgia – the sickness of travel. It wins my vote for album of the year, hands down.
2. The Boy Least Likely To - The Best Party Ever (Video) 3. Tapes n' Tapes - The Loon (Video Above) 4. Hot Chip - The warning (Video Above) 5. Band of Horses - Everything All the Time (Video Above) 6. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (Video Above) 7. Peter Bjorn and John - Writers Block (Video) 8. Sparklehorse - Dreamy for Light years in the Belly of a mountain (Video Above) 9. Spank Rock -Yoyoyoyoyo (Video Above) 10. KT Tunstall - Acoustic Extravaganza (Video)
El Commandant P 1. Man Man- Six Demon Bag
If Man Man’s ‘Six Demon Bag’ were an alcoholic, it would be the loud raucous type. No sitting at home with 6 litres of Devil’s Bit and a bottle of vodka for this album. It’s out at the best saloon bars, first to get the place hopping with some irresistible piano-led foot stompers.
The range of instruments on the album is refreshing in an indie scene overly-dependent on guitars and effects. Lead singer Honus Honus’ delivery is dripping with a gravel-heavy cement mixture on the more up-tempo songs, while laden with earnest lamentation that somehow doesn’t seem to be fishing for sympathy. There, that’s 100 words.
2. Grizzly Bear- Yellow House (Video Above) 3. Liars- Drum's not Dead (Video) 4. The Walkmen- A Hundred Miles off (Video) 5. Boris- Pink (No Video) 6. Keith Fullerton Whitman- Lisbon (No Video) 7. TV on the Radio- Return to Cookie Mountian (Video Above) 8. Tapes n' Tapes- The Loon (Video Above) 9. Sunn 0)))- Black One (Video) 10. Asobi Seksu- Citrus (Video Above) tags:[Top Ten 2006] Published by El Commandant P.
At last, the tickets have been purchased. Butlins holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset beckons for me and three others from May 18th to May 20th.
The event? It's All Tomorrow's Parties where 6,000 attendees get to watch the artists they have voted for to appear on stage. This terrific concept of allowing the fans to decide who plays has already resulted in Modest Mouse accepting an invitation to play.
We've booked a 4-bed chalet for three nights with self-catering/lounge facilities. Pipe and slippers are optional. Well, there are two post-30 year olds in the group! And all for only £147 each.
My choices have been submitted and are as follows: 1 The Shins 2 Wolf Parade 3 Belle and Sebastian 4 Bert Jansch 5 Death Cab For Cutie 6 Eels 7 Iron & Wine 8 Postal Service 9 Tapes and Tapes 10 Interpol
It's still early days in the voting but the latest chart of votes goes like this ...
1 Arcade Fire 2 Modest Mouse 3 Apples In Stereo 4 Bjork 5 Pavement 6 PJ Harvey 7 The Flaming Lips 8 Godspeed You Black Emperor 9 Aphex Twin 10 Bonnie Prince Billy 11 Sonic Youth 12 TV On The Radio 13 Joanna Newsom 14 Yann Tiersen 15 Boards of Canada 16 Final Fantasy 17 Iron & Wine 18 Le Tigre 19 Lightning Bolt 20 The Pastels 21 The Shins 22 Wilco 23 Belle and Sebastian 24 Broken Social Scene 25 Cat Power
My liver hurts, alcohol is forcing its way through pores in my skin and I can't find the paracetamol. Such are the hazards of binging on booze at this time of year. And it's not my fault either. Organisations and people have conspired to make me consume so much.
During this libationary period, one can instantly feel the upsurge with the completion of the first drink, from which point you enter the third circle of hell where only the binge drinkers go to receive their punishment.
Part of that punishment is to be reminded the next day, by both verbal and pictorial means, of the previous night's attempts to sing songs while pointing simultaneously at a 14" screen and all the while pretending to yourself that the group of associates facing you hang on your every note. Some refer to this activity by its old Japanese name, karaoke.
In this third circle of hell, your fellow debaucherers may follow you in the corridor and tease by singing the Gerry & the Pacemakers classic hit "You'll never walk alone".
The opportunity to leave the third circle of hell and enter the fourth is provided by highstreet retail stores called Fopp. This den of iniquity for the avaricious gave my debit card 32.99 lashes.
I may still enter the sixth circle tomorrow where the slothful are punished for doing nothing at work all day.
Christmas is a time for giving, eating, being merry etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. The cynic in you may view Christmas as a period of decadence and rampant hyper-consumerism. But even the most hardened cynic couldn't equate Christmas with serial killing and the attendant morbid fascination that grips society when they realise a crazed murdered is on the loose. The recent murders in Ipswich have thus piqued my interest in serial killers.
A quick search of Wikipedia gives a country-by-country breakdown of serial killers. However, I must admit that with the ability of the authorities to monitor Internet usage I was quite anxious about typing Jack the Ripper or Son of Sam into search engines for fear of a knock on the door. Fearless, I began to read about all the famous, mostly white middle-aged male, serial killers.Jack the Ripper is known worldwide, but was never caught. Police were unable to ascertain how many people he did ultimately murder, but were pretty sure he had some sort of medical background due to his propensity for removing organs like kidneys and ovaries.
A Russian serial killer by the name of Andrei Chikatilo hasn't achieved as much notoriety due to the censorship of the Russian state media during the Soviet era. He grew up during the Ukrainian famine caused by Stalin's collectivisation programme and had a troubled childhood. His murders were characterised by an association of sex and violent aggression, leading to a situation whereby he 'would achieve orgasm only when he stabbed the victim to death'.
The tabloids have begun to unimaginatively label this new murderer the 'Suffolk Ripper', even though there is no evidence of any mutilation. Apart from Jack the Ripper, the next most famous ripper is Peter Sutcliffe, aka the Yorkshire Ripper. He convicted of murdering 13 women and attacked many more in a campaign which spanned 5 years. Police had Sutcliffe on a list of suspects and interviewed him on several occasions but never emerged as a chief suspect. He was arrested in January 1981 for being in a car with a prostitute and having false number plates. When the police stripped him they found he was 'wearing a V-neck pullover under his trousers; the arms had been pulled over his legs, so that the V-neck exposed his groin; the elbows were padded to protect his knees as, presumably, he knelt over his victims' corpses.
Some people are made of flesh and blood and a miracle fibre called courage
At what point do you give up on humanity? Should we accept a realisation that man's inhumanity to fellow man is nothing but a cliché that accurately describes the world we live in? Is it enough to smack your fist against a table and curse at passing evil?
As explained by Nicole, a colleague of ours was subjected to a brutal ordeal on Wednesday night. I had walked her to a bus stop in Trafalgar Square which cannot have been but an hour earlier in the night. As we both made our way from Mayfair, I could do nothing but complain about the miserable rain that beat against our faces. She could not walk very quickly, owing much to the dress shoes she was wearing for the evening's festivities.
Today, I found out that she had been attacked only yards from her front door. A man deranged and intent on committing one of the most heinous of crimes tried and ultimately failed in his evil endeavours.
Published by Colm.
Oxfam insist you don't buy your 6 year old niece a Black & Decker for Christmas
A very nice lady from Oxfam asked us personally at In Fact, Ah (and I'm sure many other blogs) to post this video about their Christmas campaign. You can buy all sorts at their online Oxfam Ireland shop.
What's the worst present you've received from Santa or some other overweight person?
Not one to shy away from a fight (think small, greying man from Kildare), Blogorrah has had the gall to insult the homeplace of most In Fact, Ah contributors. In a recent post, John Ryan's pet project labelled Sligo the Shitest town! This comes only a week after Blogorrah posted photos of Ronan O'Gara's hand down the top of a Sligo woman in Copper Face Jacks!
So El Commandant P, Padraig, Francie and Cahony. You've stood shoulder to shoulder in the shithole that is Markievicz Park to support Sligo. Where are your voices now? That shower were gushing with praise for your fellow countywoman Aine Chambers (come back Aine, we miss you) back in April.
I urge all Blogorrah blog readers to use that old Connaught-originating tactic of boycotting. You can get your fix from somebody who truly has their finger on the pulse over here at Social Dublin.
Tonight, an actual painter, an artist in the traditional sense of the word, won the Turner Prize. Tomma Abts became only the third painter and the first woman to claim the £25,000. My recent visit to the Tate Britain involved shuffling quite quickly through Abts' exhibition. The fact that her squiggly lines held about as much appeal as gouging my eyes out with vinegar-dripping finger tips did might explain why I dismissed her efforts.
"Often I start off with something, I don't really know what it might be ... it tells you afterwards what it is" says Rebecca Warren, one of the four Turner prize nominees, whose work is on display in the Tate Britain. This is certainly the idea you get when walking around looking at these exhibitions. Warren's sculptures look like they were made during sos by junior infants.
One of the four exhibitors did catch my eye because it appealed to my unrefined, simplistic ways of breaking art down into something meaningful. The creator, Phil Collins, made a documentary about how a TV camera can be used as a tool for manipulation and attraction. In particular, he interviewed "exploited" survivors of Reality TV shows at a press conference where the media themselves were allowed to be present, all the while having his own cameras film this stunt. It's like the first Fabergé egg; an egg with an egg.
Collins even has a working office in the Tate Britain as part of his exhibition where visitors can peer in and watch his team as they conduct their research into the unscrupulous actions of Reality TV makers.
To ensure I retain the usage of my right wrist in later life, my mouse at work is adorned with what some of my work colleagues call "fake testicles". What it's actually called is a mouse bean and it only costs £7. I've been told before that using a mousepad causes your wrist to overreach and puts strain on your hand. Instead, the mouse bean goes wherever my hand goes. It might be helpful to Sinéad who's a sufferer of RSI.
Today, I raided a since-departed colleague's desk for an ergonomic keyboard. It's downright weird to use and I'm having difficulty reconciling the fact that the keyboard is split in half and that my words will now break in two.
I'm a little surprised considering the prolific introspective mental thrashing that goes on in Irish society over road deaths that I've never seen this idea suggested here.
I mean, teach driving in schools? Put speed limiters on cars driven by provisional licence holders? Very radical ideas indeed.
So much so that we don't seem to be implementing any of these relatively tame and reasonable suggestions which have been put forward.
Denmark on the other hand is clearly an ideas country.
